If you happened to pass Abele quad on Tuesday, February 1st, you might have seen a bunch of people poking through trash and shouting strange numbers at each other. Maybe you ignored the weirdos and kept walking. Maybe you were so perplexed that you stopped to ask some questions. Maybe you were one of those brave souls who dared to take their phone out and scanned our QR code for more information.
If this sounds familiar, consider yourself lucky because you got to witness Duke's second-ever waste audit. Put together by the Duke Composting Taskforce (a dream team of representatives from the DSG Services and Sustainability committee, UEU, Environmental Alliance, Green Devils, and other sustainability groups), this waste audit will help us learn more about student behavior around trash sorting. You can also read about last year's audit in this Chronicle article. If you're a real trash geek and want to see what last year's results were, take a look at this awesome memo.
Over the next two months, different student organizations will be having different education campaigns to inform students on why composting is important, and how to compost properly at Duke. Then in April, another waste audit will be conducted to determine whether the education campaigns were successful in reducing contamination rates. By gathering data on how Duke students are sorting waste and facilitating shifts in behavior through the educational campaign, we hope to provide the Duke administration with supporting evidence on why composting should be expanded on campus.
Here's how it happened:
The day before the audit, temporary compost bins were placed in BC plaza to see if students would be able to compost properly. Around 12pm-1pm on Tuesday, a bunch of volunteers collected all of the landfill, recycling, and compost bins from BC plaza, the Loop, and Zweli's.
Over the next few hours, the content of each bin was sorted by origin and type. We recorded both the amount(in pieces) and weight of the landfill, recycling, and compost material in each bin. For example, any recycling and compost waste placed in a landfill bin was considered missorted. Similarly, any recycling and landfill trash in a compost bin is missorted and was counted towards the contamination rate.
We had a jolly time doing this all day. Huge shoutout to the Facilities Team, because they were kind enough to let us borrow their tools and accommodated our request to not empty the bins while we waited for enough trash to accumulate.
The audit was honestly so much fun y'all. We will be having another waste audit in early April - if you want to join our team of trash enthusiasts, keep your eyes peeled for more info closer to the date!! If you have any questions about composting at Duke, the waste audit, and/or how to get more involved with the composting taskforce, please don't hesitate to contact Yujin Kim at yujin.kim@duke.edu.
Comentarios