CRZW Office Recycling Challenge Recap

Emerson College participated in the 2023 Campus Race to Zero Waste (CRZW) challenge, an eight-week recycling competition between colleges and universities in North America, which ran January 30–March 25. Emerson tracked its waste diversion results against other universities in Massachusetts and organized several on-campus challenges and initiatives to educate the College community about waste diversion throughout the competition. This wasn’t the first time that the College participated in the CRZW challenge; it was formerly known as RecycleMania. 

One of this year’s sub-challenges, an office recycling challenge open to staff, ran February 13–17. During this event, five different departments had the amount of their waste diverted from the trash collected and weighed daily. The five participants were the Journalism Production Center, Lacerte Family WARC, Office of Student Success, Counseling Services, and the 13th floor of 20 Park Plaza. 

The Journalism Production Center won the competition with a diversion rate of 80.9%. The Lacerte Family WARC achieved a  80.7% diversion rate, the Office of Student Success had a 72.6% diversion rate, Counseling Services posted a 66% diversion rate, and 20 Park Plaza’s 13th floor achieved a 55.8% diversion rate.

Jaqi Holland (Lacerte Family WARC), said, “While the WARC team is pretty savvy about recycling rules, this contest helped us become hyper-aware of trying to create less waste so that recycling wouldn’t even be necessary. Recycling is important, though, and while we know recycling isn’t a magic cure, avoiding unnecessary purchases in the first place is key.” 

Holland said her team noticed the main cause of waste in their office. “We discovered that takeout lunches were the bulk of our waste, so even knowing that was helpful in terms of informing future choices. It made me think about bringing my lunch from home more often (using my signature set of napkins and reusable containers), and I also brought in an extra set of silverware from home to keep at the office. There were days we spent in intense and humorous conversations while stationed between the trash and recycling bins, making sure we made the right choice. No one wanted to be responsible for hurting the team’s results!”

Sharron Duffy (Student Success) said, “It is always an eye-opening time. We think we are doing our part as a college, but when we compare ourselves to other colleges, we do have much work to do.” She continued by saying, “When we saw the opportunity to participate come through, we talked as a team about the importance of supporting this effort on an institutional and individual level. Many of us had participated in previous RecycleMania efforts, and it was wonderful to see this come back again.”

Vani Hanamirian ’26