Stakeholder Interviews

Dr. Rob Andrejewski, Director of Sustainability Similarly to Dr. Crutcher, Dr. Andrejewski feels that single-use plastic consumption is one of many imperative sustainability issues facing our campus. He highlighted how reducing, redirecting, and better plastic dovetails with the Rethink Waste goal of the Sustainability Plan. The Sustainability Plan, written in 2018 to provide a roadmap for sustainable efforts from 2019-2025, identifies two key goals that are closely tied to rethinking our consumption of waste, specifically plastic waste. One is to “divert 75% of materials from the landfill by 2025,” and the second, to “reduce gross waste totals by 15% by 2025.”1 Improvements at multiple stages in the single-use plastics consumption life cycle are critical to reaching these goals—from the moment of their purchase, to their use, to their disposal. Dr. Andrejewski comments on the double-edged difficulty regarding plastics in the current moment: “Unfortunately for plastics right now, the market has bottomed out, and so there’s not a lot of value for the plastics that we’re generating on campus, even if they are recycled properly. That’s a challenge for us. So when we have single-use, disposable plastics, we are making a decision to potentially not have them go to something valuable.” Initiatives like Passport Café’s to substitute single-use plastic bottles, , and with reusable mugs, plates or more sustainable cardboard containers are examples of ways to decrease the overall volume of plastic entering UR’s waste facilities. However, many retail locations on campus still only offer plastic to-go options for food, and all dining locations on campus provide single-use plastic bottles (the focus of the Sustainability Challenge) for purchase. The lightweight nature of these SPB allows for another negative environmental impact, as the bottles are apt to blow out of overfull waste and recycling bins and end up in our waterways. Despite the multi-faceted concerns of single-use plastic bottles, Dr. Andrejewski cautions, however, against an outright ban on plastic water bottles. He says that he’s seen other college campuses choose that route, and seen their sales spike in less healthy alternatives. An

1https://sustainability.richmond.edu/common/pdf/University%20of%20Richmond%20Sustainability%20Pla n%20-%202019-2025%20-%20Full.pdf 2

effort by the University of Vermont in 2013 to ban plastic water bottles unintentionally led to students opting for sugary beverages instead, and actually increased the overall number of plastic bottles purchased on campus.2 Dr. Andrejewski voiced understanding for the debacle facing service-focused dining locations that employ single-use plastics as an inexpensive, useful means of satiating a “convenience culture [where] people want what they want when they want it.” Diverging from this culture, Dr. Andrejewski cited, are recent trends in reusable, returnable containers in which the customer essentially pays solely for the product, rather than the that it’s in. Overall, Dr. Andrejewski emphasized the need to look for upstream solutions within procurement to reduce the overall amount of waste being created through single-use items, in an effort to reexamine our purchasing choices and incentives for avoidance or reuse. At the end of the day, he remarks, “the question is how do we meet the demand without creating the waste.”

University of Richmond Dining Services

Terry Baker, Executive Director of Dining Services Members of the Dining Services team, led by Executive Director Terry Baker, understand the balancing act between fulfilling existing customer demand and redirecting it towards more sustainable alternatives. Baker, who joined the University of Richmond in Fall 2019 after a 30- year career in college dining, brings her expertise in engaging students and institutions with sustainability with her. In her previous role at Oklahoma State University, she had established a local foods program called “Made in Oklahoma,” which emphasized partnerships between local vendors and the university while emphasizing student learning opportunities. She cited multiple other initiatives, such as offering students reusable mugs and reducing plastic waste, as successful She sees the responsibility of Dining Services towards the environment and sustainability efforts is to “provide as much local food as we can, within our guidelines, to support the local economy and have less waste for travel [to reduce our] carbon footprint.” Baker believes that

2 https://www.postlandfill.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Plastic_free_campus_updated_intro.pdf 3

though she does not educate students inside the classroom, through her role as the Executive Director of Dining Services, she has the responsibility to “provide students with the tools to be successful outside the classroom.” Through sharing more healthful and sustainable practices with students, she hopes to encourage them to carry a greater consciousness with them not only on campus but after they leave college. Accordingly, Baker doesn’t view a reduction or substitution of SPB as necessarily threatening to Dining Services’ revenue, as she believes consumers on campus can redirect their purchases to more sustainable alternatives. She sees the education of customers as paramount in directing them towards spending their “dollar votes” on SPB replacements. As Baker explains, “I think we have a dual responsibility in that respect to get those products here on campus, find out where we can get those products, as long as they meet our contractual agreements with our vendors, but also have the students to want to make those choices towards those products.” Alternatives to SPB already exist on campus, such as the boxed water sold in ETC and promoted for catering events, and yet more appear to be in the works through UR’s contractual agreements. Baker referenced a recent conversation with Coca-Cola account representative regarding the development of their canned water, which could serve as a viable disposable, non- plastic alternative to SPB.3 Like Dr. Andrejewski, Baker is concerned about the fallout surrounding and upfront ban on plastic water bottles—namely the potential for students to make a less healthy choice (i.e. sugary sodas) or venture off campus to buy in bulk.

Josh Wroniewicz, Director of Purchasing Josh Wroniewicz, the Director of Purchasing for all retail dining locations on campus, shed further light on the types and quantities of single-use plastic bottles sold around campus. Among Wroniewicz’s responsibilities are to place purchase orders with suppliers that are sent to him weekly by individual retail location managers, as well as to manage UR’s contracts and purchasing agreements with these vendors. On UR’s campus, Coca-Cola holds exclusive “pouring rights” (as the sole provider for fountain drink machines), “vending rights” (as the sole provider of beverage vending machines),

3 See Coca-Cola’s press release on this item: https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/13/business/coca-cola- dasani-cans/index.html 4

and concessions rights. Additionally, the contract guarantees Coca-Cola an allotted majority percentage of campus sales space. In the other sales space not occupied by its majority vendor Coca-Cola, UR is able to stock its shelves with any competing or non-competing beverages they wish (i.e. bottled coffee, boxed water, yerba mate, kombucha, etc.). The space allocations between Coca-Cola products and non-Coca-Cola are determined by the “slots” in a beverage refrigerator. In other words, UR is still able to purchase competing beverages from other vendors, as long as Coca-Cola retains its pouring rights, vending rights, and specified majority sales space on campus. The contract is renegotiated every 5-10 years. Because the contract is centered around exclusivity and majority sales space agreements, rather than demand, UR has the freedom to purchase as much or as little Coca-Cola products as they wish, mostly dependent on the historical demand of customers. Wroniewicz affirms that while the contract with Coca-Cola affords UR with competitive prices for beverages as well as other benefits, he never desires to become a completely Coke campus. Having other vendors on campus, Wroniewicz says, “is part of our ability to provide flexibility and keep interesting things [in the dining locations].” In contrast to the predominant contract that UR has with Coca-Cola, UR has smaller purchasing agreements with other vendors that supply the retail locations with its unconventional items, such as kombucha or yerba mate. These purchasing agreements, Wroniewicz explains, outline a purchase volume and delivery schedule but do not cement UR into exclusivity like the Coca- Cola contract. Wroniewicz recalled his experience managing ETC and Dean’s Den and bringing in experimental beverages. “It’s all driven by demand,” he says. “If I brought a new product in and I wasn’t selling several cases of it a week, it wasn’t worth having, and I can’t afford to give up a slot for something that doesn’t move.” The Boxed Water Is Better boxed water brand sold in ETC is one of these competing brands that requires competitor shelf space, as specified in the Coca-Cola agreement. When Wroniewicz first ordered boxed water for ETC, despite having “a great sustainability story,” it flunked in sales and Wroniewicz pulled it off the shelves after two months. In contrast, a success story of consumer demand is Guayaki yerba mate brand, which grew from having single slot in the general ETC refrigerator to its own dedicated on the floor of ETC. Wroniewicz emphasized Dining Services’ willingness to take student suggestions 5

for new products, but also conveyed the necessity of continuous customer demand to keep the items on the shelves.

Maya Vincelli, Assistant Director of Retail Operations As the Assistant Director of Retail Operations, Maya Vincelli oversees the operations of several retail locations on campus, including Passport Café, 8:15, ETC, Dean’s Den, and Lou’s. Now in her 17th year at UR, Vincelli does considerable research into sustainable sourcing and meeting students’ demands as they evolve by generation. She describes her mission as “finding the intersection between food and sustainability and people.” Vincelli cites that members of Generation Z, current college first-years and sophomores, look for a purpose behind their purchase choices. She’s seen a movement of students away from sugary drinks—perhaps out of a desire to “eat their calories instead of drink them”—though not away from single-use plastic bottles as a whole. “ is our #1 seller at every location,” Vincelli explains. “If I pulled the top 20 [best-sellers], it would be 50% of the top 20.” Additionally, Vincelli finds students to be extremely overscheduled—to the extent that they buy food and drink for more than one meal at a time to avoid waiting in line more than once. This desire for quick checkout purchases is another reason students may reach for a single-use, plastic beverage or container instead of a reusable option. Vincelli spoke about the balance between food cost, service, and sustainability in operating retail locations, even as she tries to accomplish all three. At the end of the day, retail locations have a budget, she explains, “and have a return that they’ve guaranteed to the university, and that goes into the university’s general fund, which helps pay for scholarships. So we do take [dining decisions] really seriously—we want to behave really ethically with your money.” She says that because Dining Services is a functioning unit of a nonprofit, she has more freedom to serve students as best as she possibly can. With this desire, though, Vincelli too faces a “chicken and the egg” dilemma. She wants to help students make a healthy, sustainable choice, but also has to be prepared to meet students where they are. How does give students what they want, while guiding them towards options that are better for them and the planet? One of the initiatives she’s launched multiple times at Passport Café (Passport) is offering reusable plates and silverware to students as a “for here” (rather than “to go”) option 6

when ordering. During summer 2019, Vincelli expounded, she located some plates and dining cutlery that Catering was planning to dispose of, and quickly offered them a second home at Passport. She says that her motivation behind this move, as in her previous three attempts to introduce reusable plates to Passport, was to “encourage people to take a break and… work on how much disposable things we have here.” Unfortunately, the plates were stolen immediately. Vincelli interprets this resistance towards the plates as evidence of the necessity of changing the culture of the university in regards to non-disposable options. She intends to persist in her efforts of implementing reusable dining service ware in both Passport and 8:15 so the campus community continues to be exposed to this concept. “The hardest part is convincing someone to change,” she acknowledges. Even though promoting non-disposable dining ware is more laborious for her staff (as they have to wash dishes multiple times per day instead of just emptying waste bins), Vincelli remains committed to sustainable initiatives like this one. She believes that because a large percentage of her customer base is students, there is “this space to take care of people in a generous and sustainable way.” She views sustainability as a habit, rather than work, and hopes that students, employees, and managers can see it that way as well. Vincelli sees UR’s history of success in working with vendors to promote sustainable efforts as indicative of the power of a collective, grounded voice. When UR requested Coca-Cola to sell them a more sustainable plastic , Coke delivered to campus the PlantBottle—a SPB comprised of 30% plant-based materials—before it was even released nationally.4 Vincelli claims that local vendors can be even more responsive to UR’s requests. She provided an example of a local bakery agreeing to deliver its weekly items in a reusable bakery , rather than in disposable boxes, to better meet Passport Café’s sustainability goals and also avoid a new tax on bakery . In this way, Vincelli illustrated how whether UR is negotiating with a large, national vendor like Coca-Cola or a small, local vendor like the bakery, leveraging UR’s long- standing relationship with them as well as a potential reduction in their costs can induce the vendor to adopt more sustainable practices. Vincelli emphasized the ability of students to make change on campus. “Dining services is not this giant corporation,” she explains. “It’s just me and you, having a conversation. I can’t

4https://www.coca-colacompany.com/stories/great-things-come-in-innovative-packaging-an-introduction- to-plantbottle-packaging 7 make good decisions for students unless they communicate with me.” Vincelli looks for student feedback, such as on the annual Campus Dining survey, to guide her decision-making in providing what will enable students to be successful. In addition, she utilizes policy statements, like UR’s professed value of Responsible Stewardship and the Office for Sustainability’s goal of sustainable stewardship, to justify forward-thinking decisions as contingent with the university’s goals.5,6 Vincelli says that the spirit of sustainability, to her, is “to use something that had lost its value but that still have plenty of life.” In her role as Assistant Director of Retail Operations, her goal is to “look at things with new eyes and find a new home for something that someone else deems replaceable.”

Joe Wolff, Director of Catering As the Director of Catering, Joe Wolff coordinates the strategic goals of the Catering Department on campus from the highest managerial level. He has been a proponent of more sustainable practices throughout his 40 years in the dining industry, such as introducing boxed water to catering’s offerings and incentivizing patrons to reduce waste. Wolff champions redirecting demand for SPB at the beginning of the pipeline, rather than attempting to deal with the effects of SPB consumption at the end of the bottles’ life cycle. Wolff sees the Boxed Water Is Better boxed water as a palatable, equivalent product to SPB for consumers who want a limited-quantity, resealable container for water at an event. Because the cardboard container is biodegradable and recyclable, the post-consumption product has more avenues besides the landfill. In addition, the Boxed Water Is Better brand donates 1% of all revenues to sustainable initiatives. According to the Boxed Water Is Better website, boxed water has a 64% lower carbon footprint and 43% less fossil fuel use than plastic water bottles.7 Boxed Water Is Better claims that its product has a 64% lower carbon footprint, 43% less fossil fuel use, and 1,084% lower impact on the ozone layer than bottled water. Additionally, it claims

5 https://strategicplan.richmond.edu/mission/index.html 6 https://sustainability.richmond.edu/goals/plan1/goal-3.html 7 https://boxedwaterisbetter.com/ 8

its superiority to aluminum cans through a 50% lower impact on ozone depletion and smog emissions, and a 33% lower impact on acidification due to deforestation.8 Unlike the 12 oz. Dasani bottle, the boxed water comes in a 8.5 oz. size, which Wolff says has been anecdotally praised as a more reasonable quantity for events such as symposiums. In January 2020, Catering will begin to offer both plastic and boxed water for the same per bottle price—$1.20 each—so that customers will not be disincentivized towards choosing plastic water because of a lower price. Wolff had even suggested imposing a sustainability tax on plastic water bottles so that PSBs were actually more expensive than boxed waters. However, Dining Services ultimately decided that educating the customer and providing equivalently-priced alternatives was already a helpful step towards greater sustainability within Catering. When the Coca-Cola canned Dasani water is released, Wolff will switch to exclusively providing disposable water in a can format, which will completely eliminate SPB from Catering’s menu. In addition to redirecting demand within the single-use market, Wolff also attempts to guide customers towards bulk water—served in a large dispenser with ice and lemons—instead of any form of disposable water. Bulk water is nearly always the most economical option for an organized event, as it comes free with any other beverage order (such as coffee), or retails for $15 per container if it’s the only beverage ordered. Also beginning in January 2020, Catering servers will default to providing bulk water if the event organizer does not specify between disposable or bulk water. However, a potential limitation of bulk water is its higher set-up and take-down efforts as compared to bottled water. Wolff comments, “99% of our deliveries are outside of this building. So that means [we’re] bringing water, bringing the containers, setting them up, and having to retrieve them after events. Whereas with bottled water, you drop them off and you don’t necessarily come back…With those logistics, we might not be able to take as much business as we currently are.” Wolff still plans to continue to advocate for bulk water whenever possible, but also remains cognizant of the capacity limits of Catering Services. Beyond eliminating single-use plastic bottles, Wolff seeks to replace plastic in other aspects of Catering’s functions and advocate for sustainability more broadly. In January 2020, Wolff is going to expand Catering’s current compostable fleet of cups, plates, serving utensils to include compostable . Additionally, he’s planning to source the hot beverage cups from

8 https://boxedwaterisbetter.com/pages/why-boxed-is-better 9

sustainable bamboo instead of cardboard, so that they don’t even require the destruction of trees in their manufacture. Further, Wolff seeks to empower Catering customers to make “greener” food choices by applying the Office for Sustainability leaf icon to more sustainable options on the menu. Wolff acknowledges that as the Director of Catering within the university, he possibly has more freedom than retail managers to promote sustainability. “Sometimes in a retail operation,” he says, “there’s a hesitancy to use a more expensive product because they feel less able to pass that [cost] along to their customer.” Wolff feels that in contrast, due to the nature of catering being a lavish excess frequently funded by an organization rather than an individual, he has greater ability to pass along the cost of a more sustainable option.

Eliot Cleveland, Manager of EveryThingConvenience (ETC) ETC is currently the most profitable retail location on campus, and one of only two (along with Dean’s Den) that offers solely pre-packaged items, rather than made-to-order selections. Eliot Cleveland has managed ETC for the past two years and has overseen the convenience store make strides towards more sustainable options where they can. “It can be hard to see the changes at the convenience store, because everything comes in a package,” Cleveland admits. “Two years ago,” he says, “we started stocking a variety of reusable options such as cups, utensils, straws, and reusable grocery --and they’ve been a hit. We also provide discounts to customers who bring their own sustainable items such as a reusable , straw, or mug.” Despite these efforts, the bulk of what ETC sells is pre-packaged items, with the largest category being beverages. Due to the Coca-Cola contract’s mandate for a certain amount of sales space to be dedicated towards Coke products, and ETC’s situation as a “grab-and-go” spot on campus, ETC has the highest density of Coke products of all retail locations, and a large number of SPBs. Cleveland sees the grocery industry heading towards the elimination of plastic, though he doesn’t think it will happen overnight. “We’re the retailers, but we’re just one part of the value chain,” he explains. 10

In order to radically shift the value chain of SPB, he believes, consumers will need to indicate that they won’t purchase environmentally-harmful products. “We think about what the customer wants—the most important thing for us is to meet their needs. So they have to send a powerful signal to us that they don’t want [single use plastic bottles]. Because right now, they buy them.” Three of the top five items at ETC are single-use plastic water bottles—with SmartWater Sport coming in at #1, SmartWater 1L at #2, and the 20 oz. Dasani bottle as #5. Straddling the line between the bottled water varieties are the Guayakí Yerba Mate Enligtenmint at #3 and Revel Berry at #4. In fiscal year 2019, which spanned from July 1, 2018-June 30, 2019, ETC purchased 133,839 single-use plastic bottles. Cleveland pointed out a few of the brands, like Guayakí, that package their beverages in aluminum cans rather than plastic. While he isn’t sure if Guayakí’s environmentally-conscious packaging impacts a consumer’s decision to buy, he does think that aluminum cans are perhaps more feasible for a product like an energy drink than for disposable water. “People like having a reclosable drink, with the portability of a bottle,” Cleveland observes. “Something like an energy drink that’s drunk pretty quickly and when it’s cold,” he offers, might not be subject to the same criteria by consumers. In terms of other alternatives to plastic, Cleveland says that he’s seen Coke begin to carry more bottles, perhaps as a compromise between a reclosable and improved recyclability. The Boxed Water Is Better brand of boxed water is also sold in ETC, but it hasn’t enjoyed nearly as high of sales as its plastic disposable water counterpart. Despite being priced only around $0.10 higher in the 1 liter size, Cleveland says, consumers seem to prefer bottled water—or at least that’s what the sales data shows. Cleveland understands that reduction and reuse of SPB are more viable alternatives in the current global climate than simply recycling SPB after consumption. However, in considering removing or dramatically reducing the availability of single-use plastic water bottles, Cleveland advocates for considering the consequences for students. He wonders if eliminating disposable plastic water bottles, an item that is clearly high in demand, would improve students’ health and ability to hydrate throughout the day. “We’re not really in this for the money, we’re in it for the students,” he expresses. “You can take [plastic water bottles] away, fine, but are we helping them, is the question.” 11

Regardless, Cleveland says, he’s optimistic that students can drive change towards more sustainable alternatives. “Our clientele is younger and more concerned than ever. On a percentage basis, if you were to compare us to other convenience stores, we probably do better, just on the nature of who we’re serving.”

12

County Waste (University of Richmond’s Recycling Provider) John Childress, Sales Manager of Virginia The University of Richmond sales representative at County Waste, John Childress, offered some insight into County Waste’s processing, supply chain, and differentiation factors from other waste and recycling providers. Currently, County Waste does not operate a landfill, though they are analyzing a potential future location for one. In the present moment, however, County Waste is incentivized towards recycling as much as they can to earn revenue, rather than paying to dispose of items in a landfill. County Waste is the largest commercial recycler in Richmond area, servicing residential homeowners associations, individuals, companies, and institutions like UR, VCU, and Liberty. While they do serve 250,000 residential subscription clients in the Virginia and Pennsylvania area, the bulk of their recycling business comes through commercial clients. In Central Virginia, the Authority governs a few counties in the area and negotiates collectively on their behalf, such that the homeowners associations (HOAs) in the region must use County Waste for recycling. County Waste’s Material Recovery Facilities (MRFs), where recyclable material is transferred after pickup, are located in Fredericksburg, Lynchburg, Richmond, West Point and in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania. These facilities process nearly 500 tons of recyclable material daily. Through its agreement with UR, County Waste employees pick up waste and single- stream recycling from campus on a weekly or biweekly basis--depending on the location of the bin--and brings all items to their Materials Recycling Facility (MRF) in Midlothian, Virginia. Though there may be contamination among the recycled materials collected on campus, Childress says, County Waste does not evaluate the recycling on campus to determine whether to bring it to the MRF or add it to the landfill bin. This policy differs from UR’s former waste and recycling provider, which had stricter restrictions about which recycling it would even remove from campus. Both Dr. Andrejewski and Scott Lincoln conveyed appreciation for County Waste’s willingness to work with UR on improving recycling efficiency by continuing to remove all recyclables from campus, including plastics. According to a pamphlet distributed at the MRF, County Waste accepts the following recyclable materials: “paper and cardboard products (including soft & hardback books, magazines, and junk mail), glass bottles and , plastic bottles and tubs #1-7, along with 13

aluminum and ferrous metal containers including aerosol cans.”9 County Waste adheres to a single-stream recycling collection system to provide ease for consumers as well as for their collection team. When asked about the feasibility of implementing multi-stream (i.e. differentiated) recycling, Childress said that switching over would greatly increase their collection effort. “Instead of having one truck to pick up everything,” he describes, “I’d have to have four or five trucks. I’d have to have a cardboard truck, a tin truck, a glass truck, a plastic truck, etc.” Additionally, there’s the potential for customers who are accustomed to single-stream recycling refusing to adopt the new system, and therefore County Waste receiving less recyclable material. The global plastics recycling crisis has impacted County Waste’s operations and has forced them to seek domestic buyers for their baled plastics goods, mostly along the East Coast. “So much of the [supply chain pipeline] allows manufacturers to place a premium on what they want,” Childress commented. Despite County Waste’s ability to find buyers for their recycled plastic, the company has had to reduce the percentage of recycled items they send to vendors. Before 2018, County Waste diverted roughly 8-10% of its collected recyclable material to landfill, as the majority of what it collected could be passed along in the pipeline. However, now that China has issued its refusal to accept foreign waste, Childress states, that percentage has grown to about 18-20% of collected material, since recyclables purchasers are less willing to accept materials that are tougher to repackage into new consumer goods. County Waste is also encountering difficulty finding a market for glass, so they have begun to repurpose it for us on their own grounds, so at least it is reused instead of sent to the landfill.

9 Plastic bags, while recyclable in other localities, are not recyclable at County Waste’s MRF, as they clog the machines and require processing to stop for workers to remove them. 14

University of Richmond Custodial and Environmental Services Scott Lincoln, Manager of Custodial and Environmental Services Scott Lincoln oversees Custodial and Environmental Services on campus, and thus comes into contact with SPB and other recyclables at the end of their useful life. Lincoln describes his team’s role in the consumption lifecycle as being “transporters” who collect landfill waste, recycling waste, and (in the future) compost waste and direct the material to the appropriate location. For recycling on campus, this process involves a custodian performing a visual inspection of the blue bag holding the recyclable material to ensure that there are low levels of contamination. Lincoln says that if contaminating items (such as food waste) comprise 10% or more of the volume of the bag, the entire bag will be diverted to landfill. This visual inspection rate has been imposed, Lincoln explains, out of a desire to preventatively address contamination rates that would make UR’s recycling too undesirable for recycling partners to accept. Food waste is currently the largest contaminant in recycling, whether it is food itself or food residue lingering on containers which have not been washed or wiped out. Though even dumping or scraping the food remainders at the bottom of containers into the landfill bin before recycling the container can help alleviate this problem, not all consumers know what is or is not recyclable. Lincoln described the concept of “wishful recycling” as a setback in accurately recycling items on campus. On a national scale, wishful and negligent recycling can result in nearly a quarter of single-stream recycling being redirected to the landfill.10 On campus, an example of wishful recycling would be placing a plastic straw in the recycling bin rather than the landfill. Unfortunately, Lincoln says, understanding what is and isn’t recyclable can be further complicated by different municipalities or recycling companies accepting different items. Lincoln identified a few initiatives within Custodial and Environmental Services that are aimed at reducing single-use plastic waste. First, as UR moves towards composting, there is an opportunity for a consumer to dispose of the entirety of their lunch--from the food residue to a compostable container--in a single compost bin. Additionally, Custodial and Environmental Services is working on centralizing waste and recycling bins in an effort to discourage consumers from relying on single-use items. By making frequent disposal of single-use items less convenient for consumers, Custodial and Environmental Services can help campus members

10 https://www.npr.org/2015/03/31/396319000/with-single-stream-recycling-convenience-comes-at-a-cost 15

reduce waste. Methods like these, Lincoln continues, “encourage individuals to go ahead and think outside the box, and maybe not use single-use [plastic] bottles as much.” By making these decisions collaboratively, alongside the organizations they’re affecting, Lincoln believes UR can reduce how much waste it is producing as a whole. However, changes like these, Lincoln admits, aren’t going to happen overnight. Even with all the information available, as at the Rethink Waste Football game where volunteers direct patrons towards the correct bin, consumers must still have a desire to place items in the correct bins. “There has to be a cultural change,” Lincoln comments. “Like with the ‘wishful recycling’ concept, I believe that there is a large part of our campus community, faculty, staff and students that have the best intentions. Changing that intention into action is probably our largest opportunity.”

16

University of Richmond Students Andre Eanes, Green UR Club President Since transferring to UR in 2018, Eanes has seen various sustainability efforts on campus, whether student-driven or administration-driven, succeed or just fade away. During his time in Green UR, the group has championed several initiatives, such as distributing reusable water bottles to decrease SPB usage and petitioning Eight-Fifteen at Boatwright (8:15) to stop providing plastic straws for cold beverages. He thinks what can make sustainability endeavors successful is confronting consumers with a viable choice towards a more sustainable option— like asking customers in Passport if they want their drink “for here” or “to- go”—to spur their consciousness. Other examples of this method are implementing a negative incentive for discouraged behavior (like an upcharge for using a non-reusable cup) rather than a positive one for encouraged behavior (like a discount for using a reusable cup). Eanes believes that a solution to challenges in sustainability should be rooted in the three tenets of waste hierarchy--reduce, reuse, recycle--in that order.11 “Reduce the amount of plastic you have to sell in the first place,” Eanes affirms. “Encourage people to buy reusable cups or mugs or other things--either mugs that they own and take with them, or...dishes if they’re eating in Passport.” Eanes understands that certain retail spaces on campus like 8:15 or Lou’s Cafe might not have the infrastructure necessary to wash large volumes of reusable dishes, but he advocates for all locations to do their part in diverting whichever disposable items they do offer from the landfill. That way, when customers do purchase single-use materials, he says, “I don’t think we have any excuse to not make all of them recyclable or compostable.” Eanes is optimistic about gaining student support, as he has seen the number of students passionate about sustainability-related issues rise in recent years. He believes that education about environmental issues and their applicability to students is paramount in keeping this conscious spirit alive on campus. Eanes cited tabling and interacting with students in public spaces as ways that Green UR can get a sense of the climate of support for new initiatives like composting, in order to then pass on that information to the administration. He’s seen retail locations on campus be receptive to student suggestions (like 8:15 offering metal straws for purchase), but feels that “there’s more to be done, and a lot of progress to be made still.”

11 https://www.conserve-energy-future.com/reduce-reuse-recycle.php 17

Reusable Bottle Users Despite the large purchase volumes of SPBs on campus, many students do utilize reusable bottles, at least for water. Those who choose this option are incentivized by the convenience and health benefits of always having water with them, the lower per fill-up cost, and the environmental benefit. Current junior Emma Davis comments that she’s used a reusable water bottle as long as she can remember, and has never purchased a disposable water bottle at UR. “Especially being on this campus,” Davis added, “I feel like it’s very convenient to use a reusable bottle because we have so many fill-up stations.” For Davis, the incentives to use reusable containers in general extend beyond water bottles, as she takes advantage of 8:15 Cafe and Passport’s discounts for reusable coffee mugs--both for the dining dollar savings and due to her environmental consciousness. First-year Isabel Bernieri concurs that sustainable options, of which she’s seen more and more recently throughout high school and her first semester at UR, matter to her as a consumer. In her high school, Bernieri explains, “there was an initiative...[in which] once you completed a quiz, then you received a reusable with the school’s name on it. It was very effective because they stopped selling single-use bottles in the vending machines and instead all students had access to get a reusable bottle.” Bernieri comments that many students utilized the bottles, and very few students purchased any beverages from vending machines, which only carried Powerade. Now as a first-year, Bernieri avoids purchasing SPBs even when she forgets her reusable bottle. Other students, like senior Nat Berry, regularly carry reusable water bottles, yet acknowledge that the SPBs can be appealing because of their convenience and ubiquity. Multiple students agreed that the only time they would potentially purchase SPBs is if they contain a beverage which is only available in a plastic format. For example, Julian Wachtel, an exchange student from Germany, only purchases SPBs of Coca-Cola, as it is not available in fountain format at all retail locations. Berry concurs that it might be more difficult for retail locations like ETC, for example, to rid themselves of single-use soda bottles, as they don’t have a fountain machine which could allow them to provide the same good to students in a different format. Watchel added that in his home country of Germany, citizens and businesses participate in a glass and plastic program called Pfand (deposit), which incentivizes consumers to return and 18

recycle their bottles. Inherent in a consumer’s purchase price is a “deposit” tax--25 cents for plastic, and between 8 and 15 cents for glass--which consumers can have returned to them at certain locations upon the return of the bottle. As of March 2018, 15 years after the program was launched, the Pfand system succeeded in spurring recycling among consumers, with a non- reusable return rate between 97 and 99%. However, many argue that the program is failing to reduce the actual quantity of disposable bottles, as manufacturers and retailers are less incentivized to more towards reusable containers if their consumers handle the bottles’ recycling. which have grown to account for more than 50% of the bottled beverage market from 80% prior to Pfand’s launch.12 Though the Pfand system has its strengths and weaknesses, Watchel believes that Germany’s commitment to environmental sustainability through the launch of a nationwide program is a step in the right direction. In its trajectory towards greater environmental sustainability, Davis mentions, UR could do more by having fill-up stations in every building, reducing the single-use options in campus retail locations, and providing more financial incentives for using reusable vessels.

Single-Use Plastic Bottle Purchasers Some students find SPBs fulfill their desire for cheap, easily available water at a lower cost than a reusable bottle. Senior Dana Falcon comments that though she owns reusable bottles, she regularly purchases single-use plastic water bottles so she doesn’t get thirsty throughout the day. Sophomore Lindsay Everhart explains, “For me, it’s a convenience thing. I’m pretty much always running late to class, and I’ll often leave a water bottle in my room...and I’ll just need to grab a water bottle from ETC on my way to class.” Everhart adds that the low-cost nature of SPBs is another factor that keeps her from changing her purchasing habits. “It’s a lot less expensive to buy a single-use bottle than to buy a [reusable] water bottle that I inevitably lose,” she comments. Sophomore student-athlete Tyrek Funderburk also cites convenience as a major motivating factor in his purchase of SPBs. Though he and his teammates use reusable water bottles during practice, he finds that the lightweight nature and omnipresence of SPBs of water

12 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/30/has-germany-hit-the-jackpot-of-recycling-the-jurys- still-out 19

allows him to stay hydrated throughout the day. Though he currently purchases plastic bottles, Funderburk says that he would be interested in exploring alternatives to plastic, such as boxed or aluminum bottled water. In terms of university disincentives for SPBs, Funderburk says that an increase in price would make him rethink his purchasing behaviors. However, he thinks that the removal of single-use plastic water bottles might just spur students to buy other bottled beverages or go off campus to buy bulk bottled water. Falcon agrees. “Though having [bottled water] in less places would discourage me,” she says, “I’d probably get a different [bottled] drink...or I’d just be thirsty.” For Everhart, making students come to terms with the grim environmental reality of single-use plastic consumption through an outright campus ban is the best way to reform student behavior. “Although [a ban] seems like a pretty big step,” she continues, “the amount of plastic we use is pretty staggering, statistically.” Junior Abdul Rehan adds that disseminating information about the safety of campus tap water at Orientation and thereafter could eliminate another reason students buy bottled water instead of refill reusable bottles.13,14 Everhart suggests that different campus offices (like Admissions) could distribute reusable water bottles in an effort to spur student (or prospective student) adoption and also enjoy free advertising. “We have a pretty environmentally-conscious generation,” she concludes, “so I think the university should use that to our advantage and make people think a little bit more about their actions.”

13 http://www.richmondgov.com/dpu/WaterQualityReports.aspx 14 https://get-green-now.com/tap-vs-bottled-water-comparison/