LEXINGTON, Ky. — The University of Kentucky is hoping to brew up change among students and faculty who get coffee at any of the seven locations on campus. Sip, recycle and repeat is the newest initiative on campus; it’s an effort to increase recycling rates on campus.

What You Need To Know

  • UK is renewing recycling efforts at the seven on campus coffee shops 

  • Sip, recycle, repeat reminds students to recycle their plastic or paper coffee cups instead of putting them in the garbage 

  • AI-powered waste bins found plastic and paper coffee cups are in the top 5 least recycled recyclable items on campus

  • UK aims to be a zero-waste campus by 2030

UK is reinforcing recycling efforts to its over 36,000 students, particularly concerning paper and plastic coffee cups. Ryan Lark, a zero-waste specialist with UK Facilities Management, said in 2022 the university contracted with a new recycling center which allows them to expand their recyclable materials.

“We had a really large education campaign to prevent people from recycling coffee cups when we had the old recycling center,” Lark said. “[And] now we’re trying to transition and let them know, yes we have this new list of recyclable materials that we can accept in our recycling bins around campus so we’re trying to get the word out that yes you should be recycling your coffee cups.”

In 2024, paper and plastic coffee cups were among the top five least recycled items on UK’s Campus. Lark said they’re able to track what is getting thrown away or recycled with artificial intelligence-powered waste sorting.

“Oscar-AI is this wonderful live waste audit that we have at the university that’s constantly going every single day and it’s tracking what people are throwing away and in what bins,” Lark said.

Every cup of coffee from the William T. Young Library Starbucks and other places serving coffee on campus now come with a sticker reminder. Lark said the university’s dining department has also put up banners reminding students what they can and can’t recycle.

“We don’t want the plastic straws, we don’t want the stirrers; ice is totally fine if you have your iced-latte and still want to recycle then you can do that with the ice in it, we just don’t want a whole cup of coffee in the recycling bin,” Lark said.

The university has two AI-powered waste sorting bins, one at The 90, a dining hall, and the other at Gatton Student Center.

Lark said the university is aiming to be a zero-waste campus by 2030. Right now, he estimates they’re approximately 40% of their way to reaching that goal.

Besides the renewed push to recycle, all participating coffee shops also compost their used coffee grounds, which are processed by UK Recycling’s composting operation and later used by UK Grounds to enrich campus flower beds.

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