The University of Michigan kicked off its inaugural Zero Waste Week on March 19, garnering support from student organizations and private partnerships across campus. Throughout the week, Environmental organizations on the Diag engaged passing students with free recycled clothing and a DIY screen printing demonstration to highlight creative ways to reduce waste. The event programming also included a zero-waste cooking demonstration at South Quad Residence Hall and a sustainable business summit at the Ross School of Business during the week.
Zero Waste Week is a program of the Ann Arbor-based initiative zerowaste.org, focused on putting zero waste into action. The program was founded at the University by alumni Lydia McMullen and Samuel McMullen in 2016. In an interview with The Michigan Daily, Samuel McMullen explained Zero Waste Week’s waste reduction challenge.
“The challenge is to go zero-waste for a week,” Samuel McMullen said. “So you sign up and you say, ‘I’ll do my best to avoid trash or recycling for this week.’ ”
In an hour of tabling, the group signed up over 300 participants.
Though the initiative has addressed these waste challenges before with City Council, Samuel McMullen said this past month was the first time they conducted Zero Waste Week on campus.
The McMullens enlisted the help of several organizations both on and off campus for the project, including the professional fraternities Epsilon Eta and Theta Alpha Psi, as well as the University’s Student Sustainability Coalition, Impact Investing Group, Frederick and Barbara Erb Institute and Energy Club at the Ross School of Business. Ross’ Environmental Consulting Organization also organized the coalition of organizations for the event.
During the screen printing demonstration, students were invited to bring used clothes to campus and print sustainable messages on them. McMullen spoke on how the event drew crowds by providing fun, sustainability-based activities.
“It’s a way to get people involved in zero waste in practice,” Samuel McMullen said. “And it’s just fun!”
In an interview with The Daily, Param Nayar, ECO’s Zero Waste Week project manager, said he was glad to see people coming together to engage in sustainability.
“We’ve been working on Zero Waste Week since fall semester,” Nayar said. “Something that pleasantly surprised me was just how many people came together, (particularly) in (the Business School) and on the faculty front, how many people deeply care about sustainability, and actually care enough to get something done.”
The ECO club also organized the event’s sustainable business panel. Several Ann Arbor businesses currently working with ECO offered prizes to students competing in the zero-waste challenge, including the People’s Food Co-op, Zingerman’s family of businesses, Common Cycle, Vertex Coffee, Detroit Street Filling Station, Argus Farm Stop and others.
In the spirit of partnership, zerowaste.org solicited sponsorship from the Erb Institute, a U-M office which facilitates dual-degree programs between the Business School and the School for Environment and Sustainability.
In an email to The Daily, Melissa Zaksek, associate director of research at the Erb Institute, wrote they are sponsoring Zero Waste Week in order to help students with their projects concerning sustainability, a pressing topic at the University.
“This year, we’re working with Erb dual-degree students to sponsor (the Business School’s) inaugural Climate Week and are supporting a team of undergraduate students who are examining how UM can address scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions to meet our carbon neutrality goals,” Zaksek wrote.
As the week came to a close, the coalition also hosted a waste justice panel in the Michigan League, a screening of the Emmy-winning documentary “The Story of Plastic” at the University’s Modern Art Museum and an opportunity for participants to receive a “comprehensive waste audit” of their performance during the challenge at Ingalls Mall.
ECO also intends to continue working with the University to conduct its own audits. Nayar said just getting a fraction of students to work with them would greatly benefit the University and its sustainability efforts.
“Our tech team is working to create a map of Ann Arbor, which maps the hotspots of production of CO2,” Nayar said. “If we can get even 10% of Michigan students to be zero-waste, that saves hundreds of thousands of pounds of trash every year from our campus, which has a huge impact. So I think we have an opportunity for real change here, and it’s as simple as one week. That’s all it takes.”
Daily News Contributor June MacDonald can be reached at junemac@umich.edu.