Students Tackle Waste on Campus
In the third week of March, things began to look a bit different in the communal gathering areas at Central European University’s Nador Campus. From Monday to Tuesday overnight, a large pile of sorted recyclable waste appeared in the Oktogon area, a main throughway in the heart of the campus. In the laptop study area, dozens of plastic bottles were strung from the ceiling. The daily hike to the 10th floor café became much more lively, as each of the normally bare windows was decorated with an informative message related to waste production and bottled water usage. These alterations to the normal daily campus aesthetic did not appear on their own, but were rather a large part of the engagement strategy developed by students working on the 2013 WasteFEST environmental activism campaign.
WasteFEST 2013 was the culmination of a few months of efforts put in by Environmental Sciences and Policy Department students as part of Professor Tamara Steger’s Environmental Politics: Communications and Activism course, working in cooperation with students active in the CEU Sustainable Campus Initiative environmental activism group. Professor Steger’s course focused on the ethical, environmental, and social issues surrounding bottled water usage and the Sustainable Campus Initiative identified waste production as a major issue on campus after completing a comprehensive study of University waste generation and collection procedures. The event was supported by the Environmental Sciences and Policy Department, the Student Senate, and the Campus Redevelopment Office.
WasteFEST was designed as a medium for expressing the issues that were discussed during the Environmental Politics course and uncovered during the SCI’s waste analysis; mainly that each plastic bottle of water represents much more than its monetary cost, and that within a University setting there is great possibility to reduce and manage waste efficiently. Research within the ENV Politics course identified the importance of campus policy in influencing consumption patterns and waste production. The SCI campaign aimed at informing the University that they could “Live Better Without Waste.” To engage the campus community regarding these issues, March 19th and 20th were dedicated to installing and carrying out interactive and informative displays in high traffic areas on the CEU campus.
The focus point of WasteFEST became the waste pile built in the middle of the Oktogon, near the main campus entrance. It represented a day’s worth of potentially recyclable waste that was generated at the Nador Campus. Students in collaboration with the University cleaning staff collected and sorted one day’s worth of waste and then built the display from this to inform the community not only of the tangible amount of waste produced each day, but also of the importance of efficient disposal.
The CEU community was also asked to make visible, personal commitments to reducing waste in their lives by participating in the pledge photo activity. Over 100 individuals wrote and were photographed with their own environmentally minded pledges, which will be assembled in an online gallery and used later in an art installation. Additional outreach tables sought to pass on information about the perils of a plastic reliant society, the true costs of bottled water, taste and health comparisons of bottled vs. tap water, full life cycles of products, and how to reduce waste when food shopping.
The visual impact that WasteFEST 2013 was hard to miss, as a daily stroll into campus was completely altered by the interactive installations. Those involved with WasteFEST hope that the initial impacts of the event are sustained long term by resulting in campus wide behavioral change, and the continuous integration of sustainability commitments within University policy.
Please watch the WasteFEST 2013 video here.