Fixing Flies and Sorting Surveys

By Chiara Phillips 

One man’s trash is another man’s compost and recycling! This coming Friday, the graduate housing team plans to go through our second audit of the quarter to physically see how behavior has changed since the beginning of the program. We plan to get a better and more accurate scale this time, and hope more volunteers come lend a hand and learn a bit about how to conduct a waste audit.

This past week, we attended the WHRA Social: Barbecue Night! Through this event, members were able to speak one-on-one with Hilgard residents that are currently involved in the compost pilot program and Weyburn residents that could be a part of the program in the future. In general, the Hilgard residents seem pleased with being part of a sustainable future for UCLA. However, many noted that a fruit fly problem has begun, as well as problems with smells within the garage located next to the trash room. In the next few weeks, we plan to try to remedy these issues through more frequent pick-ups, new lids for the large compost bin in the waste room, or alternative methods to manage fruit flies.

In the future, along with tackling the fruit fly problem, we are going to continue to ask for feedback from Hilgard residents through surveys and we are ready to send petition-like surveys to Weyburn residents to gauge their interest in having the program expanded to their side of Westwood. We hope to talk to even more graduate students and hear their thoughts about the program next week at the next WHRA Social: Comedy Night! From there, we will talk with major figures in UCLA housing to gain approval for the expansion of the program. Last but not least, we are still looking for ways to fund our final audit- hopefully through outside grants.