Overall Rating Reporter - expired
Overall Score
Liaison Maria Ayala
Submission Date Dec. 25, 2013
Executive Letter Download

STARS v1.2

Universidad San Francisco de Quito
OP-18: Waste Diversion

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete Reporter Rodny Peñafiel
Enviromental Engineering Coordinator
Enviromental Engineering
"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

Materials recycled, composted, reused, donated, re-sold, or otherwise diverted :
33.43 Metric tons

Materials disposed in a solid waste landfill or incinerator :
143.21 Metric tons

A brief description of programs, policies, infrastructure investments, outreach efforts, and/or other factors that contributed to the diversion rate:

Paper, plastics, aluminum and glass is diligently separated. Cleaning staff is in charge of making sure waste stream is separated and sells recyclables for a profit, which is then used for their annual luncheon. In the other hand Organic waste is sold for pig feed.


Data source(s) and notes about the submission:

Garbage is an important aspect in integrated solid waste management and directly impacts the operations and sustainable efforts in institutions. In this context, garbage recollection service for the Metropolitan District of Quito (DMQ), which includes the waste from the university, is in charge of EMGIRS-EP (Empresa Pública Metropolitana de Gestión Integral de Residuos Sólidos). This local public vendor not only manages the waste recollection from the city but also the final disposal in the city’s landfill, located 45 Km from the city of Quito on a sector denominated “Inga Bajo”.

Estefanía Narváez, Geovanna Ruiz and Dayana Vega students from Environmental Engineering, under the supervision of Dr. Ródny Peñafiel, professor and coordinator of the Environmental Engineering Department at USFQ, quantified and characterized all waste generated at USFQ Cumbayá campus (Narváez, Ruiz, & Vega, 2013). In this study, Narváez and coworkers selected randomly a week in the second semester of the academic year 2012-2013. The week selected was from March 5th to 9th of 2013. Each day, the waste in campus was weighted to estimate the total output that the University generates per day (Narváez, Ruiz, & Vega, 2013). Additionally, the composition of the waste was inspected on March 9th in order to obtain information on the type of waste (paper, plastics, organic and others) and categorize them properly (Narváez, Ruiz, & Vega, 2013).

The total amount of garbage generated from January to December of 2012 was estimated based on the data obtained in the quantification and characterization of the waste generated at USFQ previously mentioned. The estimated garbage generated at USFQ Cumbayá campus for 2012 also served to theoretically calculate the potential CO2 and CH4 emissions generated as result of the decomposition of the garbage in the landfill.


Garbage is an important aspect in integrated solid waste management and directly impacts the operations and sustainable efforts in institutions. In this context, garbage recollection service for the Metropolitan District of Quito (DMQ), which includes the waste from the university, is in charge of EMGIRS-EP (Empresa Pública Metropolitana de Gestión Integral de Residuos Sólidos). This local public vendor not only manages the waste recollection from the city but also the final disposal in the city’s landfill, located 45 Km from the city of Quito on a sector denominated “Inga Bajo”.

Estefanía Narváez, Geovanna Ruiz and Dayana Vega students from Environmental Engineering, under the supervision of Dr. Ródny Peñafiel, professor and coordinator of the Environmental Engineering Department at USFQ, quantified and characterized all waste generated at USFQ Cumbayá campus (Narváez, Ruiz, & Vega, 2013). In this study, Narváez and coworkers selected randomly a week in the second semester of the academic year 2012-2013. The week selected was from March 5th to 9th of 2013. Each day, the waste in campus was weighted to estimate the total output that the University generates per day (Narváez, Ruiz, & Vega, 2013). Additionally, the composition of the waste was inspected on March 9th in order to obtain information on the type of waste (paper, plastics, organic and others) and categorize them properly (Narváez, Ruiz, & Vega, 2013).

The total amount of garbage generated from January to December of 2012 was estimated based on the data obtained in the quantification and characterization of the waste generated at USFQ previously mentioned. The estimated garbage generated at USFQ Cumbayá campus for 2012 also served to theoretically calculate the potential CO2 and CH4 emissions generated as result of the decomposition of the garbage in the landfill.

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