The Medical Center treats their regulated medical waste using an autoclave. Rather than incinerating it, an autoclave uses steam, pressure and time to kill pathogens before the waste is ground up and disposed of.
Many batteries (excluding most alkaline) contain regulated levels of cadmium, lead, mercury, silver or other hazardous materials. These are collected for recycling. In 2005 over 5.6 tons of batteries were recycled.
Carpet reclamation recovers nylon from broadloom carpet and uses it to make new engineered resins. Last year the University recycled 16,200 square feet of carpet. It is estimated that this averted 19.1 cubic yards of landfill and saved more than one million BTU's and 10,260 gallons of water.