Earlier in the semester i n the month of October I volunteered with the College of Charleston’s Office of Sustainability Zero Waste Corps at the College’s Boundless campaign event at Dixie Plantation. The Boundless campaign event is a comprehensive fundraising campaign through the College. The Boundless campaign event has raised 138.7 million dollars up to June 30, 2016 and the event on Dixie Plantation was created to host the donors to the event. Due to the evacuation caused by Hurricane Matthew, there was significant drop of attendees to the Boundless campaign event, there was still a good number of people there.

At the event we were given a red Zero Waste Corps shirt to signal to the event attendees that we were there to help them navigate waste management. In total there were 10 volunteers through the Zero Waste Corps. The supervisors of Zero Waste Corps explained to us which waste products went into certain containers. There were two containers, one for compostable and for recycling. The majority of the products at the Boundless event was either compostable or recyclable. In the compostable container, things like leftover food, specialty cups, speciality plates and cutlery were able to be composted. Items like straws, plastic bottles, beer bottles, and other paper products were added to the recyclable container. Our job as volunteers were to stand beside both containers that were strategically placed around the main area of Dixie Plantation and instruct people on where to dispose of their waste if they did not already know. Another job we had as Zero Waste Corps volunteers was to answer questions about the zero waste initiative and how a successful waste management event can be accomplished.

Volunteering with the Zero Waste Corps was very informative and rewarding. I felt like I was doing something to help make our earth a greener and more sustainable planet. It was great working with the other volunteers and participating in a group effort to make an College event zero waste. Even though things like that seem small in the grand scheme of things, every little thing counts no matter how small we think it is. I believe that every College of Charleston student should volunteer with the Zero Waste Corps at a campus event to gain some experience with sustainability and it was an overall great experience.

The Office of Sustainability’s Zero Waste Corps’s purpose is to eliminate waste and increase recycling on campus and through campus events. The College of Charleston’s Zero Waste Corp focuses on 6 areas of focus such as: aversion, minimization, prepare for reuse, recycling, recovery, and disposal. Some common events that the Zero Waste Corps do every year is the Charleston Affair at the end of the spring semester, the waste audit in cougar mall in the spring semester with Alliance for Planet Earth, and the Office of Sustainability’s Greenbag Lunch Series. The Zero Waste Corps also gives the option of planning event to make it Zero Waste to the campus community and provides feedback to organizations and events around the Charleston peninsula.