The Disposable Problem: Reducing Waste in College Serveries

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The Disposable Problem Reducing Waste in College
Serveries
ENST 302 April 25, 2006 Matthew Dugger, Ryan
Goodland, and Leslie Guevara
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1. Scope of the problem nationally and
locally 2. Our Focus Disposable plastic cups at
Rice University 3. Methodology Counting and
moving cups 4. Results 5. Lessons learned 6.
Possible alternative solutionsand problems with
those solutions 7. Recommendations for future
projects
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Scope of the Problem

• Americans collectively threw away 1.7 million
  tons of paper and Styrofoam cups and plates in
  2003.
• Texans generate an average of one ton of solid
  municipal waste per year.
• Rice University spends thousands per month on
  disposable materials for the serveries.

Sources Environmental Protection Agency,
Kingwood Green Info, SA Environmental Committee
chair
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Disposable Plastic Cups at Rice University

• Casual observation of student habits
• Substantial economic and environmental costs of
  disposable plastic cups
• Generally wasteful

Plastic cups easily accessible at Brown College
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Life-cycle of disposable plastic cups
Oil extraction Manufacturing
Transportation Landfill

• Environmental and economic effects
• Use of non-renewable resource (oil)
• Pollution from manufacturing and transportation
• Non-degradable product ultimately ends up in a
  landfill
• All of this costs money

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Hypotheses
1. Students have preference for disposable cups
2. Accessibility of disposable cups encourages
students to use them 3. Migration of permanent
cups from serveries to colleges forces students
to use disposable cups 4. Students unaware of
costs of using disposable cups 5. Students are
leaving serveries for appointments and need to
take plastic cups
Goal

• To reduce the amount of disposable cups used in
  the college serveries
• Settled on hypotheses 2 and 4

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Methodology

• Measure student habits in north servery
• Move disposable cups to central location in
  servery (near the cereal)
• Advertise move to preempt any student backlash
  and educate students about costs
• Measure student habits after changes

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Results from control week

• Students using more disposable than ceramic cups
• No strong correlation between use disposable
  cups and paper plates

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Expected Results of Experiment

• Use of disposable cups would decrease
• Distance from soda fountain would encourage
  students to use ceramic cups instead of
  disposable cups
• At very least, results from experiment would
  confirm which of our multiple hypotheses was
  supported

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Measurments during experimentor lack thereof

• Students were taking ceramic cups rather than
  disposable cups
• Colleges consistently ran out of ceramic cups
  during our experiment
• By end of week, entire ceramic cup supply used
  by students twenty minutes after servery opened
• Once ceramics were gone, students forced to use
  plastic cups
• 125 ceramic cups migrated away from servery in
  just four days
• Impossible to compare to control week results,
  until...

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Friday, April 21, when servery makes available
more ceramic cups
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Lessons learned

• Students dont need disposable cups because they
  are leaving the servery for appointments
• Students dont have a preference for disposable
  cups
• Students like to take cups outside the servery

Questions raised

• Why do students take cups outside the serveries?
  
• Where do those cups go?
• Whats the best way to discourage students from
  taking permanent cups outside the servery?

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Possible solutions...

• Buy biodegradable disposable cups
• Issue fines to students who take disposable cups
  out of serveries
• Create team to collect ceramic cups from student
  rooms
• Create cart collection system to collect ceramic
  cups
• Give students a permanent cup during O-Week

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and why they probably wont work

• Biodegradable cups are more expensive,
  serveries must buy earth tubs to dispose of cups,
  and problem still exists of students bringing
  cups down from rooms
• Fines may encourage students to hide, throw away
  or destroy ceramic cups
• Team to collect ceramic cups requires student
  energy, may not stay in place over a long period,
  and doesnt deal with root problem of cups
  leaving servery
• HD staff busy as it is cost of time spent on
  extra duties may be greater than cost of cups
  cart collection system might draw insects or
  vermin
• Feasibility issues with assigned cup system

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Recommendations for future projects

• Survey students on why they take cups outside
  the serveries
• Think creatively about survey results before
  devising a plan to deal with this problem
• Create an advertising campaign discouraging
  students from taking cups outside the serveries
• Station someone at the door of the serveries to
  monitor whether students are taking cups outside

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Questions?