Trash Reduction on Eckerd's Campus

 TRASH REDUCTION at EC

Reducing Campus-Wide Trash Accumulation at Eckerd College

Erin Batze, Haleigh Rogers, Zach Pfiel, Kathryn Nugent


Our group wanted to focus our project on campus in order to create a healthier and happier environment not only for ourselves but also for future students. We all have noticed that there has been an excessive amount of trash around campus, specifically around the Cafe, Starbucks, the Pub, and Nu/Kappa. We concluded that this excess is a result of improper knowledge about trash disposal and the lack of facilities to properly dispose of trash. In response to this issue, we decided to try to decrease Eckerd’s community contribution of trash across campus. In order to achieve this goal, we decided to inform the community about average college students and their campus' trash accumulation. As well as informing the community about specific locations on campus that have an excess amount of trash accumulation on a regular basis and solutions on how to reduce it.


We started our project by creating an infographic about our topic and why it was so important to both us and for the school. We then created a pledge which we got people to sign via QR code and Google Form. The questions we included on the form were; Simple demographic questions, Where do you notice trash the most on campus?, Why do you think it is so important to limit excess trash on campus?, Do you pledge to do your part to reduce excess trash on campus?


Our goals for the project were to get twenty pledges and to increase the number of recycling and composting bins around campus. We were successful in reaching our pledge goal because we got a total of 53 pledges. However, we were not able to reach our goal of increasing the number of recycling and composting bins as of now. 

The project itself related back to three main course concepts. The first of which was an advocacy campaign. An advocacy campaign is using a certain message to influence an audience towards doing something (Pezullo and Cox, 2018). In this case, we were trying to influence the Eckerd community to create less waste and dispose of the waste that they do have properly. The second course concept was proximity. Proximity is important because the issue we are trying to address is caused by and affects a relatively small group of people (Pezullo and Cox, 2018). If those people want to see a change then they are the ones who are responsible for helping make the change. The third course concept was terministic screens. Terministic screens were used when wording our questions in a specific way so that our audience would see the problem in the way we intended them to (Pezullo and Cox, 2018).

Overall, we got off to a good start in attempting to accomplish our goals of educating people reducing trash on campus. By continuing to spread awareness and get people on board about the mission, it will surely have a lasting impact. We believe if we were able to work on this campaign for a longer period of time and have donors backing us, we would be able to see a very drastic impact in the amount of waste students dispose of properly. 



Works Cited
    
    Pezzullo, P. C., & Cox, J. R. (2018). Environmental Communication and the Public Sphere.




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