Environ - Interning at UT Sustainability Program

Raising a brow to our environmental impact, how lifestyle changes are crucial to save the planet

Me interning at UT Resource Recovery in the Spring and Fall of ‘18 as a waste audit and communications member

“Environ” is a verb that means to surround or to enclose. All things around us are either living or nonliving. As I learn more about the world and how it works, I have become invested in how I can help out. However, many of my actions have not been in favor of the planet. For example, I drive my car sometimes, drink Starbucks often, and buy products with plastic and styrofoam wrapping. I am even set to travel out of country again this summer and most likely will continue to take flights. I think this guilt can be resonated with many, too. That’s why tote bags, metal straws, and Greta Thunberg are a thing. “Climate change” is what they call it.

To add to my personal guilts with the environment: my family runs a net-making and shrimping supply business that is responsible for so many potentially harmful marine effects as highlighted in the documentaries, The Plastic Ocean (2016) and Chasing Coral (2017). Nets are prone to ghost fishing. Overfishing is an increasing problem. And the risks of oil spill are there. It is tough to shut down a business that we and many folks make a living off of. So, as we continue with the business, I am concerned and wondering what ways there are to decrease maritime destruction. It all seems a bit of hopeless, and I’m clueless as to what other aspects go into creating a greener future.

I’ve become skeptical and pessimistic, but also curious. And for the latter, that has made all the difference. As an experiential learning requirement in The University Leadership Network program, I set out to choose an internship on the job listings site. I read all the good global citizen benefits of the UT Resource Recovery job opening, but this specific description secured my decision to apply there — “The candidate will be able to explore the alleyways of UT buildings.” What an intriguing and unique job description, I thought.

The Problems

What I did not know about going into the unexplored alleyways was that it was a nice way of saying we were to go weekly dumpster diving. We heaved large hefty bags from the dumpster onto a thin portable metal table. Then sorted through the landfill, compost, and recycling to measure how well students and faculty were correctly disposing their waste. Things got ugly, messy, and stinky real quick. Sometimes people would pass by and ask us what we were doing while we were busy grabbing data, measuring, and sorting. It was practical, on-field data entry work, coupled with music in our own headphones. Because I often felt lonely and a bit ashamed to be doing this dirty work, I shared my other AirPod to create a sense of camaraderie over a shared playlist.

The thing about disposing waste is that we tend to toss away things and never think about it ever again. But having to follow-through our waste and examining what it is that we are throwing away has deepened my understanding about consumption. I’ve found food packaging to be the most confusing to folks. There were compostable items in the recycling. Then, food, styrofoam, and non-recyclable random goods in the recycle, resulting in plastic contamination.

We visited the Organics by Gosh composting facility in East Austin where we saw for ourselves how compost was made. And it was a brilliant revelation to me— it is what my grandparents, aunts, and mother did in their backyards but on a much larger scale. The facility had two mountain piles in their yard. One had food compost full of nitrogen-rich material. And the other had yard trimmings—tree branches, twigs, and leaves full of carbon-rich matter. Combining these two while constantly rotating it and adding heat made rich, nutrient-packed soil. Not only was I in awe of this cool process, I was once again, disappointed, as during our field trip, when a tractor carrying composting bags went further behind the two piles. We, the group of students, asked where it was going. The owner grimly admitted, “the landfill.” There were too many things that were not actually compostable to put into the pile, so it was rejected. And to our embarrassment, they were the bags from our university campus.

All the hours in the back of UT buildings, hidden concrete nooks, and garages picking apart a slimy banana peel from inside a half-eaten Panda Express container and spilling coffee all over my apron, to say the least, humbled me. I would not disclose this fact to my parents who sent in me to college in hopes that I’d get a messy-free and reliable job. Waste auditing isn’t exactly what I had in mind for saving the planet, and the fact that it took me a while to be proud of this makes me wonder how much am I willing to ignore the ugly facts about our failing human behaviors towards the planet?

In our weekly team meetings we learned something new every time and heard updates from the other operations. In UT Resource Recovery, we had sections dedicating to Waste Audit, Surplus Reuse Store, Zero Waste Workplace, and Communications all working towards the campus initiative to reach a Zero Waste goal in 2026. To reach zero waste means very little to no trash going into the landfill.

The very sad thing about landfills is that they require large amounts of dug land and the garbage will sit there for centuries. It is not uncommon to be able to dig through the landfill and find a perfectly readable newspaper from a century ago. These forgotten items will just sit here indefinitely. One somber evening, I watched Isle of Dogs dir. by UT alumni Wes Anderson in the Union Theatre where I silently wept as the film was about how dogs, and animals in general, suffered the consequences of our refuse that emit dangerous methane emissions from all over the world. The landfill is our unfortunate, mostly unnecessary, and dangerous artifact dump.

I was also a communications member, taking photos and videos to recognize our own green efforts and visiting sustainability events on campus. This is where I also significantly grew as a team player and individual, where I had to meet students in groups or one-by-one to keep them in the loop with the entire team. The camera around my neck bestowed on me once again the power of communication. It gave me purpose, a chance that what I was fighting for could be seen and understood if conveyed correctly.

In very first hours of 2018, I was crying in a dim makeshift chapel wondering if I was going to be a college dropout. Now that I was back on campus, I spent a lot of time meditating and intently listening in my studies, professors, and absorbing other world views via different academic channels. I wrote about walking each floor of the majority of UT buildings here. When I passed by each different college department, I saw how interconnected university institutions categorized their learning system—all of which seem to contribute to solving the world’s greatest issues in health, science, culture, humanities, and the arts.

I’ve been looking to certain architectural spaces where it provides not only an open physical space, but one that opens up to encourage a bit of spiritual transcendence. I think it goes back to the basic elements we see in nature: light, air, and growth. My favorite place to frequent on campus was the architectural courtyard, where pink southern magnolias bloom in the springtime. It made me rethink of the word “environment.” How and what should we surround ourselves with? To answer this question, we need to look to our lifestyle, as it is the thing that alters our daily decisions and the fate of the planet.

During this period, I created a short film assignment titled “Fishy.” It ties in a bit of my personal touch with my hometown by the sea and my pessimistic view on our naive habits. I hope this video encourages you to think a little more about what products you consume on a daily basis. 

I narrowed down in one specific avenue in which consumed my mind at this period—French language and culture. In class, we got around to talking about cultural norms. And I learned that the French frown upon those who carry their drinks in hand while walking. However, in America, it is common to see people holding coffee in hand, rushing to get somewhere. It is a stereotype, of course, but there is some truth in generalization. In American culture, people tend to live a bit more fast-paced and juggle work, family, and social life. According to the French, life should not be rushed. Our consumptive culture thrives on fast-paced ideas and lifestyles. But as one of the most powerful political countries in the world, our way of living is passed on and diffused through our media conglomerates to third-world countries. We have an information overload and so much grab-and-go entertainment that it is absolutely necessary to take an ethical look at our way of living. Some people point their fingers to “Capitalism,” and yes, I agree, but we need more than just pointing fingers. We need dialogue, conversation, plenty of solutions, and a hard look at reality.

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On-Field Notes

Pin-picking and questioning all the flaws…

We have manufactured man-made materials for convenience. Plastic-lined coffee cups exist so that you can enjoy you fresh hot cup of coffee. Film plastic bags are available so that you won’t have to make more than one trip to your car. And there are containers to hold detergents, chemicals, and everyday items.

• NOT EVERY PLASTIC IS RECYCLABLE. There are different types of plastic.

• If an object has two materials melded together, it most likely is not recyclable.

• We saw that most of the plastic especially plastic containers are contaminated. Top things in this contaminated plastics were sushi boxes, boba cups, and coffee cups. Lots and lots of single-use coffee cups.

• Boba cups tend to leave tapioca inside the cup under the plastic film wrap. Most people do not peel off the film wrap, because it is glued shut onto the top. I think the ignorance and high we get off of finishing a sugary drink is toxic not only to our bodies, but also on our behavior regarding our glutinous consumption. Why does boba have to be served only in plastic cups? I do notice that boba shops are often owned by lower-income asian families. Is it conveniency and because it’s a cheaper alternative to package their drinks?

• The Loliware brand and other straw solutions have great marketing strategies. They seem to do big endeavors but I’m afraid doing tiny changes like this yields small results. There needs to be more follow-through and education with their products. Just changing our straws is not going to change our planet!

• “How Clean Must Food Containers Be Before Recycling?” article written by Kiera Butler explains the dangers of plastic contamination in soiled recycling streams. I propose a rinser and napkin nearby trash so people can wipe inside of their disposable bowls. But why does it have to be disposable? Why not dine-in or bring your own container? These are tough decisions when you’re on the fly..

• Plastic/compost contamination in one recycling bin deems everyone else’s efforts to recycle/compost ineffective, because it is too much work to sort through the waste.

• Compostable? If something is compostable, it means it can be broken down to the smallest molecules to be reused again. Not only used for soil in nutrients, but PLA compostable items is a diff story. It uses heat-melting technology to transform it into polymers..

• ... BEWARE OF made of post recycled content. They are too fibrous and cannot be recycled.

• Perhaps, we should not even recycle at all. We can reuse items.