Promotion of Proper Waste Sorting and Single-use Waste Reduction in a Bay Area School Through Collaborative Campaigns and Educational Media

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Emily L. Phoebe M. Floyd Neesen. Talya S.

Summary

For our service project, we aim to improve students’ waste-sorting and disposal behaviors on a high school campus. The overwhelming amount of trash littered on school grounds has caused frustration for staff and students alike, including ourselves. We designed posters with reminders for students to dispose of their trash and created waste-sorting guidelines that displayed images of school-specific food packaging. Additionally, we created an Instagram account, “@bayareascrapp” (Bay Area Sustainability Campaign to Raise Awareness of Plastic Pollution), where we post engaging short-form videos and infographics about proper waste sorting and the effects of plastic waste contamination. These posts feature the perspectives of staff and students. We are also working with an assistant principal to ensure that the new cafeteria, which is currently under construction, is built to support a sustainable brunch and lunch system. We sent a before-survey to school staff and will measure our initiative’s effectiveness by sending an after-survey. These surveys provide qualitative and quantitative data regarding staff feelings, opinions, and ideas about solutions to the trash problem on campus. Additionally, to record a visual difference, we will take photos before our project implementation and again a few months after commencement.