Mt. Trashmore, NU Recycling’s fourth-annual, outdoor event in honor of Earth Day, took place Friday in Norris due to rain.
At least 200 students stopped by the event’s booth, which was coordinated by Julie Cahillane, Northwestern’s manager of recycling and refuse for Facilities Management. Environmental Campus Outreach, Engineers for a Sustainable World, Green House, Students for Ecological and Environmental Development and Bagless NU participated in the event.
In past years Cahillane and the student groups piled up about six hours worth of the student body’s trash outside in order to demonstrate how much waste students produce. This year the weather limited them to handing out free reusable items, including water bottles and shopping bags.
“We could talk about how many tons of trash students use, but that doesn’t mean anything,” Cahillane said, adding that she prefers the impact of Mt. Trashmore’s visual demonstration. “But if Mother Earth decides rain is what we’re going to have, we have to go with it.”
The rain did not thwart all of Cahillane’s Earth Day plans, though.
Weinberg sophomore Paul Bourdillon is a recycling co-chair for SEED and a member of the new Bagless NU initiative but at Friday’s event, he was most noticeably the Bag Monster. The Bag Monster is a suit provided by ChicoBag that Bourdillon wore to show students just how many plastic bags they use each year: 500, on average.
Bourdillon noted the importance of events like Mt. Trashmore.
“I think the environment and its relevance to human health and happiness is one of the most important issues facing our nation and the globe,” he said.