Posted: May 7th, 2020
Wecycle essay
Interactive, Informative, and Professional.
Introduction – Who are we?
A: Texas Wesleyan has become synonymous with the motto “Smaller. Smarter”. The university prides itself on providing smaller classes and a high quality education. Students at Texas Wesleyan are encouraged to take our big ideas and start applying them to our small but passionate community.
B: The WeCycle project is one of those big ideas. WeCycle was founded in the Spring of 2020, and aims to spread recycling and sustainability awareness on our campus. We want to provide everyone at Texas Wesleyan with the information and tools to help reduce the amount of waste we regularly produce while increasing the amount of waste that can recycled properly.
Team Mission and Goals:
A: Based on data collected in 2019, Texas Wesleyan produced just under 560 tons of waste while only 20 tons of that total was collected as recycled materials. This means that only 3.5% of waste being produced on campus was recycled. That 3.5%, or 20 tons, of waste only measures what was collected, not that everything placed in the recycling bins could actually be processed properly through our waste management system. Most materials put into the recycling bins are not really acceptable, and actually contaminant the materials that can be processed properly.
B: As a campus, we need to become more environmentally conscious. Fort Worth is currently the 13th largest city in the United States and the entire DFW metroplex is contributing to landfills that are projected to reach maximum capacity by 2030. Now the average college student produces over 640 pounds of solid waste per year and Texas Wesleyan is currently housing 400+ students this semester. That means that our residents are producing 128 tons or roughly 23% of the total waste produced on campus based on 2019 estimates.
C: With those kinds of numbers you can understand why WeCycle wants to improve the waste management ecosystem here at Texas Wesleyan. The WeCycle project wants to cultivate an environmentally conscious culture that will encourage our community to reduce the amount of waste we collectively produce while increasing recycling efforts and practicing sustainable behaviors.
Project Approach:
(Rough draft) Three pillar program: Convenience, Education, and Sustainability.
Convienence=it’ll be easier to find recycling bins/resources, more bins, more signs/poster that can direct what kind of products are recycled.
Education=reeducate our community to understand that recycling is not the perfect solution. Not all recycling occurs in a closed-loop like we’re meant to believe. Reducing the amount of plastic/disposable waste we produce is the bigger goal. As well as adopting more sustainable behaviors and materials that are reusable.
Sustainability=WeCycle wants to encourage the use of reusable products like: metal water bottles, glass food containers, canvas grocery bags, cotton masks, glass/paper straws, etc.
By creating a social media campaign to disperse our education curriculum and distributing reusable product, we can expect more students, faculty, and staff to adopt a more sustainable lifestyle and reduce the amount of waste produced
Methods:
Events on campus=promotes WeCycle information and distributes reusable products.
Outcomes:
Less waste being produced, more recycling properly collected, more sustainability awareness.
Closing Statements:
