Zero Waste and Civic Engagement – Office of Sustainability

by gregwarehj - July 3, 2015July 29, 2015

Trash Talk

There are some things that you can’t close your eyes to once you’ve seen them. The worldwide waste problem that humanity is facing has to be addressed. The problem has been burned and buried, but the giant trash elephant in the room has to be addressed. According to the EPA, in 2013, the United States alone produced over 254 million tons of waste. Of that, 34.3% was recycled or composted. Over the last 25 years, recycling has become more commonplace and the recycling rate has more than doubled from 16% in 1990. Through source reduction, composting, and recycling, the United States has made great strides to reduce the waste produced and sent to the landfill. The goal for zero waste is to have 90% recovery of the resources that would otherwise be sent to the landfill. We are a long way from the 90% goal, but it is a goal that we can all strive for. Unfortunately, these numbers don’t account for industrial waste, only municipal waste, which “consists of everyday items we use and then throw away” (EPA). The EPA states the industrial waste is approximately 7.6 billion tons per year.

The industrial waste is linked to our municipal waste as the hidden costs behind our consumption. In order to reduce both municipal and industrial waste, we have to be active in our lives and communities. Civic engagement and sustainable living are closely tied together. In order to truly be sustainable, we have to support each other in the community. One way of supporting each other is by sharing knowledge and skills that can help create a ripple effect of lasting change and mindset altering. Reducing consumption, mindful purchasing, recycling, and composting are all great things that we can do to start a change. If we strive towards these practices and effectively communicate the urgency of the waste problem, it will hopefully be infectious to the people around us and spread from the ground up to the top.

Buy products made locally, or even learn how to make replacements of some of these things yourself. When purchasing commercially produced products, stop and ask yourself if you really need it. Chances are you won’t need as much as you think. Placing a compost and a recycling bin right next to your trash is extremely easy and takes a short time to get used to. Encourage and educate the people in your sphere of influence about the small changes that can be made in order to make a large change overall.

It’s not a big commitment and it’s only made through small changes. When we add a few slight inconveniences (that will quickly become habitual) to our daily routine, we can start to make a change that will become normal for generations to come. I dream that future generations will have the default mindset of “how can this be reused or recycled” instead of the current “but the dumpster is so far away” mindset. It will be a long process, but change is already happening. We can only do it together and I hope we can all agree that it’s time to face the waste.

-Arthur Phillips

Arthur is a rising senior at the College, majoring in Philosophy — Arthur is a rising senior at the College, with a major in Philosophy

by gregwarehj - July 2, 2015

Commons Activism

I was thirteen years old when I discovered volunteer work. I was also thirteen years old when I joined my high school’s Environmental Club. At the time, these seemed like two separate events; thirteen-year-old me was just pursuing two completely different interests at the same time.

However, it wasn’t until recently that I realized these two interests – sustainability and civic engagement – were rooted in one core concept: community.

Every living, breathing member of a community has a right to work towards the betterment of that respective community. Whether natural or anthropogenic, local or global, we are part of different communities that require our participation to maintain their function. Civic engagement looks like active citizens working to realize and address social issues that face members of their society – issues like hunger and homelessness. Civic engagement needs communal collaboration in order to be effective and yield positive change and development for the community. Sustainability, too, requires this type of community-first thinking and collaboration in order to be truly effective. We live in a world that has a finite amount of resources that can be regenerated within a certain time for a certain amount of living beings. Whether we choose to believe it or not, there exists a commons from which we gather our needs. Commons activism refers to the duty we have to protect things we all share and ensure that everybody is able to at least satisfy their basic needs from the commons. Both sustainability and civic engagement use commons activism to address inequities within socially constructed systems and imbalanced cycles in the natural world.

This past week I had the benefit of attending a summit that looked at the issues facing people experiencing homelessness and how providing housing and other services can not only be beneficial for the individuals, but the community they’re a part of as well. The Office of Sustainability worked in conjunction with the Center for Civic Engagement and Aramark to help divert waste from the landfill by making the event Zero Waste. It was really interesting to see the different members of the Charleston community come together to talk about the issue and hear from representatives of organizations in other cities that work with homelessness and housing first programs.

Community-first thinking is an important part of active and engaged citizenship and sustainability; it is the lens through which we view the world. However, it is only the first step; it is what we do with what we’ve seen with that lens that makes a lasting impact.

Maybe thirteen-year-old me didn’t know exactly what she was getting herself into when she joined the Environmental Club and started volunteering, or maybe she did. Either way, twenty-one-year old me sure is glad for the journey, the experiences, and the sense of knowing, with certainty, that communities can sustain themselves long after individuals expire.

-Nicole Fernandez ’16

Nicole is a rising senior at the College, with a double major in Biology and French and Francophone Studies, and a minor in Environmental Studies