Student representatives wallowed in MacEwan Student Centre’s food court garbage on Wednesday and Thursday in an attempt to convince students to reduce their daily waste.
Seventy-five bags of paper-filled garbage bags and boxes helped onlookers visualize the university’s waste at the Students’ Union Info Blitz and Waste Management Project info days, March 21-22.
SU Vice-president Operations and Finance Matt Lauzon manned an information table and guarded garbage.
"We’re doing the Waste Management Project so everybody knows how much garbage is produced by the university in a single day," said Lau-zon.
At 130,000 litres of uncompacted garbage per week (approximately six tonnes or 155 bags per day), MacEwan Student Centre generates almost half the garbage on campus. The total amount of garbage produced by the university is approximately 325 bags per day.
Part of the Waste Management Project includes pursuing initiatives to cut down the amount of garbage.
"We do work with some of our tenants to reduce waste," said Lauzon. "I don’t have an easy solution. [The Waste Management Project] is primarily to help people recognize the amount of garbage they throw away. It’s got to be everybody contributing [to reducing waste]."
Vendors in the food court designated fast service as a priority, despite the fact extra material such as styrofoam containers, bags and paper napkins cost more money. With most orders, A&W provides a bag for customers. Some customers even spec-ifically request bags, according to A&W manager Janice Ly.
"Bags are unnecessary, but it’s for efficiency," said Ly. "Trays take longer–we typically have to please the customers and be as fast as possible."