Hunter students lead initiative to go zero waste
#refusetowaste
One man’s trash is another rat’s pizza. In New York City, where our lifestyle is driven by convenience, people don’t think twice about eating on the go and wasting food and materials in the process. Since the city is our campus, CUNY students probably eat on the go most often. Our favorites include halal carts, dollar pizza, chipotle, and as a last resort, the cafeteria.
Let’s be real though. In a big metropolis like NYC, there is A LOT of waste, of which organic wastes are a big part. About 28 per cent of all the garbage the Sanitation Department of New York City collects in the City is organics – largely food waste, but also yard trimmings and clean paper. Food wastes are a heavy burden on haulers as well as landfills, they spend years breaking down and emitting large amounts of methane gas, which then escapes into the air contributing greatly to climate change. So it’s important to reduce the amount we produce in the first place.
Traditional recycling of plastics, glass, metals and paper has been a challenge at Hunter. If you’re someone who makes a conscious effort to recycle, you still might find it difficult to do so at Hunter. With the modge-podge of bins placed randomly in the halls, it can be difficult to find a bin when you need one – much less the correct one.
As you can see from the image above, the bins vary and it can be difficult to identify which are for which type of material. I’ll admit that even I have to give up sometimes and just throw my recyclables in the trash. Then, when I happen to pass the recycling bin later on, I see that someone has ignorantly thrown their trash in there, and I think “what’s even the point?”
The point is that recycling these materials is important if you don’t want to be part of the “sustainability” problem! And then there’s organics, another part of the waste stream we should consider collecting separately. Over 20,000 students go to Hunter. Many of us spend a lot of time on campus, and end up eating more than one meal there, which often comes in some sort of disposable container. Factor the faculty into the equation, and you can imagine that we generate a lot of waste – especially food waste. So what is there for us to do?
Zero Waste Hunter is a new student lead initiative at Hunter College aiming to revamp the waste management system on campus.The goal is to improve the school’s recycling program, promote reduction at the source, and research policies and alternatives. In order to truly become “zero waste,” Hunter would need to eliminate certain non-recyclable materials (i.e. styrofoam) from the waste stream and include separate collection of organic waste.
Douglas Price, a faculty member of the CUNY Institute for Sustainable Cities, helped to found the initiative and has been critical in organizing the effort put forward by students. He explains: “Zero Waste Hunter is intended to be a Hunter College community wide effort to reduce the generation of solid waste on campus, initiated by the CUNY Institute for Sustainable Cities and TGIF, The Green Initiative Fund, and supported by the Hunter Sustainability Project. The initiative grew directly from concerns that were voiced by students about the large volume of solid waste generated, the apparent low rate of recycling, and the lack of diversion of food waste on campus. The formation of the group also responds to City and State efforts to reduce waste on campuses and move New York City to zero waste by 2030.”
In a related project, through an internship offered on the campus, a group of students are stepping up to the new challenge of organic wastes, with the help of faculty from CISC and Energy Vision, a national environmental organization that is the leading independent expert on waste and energy issues. We are surveying the amount of organic waste (primarily food scraps) generated on the campus cafeterias, in the dorms, and on the college grounds.
For a full week in mid-April, you will see us standing around Hunter with food waste bins so that we can see just how much organic waste there is. This will also be a good opportunity to say “hi,” and to tell students and faculty about the project while we are on the job!
Once the survey is done, we will explore the best ways to actually collect organics and will consider the equipment and the educational work needed to ensure the greatest student participation. Then we will look at what their best uses may be of the organics. The city already offers an organics collection for compost program but there are other options. The methane biogas produced by decomposing organic matter can also be captured and used as a renewable energy source – a fuel for electricity generation, a fuel for heating buildings or even as a vehicle fuel.
In order to make a difference, we need support from you! If you are interested in the project, or simply support what we are doing, please click here.