INPIRG weighs in on waste

As students finished their meals in Wright food court Wednesday night, they rushed to dump their leftovers in trash bins and hardly noticed the banner on the wall that asked, "How much do you waste?" Each of the bins had been labeled either, "Compost," "Trash" or "Recycle," but most paid them no attention and threw their waste into the closest bin.\n"We're doing research for INPIRG," senior Vanessa Caruso said "if you could just separate your trash."\nCaruso snapped on a pair of rubber gloves and reached into the compost bin to pull out wrappers and pizza boxes, throwing them in the trash herself. Members of the Indiana Public Research Group hosted a Food Weigh Event at Wright to bring awareness to IU students about recycling and the reduction of waste on the campus. \n"It's difficult because students are so used to walking up and throwing out their trash," Caruso said. "When they get here and you say, wait a second, they look at you funny. It's just foreign to them."\nJunior Danny Atlas, the Sustainability Research Coordinator for INPIRG, said the event was an experiment of sorts to see if students would be open to recycling and separating their uneaten food from their wrappers. INPIRG volunteers would then weigh the contents of the three different bins to try and measure in pounds just how much waste is produced. \nFrom this data, Atlas said, INPIRG volunteers hope to find a way to reduce waste which would in turn reduce trash consumption and ultimately save IU money.\n"I don't like the education students get from eating in food courts on campus," Atlas said. "They are taught to wait in line, buy their food and throw it away. Once it's in the trash can it's out of their consciousness. They don't have to think about what it will do to the earth or the environment."\nAtlas said when he lived in Foster as a freshman, he was disgusted by how much he had to throw away, but he never did anything about it because he didn't think there was anything he could do. As a sophomore, he took a class at IU that opened his eyes to the interconnectedness of waste and its im pact on the environment. "Everything is thrown away," Atlas said. "Landfills are filling up; if we can figure out how we can reduce waste at Wright, then we can help reduce waste on campus." \nAtlas also learned about how difficult it can be to have successful recycle programs at universities like IU, when a bin designated for plastics can quickly become contaminated by a bag of chips, for instance, and custodians are not allowed to reach into the bin and remove the item.\nGraham Shepfer, Special Services manager for Residential Programs and Services, is also the director for all residence dining halls on campus. Shepfer said he is interested to see the results of the weigh in because he would like food courts to be more environmentally friendly and thinks reducing waste would have financial benefits for the University. \n"We pay out of our budget to haul all that trash away," Shepfer said. "Anything we could do would cut expenses."\nIn order for waste to be reduced, Shepfer said, students must be willing to cooperate because there is only so much the staff can do. \n"I think in order to get recycling to function, we need to have more students work with us to sort everything out," Shepfer said. "We need to get the bulk of students to not contaminate the bins by throwing random stuff in them."\nFreshman Daniel Eilon opted not to be a part of the weigh in, and threw the remains of his dinner in the trash.\n"I wasn't sure what was going on," Eilon said. "I don't really believe in recycling. More energy is used in the process of recycling and this outweighs the benefits of reusing. But I think it's noble they're doing something they believe in."\n-- Contact staff writer Lindsay Lyon at lrlyon@indiana.edu .