__News to ReUse_____________ May 2021
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Greetings CURC members and friends!
Wow, we made it through the spring semester! I do not know about you all, but I am grateful to be heading into summer time, and hopeful for a more traditional academic year next fall. If you are on the quarter system, hang in there! There is an end in sight. I hope you all have a chance to step back and give grace for the year we have all gone through, while charting a hopeful path toward the future. Thank you all so much for showing up for sustainability every day. It is with your dedication that we continue to see progress toward climate and environmental justice!
Our 2021 webinar series continues to highlight some fascinating case studies and we hope you will tune in when you can. In an effort to create a more diverse series and ensure we are representing a broader collection of institutions, we are recruiting case studies to participate in our webinar series. If you would like to have an opportunity to share, please consider submitting a proposal here using our webinar interest form.
We are currently recruiting board members and we would love to have you! If you have a desire to join in national conversations to advance waste, reduction, recycling, and sustainable materials management, come be a part of the team. We have both full (3 year) and partial year terms to fill. We hope to grow the board with a diverse range of professional experience and knowledge and a commitment to advancing justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion at all levels of the Board’s engagement. Click here for our board application form.
We have begun planning for our fall 2021 workshop so we will have more news to share as everything unfolds. This workshop will be virtual with some potential regional meet-ups being held alongside the event. If you have interest or ideas you wish to share specific to these efforts, please reach out to connect with our marketing and programs committee.
Through our justice, equity, diversity and inclusion committee, we are working with a consulting organization to go through a self-assessment of our board leadership and membership. This will allow us to continue our path toward more diversity and inclusivity, as well as develop a strategic plan toward organizational development.
Please check out more info below about what we have been up to. Thanks for your commitment to sustainability, and for all you do everyday to contribute to life on the planet!
With Gratitude,
Jennifer Maxwell, CURC Chair
Sustainability Program Director, Appalachian State University
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STAY UP TO DATE VIA OUR SOCIALS |
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Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion in Your Program
June 17, 2-3:00pm EST
This special edition of CURC’s webinar series was highly requested by all of our members, so don’t miss out on a chance to participate. Experts will focus on how your offices, programs and/or operations can do their part to be more equitable on campus. Mark your calendar, and join us on June 17th to learn more.
CURC may share insights into our JEDI committee work and organizational assessment.
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To review CURC's past webinars to get free resources & education, see our archive in full by clicking below
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Higher Education's Crucial Role: Building a Sustainable Circular Economy
June 30 12:00pm- 1:30pm EDT
Free
Join this webinar to learn how the circular economy can help shape better procurement decisions and ways in which you manage your campus, facilities and supply of goods and services. Educators, business officers, and staff from housing, dining, facilities, procurement and auxiliary services, EHS, student life, and senior administration will learn about how to bring the circular economy into each area of campus life.
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Black Voices in the Environmental Movement
May 19- Black only space*
Hosted with Kamau Pope, Kailah Braithwate, Dr. Kimberly McGlonn, Dr. Gary as a panel.
Black voices in the environmental movement are often the most unheard, and that is unacceptable. During this session, we will meet to network and discuss our needs for the environmental movement.
Note: This session is open to Black folks only.
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How Data Analytics is Transforming Waste Collections and Recovery
May 16th 12:00pm-1:30PM EST
Analytics have transformed fields across the economy but the waste and recycling industry has been slow to follow suit. The challenges to tracking and using accurate data contribute to systematic inefficiencies, difficulties benchmarking performance, and a lack of transparency around costs.
This situation has started to change in the last decade as new technologies have begun shedding light on how waste material moves from the point of generation to the point of disposal or recovery. This webinar will feature a panel of industry experts discussing how analytics can be used to improve waste collections and increase material recovery.
This free webinar is hosted by Busch Systems and Sensoneo.
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New CURC Resources and Opportunities |
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CURC is recruiting for our Board
The College and University Recycling Coalition (CURC) is recruiting individuals with a desire to advance collegiate recycling and sustainable materials management to its board of directors. This year we are looking for individuals to fill both full (3 year) and partial term positions.
CURC is looking for individuals who will provide the board with a diverse range of professional experience and knowledge of waste reduction, reuse, recycling and sustainability specific to colleges and universities, and a commitment to advancing justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion at all levels of the Board’s engagement.
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Campus Race to Zero Waste is recruiting for their Board of Directors
Celebrating 21 years of carrying out essential sustainability work, the CR2ZW mission is to provide tools and opportunities that inspire, empower, and mobilize colleges and universities to benchmark and improve the efforts to reduce or eliminate waste. The RecycleMania, Inc is an independent 501c3 non-profit organization that governs all aspects of the CR2ZW programming. Board members provide guidance on the rules and structure of the annual competition, selection of sponsors, programing budget, design and content of the website, partnerships with other campus sustainability organizations, and manage control of the trademark.
Interested candidates should submit a statement of interest and resume by May 31, 2021.
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CURC Surveys page is live
For the past few years, CURC has been conducting surveys of higher education sustainable materials management programs. Now we have dedicated a page on our website to sharing some of the data, lessons and resources gathered from these efforts, which were conducted as recently as this February.
Thank you for all of your participation in our surveys!
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CURC RFP for Webinar Presentations
In an effort to properly represent the diversity of our audience members and their institutions, we created a form for anyone to submit a topic to share on our webinar series!
Our webinar series can be the place to share your proud accomplishments with peers while helping other campuses think through their own barriers, goals and strategies to influence change. Consider applying and look over our webinar topics for the rest of the year on our website.
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#CURCCampusSpotlight
Thinking Systemically for Inclusive Recycling Programs
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For Ayodeji Oluwalana, it’s personal.
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In 2012, Oluwalana was working as a university administrator in Nigeria when historically strong floods overwhelmed the country. Because he studied environmental management & toxicology as an undergrad, he understood the damage twice over. The flood had not only damaged property and taken people’s lives, but limited waste collection infrastructure was no match for the flood and the convenience of letting waste float away from people’s homes for free. For a place without infrastructure to handle the waste of the economy, climate change had accelerated the pollution even further. |
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“I just kind of changed my focus,” he says, reflecting on the impact of the floods. “This is something that I’m passionate about, this is something that is really happening. What can I do?”
Starting at his university in Nigeria, he developed a waste to wealth initiative and a recycling model for the school to follow. He moved to Western Colorado State University to earn a Master’s degree in Environmental Management. Although in a different environment, Ayodeji was inspired by his firsthand experience with the effects of climate change on recycling infrastructure. As a graduate sustainability mentor, he wanted to share his experiences of social justice and climate change with younger students.
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“When folks are telling you that this is very important don’t just feel like, you know, they are just saying things,” he remembers telling students. “I’ve been impacted. It’s real.”
Ayodeji began working at Iowa State in 2018, and his concern for those impacted has been key to his early and quick success. While gathering information about the campus waste stream, he began to rely on key stakeholders on campus including custodial staff, procurement and the Office of Sustainability. A campus zero waste plan is scheduled to be finished by the end of the summer, but it was written by a team made up of leaders from all across campus.
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“How does what we’re trying to do impact their work? How does it impact their budget?” Oluwalana explains. “You have to maintain balance and make sure people are not excluded from what you’re trying to do… That was one of the reasons why in developing our zero waste plan the approach that I adopted was to bring everybody to the table, to give everyone a voice.”
Just like those who could not afford to recycle their materials in Nigeria, Oluwalana understands that recycling must be accessible and beneficial for everyone involved in order for the program to be supported. While it is important to shake up the status quo and look for alternatives, he says, sustainability professionals must make sure that people who will be impacted by the policy can name their concerns.
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“I always think of that a lot being a person of color. Whatever solution I’m bringing to the table, how do I ensure that it's inclusive? Not even to minority groups, even to people that will be impacted, whether it be people of color or whatever,” Oluwalana says. “I want to make sure that I engage people equally, give them equal tools and equal opportunity to understand what we’re trying to do.” |
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Moving forward in his career, Ayodeji wants to see broader changes beyond his university campus. The university is only a part of the larger system of recycling, sustainability and the world’s political economy. Oluwalana encourages holistic thinking when approaching a task like recycling to avoid isolation, identify problems, who is responsible and how to engage them. He is a board member for the Iowa Recycling Association and chairs their student membership committee. It goes to show how Oluwalana is not interested in settling for change at the university level- that doesn’t match his passion.
“All of the social justice issues- equality, equity, inclusion- should be factored in our work as sustainability professionals,” Oluwalana says. “Because, whatever initiative we are trying to implement has one form of systemic changes that needs to occur... and within that systemic change, what are those groups of people that that disruption will impact and how can your work accommodate such people? You are trying to solve a problem yes, but again, you need to systemically look inwards and also look at ‘okay, where are those people that this work is going to impact in one way or another’.”
Written by Eric Halvarson
To read more about Ayodeji's work at Iowa State University, review this list of relevant media publications below:
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Will you be in the next #CURCCampusSpotlight?
We want to share your campus story with other CURC members and recognize how amazing our network is. We are especially looking for campuses working on social justice programs!
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Popular News
A new generation of medical professionals is tasked with undoing decades of hospitals’ easy reliance on single-use plastic.
Industry Article
"It is time for us to come out of the shadows and engage."
Scrap recycling companies confront their relationship to environmental justice. Will movement pressure and new political administration make any lasting change?
What really happens when we try to have goals for 100% recyclable? Critical questions and insights into how we might reimagine our campus waste goals away from strictly the title "recyclable".
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RECYC-L Topics of the Quarter
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Whey disposal.. and reuse Instead of disposing of whey, if you're the odd campus with an abundance, many suggest using it to make ice cream, a variety of foods and supplements and if worse comes to worse, a soil amendment or being fed to an anaerobic digester.
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Alkaline battery recycling or wish-cycling? The kind of conversation RECYC-L was created for. Many people contributed to discuss their campus position on recycling alkaline batteries and the limited environmental benefit of the programs.
Learn how to join the RECYC-L listserv for free by clicking on this link.
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CURC Job Board recent listings |
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Want to learn more about sponsorships? Click here. or email curc3r@gmail.com |
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