March to Zero Waste - Stony Brook Waste Free Campus
Stony Brook President Andrea Goldsmith; Stony Brook Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs, Carl W Lejuez; Stony Brook Council and Chair Kevin Law, Stony Brook Sustainability Coordinator, Erin Kluge; Energy Management & Sustainability,
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Do you believe in clean air, clean water, and less pollution for your community? Join us in fighting for a waste-free campus! Sign our petition
A waste-free campus means we will continue the tradition of Stony Brook University as an institution of higher learning and public health that went tobacco-free. We believe that this petition is an extension of that.
A waste-free campus means we need Stony Brook University to create a plan to reduce waste to zero, which would be 100% diversion from landfills. As of the 2022-223 academic year Stony Brook University was only at 36%. According to Stony Brook University’s Spring 2025 STARS report, we produce more waste than we recycle. During the 2022-2023 academic year, we sent 387.68 kilograms of waste per person to the incinerator to be burned and then dumped in the landfill, compared to 2,337 Metric tons recycled, 3,007 Metric tons composted and 8.32 Metric tons reused. This rate is far below that of other public universities such as UCLA, which in the same academic year had a diversion rate of 54%. It is also significantly below the SUNY Climate and Sustainability Action Plan mandate of 75% for SUNY as a whole by 2030.
While Stony Brook University recycled more waste in 2022-2023 than in previous years, we still send waste to incinerators or landfills, harming those of our community members who live near these sites. The most recent Weigh the Waste event, aimed at reducing food waste, recorded 50 lbs of post-consumer food waste over the course of three hours. Unfortunately, at time of writing, we do not have post-consumer composting to divert that waste from incineration or landfilling.
We believe we can increase our waste diversion rate to closer to 100% by creating a Zero Waste plan as municipalities like Delaware County, PA have done. We therefore call on Stony Brook University to co-create a Zero Waste plan with impacted communities. Additionally, many of us are in campus groups that already contribute to waste reduction on campus. We believe that together we can go further in our waste reduction practices to all but eliminate the need for landfilling and incineration completely.
Community impacts & Public Health
Stony Brook University is a part of a larger community in the Town of Brookhaven. Therefore, what happens on campus has real life impacts outside of campus.
The Brookhaven Landfill is 270 feet high, in operation for 50 years by the Town of Brookhaven and is on the traditional land of the Unkechaug Nation now known as Brookhaven hamlet. According to the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation this area is deemed a “Potential Environmental Justice Area.” According to the NYS Climate Justice Working Group this area is deemed a “disadvantaged community.” According to professor, and cofounder of BLARG, Dr. Abena Asare, the Brookhaven landfill is a ‘monument to racism on Long Island.” Some of the real life impacts of all of these distinctions that the community has experienced have been deadly. North Bellport has had the highest ER visits for asthma in Suffolk County. Many teachers, staff and students at Frank P. Long school have been diagnosed with cancer and other illnesses that have sadly led to multiple premature deaths. These premature deaths have also contributed to the fact that North Bellport has one of the lowest life expectancies on Long Island.
To learn more about Frank P. Long School consider watching the documentary, Sick School
Climate change:“Dr. Robert Bullard: climate change is the defining global environmental justice, human rights, and public health issue of the twenty-first century, and one that disproportionately affects the most vulnerable populations in the United States and around the world.”
In NYS, the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act passed in 2019, which mandates that New York State reduces emissions across multiple sectors such as buildings, transportation, and waste. Landfills make up about 14% of U.S. methane emissions, which is a greenhouse gas that's a significant contributor to global warming and climate change (reported in 2022 by the EPA)
“We have a duty and mandate to reduce our emissions. Reducing our waste is instrumental in that struggle.” ~Monique Fitzgerald, BLARG co founder, Climate Justice Organizer at the Long Island Progressive Coalition
*For more information, access the Brookhaven Landfill Action and Remediation Group’s website.
Petition by
Sponsored by
To:
Stony Brook President Andrea Goldsmith; Stony Brook Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs, Carl W Lejuez; Stony Brook Council and Chair Kevin Law, Stony Brook Sustainability Coordinator, Erin Kluge; Energy Management & Sustainability,
From:
[Your Name]
We the undersigned Stony Brook University students, faculty, and staff members are deeply concerned with how our university’s waste threatens our and other communities’ health. Pollution from landfilling and incineration harms our community, especially impacting those who live closest to landfills and incinerators
No community should have to bear the harms of landfilling and incineration. We will not stand by and contribute to landfilling and incineration that threatens the health of our neighbors, colleagues, family members, and ourselves. We believe we at Stony Brook together can do better.
We ask our institutions to:
1. Make a statement of commitment to form a Zero Waste Plan for Stony Brook University campus wide in collaboration with students, faculty, BLARG and/or other groups of people directly impacted by landfilling and incineration.
2. Reach out to BLARG, other fenceline community groups directly impacted by the Brookhaven landfill, and to campus groups who have signed this petition, inviting them to contribute to Zero Waste planning or implementation.
3. Establish an oversight committee that includes students, community members (especially those most affected) and BLARG members. BLARG would need to a part of the zero waste consulting process to develop a feasible plan.
4. Advocate whenever possible for funding towards Zero Waste-related activities at the institution, such as repair workshops and composting of food waste. If possible, students should be able to receive both funding and academic credit rather than having to choose between those options. At the very least, students should be the ones to choose between funding and academic credit. Advocacy may include:
====>Creating budget lines in the proposed SBU budgets for such work. This cannot get done without adequate resources.
====>Finding and applying for grants for this work.
====>Soliciting your donor base for funds designated towards this work.
5. Provide publicly available lists of specific tasks completed towards Zero Waste Plan development, Zero Waste Plan Implementation and funding advocacy. These lists should be updated at least biennially and more frequently than that when practicable.
6. Likewise, make all data regarding waste publicly available without the need for an AASHE account, which is currently required to access STARS report data.
We demand that the town of Brookhaven and institutions within it implement a Zero Waste plan. Zero Waste involves “reducing waste and conserving resources through recycling, sustainable production practices, and eliminating harmful pollution” (Zero Waste International Alliance). At Stony Brook University, we created this petition towards that goal.