Waste Audit Report (Allie, Catherine, Meghan)

“Knowing exactly what you waste is important, as is measuring consumer demand” (Bloom, 247). The process of disposing of an item, whether it is recyclable, compostable or only permitted in a landfill, is a very simple process because all one has to do is put it in the proper bin. Since this process is so basic, one would think that everyone would be aware of exactly what they are wasting on a daily basis. Unfortunately, we found out through the process of this waste audit that people are most definitely not aware of the amount of items they are wasting of everyday. After looking through giant bags that were exploding with used paper towels, two things occurred to our group; we are wasting not only a huge amount of paper towels, but in fact a huge amount of paper towels that could be composted.

            It was difficult to come to a conclusion like this just based on the data that was compiled in the waste audit. Only 3 bags had record of specifically having 12.8%, 14.6% and 37.5% of paper towels in the trash bags. That means that paper towels made up less than half of the amount that was being composted from the total waste of that day. Our own personal experiences with going through the trash is what allowed each of us to know that this data, while accurate, does not sum up all of the paper towels that were included in the data. We went through at least 10-15 bags that were mostly paper towels with a few more toiletry items because these bags were from the bathrooms. In the end, all of these paper towels couldn’t be composted because they were “contaminated” from the other few items that were in the bathroom trash.

            With our infographic, the DU community can be educated about the proper method of disposing the paper towels in the bathroom. By explaining what it means for an item to become “contaminated,” people can stop contaminating non-contaminated paper towels and they can finally be composted of properly and effectively. To make this problem more visible and eye opening to the students, we added the fact from 1800recycling.com that states “40% of U.S. landfills trash is paper products.” This huge number will catch their attention and help them connect the dots to realize that many of these paper products are paper towels that could potentially be composted, or in some cases recycled. If this infographic was displayed in all of the DU bathrooms, I truly believe that people would start to think twice about the number of paper towels they use and where they dispose of it after they have used it.

            The DU community can start to reduce our amount of waste by simply beginning to compost all of our uncontaminated paper towels. For this to happen, we need to take initiative and get composting bins in all of our bathrooms, along with instituting education in the form of our infographic to prevent contamination. To relate back to Bloom’s quote, we need to our students to “know exactly what [we] are wasting.” This is made possible with the information our infographic provides that will draw students in to want to make a difference and start composting paper towels.

Work Cited:

Bloom, Jonathan.  American Wasteland. Cambridge: Da Capo Press. 2010. Print.