Location: Brantford, Ontario

Description: The City of Brantford conducted a waste audit at their annual Canada Day festival, which sees about 10,000 attendees pass through the gate each year. Over the past two years, the festival has implemented a recycling and organics program which has increased diversion rates from 0% to 54.6%! Green Team volunteers from the festival weighed the overall amounts of waste, recycling and compost that was generated at the event. The festival also had volunteers stationed at the containers to help attendees to sort their materials, and promoted the new waste management program from the stage.

Location: Barrie, Ontario

Description: To support The Sandbox Centre’s efforts in being a Green Office, a solid waste audit was conducted in June 2019 following a public event. The audit assessed waste profile composition, common contaminants, and average diversion rate. Data revealed 1/3 of material generated at the event was organic material uncovering an opportunity to improve waste diversion. It was also observed that signage could be improved to better communicate proper sorting to decrease contamination levels.

Location: Hamilton, Ontario

Description: A solid waste audit was completed at McMaster University by Busch Systems employees and school staff members from December 5th to December 7th 2018. The purpose of this audit was to analyze and understand the contents of refuse generation within the university’s residence halls. Specifically, differences in the diversion rate of a residence building that recently implemented organics collection, and compared to a residence hall without organic collection.

Location: Owen Sound, Ontario

Description: The SummerFolk Festival is held at Kelso Beach Park, during August in Owen Sound Ontario. For this year’s 43rd SummerFolk, organizers partnered with the Grey Bruce Sustainability Network and Busch Systems to assist with a waste audit at the festival. The audit was performed during the festival with the primary goal of establishing a baseline of the current diversion rate and stream composition. During the entire festival 4,014 lbs. of refuse was generated. The SummerFolk Festival baseline diversion rate was 38%. This report reviews how much refuse was produced, where in the festival grounds and at what time. This report provides recommendations on how SummerFolk can work to achieve an 80% diversion rate or higher similar to other successful festivals.

Location: Barrie, Ontario

Description: Suite Success implemented a new green initiative in 2018 with the ultimate goal of going zero waste. With the help of Busch Systems and the Resource Center, Suite Success is on target to hitting their goal! Learn more about their sustainability journey.

Location: Unity, Maine

Description: Unity College was the first college in the United States to base its curriculum on a framework of sustainability science. Learn how implementing Busch Systems recycling, waste and organics bins helped Unity increase their diversion rate to almost 49%!

Location: Vancouver, British Columbia

Description: The City of Vancouver began with a target of reducing solid waste going to the landfill or incinerator by 50% from 2008 levels by 2020. In 2013, they were almost half way to their goal, having reduced waste by 23%. Busch Systems was able to help with our innovative container solutions. Vancouver uses the Waste Watcher Series across several counties, colleges, school districts, health units and more to provide a consistent look and feel to their collection programs. This means that users in any of these locations know what to expect when trying to recycle. For their outdoor needs, the City of Vancouver worked with Busch Systems to create a new custom container that met all of their functional and design needs. They knew what they wanted, and Busch knew how to make what they needed. Some consistent items (like color and verbiage) allows the repetition found in the Waste Watchers to extend to the new outdoor container.

Location: Winnipeg, Manitoba

Description: University of Manitoba transitioned their campus receptacles to Busch Systems Waste watchers, hanging Waste Baskets & 65 Gallon Carts. The transition resulted in a diversion increase of 52%! Learn more by reading the full case study.

Locations: Atlanta, Boston, Houston and San Diego

Description: A study commissioned by Keep America Beautiful, sponsored by PepsiCo, using Busch Systems Hanging Waste Baskets, showed using these containers at work desks decreases contamination in recycling bin by 20%! Learn more statistics from this research study.

Location: Corvallis, Oregon

Description: Oregon State University worked with Busch Systems to create an “All In The Hall” three-stream program consisting of paper recycling, container recycling and waste. Learn how this new program decreased their contamination rate and increase their diversion rate!