D ATE LINE AND O VER
Trash at Andover: Reduced, Reused, Recycled!
Wrapping up a year of tremendous progress, the Sustainability Steering Committee (SSC) turned to trash this spring. Reducing it, that is. A sampling of the year’s accomplishments includes reducing “ort” (food scraps left after a meal) by 100 pounds per day, going “trayless” in Paresky Commons, planting an organic blueberry garden, and composting all organic waste from Paresky. Our trash volume in April was down 25 tons—25 tons!—from an average of the three previous Aprils. Plus, Commencement and Reunion Weekend are becoming “no-trash” events, with compost and recycling bins outnumbering trash cans this year. Other events will be added to the list. PA’s traditional Spring Bazaar added a giant yard “sale” on Green MoveOut Weekend in May, with the collection of unwanted items from dorms and faculty housing. Everything from books to bikes to backpacks, shoes to school supplies, lamps to lingerie, fans to furniture, and jeans to jackets were available—free for the taking. Much also was donated: backpacks to Lawrence schools, test prep books to students in Vietnam, jeans to West Africa, bath supplies to a homeless shelter, bikes to Bikes Not Bombs, just to name a few. “The trash volume was dramatically reduced by year’s end by the decision to disallow anything reusable, recyclable, or hazardous going into dumpsters,” says Sustainability Coordinator Trish Russell. “The kids and the faculty responded—big!” All tolled, June’s trash amounted to roughly 50 tons, down 28 percent from 69.5 tons in June 2008. And this is just the beginning. Overall, Russell says, the major accomplishment was taking the residential recycling program from a strong extracurricular interest in the environment to making sustainability an expected part of leadership and dorm living at Andover. 4
Andover | Fall 2009