Trash & (Zero) Waste in a Disposable World

Jake Ruttenberg, Greta Zableckas, Ryan Rogers: Our Waste Audit Report

            Participating in the trash audit and creating our infographic has taught us that The University of Denver has great potential to recycle and compost. Unfortunately though, many students and faculty members of DU are uneducated about the topic. As Orr quoted Wiesel in his book Earth In Mind, the problem with education is that “[i]t emphasizes theories instead of values, concepts rather than human beings, abstraction rather than consciousness, answers instead of questions, ideology and efficiency rather than conscience” (8). With hands-on activities like our trash audit, we believe we can educate DU in the proper manner.

            Our infographic is based off of the information we gathered as a class through our trash audit. From October 8 to 11, we physically took apart 57 bags of trash and recycling taken from Johnson-MacFarlane Halls, Nagel and Nelson, and outside trash and recycling bins. On average, each trash bag consisted of 21% recyclable material, 40% compostable material, and 39% trash. Unfortunately though, nearly all the recycling and compost is either thrown away in the trash or contaminated by it. These numbers are proof that, with proper education, a large percentage of what is thrown away can be reused instead of being sent to the landfill.

            As the majority of students and faculty at DU and uneducated about the topics of trash, recycling and compost, they are our intended audience with this infographic. We created four pie charts, all of which are split into thirds (trash, recycling, compost), posted against a background of each of the four sites we collected our data from. Each third is a weight in kilograms converted to a percent of the total weight. Lastly, we have one final pie chart consistent of all of our information displayed in a similar manner.

            On average, Johnson-MacFarlane Halls and Nagel and Nelson recycle, compost and throw away roughly the same amount of trash as a percentage. However, The average weight of a trash bag from Nagel and Nelson is roughly 13 times heavier than that of Johnson-MacFarlane.

            In regards to outside trash and recycling bins, the trash bins consist of only 50% trash and the recycling bins consist of only 50% recycling. Similarly to the majority of the bags we investigated, that 50% recycling has all gone to waste though because it has been contaminated.

            DU has a potential to recycle and compost 61% of its trash and send only 39% to the landfill. Without the education that Orr speaks of though, our efforts continue to be in vain.