Trash on Campus

Trash on Campus

         By Kendra, Liza, Tess, Joe and Grant

Amidst the fast pace of college life, students do not think twice about what goes into their trash can. Items that are mobile, clean, and easily disposed have become prominent at the University of Denver, and most likely at college campuses across the nation. The general trend that our trash journal revealed is similar to the thesis proposed in the Garbage Project: our trash reflects our values.  Our individual behavior in regard to trash reflects that most college students will choose products and practices that are the least time-consuming and most beneficial to them. However, when analyzed as a collective attitude of a university, the seemingly trivial habits of individuals adds up to a measurable amount of unnecessary landfill. Nonetheless, we came to a consensus that the forced awareness of our trash disposal in Journal 3 prompted us to throw away less. Thus, it can be concluded that general awareness of what products we are using and disposing of will lay the foundation for bringing about a change in habits.

The pattern most recognizable in our data was the high usage of plastic bottles. College students are always in a rush, from sports practices to classes to nights out. It is far more convenient to grab a plastic bottle of water on the way out the door than to refill a reusable bottle. A reusable water bottle must be taken around, and in today’s fast paced world, this feels like a burden that is not worth the gain. In fact, many students do not even realize that there is any problem whatsoever with using plastic water bottles; it’s just a part of life. Without the necessary awareness required to bring about change, there will be none. However, in recent years, the word has gotten out and many students have begun to switch back to using reusable aluminum bottles, nalgenes, and refillable sports bottles. The University of Denver even handed out reusable bottles during orientation week, a very smart decision to make it easy for students to become more environmentally friendly, although many of those bottles ended up in a landfill.

The data found on our college campus is similar to the trends in society. The problem of plastic bottle waste is seen everywhere from stadiums, to beaches to trash cans - basically anywhere except recycle bins. Just as college students are living busy lives, so is the rest of the world. When someone is in a rush to get somewhere, grabbing a plastic bottle on the way out is quick and easy. Primarily, plastic bottles provide convenience. It is just as convenient to dispose of plastic bottles in the quickest way possible, even if that means not properly recycling it. This is a problem as it quickly fills up our landfills and contributes to the litter we see. In our society today, Strasser points out that people “save and fix less and throw out more, for the habits of reuse [have] always been intertwined with the skills of household production” (Strasser 199). Sustainable practices of reuse have disappeared as people have come to accept the ease of disposability. Old habits are unable to support current lifestyles. The use of reusable water bottles is now more important than ever and could save resources and our earth.

Purchasing and utilizing a reusable bottle is an easy first step that many can take towards becoming green. Once a student has a reusable bottle, it can be used at one of campuses many bottle-fill stations. These stations even show the number of plastic bottles that are saved from the landfill just from the use of a reusable bottle, making people feel as part of the green movement. This awareness may motivate people to pay closer attention to their other habits, where they can then learn from them, and change. One might be inspired to continue their green ways and purchase a reusable coffee mug or replace the plastic forks and knives in their dorms with reusable ones. The importance of using a sustainable bottle is greater than most might think.  Some results aren’t obvious but they are there and every bit of effort is going to make a change in today’s trash epidemic.

People in today’s society don’t think that throwing away that one extra water bottle can make a large impact, but that seems to be everyone’s mindset. With 1,500 plastic bottles consumed every second, people are unaware of the harm these plastic bottles are causing the environment, especially when 80% of all purchased water bottles are ending up in the landfill after one time use.  Additionally, the plastic bottles are becoming harder and harder to reuse as the plastic is becoming thinner, in an attempt to appear more “eco-friendly”.  Some plastic bottles leach hazardous toxins into the water, particularly when they are left in the sun, making them less appealing to reuse.  It seems to be easier to buy an entirely new water bottle than to reuse your existing one that may appear to be worn out.  This example of planned obsolescence is resulting in enormous amounts of plastic waste in landfills. Since bottling companies are portraying their product for one time use, single-use bottles are more convenient and safer to the consumer.  Bringing awareness to consumers can ultimately change society’s wasteful habits.

The amount of plastic cups airlines use every six hours

Instagram Images:

The Problem With Food

Stone Guise

Brandon Schlecht

Thomson Kirsch

Max Zheng

The Problem With Food

In todays world, most people misjudge the amount of waste they produce. Our class conducted a project in which we recorded our trash consumption for a week and took pictures of litter that we found. Most of what we consumed and found was related to food waste. Our consumer society makes waste, especially food waste incredibly common. It is so common that our world is on the brink of an ecological disaster.

After looking at the pictures again, the realisation occurred that over fifty percent of the waste could be considered food waste. This food waste includes beer bottles, an untouched goldfish cracker bag, and even the infamous red solo cup. For the first few days of the project we had a problem finding litter, but as the weekend approached, it became easier to find the food waste. After talking about the pictures on instagram, our group decided that there was more waste on the weekends, rather than the weekdays, because of how late people stay up and the parties. At parties, people often don’t know where the trash is, so they decide to litter. Also on the weekends is when the dining hall doesn’t have late night dining. Causing students to buy more food that has packaging. They eat the food and then dispose of the packaging in the most convenient way possible, usually on the ground on the way to a party. Another problem with the food waste that we found was the amount of packaging that we found. A lot of the packaging from companies is impossible to compost or recycle. Instead of being environmentally sound and making packaging one hundred percent paper or aluminium, companies decided to mix these two products, making them impossible to recycle which then produces more waste.

The multiple images of trash packaging found in just one week of doing litterati was shocking. This shows a large problem in our society. We are consumers, and we must eat, therefore we buy all sorts of food. However all of this food comes packaged in some way or another, and this packaging is rarely compostable or recyclable. Most of it ends up in the landfill, or in the case of litterati, on the streets. Producers are packaging their food products with more and more trash that will end up in the landfill. They do this in order to sell more of the product as more packaging is appealing to a consumer, the more eloquent the packaging the more appealing the product is, and eloquent packaging is made up of more waste. Susan Strasser stated that “Decades before Kotex, throwaway packaging was promoted for its convenience and cleanliness.” (Strasser 171), and we as a society have come to see extensive packaging around an object as a sign of its quality, as well as its convenience of use. Producers are only out to make a profit. There are a few easy solutions that could be made to the issue of food packaging. One simply being to use less packaging, something a few companies have already adopted. For example Morning Thunder tea advertises how their tea bags are not wrapped individually, this greatly decreases the trash created by the product. Although many companies will refuse to make this change, if they did it would greatly reduce this issue. Another solution to the issue would be to make more packaging with compostable products. Like the compostable cups, napkins, and forks; food manufacturers should also be able to do this. Another solution would be making packaging out of recyclable materials. Many companies already do this as they use cardboard, however a large majority of the pictures of food packaging trash on instagram, were not recyclable materials. For example there was a picture of a Goldfish bag, which may seem recyclable, but is not. The bag is lined with a material on the inside that turns an otherwise recyclable bag, into a landfill item.The last solution that we as the consumer could do to help this issue is to change where we shop. If we shop at smaller markets or farmers markets the food often comes in little to no packaging. Although some products must be bought from the over packaged supermarkets, even buying just your fruits and veggies from a farmers market could make a difference.

Substance Packaging Littered throughout DU: Case Lee Nick

As Humes wrote in his evaluation of William Rathje’s work, “In garbage, though, there are no half-truths, no spin, no politics...How they lived, what they wore, where their trade routes reached, even how and who they worshipped -- all of that, and so much more, is contained in the record of their garbage,”(Humes 146). Fortunately, we did not have a task as challenging as studying an ancient civilization through their trash but only a college campus. However, even that was intimidating for the three of us. So we narrowed it down by only looking at substance trash such as alcohol, cigarettes and chewing tobacco. Also we avoided all of the Instagram pictures that either didn’t give a location or gave one that was not nearby one of the three freshman dormitory halls (Centennial Towers, Centennial Halls and Johnson McFarlane) because we were focusing on freshmans’ consumption habits and this was the only plausible way we could think of.

What we found was that litter around Centennial Halls had four times as many beer bottles than the other two buildings combined. Halls also had more cigarettes than the other two buildings combined, and was the only one that students found chewing tobacco cans around. Now does this mean that students in Halls are consuming four times as much alcohol as the other buildings’ occupants combined? Probably not but there is an underlying trend of a tendency to litter by halls residents. Maybe this has something to do with the lack of eco-friendliness of the facility. Without composts in the bathrooms or even garbages around the dorm, residents could have slowly become less caring about whether they throw something out, because recycling is not encouraged. According to an experiment conducted by our group, where we interviewed people on the street at night, we found that people are more likely to litter while intoxicated. Could Halls be the degenerate dorm?

There are differing supporting evidence but also flaws to our data. One possibility could lie in the process of collecting the data. How many students in this class are from Halls and if any specific individuals had habits of uploading pictures of used substances could skew the data. Another possibility is that students from Centennial Towers like to keep their surroundings relatively clean and make efforts to drop their trash either on their way to or back from class while passing Halls. Also the fact that Halls and Towers are on the outer rim of campus and do not have the most extensive landscaping could lead to students feeling less attached to the land around it than students in J-Mac and therefore feel less guilty when littering.

The environment is the most important thing in our life because it provides us with life. Yet the students in the dorms, particularly the ones in Centennial Halls, do not realize this. They need to understand that throwing trash away properly is as important as breathing because if we sicken the environment, we sicken the air. They should also take pride in their campus. I hope that as they get older, they will become more environmentally conscience and will care about the campus more.

Food Packaging Waste- Zach, Callyn, Braiden, Ally

Zach, Callyn, Braiden, and Ally

October 14, 2013

Project #3

Food Packaging Waste

Looking through the class’ journals and Instagram posts, it is easy to see that the number one contributor to your average college student’s waste is food packaging. We walk into the grocery store and grab a 6-pack or ramen or a box of individually wrapped fruit snacks without thinking twice about the unnecessary trash that is a result of a simple meal or quick snack. Between classes, studying, and trying to make room for a “college social life,” convenience and efficiency are the primary needs of students. Companies are constantly trying to make their newer products less time consuming and chose college students as one of their main targets. The whole world has become so reliant on the convenience and efficiency of our world, especially our meals.

Through analyzing waste we realize how much of our food trash could have been avoided by another method of cooking that same exact food. Noodles, soups, vegetables, pastas, pizzas and many other foods have different formulas for their easy-to-make options. Although these are convenient, they create much more waste than other methods of making this food would create. Part of the need for these products is the lack of accessibility to proper cooking utensils and kitchen appliances in dorms, but this is also due to the fact that an easier way to cook things is more appealing to the average American. This shows a lot about the way Americans work in that we are more concerned with making our lives easier than helping to maintain the health of our planet. This seems like an exaggeration but in all truth food waste is becoming a huge issue in landfills and is growing as companies realize this need for convenience and meld their products so that they sell more. 

A substantial variety of trash was found around campus including food wrappers, cigarettes, bottles, paper towels, balloons, plastic bags, and even frisbees among other items. This diverse and expansive list continues, as does America’s endless addiction to trash, no matter the type or shape. Yet, reviewing the class instagram of litter around the school, it is evident that the most prominently misplaced category of trash is food packaging. With people constantly eating, a real problem has unsurprisingly developed in our society. While landfills are abused by all sorts of trash, the food packaging industry is a place where solutions already exist that could divert waste from landfills allowing the individual consumer to avoid wastefulness and contribute to a healthier cycle of reuse rather than to an inefficient linear production system. As discussed in “The Story of Stuff,” we cannot continue on forever addicted to this system. Author Edward Humes agrees in his work “Garbology” admitting, “what no one considered… is waste’s oddest, most powerful quality; we’re addicted to it.” We have arrived to a point where breaking our addiction cannot be done on a single level. On the production level, the simple switch, for example, from plastic packaging to compostable packaging or from a landfill-bound juice packaging to a recyclable aluminum can would eliminate the amount of food packaging waste in landfills significantly saving our atmosphere from consequent dangerous gas emissions and conserving resources. However, as trash piles and we continue to pretend we aren’t harming the environment, the question remains: why haven’t food producers taken initiative if it is so simple? We have come to love the convenience of disposability without even taking into account that rerouting the linear production system into a circular cycle would not diminish consumer convenience but only bring greater efficiency.

Encouraging producers and consumers alike to make choices to benefit the environment will be key in progressing towards a sustainable zero waste world. Although, without the participation of producers, little progress can be made. Even the most zero-waste-dedicated individual will end up producing unwanted landfill trash if there is no other option. The transformation from practically total waste to zero waste will be a difficult journey but one that will be worthy of the input resources in the long run. With the dangers of waste in mind, the world as a community should attempt to open the eyes of their neighbors to the existent and simple solutions and head towards a sustainable zero-waste future beneficial to all.