Zero Waste NUS

Zero Waste Testbed Initiative

The Rubbish Chute Gets Smart

Recycling Right Through Better Design

News and Stories

News: NUS recycling bins piloted beyond campus

Behavioural experiment at JEM, IMM and Westgate shopping malls found the “Recycle Right” bin design to be effective at nudging users to recycle properly.

Stories: What’s Breaking Recycling?: The ‘Culprit’ Behind Lower Recycling Rates

RecyClean, a student group, led a publicity campaign partnering with the NUS Zero Waste Taskforce to tackle contamination within recycling bins in NUS UTown.

Stories: How Providing Rice Level Options Can Reduce Rice Waste

Visualise a bubble tea store menu, where you can choose your preferred drink size and sugar level. A similar menu options card for rice levels could get people to choose less rice and waste less, a group of third-year Yale-NUS students found out.

News: NUS alumni use plastic and glass waste to make floating garden of edible plants

Mr Ibnur Rashad had been figuring out how to build a chinampa, when an encounter with a woman carrying recycled water bottles gave him his eureka moment.

Stories: Recycling Right Through Better Design

Specially designed “Recycle Right” bins have been effective in getting people to recycle right, with contamination rates in plastic bottle recycling bins reduced by more than half.

News: Towards a Zero Waste NUS

NUS was awarded the International Sustainable Campus Excellence Award 2021 (Cultural Change for Sustainability category) for its long-term plan in promoting behavioural change for a zero waste campus.

Stories: The rubbish chute gets smart

When Covid-19 disrupted their plans, these boys turned their attention elsewhere – to designing and rolling out a smart chute that would tell people how much rubbish and recyclables they were generating.

News: Campus Testbed Initiative for Student-Led Zero-Waste Solutions

The first Zero Waste Testbed Initiative @ South West that was launched by Minister for Sustainability and the Environment, Ms Grace Fu, provides up to $10,000 in project funding to support NUS students and recent alumni to realise their zero waste project ideas on NUS campus.

News: Aiming for a zero-waste NUS

NUS set an ambitious goal of achieving a zero-waste campus in 10 years.

News: Nudging proper recycling: An in-depth waste analysis

An multi-disciplinary study on the effectiveness of recycling bin triggers in reducing contamination in recycling bins.