Zero Waste Living as an ASU Student: A Practical Guide

Let's Be Honest About Zero Waste

The phrase "zero waste" is aspirational. In the strictest sense, it's nearly impossible for someone living in a dorm or off-campus apartment in Tempe. You can't control how your food is packaged, what your landlord buys, or how the university disposes of waste from the dining halls.

But the 80/20 rule applies here: about 20% of your actions will eliminate roughly 80% of your avoidable waste. This guide focuses on that 20%.

Start With What's Actually Recyclable in Tempe

One of the most common zero-waste mistakes is "wish-cycling" — throwing things in the recycling bin and hoping for the best. In Tempe, the recycling rules are specific, and contamination causes entire loads to go to landfill.

Tempe accepts in the blue bin: Paper, cardboard, glass bottles, aluminum cans, plastic bottles and jugs (typically #1 and #2).

Does NOT go in the blue bin: Plastic bags (bring to grocery store drop-offs instead), greasy pizza boxes (trash them), styrofoam, anything smaller than 2 inches.

ASU's campus has its own waste sorting infrastructure. The university has set goals of achieving 90% waste diversion, and campus bins are sorted into landfill, recycling, and compost. Pay attention to those signs — they're designed by people who actually know local waste processing.

The Big Wins for a Student

1. Buy used whenever possible. This is the highest-leverage action. Every item you buy used is one that doesn't require new manufacturing. Textbooks, furniture, electronics, clothes — all available secondhand from other ASU students on the ASU List. The carbon savings dwarf what you'll get from switching to a bamboo toothbrush.

2. Actually use the dining hall. Dorm residents with meal plans often supplement with heavily packaged convenience food from the market or delivery. Dining halls, despite their scale, generate less packaging waste per meal than you cooking in your dorm room with grocery store packaging.

3. Get a reusable water bottle and use the campus hydration stations. Tempe tap water is safe but tastes rough to some people — filtered campus stations fix that. ASU has hydration stations across Tempe campus in buildings like the Memorial Union and most dorms. A single reusable bottle eliminates hundreds of plastic bottles per year.

4. Compost your food scraps. ASU dining halls have compost collection, and if you're in an apartment, the city of Tempe offers a food waste collection program. Organic waste in landfills produces methane, a greenhouse gas far more potent than CO2. Composting is one of the highest-impact individual habits.

5. Buy less clothing, buy it better. The average American buys 65 pounds of clothing per year and discards most of it within a year. Tempe has genuine thrift options — Goodwill on Apache Boulevard, Buffalo Exchange near Mill Avenue — and the ASU List regularly has clothes from students who are graduating or moving.

What ASU Specifically Offers

ASU Swap: The university's surplus program sells refurbished office furniture and electronics at low cost. Great for furnishing an apartment near campus.
Pitchfork Pantry: ASU's free food pantry, open to all students. Reduces food waste and food insecurity simultaneously.
Student Sustainability Practices: ASU's sustainability office runs workshops and events. Following them on Instagram (@ASUSustainability) will surface opportunities you'd otherwise miss.
Free move-out collection: During spring move-out, ASU organizes donation drives so furniture and goods get rehomed instead of trashed.

The Apartment Reality

If you're living off-campus near ASU — in the apartments along University Drive, Rural Road, or in the Tempe neighborhoods south of campus — you have more control but also more complexity. A few notes:

Tempe offers single-stream recycling for most residential addresses. Check tempe.gov for your collection day.
Secondhand furniture is essential for apartments. Furnished units near campus tend to come with beat-up furniture. Buying your own from graduating seniors is almost always better and cheaper than buying new from IKEA.
Food delivery apps generate enormous waste. The single-use containers from one week of DoorDash can fill a trash bag. Cooking at home and using reusable containers makes a measurable difference.

What to Sell Before You Leave

One of the biggest waste events at ASU is end-of-semester move-out. Students throw away things that still work because they don't have time to sell them. The math is straightforward: listing something on ASU List takes 5 minutes and can earn you $20–$100, while also keeping a functional item out of the landfill.

Textbooks, mini-fridges, desk chairs, plants, kitchen items — list them two weeks before finals, price them fairly, and they'll sell fast to incoming students.

Zero waste isn't about perfection. It's about closing loops where you can, and in a campus environment, there are more loops to close than most students realize.