Waste Management Program at the Universidad Tecnologica de Leon

ABSTRACT

In Mexico a lot of educational institutions send their waste to places of final disposal, which generates a negative impact to the environment; especially when these places are not adequate and they do not comply with the current environmental legislation. This is why at the Universidad Tecnologica de Leon (UTL) it has been implemented a System of Environmental Management; where 83% of the negative impact (environmental aspects) is related to waste generation. This resulted in the creation and put into practice of a Waste Management Program.

Different actions have taken place to make the program work. For example, creating a plan for, the handling of valued waste, design and set forth of the infrastructure for the primary separation of waste, environmental education and promotion to the university’s community about the adequate handling of the waste, among other things.

Also, one basic part of the program is the creation of indicators: in 2008, 2009, and 2010 the daily total generation of waste, per capita generation, the amount recovered in the storage center for its sale and eventual recycling as the waste used to elaborate natural fertilizer (compost). Therefore, in this article are shown the results obtained from the creation and implementing of the Management Waste Program of the UTL, which can be used as testimony and model to continue bettering the handling of waste inside educational institutions.