On Thursday December 10th, forty members of the Tufts community gathered virtually to watch the Green Fund finalists pitch their project ideas. After the event, the committee deliberated and the following three projects were awarded funding:
Medford/Somerville Campus:
FlowGreen at Tufts, presented by Mia Nixon: FlowGreen uses QR code and landing page technology to make up-to-date recycling information and options readily accessible for Tufts community members, encouraging both a greener campus and a community committed to Zero Waste. This project will help people make informed decisions on what to recycle, and all recycling bins on campus will be outfitted with visible QR codes which are directly linked to local recycling guidelines. These FlowGreen stickers will promote engagement around proper recycling and help minimize the waste created by traditional flyers and pamphlets.
Tufts Hydroponics Collaboration, presented by Kevin Cody & René LaPointe Jameson: This collaborative project will fund the initial operation and implementation of hydroponics equipment recently gifted to New Entry Sustainable Farming Project creating research and experiential learning opportunities for Tufts students, as well as community engagement opportunities with an innovative agricultural technical school and grassroots non-profit organization. This project will establish a collaboration with Building Audacity of Lynn, MA and Essex North Shore Agricultural & Technical School to design, build, and operate commercial hydroponics equipment to achieve three primary objectives:
Develop a hydroponics farm-to-school pipeline. This will be done with Essex Tech where they will build and operate a portion of the hydroponics equipment in an already existing greenhouse on their campus in Danvers, MA with the produce going primarily to the school cafeteria.
Support food access efforts already underway with Building Audacity, a nonprofit that will build and operate a portion of the hydroponics equipment at a facility in Lynn to serve low-income communities of color.
Integrate the Tufts community in ways that will support the development of an online training course in hydroponic farming, create opportunities for workshops in adult education that serve Tufts/New Entry participants and integrate students and courses from Environmental Engineering, The Friedman School, Urban Environmental Planning, Environmental Studies/Biology, and the Department of Education.
This project was awarded funding totaling $21,319.65.
Disposable Mask Recycling,presented by Juliette Nye: This project will establish recycling boxes for disposable masks at the Grafton Campus. These boxes will be situated in the Jean Mayer Administrative Building on the Grafton Campus where students, faculty, and staff are administered their COVID-19 tests. Community members will be able to recycle their masks as opposed to throwing them in the trash, reducing waste. PPE waste can also harm wildlife through ingestion and entanglement.
A job opportunity for students and recent grads. Are you interested in building a just and sustainable food system? With all that is going on in the world have you been wondering how you can be more involved in creating a food system world in which everyone can thrive? If so, Real Food Challenge has an opportunity for you.
This is a one-of-a-kind opportunity for a student or recent graduate who will be bridging food sovereignty, racial equity, and climate justice with institutional values-based food procurement.
What does recycling have to do with environmental justice? Turns out, a lot! This month, we decided to explore the intersections between recycling and waste, environmental racism, and justice. Read on to find out what we learned.
Part 1: Landfills and Plastic Production Plants
How are recycling and waste connected to environmental justice? Part 1: Landfills and Plastic Production Plants
When we throw something in the trash, it goes to a landfill or incinerator.
Landfills release methane, the most potent greenhouse gas contributing to climate change.
Unlike landfills, waste-to-energy incinerators burn the waste for energy, thereby reducing emissions.
Similar to landfills, however, incinerators still have negative impacts on the environment and human health.
Landfills and incinerators are disproportionately located in low income and BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) communities, and have negative public health impacts on these communities.
Plastic Production Plants: Plastic production plants are petrochemical facilities that use fossil fuels and emit toxic chemicals into the air, soil, and water.
Both surrounding residents and workers at these plants are at high risk of contracting respiratory disease, cancer, or other illness.
Like landfills and incinerators, plastic production plants are disproportionately located in low-income and BIPOC communities.
Waste reduction and recycling are forms of environmental justice.
Reduce the amount of waste we send to landfills and incinerators by making smart purchasing decisions that avoid trash items, and even better: refuse to buy into the waste system all together and say no to plastic.
Part 2: Recycling Workers
How are recycling and waste connected to environmental justice? Part 2: Recycling Workers
Recycling is a glamorous topic in the world of sustainability, but we don’t often think about the dirty underbelly. When we throw something away, it doesn’t just go “poof” and disappear. It goes somewhere, and from landfills to sorting facilities, there is someone on the other end of our waste!
When contaminants end up in the recycling bin, they can get caught in the machinery at the sorting facility, shutting it down, costing money, and posing a safety hazard to the workers who sort them out at the conveyer belt. Such contaminants include wires, hoses, and any soft plastics such as grocery bags.
Additionally, placing sharp items into the recycling bin can pose a hazard to custodial staff, who are not expecting it when handling the bags.
What does this mean for us? For the safety of our recycling and waste workers, who are often members of the communities that we advocate for, avoid contaminating the recycling stream. Know your local recycling rules, and when in doubt about whether something can be recycled, throw it out!
Part 3: Where does Trash from Tufts Go?
Part 3: Where does Trash from Tufts go?
Proximity to waste facilities increases the vulnerability of communities. We decided to learn more about the people and places near where trash from Tufts goes.
The majority of Tufts’ trash goes to the Covanta Haverfill Facility, a waste-to-energy facility.
Waste-to-energy facilities burn waste for energy and are preferable to landfills. Covanta Haverfull is committed to sustainable waste management.
Still, the incineration process pollutes nearby communities with toxins that diminish health.
In the area surrounding the facility: 44% of residents identify as a racial minority 34% of residents are low-income 17% of adults have less than a high school education 17% of households are linguistically isolated
Reducing waste and choosing to recycle your recyclable items lessens the impact Tufts has on these communities.
What will you do to reduce waste, starting today?
Part 4: Massachusetts Landfills and their Communities
Recycling and Environmental Justice Part 4: Massachusetts Landfills and their communities
Graphic depicts the locations of active landfills in Massachusetts, Environmental Justice communities in Massachusetts, and the geographical relation between the two.Graphic depicts a close-up of the destinations of Tufts’ trash and their relation to Environmental Justice communities. As defined by MassGIS, EJ communities meet one or all of the following conditions: -Greater than 25% minority population (M) -Median income less than or equal to 65% of state median income (I) -greater than 25% of the population is English-isolated, meaning no person over the age of 14 speaks English “very well” in a household (E)
When students move out of college campuses, they discard items they do not need or want anymore, most of them in good reusable condition. To prevent tons (literally- Tons!) of salvageable waste from ending up in landfills and incinerators, the Office of Sustainability (OOS) facilitates a campus reuse economy through our Trash to Treasures program.
This includes collecting donations during Move Out in the spring and giving them back to students during fall Move-In through our Back to School Sale. To make this happen, we collaborate with a range of campus partners, including Facilities, the Office of Residential Life and Learning, and the FIRST Resource Center.
“Closing the
Loop” (also sometimes called “Cradle to Cradle”) is the idea of moving from a
linear production system to a circular system. In the traditional linear economy,
products are made, used, and then disposed of— often in landfills, which can be
harmful sources of pollution to their local environments and communities.
Products are born, and when they are disposed of, they “die” (“Cradle to
Grave”). In a circular system, items are reused or transformed to be reborn
again. So, rather than moving in a line from creation straight to a landfill,
products complete a full circle of being made, used, and then used or remade
again.
Collecting Move Out donations
In the midst of the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the move-out program went a little differently this year. Despite challenges, it was a success! Read more about 2020’s March Move-out madness and our impromptu May Move Out Day here.
Gearing up for the Back to School Sale
At the end
of the spring semester and our May Move Out Day, we were eager to enjoy the
summer outdoors. But alas, treasure calls! After a few months to decompress, in
August we kicked back into gear to organize the sale.
As the
pandemic raged on, the first step was to develop protocol for how to safely
plan and run the sale. We contacted covid19@tufts.edu, the one-stop-shop for questions
about COVID and Tufts, to develop guidelines for if and how we could safely run
the sale.
Once we had
our protocol, we hired on-call student recycling workers to help prepare the
sale. This included 9 student recycling workers, who worked a total of 92 hours
over 10 shifts that spanned a week-long period. Though the donations had been
sitting in storage untouched for most of the summer (so that any virus would
have died), we provided student recycling workers with access to a range of PPE
items, including gloves, aprons, goggles, and tongs. In addition to wearing
masks as required, most workers also opted to wear gloves. Hand sanitizer was
also made available.
The first thing we did as a team was sort all of the donations we’d collected. We had already initiated a rough sorting system at the end of Move Out when we counted and weighed the donation items to gather data on each donation category. Now, however, it was time to be a little more thoughtful. We sharpened the categories into sub-categories, turning broad categories such as kitchenware and toiletries into sub-categories such as keurigs and pots, or feminine hygiene products and shower caddies. In doing so, we identified items that were either broken or of such poor quality that they were not salvageable and discarded of them.
The home decor section of our sale
As we cleaned, sorted, and even laundered items (thanks to Event and Conference Services for lending us their van!), we began to think strategically about which categories should go where. Our space was the second floor of 550 Boston Ave, where there are a few different rooms—some were small and office-sized and some were large and open. Together we created a map and began setting everything up in its spot. The student recycling workers were a great help for this—some even had retail experience and were able to creatively arrange our items for a polished store appearance.
For photos of this year’s sale, view our Flickr album.
Running the Sale
While preparing donations, we made a plan and timeline for the sale. Scheduling was tricky. Due to COVID, students were arriving to campus in waves: one wave for out-of-region students, and then another wave for in-region students two weeks later, after out-of-region students had been tested and were out of quarantine. We decided to open in two waves based on the move-in and quarantine schedule. Similar to 2019, we opened up the sale exclusively for FIRST Resource Center students first and gave almost everything away. Only on the last day of the last wave did we price items more expansively and open up for the rest of the Tufts student body.
Once all the donations were set up for the sale, the campus planner came to assess the space. We marked the floors for social distancing and determined both the COVID-safe building capacity as well as the capacity for individual rooms. The student recycling workers spent the final day making signs for the sale categories and sections, room occupancy, and social distancing markers.
Finally, it
was time to open! Eco-Reps helped to greet students and run the sale. At the
entrance to the sale, all students were required to show us a negative COVID test
result from Tufts to confirm they had been approved to leave quarantine. To
ensure the sale was as equitable as possible given the scheduling challenges
and restraints, we restricted shoppers to one item from each category so that
folks who could not attend until a later date would still have a wide selection
of items to choose from.
The first
two days were packed, and due to limited building capacity and
COVID-restrictions, we had students waiting in a social distanced line outside
that curled around the building and up Boston Ave. Subsequent days were slower
with a trickle of students throughout our open hours. Overall, we had about 260
shoppers in attendance!
Wrapping things
up (metaphorically speaking)
By the last
day of the sale, it was amazing to see how few items were left! At noon, almost
all remaining items became free and the sale opened up to the larger Tufts
community.
School supplies. Some Medford community members we freecycled to were school teachers.
Afterwards, we tried something new: remaining items were either donated to Goodwill or freecycled via the “Everything is Free Medford” Facebook page. Freecycling is a great way to give away unneeded items to people who will make use of them, diverting them from the landfill! We gave away a range of items to Medford residents and calculated the value for Community Relations; check out our free-cycling totals here. For more information about freecycling at Tufts, visit our reuse page.
Winter
Clothing Drive
Instead of
freecycling, the OOS held on to remaining winter and professional clothes,
bedding and sheets, and books. These items had been collected in separate
streams for FIRST, and the plan was to make them available to FIRST students
later in the semester.
In
mid-December, the OOS met with Tufts’ Director of Infectious Disease Control,
Michael Jordan, to discuss how to safely distribute remaining items to students
in need of them amidst the worsening pandemic.
With
enhanced guidelines in place, the OOS was able to collaborate with Tufts Mutual
Aid to host a winter clothing giveaway for FIRST Resource Center students,
international students on financial aid, and any other student in need of winter
clothes. A great textile upcycling opportunity, students browsed our jackets,
hats, scarves, and sweaters just in time for the holiday break. Students also
had the opportunity to browse through our remaining selection of sheets and
books.
Remaining clothes were donated or recycled through our Bay State Textile bins and remaining books and textbooks were donated to Boston-area non-profit More Than Words.
Reflections on closing the loop
After all
was said and done, we were able to divert the 10 tons of donations we collected
in the spring from landfills and incinerators and put them to good use by new
owners. That’s the equivalent of 10 Jumbos!
In addition
to serving an environmental purpose, the program is beneficial from economic
and social perspectives. The redistribution of items helps students save money
and learn about the reuse economy. The University also saves money on hefty
waste disposal fees typical during a Move-Out season. The process additionally
promotes social sustainability: redistribution of items for the community from
the community contributes to the interconnectedness and resilience of the Tufts
community, along with the well-being of its individual members.
Through the hard
work of the OOS, student workers and donators, and collaborating departments
across the University, we were able to close the loop and turn trash into
treasure.
As the Arctic warms, large amounts of carbon stored in permafrost soils are expected to be released as carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) and methane (CH 4 ). Woodwell Climate Research Center is currently partnering with scientists at NASA, Columbia University, Johns Hopkins and Montana State University in an Arctic-Boreal Carbon Synthesis activity that brings together information from in situ monitoring networks, satellites, and models to provide best estimates of CO 2 and CH 4 budgets for tundra and boreal forests in North America. The outcomes of this synthesis project will include a publication in a peer-reviewed journal and science presentations at NASA meetings. We also aim to share these findings with policymakers and the general public.
Find Us On Social Media!