On average,
each American generates approximately 4 1/2 pounds of garbage
every day, 32 pounds of garbage a week, or 1,664 pounds of garbage
a year. Calculate this amount multiplied by the number of students,
faculty, and staff and you can almost imagine the mountains
of garbage generated by your college campus alone. But this
is only part of the picture. Each waste item is the end of a
lifecycle of a product, for which natural resources were extracted,
energy and water used, and pollution generated. From this view,
waste becomes a measure of our inefficiency.
A college
campus is like a small community with several "businesses"
including offices, libraries, laboratories, print shops, food
services, transportation services, construction, building maintenance,
energy services, grounds keeping and landscaping. Unlike a typical
community, these varied businesses operate under a central administration.
This creates an opportunity to use waste as a measure of efficiency,
employ total cost accounting, and observe the results of combined
waste reduction efforts on overall operating costs for the campus.
Everyone benefits.
Most importantly,
colleges and universities are places of higher learning. Students
can apply the skills of researching, assessing, evaluating,
budgeting, developing, implementing and evaluating programs
to real efforts in waste reduction, energy savings, recycling,
and conservation for their campus. Students are likely to take
these skills with them to their future careers and communities
- thereby cultivating the seeds of a sustainable culture.
This
web site was developed with a grant from the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency and is supported by the University of Missouri
outreach and Extension, Outreach Development Fund. University
Outreach and Extension does not discriminate on the basis of race,
color, national origin, sex, religion, age, disability or status
as a Vietnam-era veteran in employment or programs.
