Students looking for a place to dump the cardboard burger trays during Fall Fest encountered teams of volunteers picking through trash and sorting it into bags.Facility Services and student volunteers were able to recycle almost half of the trash generated Friday as part of a campaign to eliminate waste from the festival.The 53 volunteers, many of whom are members of Student Government and the Environmental Conservation Organization, were part of the largely successful efforts to make this year’s Fall Fest zero waste.
At 15 stations around the Quad, volunteers helped festival-goers sort their trash between recycling bins, composting bags and a separate can for potato chip bags.
“This is a perfect event to raise sustainability awareness,” said Shannen Holahan, ECO volunteer. “You never see this many people in the Quad.”
Facility Services and the volunteers said they collected 14 cubic yards of recycling. It was about 43 percent of the total waste — more than two full dumpsters. They collected 5 cubic yards of compost, about 15 percent of the festival’s waste and compiled another 1.5 cubic yards of chip bags. About 37 percent of the total trash, or 12 cubic yards, was non-recyclable.
Cas Smith, SG director of sustainability, said large scale events like Fall Fest don’t usually surpass 30 percent recycling and called the efforts a success.
Smith said he had expected to create more compost, but the first company that was supposed to sell them decomposable composting bags for collecting food and cardboard, did not have the supplies when they were needed.
Smith overnighted the bags from a second company on Wednesday, but they didn’t arrive until about 12:30 p.m. Friday, 30 minutes after the start of Fall Fest.
Smith said it took about 20 minutes to hand out the bags and start collecting compost.
Andres Harris, Facility Services sustainability manager, said the amount of compost could have been tripled if the bags had arrived on time.
Smith said the only trash generated by the festival itself came from plastic forks and knives, Smoothie King cups, plastic straws and the lids from the Dairy Store’s ice cream.
Harris said the festival was understaffed and, without the extra help, much of the waste went into the regular trash cans around the Quad.
“We’re learning in the next year we’ll need more stations and more volunteers telling students what to put where,” Harris said. “We only have to change a few little items — zero waste won’t be hard to achieve at all.”
Harris said Facility Services had to remove trash from the Northern part of the Quad because it had the fewest volunteer stations.
Nancy Little, marketing strategist for University public relations and Fall Fest chair, said she was pleased with the new layout for the festival.
She said the central stage gave more room for Tiger Band to perform and also provided more green space for students.
Little said student movement was streamlined and the lines moved faster because the food stations were positioned in the North part of the Quad.
Little said the success of Domino’s offering a vegetarian meal inspired her to push for more vegetarian plates for next year.
Everett Callihan, education freshman, said he enjoyed his first Fall Fest, though he wanted cooler weather. He said the free food was his favorite part.
Julie Allen, mathematics junior, said she gets free food every year, but the festivals are generally all the same.
Other students said they were there for the stage shows and the gathering of so much of campus in one place.
“I like the atmosphere of it — it brings the whole campus together for a break from normal classes,” said Mychal Williams, political science freshman.
—-Contact Adam Duvernay at [email protected]