Physical Place:

Reduce, Reuse,
Rethink Recycle

START Metric #32:

Waste Diversion

Guides & Resources

‘How To’ Guides

  • Cafeteria Sorting Station Guide

    Steps from StopWaste to set up a 3-stream sorting, recycling and composting program and when applicable, food share program.

  • Food Waste Diversion Guide

    From MassDEP, a framework to help you manage and select the best strategies for food waste diversion at your school.

  • Lunch Waste Audit Resource

    The Center for Environmental Health’s steps for running a cafeteria Waste Audit, including an Audit Data Sheet and Waste Chart Guide.

  • Paper Waste Reduction Guide

    Turning the Page: A Behavior Change Toolkit for Reducing Paper Use, from Aashe and Root Solutions, can help you develop and implement paper reduction strategies.

  • A Guide for Implementing a School Recycling Program

    From askHRgreen, a guide to preparing for recycling, understanding collection systems, starting and promoting your system and evaluating its success.

  • How to Start a School Recycling Program

    From the Green Team, a toolkit to help you build support, plan, implement and evaluate a school recycling program.

Additional Resources

  • Case Study: Material Generated, Discarded and Recovered at Schools

    A case study to help address the questions: How much waste is created by a school? How much of it could be prevented, recycled or composted?


 Contact us at guides@greenschoolsalliance.org if:

  • You have a free resource to contribute or recommend that can help schools take action around this specific sustainability metric.

  • You authored a guide included here and have information about the Cost, Difficulty or Impact rating.