Proper maintenance of U of T Scarborough's buildings and resources is a key part of sustainability on campus, reducing our consumption of new raw materials.
With a campus our size, anything we can do to repair and reuse our resources makes a big difference. The maintenance department is made up of around 17 employees, divided between maintenance, carpentry and stores.
When new furniture is brought in for the campus, any used furniture still in good condition is stored in a number of different furniture banks hidden around campus, where it can be repaired, painted or repurposed for use in different spaces.
Construction materials are also stored for later use. With the campus constantly under construction, any surplus materials are stored and organized by the maintenance staff for use in smaller projects, ensuring that no material goes to waste.
In many cases, it would be much easier and quicker to buy new furniture or materials. However, the maintenance staff at UofT is committed to sustainability, and is willing to put in the extra time and effort to ensure nothing goes to waste.
This results in several small projects which nonetheless make big differences, such as cutting windows into existing doors rather than buying new doors with windows. On another occasion, the staff rescued a large, solid wood desk from the recent library renovations and repurposed it to create a new standing desk for students.
The maintenance department also gathers the campus’ hazardous waste for disposal by a third-party company. This includes biological, chemical and flammable or combustible waste. A new initiative by the maintenance staff will address chemical waste.
Given the organization of campus departments and their various labs, containers of common chemicals are bought separately by each lab. If a lab has surplus chemicals, they are thrown away, even if the containers are still half-full. This new initiative will collect any unused lab chemicals and create a centralized bank of the most common chemicals for labs in different departments to use.
This initiative is in its beginning stages, including training staff for certification in handling hazardous waste. This process will take some time, but the maintenance staff at UTSC is committed to playing their part in the campus-wide push towards sustainability.