It’s Earth Day. Here’s How to Make Less Trash.
It’s Earth Day. Here’s How to Make Less Trash.
If you stacked the paper that used to be printed by Haas School of Business, it would be two Campaniles, pictured here.CreditCreditBen Margot/Associated Press
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Danner Doud-Martin is not a climate change expert or a scientist. But she’s the person I wanted to talk to for Earth Day.
Ms. Doud-Martin works for U.C. Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, where she recently led a successful effort to make the school’s Chou Hall the “greenest academic building in the country.”
This year it was certified as TRUE Platinum Zero Waste, meaning the building sends almost nothing to the landfill. Like, ever.
“We encourage a ‘pack in, pack out’ mentality, like going into a forest,” Ms. Doud-Martin told me.
The building, which opened in 2017, has places to dispose of compostable material and to recycle, but as the economy behind recycling starts to collapse, environmental advocates are trying to encourage people to produce less waste to begin with. (See: efforts to ban plastic straws.)
Ms. Doud-Martin said that initially, it was tough to persuade harried students and overworked educators to get onboard.
“There were a lot of questions of: Does it matter if I put my trash in the solar bellies right outside,” she said. “What I’ve been telling people is, ‘It’s so you have to think about it.’”
For the most part, she said, they’ve come around.
Still, getting a whole building down to “zero waste” isn’t so simple.
There’s a cafe where students, teachers and staff pick up lunch, often to eat at their desks. That’s been tricky, too, she said.
Right now, customers are encouraged to bring their own containers. Snacks are sold in bulk rather than plastic-intensive packaging and there are no beverages in single-use bottles.
About Debojyoti Roy
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