MSU Recycling

Welcome to the MSU Recycling Center! We are currently give tours upon request of of our facility, call to schedule yours today The mission of MSU’s Recycling Operation is to develop, provide and nurture environmentally, socially and economically sustainable solid waste management solutions for Michigan State University and the local campus community.

The MSU Surplus Store and Recycling Center is rethinking the way the MSU Community disposes of its unused materials – including our own take on reduce, reuse & recycle.  We’re rethinking where we are able to REDUCE the amount of university materials that go to a landfill through innovative reuse and recycling projects. And it’s working: through rethinking every step of the process, just last year we were able to divert more than 20 million pounds of the 30 million pounds of materials we received.  So just how do we do this? First we REUSE. We collect materials from the MSU community and look for ways to put them to use – either by making them available back to MSU (in lieu of purchasing new items) or display them for sale at our retail store or online. When you’re rethinking everything, anything is possible, so we’re constantly looking for new ways to make the items available for REUSE, such as partnering with local charitable organizations that may have use for specific goods and other innovative projects (have you seen our recycled glass conference table?)  When we find items that cannot be reused, we look to RECYCLE. All recycled materials go through our Materials Recycling Facility, where they are sorted and baled as appropriate. For example, basic recycling such as white paper and corrugated cardboard are sent mill direct to be turned into recycled content paper and cardboard. Some items, such as technology, require specialized handling, and we continually work with our vendors/partners to ensure all the byproducts of recycling are disposed of in an environmentally friendly way.  In the future, our aim is to increase the amount of university materials we keep out of landfills to more than 90 percent. We’re already making great strides toward this goal by expanding into construction and demolition recycling, our dumpster diversion program and investigating niche recycling areas.