About Us

The University did not Recycle until Students Organized and Built the Program!

 The CRP started out as a volunteer program run off-campus, but by 1989 it began receiving funding from Associated Students. Warren House 53, a house on campus, became the CRP headquarters. The program purchased a 1956 Chevy truck with revenue gained from recycling bottles and cans. This allowed them to be more efficient at collecting and diverting Humboldt's waste, and to further expand. By the end of the year, CRP managed to divert over 8,000 pounds of material out of landfills. Facilities Management eventually took on the responsibility of maintaining proper recycling on campus, allowing the CRP to branch out beyond general recycling, including starting compost, reuse and resident move-out waste reduction. Today, CRP has developed into a multi-faceted program now known as the Waste Reduction and Resource Awareness Program (WRRAP) that officially took its place on campus in Spring 2010. We continue to divert Humboldt’s waste from the landfill and foster a culture of waste reduction with the Reusable Office Supply Exchange (R.O.S.E.), Donation Dash, the Zero-Waste Conference and numerous other zero waste activities. 

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We were also the First to start Composting!

The Compost branch developed a compost demonstration site on campus, diverting some of Humboldt's food waste from entering landfills while educating the campus community. First the CRP and then WRRAP collected food scraps from core locations across campus, expanding to include departmental breakrooms, campus events and campus residents. In 2013 WRRAP acquired the Earth Tub, a three cubic yard aerobic composter, to replace its row of inefficient cold-compost bins. In 2019 WRRAP began using a Radburro electric cargo trike, funded by the Sustainable Humboldt Innovative Futures Trust, to collect five gallon buckets of food scraps across campus. Before that, transportation methods included a small electric golf cart (acquired with the cooperation of Facilities Management), a ’99 Ford F150 truck (purchased in part with Associated Student unallocated funds and in part with university funds), and the Ecocycle, a two-person, human-powered, kinetic recycling vehicle, originally built for the Kinetic Sculpture Race, which was purchased from its builder, Mark Mueller in 1992. It served as a great tool for the campus, gaining much publicity, hauling heavy loads, and using raw human power. In Spring 2006, the Ecocycle was finally put to rest as the racing gears could not keep up with the heavy hauls.

And We were the First to Get Hydration Stations on Campus and to Phase Out Bottled Water Sales!

WRRAP's chapter of Take Back The Tap promoted the elimination of bottled water on campus by providing reusable water  bottles and bottle refilling stations where the campus community can access free, clean, great-tasting tap water. Thanks to their efforts, the university phased out the sale of single-use plastic bottled water (see this article), and Facilities Management has installed additional bottle filling stations across campus!

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