Sustainability Working Group builds “Mount Trashmore” to display campus waste
Correction appended
How much trash does Northwestern generate in six hours?
Enough to build a small mountain on the lawn outside of Lunt Hall.
To spark environmental awareness on campus, the Sustainability Working Group constructed “Mount Trashmore” out of six hours of Northwestern’s trash on Wednesday to display just how wasteful the campus can be.
Facilities Management, Engineers for a Sustainable World, Environmental Campus Outreach at Hillel and the Sustainability Group worked together with SEED (Students for Ecological and Environmental Development). Engineers for a Sustainable World built the frame to support Mt. Trashmore using wood and chicken wire, while Facilities Management collected trash from primarily academic buildings.
“It’s nice to have a real visual,” SEED co-chair Sam Eckland said. “It kind of gives people an idea where the trash goes. Obviously not usually in a pile in front of Lunt Hall.”
“Mount Trashmore,” constructed for the first time on Earth Day last year, stood 7 percent smaller this year, according to Eckland, meaning Northwestern had reduced its waste.
It may have been smaller, but it was smellier. One goal, Eckland said, was to make the trash a little, well, trashier, compared to last year’s pile, which consisted of mostly office waste like paper.
“If you’re standing downwind of it, you got a whiff of it,” the Weinberg junior said. There was “a colorful array within those translucent bags.”
In addition to promoting awareness about waste, SEED also used Mount Trashmore and Earth Day as a way to launch their campus sustainability pledge. The pledge, Eckland said, focuses on three main goals for Northwestern: a full-time sustainability coordinator, an assessment of environmental impacts and the creation of a climate-action plan.
Eckland said more than 400 students signed pledges (on the most environmentally-friendly paper possible). SEED’s goal is 2,000. Students can pledge to do simple things, like shutting down their computers at night or printing on double-sided sheets of paper.
Next to Mount Trashmore, free water bottles were also given away, courtesy of the university.
“The flow of traffic on Sheridan Rd. was interrupted a bit,” Eckland said. “It’s definitely a conversation starter. I feel like the campus knew it was Earth Day, and that’s what we were aiming for.”
Updated: 4/23 8:29 p.m: The original version of this article stated that SEED was responsible for Mount Trashmore. It was actually the collective effort of the member groups of the Sustainability Working Group. Thanks to commenter Elisa Redish for the correction. North by Northwestern regrets this error.
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Yeah except the “mountain” was mostly a wooden 2-level structure with trash bags only covering the exterior.
sham WOW
April 23, 2009 at 1:09 am
I’m Elisa Redish, and I, along with Sam, am one of the two new co-chairs of SEED. I am also a member of ECO. I just wanted to put a correction out there – SEED did not build Mt Trashmore alone. In fact, ESW is the group that physically built Mt Trashmore. Mt Trashmore is actually the creation of the Sustainability Working Group, which is made up of representatives from SEED, ECO, ESW, Facilities Management, ISEN, the library, residential life, norris bookstore, and many many other staff and faculty.
Mt Trashmore was a collaborative effort, and while SEED played a significant role in the planning process, it was no larger of a role than any other group had. We are proud of the work we and our colleagues did to make Mt Trashmore a success.
Elisa Redish
April 23, 2009 at 9:09 am
Though it was built around a frame, the volume of the pile was indeed the volume of the trash that’s created on campus every 6 hours. It’s not really significant that they didn’t ask the custodial staff to bring even more of the campus’ trash.
And yeah, it’s a shame NU Recycling, ESW, ECO, and others were left out of this piece. I mean, ESW actually built the thing and made the chalk stencils, and you can clearly see ECO’s cartridge recycling bin and Sam Schiller (of ECO) playing the drums.
The whole shabang was a lot of fun when I stopped by, it’s too bad NBN wasn’t more on top of this to convey what an awesome deal it was.
Benjamin
April 23, 2009 at 1:23 pm
I’m not saying this wasn’t a good thing…but it seems a bit incongruous that water bottles were given out on the side. The same water bottles that we’ve all been told are incredibly bad for the environment. Just my two cents…
confused
April 23, 2009 at 8:04 pm
green dude must have been so hot.
c
April 23, 2009 at 8:37 pm