Garbology!!

Collecting garbage from cans around campus

Of all the various extracurricular projects I worked on this quarter, ranging from running microplastics and anthropology booths during Earth Day, and during the Club Fair, to functioning as a group lead during Stolja Ali (Gold Park) restoration projects, water quality monitoring and co-authoring the Anthropology Departments Salmon Report for Japanese and Big Gulch in Mukilteo (https://www.academia.edu/30938171/A_Survey_of_Fish_and_Wildlife_Japanese_and_Big_Gulch_2016), I am most proud of my involvement in the Garbology project run through the Campus Sustainability Club with assistance from CSEL and the Green Team.

Students getting involved collecting data :)

This project was the culmination of many quarters here at EdCC working to educate students and faculty about the impacts their choices of which products to consume have on the environment, and of how our waste stream is largely something that we don't think about. A "garbology" is a study of waste, in this case our project sought to analyze how effectively trash, recycling, and compost were disposed of on campus. By sorting through the recycling and garbage bins, weighing the contents, then recording how much of each bag was actually recycling, garbage, or compost, we were able to roughly estimate how effective our campus is at disposing its waste properly.

Supervising the recording of data

As the project lead, I was responsible for the set up, coordination of volunteers, data recording, sorting and final disposal of waste, and wrap-up for both days I ran the garbology event. This amounted to a little more than 9.5 hours the first day, and 6 hours the second day, for a total of just over 15 hours. This doesn't include time spent preparing procedures, coordinating with campus staff, and actually planning this project. 

This relates to animal biology because the waste that our society produces directly impacts the survival of many species. The effects of plastics on species of seabirds such as albatross are well documented, and the link between our disposal of these products and the actual impact on wildlife often goes unrepresented in discussions. (https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B_-IlzDDqpjSamxHeGw2elRPWlU) This particular link has been the subject of a great deal of research and effort on my part as I attempt to bring this information into the zeitgeist of our campus community.

Having a blast sorting trash

The overall goals of this project were twofold. Initially, the project design sought to provide visibility to the issue of trash, and generate public interest in this topic. Secondly, there was an educational, service-learning component. By involving volunteers in hands-on activities analyzing waste on campus, it encourages critical thinking about their own practices and habits.

Sorted bags

The data that we collected during these events was telling - simply put, individuals are less discerning about what they throw in the trash than what they throw in the recycling. About 75% (by weight) of the contents of trash cans sorted through turned out to either be recycling or compost. The contents of the recycling bins, however, were roughly 80% recycling. This is powerful data. On a basic level, this data clearly represents a need for further education of our campus community on the importance of garbage disposal not as a "catch-all" category, but as a specific and necessary way to dispose of items that are not re-usable in some way. This opportunity to work with students in a hands-on and personal way, as opposed to more of a lecture setting, has really demonstrated to me the value of getting people involved with projects. Not only did the students involved walk away with more knowledge of an issue, but we uncovered a very interesting issue on our campus, which opens the door to further projects and highlights the need for more student-led projects that seek to engage the student body in conservation-related research and activities.

Students somehow not completely sick of sorting trash in the rain

 Relating to the material of this course, the garbology event strongly reflects project design elements refined during our group project labs. Challenges such as coordinating with team members, creating an effective project that has clear goals and measurable objectives, as well as finding proper ways to divide the labor are all relevant to the various labs we worked on.

Ultimately, this project raised several questions. Firstly, the question of how to actually use the data we collected was raised by many of the student volunteers. Currently, this one is unanswered - I am sure that several professors may be able to integrate data gathered from this project into their courses, and that this information would be useful for directing further projects on campus.
Secondly, the question of why Green Team efforts to educate students during weekly Trashy Tuesday events hasn't had a larger impact on the rate of proper trash disposal is somewhat curious. Every week students volunteer to pick up trash on campus, and ostensibly learn which objects are actually trash, as opposed to recycling or garbage. Does this knowledge not disseminate through friend groups and social networks?
Additionally, the effectiveness of this project in both collecting data and providing visibility to trash and its proper disposal opens the question of which other programs the Campus Sustainability Club could partner with on campus, and how we could capitalize on the success of the garbology event.
Finally, during the course of this project it became clear that we were not collecting as much data as possible from the student efforts. Notably, we did not separate and record weights of plastics in the waste stream, nor did we find an accurate way to account for weight lost from liquids in our data. Procedural changes are obviously necessary, but refining the project is a somewhat complex task. Exactly how to do so is a difficult question.