New Sustainability Programs Instituted Across Campus

The Sustainability Advisory Committee (SAC), Dining Services and Facilities Management Department have recently launched two projects—the “Tiny Trash” program and the “Zero Waste” initiative—designed to help the Academy manage its waste.The Tiny Trash program, launched by SAC, is a school-wide project focused on “[reducing] school waste, [increasing] individual mindfulness and awareness of contributions to our waste and [increasing] the recycling rate,” Jill Robinson, co-chair of the committee and senior manager for sustainability and natural resources, said.In early Jan. 2015, the Principal’s Staff met with the SAC, which is comprised of students, faculty and staff, to discuss and eventually approve the Tiny Trash program. “The basics of the program are that each room will get a smaller container in which to place waste, and each person will empty his or her waste at the end of the day into one trash bin placed in a common area like a break or common room,” Robinson said. “Because individual departments and their functions vary widely, we will institute this program in phases, beginning with offices that have already volunteered to be in phase one where we have a model for how this can work.”

“Sharing this information establishes transparency on a community-wide basis. We can establish goals for ways we can reduce waste, save money and become more environmentally responsible in our personal decision making.”

In addition to reducing waste itself, the committee hopes the Tiny Trash program will reduce costs for waste management operations by lessening the number of trash bins on campus and by shifting custodial resources to other cleaning and maintenance tasks.Despite the well-prepared outline for the program, some students and faculty are unsure how great of an effect this program will have on the Academy’s efforts to reduce and streamline waste.Upper Maegen Moriarty, after recognizing the potential of the Tiny Trash program, expressed her concerns about the indifference Exonians tend to express in response to an environmental project. “I worry that people will throw their items away in another location; I do not think that [the program] will completely eliminate the issue,” she said. “I do, though, see the initiative as a way to make members of the PEA community cognizant of what they are throwing away and maybe how they could recycle instead.”Although passivity regarding the project may result from the program, classics instructor Samantha Cassidy saw Tiny Trash as beneficial to Exeter. “I know, for myself, I will be more encouraged to recycle rather than throw more items in a larger trash can. I have already heard a few people in my dorm talking about how to conserve energy in Dunbar,” Cassidy said. “I think that any initiative that causes people to put more thought into how they live is a good thing.”Robinson echoed Cassidy’s remarks and acknowledged that, while change is difficult to accomplish, it is very possible. She explained how small steps are the key to a larger net-effect. “In the classrooms, students contribute tissues or candy wrappers and other materials to the trash; if each student took responsibility for his or her own trash and simply threw it away in a common area like a restroom or student lounge instead of in the classroom, we could virtually eliminate waste in the classrooms and make it a lot easier for the faculty to implement this program,” she said. “Many small actions together add up to big change.”The Zero Waste Initiative, a project based on similar goals as the Tiny Trash program, is the Dining Service’s campaign to reduce pre-consumer waste in the two dining halls on campus. On Climate Action Day, students signed up at booths, which were set up around campus to take pledges, and vowed that they would reduce post-consumer waste in response to the Dining Service’s Zero Waste Initiative.Associate Director of Dining Services Melinda Leonard proposed the Zero Waste Initiative around two months before Climate Action Day to the E-Board, which consisted of both E-Proctor heads and Environmental Action Committee (EAC) heads. Leonard informed them that in the conference she had recently attended, she learned that other colleges and schools were partaking in the Zero Waste Initiative project. After the meeting, the E-Board began to work and assist Dining Services in instituting this change at Exeter.The goal of Zero Waste Initiative was based on the same theme of Tiny Trash: many little measures together instigate substantial change. According to Leonard, this initiative was “grounded on the premise of raising awareness in how the individual can create positive change on a larger scale through personal choices one day at a time.”Senior and co-head of the E-Board Holden Hammontree added to Leonard’s message. “The biggest effect is to have more conscious meals in our D-Hall’s. Waste is ethically, economically and environmentally wrong. Our goal is to see a serious reduction.”Now, according to senior and co-head of EAC Connor Bloom, these small changes that they hope students and faculty make are both unconscious decisions and conscious ones. Bloom mentioned, for example, that in the Wetherell Dining Hall, the smaller plates are laid out before the larger plates to encourage students and faculty to take more reasonable portions of food. In addition, Dining Services purposely replaced the larger bowls with smaller ones this year. On the consumer side of dining hall, conscious decisions such as taking one cup and refilling it or taking one napkin at a time were also part of the Zero Waste Initiative pledge that many students signed on Climate Action Day.To document any progress made, Dining Services began recording the amount of waste produced at the dining halls since January. Leonard has high hopes for the results as it will place a value on the cost of the waste at Exeter and its impact on the community. “Sharing this information establishes transparency on a community-wide basis. We can establish goals for ways we can reduce waste, save money and become more environmentally responsible in our personal decision making.”However, in Hammontree’s opinion, neither of these projects will function without the care and passion of the Exonians. But with it, he believes that drastic changes can be made. “[The success] comes down to how committed Exonians are to make incremental change. This comes down to how accountable Exonians are,” he said. “Personally, I only hope to see an honest effort, because when Exonians go 100 percent, wild things start happening.”