Pictured above: Team members Elizabeth and Caroline working hard to plan out our goals for the rest of the quarter.

UA Waste Diversion Does the Most for Compost Programs in Westwood University Apartments

By: Emma Stanfield, Zachary Devereux, Caroline Schreck, Maia Rodriguez-Choi, Cali Ngyuen, and Elizabeth Popescu. Edited by Chloe Ney.

Hi!  We are the 2019 UCLA Sustainability Action Research (SAR) University Apartment Waste Diversion Team.  We started this quarter by meeting with our adviser Erin Fabris and familiarizing ourselves with the current state of waste management in the graduate apartments.  Luckily UCLA has a history of implementing student-initiated waste diversion programs; in fact, for the past two years, SAR teams have worked with housing to implement compost programs into the university owned apartments.  Two undergraduate apartments recently had compost programs installed, making assessing the state and success of those programs one of our team’s first priorities. We have also completed a literature review on a variety of topics ranging from the science behind composting to the best-found methods for increasing participation in waste diversion programs.  With this knowledge we plan to develop a composting program for the remainder of the university apartments that could be rolled out over Spring break. Once the system is in place, the amount of waste the university sends to landfill each year will be greatly reduced, and will bring us one step closer towards reaching UCLA’s zero waste by 2020 goal. While this is a lofty goal, our team is confident that we will rise to meet it.