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.