Year of (Less) Waste: One Semester In

by McKenzie Beverage

Trash AuditThe “Year of Waste” is the unofficial term for my first objective at Butler: get the recycling program, behaviors, and awareness locked in, then tackle things like transportation, local food, etc. Recycling is a baseline. The program (and participant behavior) should be seamless. Once that happens, we can take the conversation to the next level. This blog entry is a reflection on the first half of the Year of Waste.

[Reduce]
Trash audit results are in. People at Butler are putting 33% of their recyclables in the trash. Students from my class (and a couple of daring volunteers), helped us sort through the 1,800 pounds of trash strewn across Butler’s west mall during Earth Week. Reporters from many of the local news channels and the Indianapolis Star also joined us.

Are you as excited as I was to know what is being thrown away? There were some things that surprised me—two bags full of clothes in perfect condition, a case of unopened Ramen, and an unopened box of windshield wiper blades.

There were many things that didn’t surprise me: plastic water bottles, fast food containers, LOTS of pizza boxes, beer cans, Starbucks cups, and uneaten (but cooked) food leftover from the dining halls. Food waste itself accounted for one-third of the total. Read Shel Silverstein’s poem “Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout” and you’ll get a good idea of what it was like to root around through one day’s worth of garbage from the dining halls.

The trash audit served two purposes: 1) raise awareness and 2) collect data. Reducing consumption is directly tied to raising awareness about our current consumption patterns. It was a newsworthy spectacle that hopefully gave some perspective on just how much we consume.

[Reuse]
When you think of Butler, what do you think of first? For some people, it’s the lovely green campus, maybe the bell tower, or the historic buildings. For most people, it’s Hinkle Fieldhouse.

On Earth Day, we announced that we are working with People for Urban Progress (PUP) to salvage fieldhouse seats to sell them to the public and install them in public places as the second round of PUPstops. This unprecedented project has already received national media attention and will hopefully inspire other university athletics departments about how to get engaged in sustainability initiatives.

[Recycle]
In addition to the trash audit, students from my class designed and implemented two-week recycling competitions for some Greek houses and graduating seniors. The students completely managed the whole process and came up with exceptionally creative ways to incentivize participation. Between the recycling competitions and the trash audit, my class helped divert over 2,500 pounds of recyclables from the incinerator. While I am thrilled that they were so successful, I am also deeply bothered by how many pounds were accumulated by so few people in such a short period of time.

I am an absolute advocate for recycling, but I truly believe that it encourages consumption. The good feeling that we get knowing that we can recycle something often blinds us from the fact that that product was still manufactured and shipped which takes an enormous amount of energy. Recycling itself uses significant amounts of energy. Advocating for reducing and reusing before recycling is difficult, especially in our one-time-use-disposable-culture.

I’ve got some big ideas for the next half of this year. I’ll check back in soon and let you know how it goes.

McKenzie Beverage is the sustainability coordinator for Butler University.