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Cassie TagertMadame EdwardsEnglish 40019 August 2015According to the Keep America Beautiful organizational website, Americans “threw away 161 million tons of material, which amounts to about three pounds of garbage per person per day” in 2009 (Recycling Facts & Stats). In addition to this, the same website states, that same year only around 2 million tons of plastic were recycled in the US while 30 million tons were created (Recycling Facts & Stats). The plastic materials that were not recycled ended up in landfills or were discarded randomly and ended up in rivers and streams. This creates a problem of polluted waterways within individual communities, which affects both the human community and endangers the wildlife surrounding the affected areas. For the Longwood community, this is seen by the contamination of Appomattox River and other nearby waterways. Each year, Clean Virginia Waterways hosts a statewide event to clean waterways. For the Prince Edward County area, the program works on the Appomattox River. Each year, despite the effort of the years before, the Appomattox and other rivers continue to be littered and have other problems that, over time, will cause them to be unusable by the community around them. Even though effort is put forth by many people to try and clean the waters, the problem never goes away.In order to reduce the pollution of the waterways, the Longwood community can make a difference by reducing the amount of plastics and other materials used and discarded. An effective way to do this would be to change all of the disposable cups and bags used at specific food service locations around Longwood University to reusable cups and bags. This way, the amount of trash going into the ground and water would be decreased, and the people of Farmville would be directly responsible for the conservation of their community.Current SituationIn a brief telephone survey that I generated, an overwhelming majority of a sample of Longwood students agreed that the community of Longwood does not do enough to help preserve the environment. Also, none of the interviewees knew of a program that Longwood had to protect the environment. In reality, Longwood works with Clean Virginia Waterways to help clean the Appomattox River, and there is also an Environmental club on campus that works to improve the environment around them. Longwood has recycling bins around the campus as well. Unfortunately, most of the students that I surveyed were not aware of these facts, and none of them knew that Longwood works with Clean Virginia Waterways. One of the reasons that the students are unaware of these facts is a lack of advertisement. Another reason is, with all that Longwood is doing to help their community stay green, there are still problems in Farmville with pollution of the ground and water. Without any advertisement for keeping the community clean, the students are unaware that there are any programs to get involved with, and many of the students do not realize what they can do to help.Project SummaryThe community of Farmville would be able to reduce the amount of waste that is polluting the water and ground around them with the implementation of using reusable cups and bags at specific locations around the Longwood campus. The specific locations would be the locations where students can use their lancer card to make their payments. Using these locations would both guarantee that the clientele would be part of the Longwood community and make it easier to track how many reusable cups and bags were being bought and used. I propose that the first bag and cup bought using a lancer card is free, and each bag and cup purchased is recorded on the student’s card. After the first purchase, the student is charged for each bag and cup. This plan would significantly reduce littering of the ground and water supply around the Farmville area. It would also decrease the amount of trash going into landfills used by Prince Edward County. With the reduction of plastic and paper pollution, this would hopefully lead to a cleaner water supply of rivers in Prince Edward County. The students would be discouraged from discarding their cups and bags because they would have to pay for them, and this system promotes more consideration about how much waste is created every day. If the Longwood community, which accounts for about half of the surrounding Farmville community, were to significantly decrease their plastic and paper consumption and waste, the problems of pollution in the Appomattox and the rest of the Farmville community would be reduced greatly.This system also promotes more consideration about how much waste is created every day. The students and, possibly, other Farmville community members would recognize how much plastic they discard on a regular basis when they are forced to purchase reusable cups and bags and keep them rather than just disposing of them when they are finished with them. With the realization of how much waste they normally create, the project may also encourage the Longwood community to take responsibility for the environment in other ways as well. In France, a lot of stores already have a policy that requires customers to either use their own reusable bags or pay for a new one. Some stores will also charge if you try to use a plastic bag instead. In an interview with my host mother, she talked about how aware the French people are of their effect on the environment and how they incorporate green habits in their everyday life. This shows how using projects such as the reusable bag and cup systems promotes “green” thinking. In addition to this, the French do not have to worry as much about how their shopping bags are affecting the environment when the majority of people use their bags continuously. If Longwood were to adopt this system, the Farmville community would experience a similar awareness to that of the French people.Plan of ActionIn addition to a proposal, a plan of action is necessary to make sure that the system is implemented as smoothly as possible. The timeline of events involved in the implementation of the project is as follows:Identify problem with the creation of waste within the Longwood community through all of the plastics and paper being thrown away in the form of disposable items at food service locations such as disposable cups and bagsCreate a proposal to fix this problemPitch the proposal to Aramark and Longwood leadersRevise plan if revisions are necessaryRenegotiate contracts between Longwood and the specified locations:For both bags and cups:Outta Here, Chick-fil-A, Moe’s Southwest Grill, Java City, POD, Barnes & Noble, Starbucks, Bojangles’, Burger King, Main Street Bagels, McDonald’s, Sheetz, Subway, Sweet Frog, and Uptown Coffee CaféOnly bags:CVS Pharmacy and Rite AidDesign and purchase cups and bagsWrite a brochure to hand out the first day to describe the new programDistribute the cups and bags to each locationAramark hires or chooses an employee or two to pick up and deliver cups for a cup cleaning systemGive first cup and bag free during first weekend back (these can be given with room key when people check into their rooms or apartments) along with a brochure describing the new programResourcesIn order for the system of cups and bags to work, the biggest resource would be the plastics and cloth that the cups and bags will come from. The cups will be made of type of plastic called thermoplastic, which allows for the cups to be able to be recycled and reused. Thermoplastics, a lot like glass, when exposed to extreme heat, can be softened and shaped into different products, unlike thermoset plastics, which cannot be changed once originally made. When put back into room temperature, thermoplastics return to their original condition (EPA: Plastics). If the cups are made from this specific type of plastic, the students can recycle them if they choose to, which allows for the cups to be continually used by people and reduces the chance that the cups will end up in landfills and rivers. The bags will be made from woven cotton fibers because cotton is biodegradable, which also reduces the chances for the pollution of the land and waterways of Prince Edward County (Li, Frey, Browning: Biodegradability Study). The collaboration with Aramark would be the most important resource for this project. Approval and implementation of the new cup and bag system would go through them. Once presented with the project and after they approve it, it would be up to Aramark to order and stock the cups and bags. Although this would be a huge initial investment, Aramark would be able to make up for the money they spent and also make a small profit off of each individual cup and bag by charging one dollar for each bag and five dollars for each cup. Their initial investment would be reimbursed by the clientele, and therefore, the budget for this program would be paid for by the Longwood community.In order for this system to work, there would need to be advertisement to educate the community of Longwood about the new cup and bag system. The best way to do this would be to have booths at Family Weekend and Oktoberfest that gives out samples of the cups and bags and explains how the system works to students and their families. By reaching out to Longwood’s environmental club, I would able to run these booths with the help of some volunteers from the club. This way, both the students and their families would be educated about the new system and be encouraged to use their new giveaways.ConstraintsWith the implementation of this program, a few hurdles may arise. When first learning of this program, the parents of Longwood students may become concerned with their students’ health. If the students are expected to wash the reusable cups themselves and continue to use them at the self-serve soda fountains at locations such as Outta Here and Moe’s, they may question the sanitation of the system. It cannot be guaranteed that the students will be washing the cups completely or at all, especially when the students that live in residence halls on campus do not have access to a dishwasher. In addition to this, if an outbreak were to occur, much like the outbreak of the Norovirus earlier this year, it would expected that sanitation would become an issue.A solution to this problem is the implementation of a community cup cleaning system that would be run through Dorrill Dining Hall’s dish washing system. Rather than each student keeping their own cups and washing them on their own, students would be able to fill their cups at one of the allotted locations, take them home, and, once they are empty, return them to an allotted location for cleaning. In return, they would receive a clean cup to use, as long as they had already returned a cup. The locations participating in the program would be able to keep track of the cups in use through swiping the lancer cards upon return or purchase of the cups. At the end of each day, Dorrill Dining Hall could send out a worker to pick up the dirty cups at the individual locations and drop off a supply of clean ones simultaneously. After, the cups would be taken to Dorrill Dining Hall for a thorough cleaning to prohibit the spreading of germs around campus.Another problem that could arise with the implementation of reusable cups and bags at certain locations would be that some of the locations may not want to participate in the program. A location such as McDonalds may worry that they would lose money using the more expensive cups because their clientele may not want to purchase them, leaving McDonalds unable to sell beverages. They may also feel that the cup and bag systems are too complicated because until this program would be put into place, they only had to worry about their own bags and cups that were sent to them and sold to people. The addition of swiping the lancer card and worrying about the sanitation of the cups might seem like too much of a hassle.A solution to this problem would be a renegotiation of the contracts between Longwood and the locations that are allowed to use the lancer card. Essentially, Longwood could add a stipulation to their contracts that demands that the locations must use the new cups and bags. Of course, the locations could decide that it is not worth it, and they do not want to participate. If they were to do that, they would lose the business of the students who go there for the benefit of being able to use their lancer card as payment, which would not be worth it considering the fact that the Longwood students make up almost half of the Farmville community. Losing the ability to charge students’ lancer cards would not be in their best interest because of the possibility of losing a large amount of their clientele.ConclusionIn 2009, Keep America Beautiful Incorporated reported that only 7.1% of plastics generated in the US that year were recycled (Recycling Facts & Stats). The rest of the plastics were either thrown away as waste or were kept in use. Of the plastics that were discarded, many of them end up polluting the waters and land of different communities. In Prince Edward County, this manifests as problems with the Appomattox River and litter on and in the ground. One way to significantly reduce the amount of plastics that pollute the Prince Edward County community is for Longwood to implement using reusable cups and bags rather than constantly using and discarding disposable ones. A system of using reusable products rather than disposable ones also promotes awareness in local consumers about how much waste they are putting into the ground and water of their own community. This system could be a stepping stone for more environmentally friendly projects to come for the Longwood community, and, hopefully, the Longwood students will be able to take their awareness and knowledge of how waste affects a community and apply it to future communities as well. ................
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