BTS: Project Zero Waste 2019
For UW Campus Compost’s 5th birthday this Fall term, we hosted our first ever zero-waste convention event on Oct 25th, named Project Zero Waste! We’ve come a long way since our first compost cow drum in 2014, as we have continuously been providing compost services to faculty staff/student spaces, and events. Each year, we try to make an impact to transform UW into a zero-waste campus through advocacy and educational initiatives. During Project Zero Waste, we held a carnival by partnering with sustainability organizations (Region of Waterloo, Sustainable Campus Initiative and UW Animal Rights Society to name a few), speaker session with UW Sustainability Office, DIY workshops (including the Ecology Lab) and sessions, documentary screening and a ton of raffle prizes. Since it was Waste Reduction Week in Canada and Friday was focused on a food waste theme, everything was revolved around zero-waste education, even in our planning and execution of the event!
How did we manage to plan and execute an event with this zero-waste goal in mind? BEHIND THE SCENES STORY TIME. (Scroll to the end for our feedback survey)
1. FOOD
One of the areas that usually generate the most waste in events is for the food, including packaging, transportation and distribution. We partnered with Seven Shores, who were incredibly accommodating, and we provided reusable containers to hold and transport all the sandwiches, fruit, wraps and etc. In hopes of eliminating waste from plates and cutlery when serving, we did our best to advertise the event as a Bring Your Own Container (BYOC)/Mug (BYOM) event. Even for the coffee, ES Coffee Shop generously lent coffee mugs and the milk/sugar were in thermoses and jars.
Although we aimed to reduce as much waste as possible, we did have some waste that resulted:
2. WORKSHOPS
Some cool facts:
- During the documentary film screening of “Just Eat it: A Food Waste Story”, the snacks were actually from Bulk Barn (side note: 10% student discounts on Wed) and were collected with our own containers! The soap nuts and cloth bags from the DIY laundry/cleaning/bathroom session were from Bulk Barn too.
- The stuff from the Stuff Swap and the t-shirts from the DIY tote bags were collected from Sustainable Campus Initiative’s (SCI) Second-Hand Clothing Sale.
-Raffle prizes (sustainable coffee mugs, cutlery, etc. were from W Store, gift cards were electronic, and succulents were from local nursery)
- The worms in the vermi-composting workshop were generously provided by a Waterloo local.
3. ADVERTISING
Have you noticed our posters around campus? They were actually printed on GOOS (good on one side) paper! Reusing things is a great way to make use of something for longer. We used TV advertisements as an alternative to paper posters as well.
BYOC was a main theme for our event, especially for the food and the DIY toothpaste/deodorant workshop, as we didn’t want leftover containers and supplies. THANK YOU to those who brought their own!
CONGRATS ON MAKING IT TO THE END OF OUR RECAP!
We had an amazing time listening to everyone’s unique zero-waste journey and hopefully this has inspired you to be more mindful and aware of your consumption habits. Thank you again to everyone who were able to make it to our event, if you have a couple of minutes, we’d really appreciate your feedback on what you liked and how we can improve for potentially ANOTHER zero-waste event next year. (: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdQ0apmnpntrIhigNW0ihte4mI1BgBT33JNikf94gwA9812NQ/viewform
Written By: Erica Leung
Pictures By: Maggie Nguyen and Redmond Naval
