The Zero Waste Initiative: saving the world one less landfill at a time

Currently, the average American throws away about 4.5 pounds of trash each day. To put this in perspective, as a country, we could fill 63,000 garbage trucks with trash produced in one day. This sets us in the position of one of the top waste producers in the entire world! Not exactly something to brag about.

Retrieved from Ecocycle.com

You may ask, what's the big deal with trash? Well, the problem boils down to one simple fact: we do not have enough non-renewable resources to continually supply the energy and materials needed to completely reproduce the products thrown away. In fact, if every country consumed resources at the same rate as us, we would need 5 planets just to keep up.

This is why it is imperative that society makes a switch to zero waste. Here at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, we have already taken measures to follow the "Zero Waste Initiative" by recycling, composting, and simply reducing the amount of waste we produce. The "Zero Waste Initiative" is a philosophy that encourages the re-use of products in order to reduce the amount of trash sent to landfills and ultimately conserve resources.

This past weekend at Rensselaer's 2017 Commencement, NO trash was disposed of to be sent to landfills. Instead, recycling and compost cans were scattered around the event to collect any disposable items. Sodexo has also ensured that recycling bins can be found in all dining halls around campus and retail cafés on campus even recycle coffee grounds!

While all this is really awesome, especially on a college campus, we can't do it without you. All it takes is a group of empowered students to really make a change on campus. So next time you see a compost bin or recycling bin, make you sure you take advantage of it and help dimish the amount of trash we throw away here at Rensselaer.