Composting & Recycling

Recycling at Luther had its start in 1973. Since that year, the size and extent of the recycling initiatives have continually increased. Luther now recycles in nearly every office, classroom and residence hall on campus.

Last school year an estimated 3,000 pounds of paper, 3,600 pounds of cardboard and 550 pounds of tin and plastic were collected weekly.

We also compost at Luther. Luther students can compost waste from their plates, and food scraps from the cafeteria kitchen are collected daily and brought to our compost pile. This compost eventually feeds our campus gardens.

Print Management System

GoPrint has been implemented as part of a campus-wide effort to reduce paper waste and rising costs. In the past, printing costs have been spread evenly over all users regardless of how much printing was done. GoPrint will enable LIS to shift the cost to those who use printing most and free funds for other purposes.

Many institutions that have implemented printing systems have found that making users aware of the cost of their printing results in a significant decrease in printing, sometimes as much as 75%. Such a decrease would go a long way towards making sustainability at Luther College a reality.

Trash to Treasure

Move-out days on college campuses across the country are notorious for the amount of perfectly usable, unwanted items being thrown into the trash.  In the past, dumpster diving was the only method for redirecting usable items from the landfill.

Luther's solution--Trash to Treasure.

East Side School Brick Service Project

When Luther’s incoming students made their decision to come to Luther, they had no idea that they would be a part of one of the largest recycling projects this area has seen.

In January 2008 East Side School, a historic Decorah schoolhouse, was demolished. A local organization managed to retain some of the building materials from the school. Among those materials were 700 tons of brick and miscellaneous material. An estimated 20 percent of the total 700 tons is whole brick that can be reused.

Luther agreed to be a partner in the reuse of this brick, offering land to store the material while it gets processed--bricks are sorted and scraped clean of mortar.

This year’s first year community service project involved these piles of old bricks. Students hit the piles with gloves, masks, brick hammers and music blaring.

When the weekend was over, there were around 8,000 bricks cleaned and palletized, ready to be used for a new structure! Nearly the same number of bricks was sorted into piles for cleaning.

That weekend taught a good lesson--sustainability can only succeed with the collective efforts of individuals. The only way so many bricks could have been recycled was with the tremendous work of hundreds of students.