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. Read more
It seemed like graduation was just yesterday but NYU students are flocking back into the city for summer classes and internships. Hopefully, there won’t be too many assignments or your work hours aren’t too long because the best part about being in NYC in the summer are its parks! There are hundreds of events from May to August you can scroll through here, but I found the series that you should definitely check out if you get a day off to get out. Read more
by Cecil Scheib, Assistant Vice President for Sustainability
NYU is aspiring to be among the greenest urban campuses in the nation. And we need your help.
How could you better incorporate sustainability into your learning, teaching, and research? What internships or employee training programs would help you grow? How might we lower our environmental impact from food to energy use? What would you like to see throughout the Global Network? Read more
Contributed by Brianda Hickey
For the month of November I will be viviendo a zero waste life and gracing your computer screens with my witty humor each week.
Living zero waste comes with a lot of perks: people think you are super cool, you feel like a superhero saving the world and you discover new resources! I am a huge advocate for knowing your resources. Even with all the incredible self-esteem perks living zero waste brings, it is still a pain in my bum. To be completely honest. I have to constantly remember to carry around a reusable bag, pair of utensils, cup, straw and turn down Starbucks bagels! For me, the Starbucks bagels might be the worst part. They are $1.50 of buttery goodness that wrapped in a plastic bag and given to me with a plastic knife with a butter wrapped in foil. Read more
Halloween is a holiday dedicated to ca pumpkins and candy comas, but what happens to all the squash and sugar on November 1st? Over 1 billion pounds of pumpkin are produced during the Halloween season, the vast majority end up rotting in the landfill. And the sweet stuff? Americans buy 600 million pounds of candy a year with that hard-to-recycle wrapper.
I know I want to reduce my waste for Zero Waste Month, and if you do too you might want to take a tip or two from what I scoured on the waste-free web.
Graphic by Katherine Facchini
