NYCU President Chi-Hung Lin (third from left), Sirirat Sae Lim (third from right) and Ding-Han Wang (second from left) join guests to unveil the university’s sustainable walkway.

Bringing Resource Recycling Into Everyday Life

The project is led by Sirirat Sae Lim, executive director of NYCU’s Office of Sustainable Development and University Social Responsibility, and Deputy Executive Director Ding-Han Wang, an associate professor in the Department of Dentistry.

For Lim, the walkway’s significance extends beyond improving the campus environment. It brings resource recycling into spaces that students and faculty use every day, making a concept often discussed in research and policy tangible.

Walking past the dentistry building or reaching for a handrail becomes an opportunity to see the results of a cycle that connects material use, collection, recycling and reuse. The project also reflects NYCU’s broader approach to sustainable healthcare: examining the full life cycle of medical services, products and materials. That means considering waste reduction and material choices from the outset, alongside opportunities for recycling and reuse.
 

Exploring a Second Life for Dental Materials

The walkway is one part of a wider effort to find new applications for materials that have completed their role in healthcare and teaching.

NYCU is working with universities in Taiwan and abroad, including Japan’s Tohoku University, to explore recovering calcium from discarded dental plaster. Through material conversion and reprocessing, researchers are investigating whether it could serve as a substrate for coral restoration.

The work remains exploratory, but it points to a potential connection between dental materials and marine conservation: materials used in clinical care or education could eventually support ecological restoration.

Turning the Campus Into a Place for Circular Innovation

NYCU’s reuse efforts also extend beyond medical plastics. Wood recovered after storm damage or tree pruning, along with broken baseball bats, has been redesigned and crafted into works that bring discarded materials back into campus life.

Together, these initiatives support a broader ambition to connect research, design, healthcare and campus spaces, creating opportunities for materials to enter another cycle of use.

“We hope the campus can be more than a place where sustainability is discussed—it can also be a place where material circularity, product testing and interdisciplinary collaboration are put into practice,” Lim said.

Plastic offcuts from clear aligner production are among the materials recycled into handrails for NYCU’s sustainable walkway.