GIS applications in developing zero-waste strategies at a mid-size American university

Abstract

This paper presents two case studies in which a waste management team at Western Kentucky University (WKU), supported by GIS and geospatial techniques, were able to identify how waste generation potential changed over time across space, predict how the rate of recycling can be raised by infrastructural changes, and hence enable more informed decision-marking on where sustainability-concentrated efforts should be concentrated to reduce waste production on a university campus. Specifically, GIS was utilized to spatially recognize, visualize, and assess waste generation streams and resource allocation solutions. In Case Study 1, the amount of solid waste in dumpsters, collected monthly from neighboring buildings, were analyzed with the Kernel Density Estimation (KDE) method. The researchers found that buildings with the highest contribution of waste generation were associated with food sales, suggesting that a close review of policies related to food practices (purchasing, recycling, and composting) is essential for increasing efficiency in waste management schemes at universities. In the second case study, location-allocation analyses were conducted to examine the current locations and placement of outdoor waste and recycle bins. The analyses enabled a number of data-driven recommendations made to the WKU waste management team on improving bin placement and addition on the WKU main campus.