For the second year in a row, me and some of my fellow EarthMatters executive board members attended the fifth annual Post-Landfill Action Network (PLAN)’s Students for Zero Waste Conference at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. PLAN’s mission is to supply college students with resources to help their campuses go zero waste. Environmental and climate justice were major themes at this years conference with a specific emphasis on points of intervention.
Keynote Address:
Grassroots activist and organizer Melissa Miles gave the keynote address on Friday evening. In her address, Garbage is a State of Mind, she spoke on the subjectivity of “trash” and her experiences with garbage in her own community in Newark, New Jersey.
Miles spoke specifically about the Covanta operated incinerator, Covanta-Essex, in her neighborhood and the false solution of incineration. Incineration is still a viable option in New York City’s goal to go zero waste (to landfills) by 2030. She raised the concern that incineration creates more CO2 emissions than other greenhouse gas contributors as well as dioxins, PCBs, cadmium, arsenic, and various other pollutants. Covanta-Essex like many incinerators disproportionately effects low-income and communities of color.
False solutions like this “keeps power and wealth concentrated in the hands of a few,” said Miles. She also critiqued the idea of waste-to-energy incineration, which does not call into question the production of waste but rather assumes that waste must exist. “Incinerators must have trash to survive,” said Miles.
The Newark community environmental justice efforts look to address systems of inequity. Out of necessity, the community has become resourceful and creative and continues to reject excessive waste as the norm.
As a society, “we’ve made trash something that is acceptable,” said Miles, “Things only change when we change systems. We need to come together to enact change… The local action will count for the global win.”
Food:
The reception on Friday after the keynote address as well as the lunch on Saturday were catered by Bon Appétit Management Company, which is the dining provider for UPenn and has an emphasis on sustainably sourced ingredients. Saturday’s breakfast and snacks were truly in the spirit of zero waste with an assortment of bagels gleaned from various shops in the neighborhood that would otherwise have gone to waste, and bulk peanut butter, yogurt, and granola. Students were encouraged ahead of time to bring their own containers and utensils. However, for those who forgot or were unable to bring their own, PLAN provided compostable plates and bowls for breakfast and snacks and provided secondhand utensils from Goodwill. Bon Appétit provided ceramic plates and cutlery for the catered meals. There were also waste stations around the conference area for students to properly dispose of their compostables, recyclables, and trash.
Workshops:
There were a number of workshops to attend on Saturday hosted by university students, activists and zero waste advocates. Some that my club mates and I attended were, Organic Waste Streams: Campus Compost and Emerging Technologies, Breaking Free from Plastic: Understanding the Risk to Human Health, #Can’tDrinkOil: Lessons from the Anti-Line 3 Pipeline Fight, and Food Justice and Zero Waste.
- Organic Waste Streams: Campus Compost and Emerging Technologies
First, American University students spoke about the success they have had with the composting projects on the AU campus. AU currently has two contracts with separate composting facilities that take different compostable materials at different volumes. Their goal is to have one compost collection contract but it does seem like having a separate collector and contract for organics is an effective way to track and properly manage waste.
They currently have an optional “Grab-a-bin” program in residence halls, which restricts access without eliminating it to avoid contamination. They also suggested using restrictive lids such as a lid with a triangle shaped opening or a lid that you have to take off to open the bin in order to further reduce contamination.
The second half of the workshop was led by two graduate students from Villanova working on hydrothermal carbonization, a process that turns wet biomass materials into a coal-like product, and vertical farming. According to the EPA, food waste is 22%– largest single waste stream– that goes into landfills and incinerators. They proposed hydrothermal carbonization as a solution, as well as indoor vertical farming which they said is one contribution but not a single solution to the global food shortage.
- Breaking Free from Plastic: Understanding the Risk to Human Health
The focus of this workshop was the health hazards of the chemicals in plastics. The workshop referenced the Rethink Plastic alliance. PLAN has its own program where college campuses are provided a toolkit and can make a pledge to #breakfreefromplastic.
The pledge takes into consideration the difficulty of completely eliminating plastic on a college campus and provides options to transition away from plastic dependence as much as is feasible and over time.
- #Can’tDrinkOil: Lessons from the Anti-Line 3 Pipeline Fight
This workshop provided background information about the Line 3 Pipeline and taught about useful tactics in combating the construction and use of the pipeline such as understanding the legality, nonviolent direct action, and creative resistance and art activism. In addition to protecting indigenous rights, indigenous land and the environment, there was an emphasis on stopping waste at the source by halting projects that promote the extraction of petroleum used in the production of many single use products.
- Food Justice and Zero Waste
In this workshop we heard from a student at Macalester College who is involved in a cooperative called MacSHARE which provides a sustainable, healthy, and anti-racist food economy for students. We also heard from students involved in the Food Recovery Network chapter at Carleton College, and the success that both of these students groups have had with preventing food waste and providing their communities with access to food.
Tabling organizations and activities:
A number of organizations including many of the conference sponsors had tabling stations. Tabling organizations
provided helpful information about their products and campaigns, signups, product demos, freebees and activities such as making your own sewing kit or panty liner and a Goodwill Photo Booth!
Overall, the conference was a huge success! Waste can be really overwhelming but it was encouraging to see other students working towards zero waste, equity, inclusion, and access on so many college campuses. I appreciated the opportunity to attend and see how passionate students at NYU might teach, learn, organize, and come together to fight systems of oppression to move towards zero waste.
Check out the Zero Waste Week events calendar to see how you can participate in campus efforts to move towards reducing waste at NYU.