Over the last four years, students have been working with the Post Landfill Action Network (PLAN) to rethink waste management at COA through PLAN’s three stage ATLAS Zero-Waste project. Stage 1: Perform a Holistic Campus-Wide Assessment was completed in 2020 by Katrine Øesterby ’21. This included interviewing stakeholders to gain an understanding of different waste management practices on campus. Information gathered from this stage serves as a baseline to move forward and track our progress toward becoming a zero-waste school.
In 2024, Linnea Goh ’25 and Léo Charbonneau ’27 completed Stage 2: Establish a Campus-Wide Strategic Vision. They facilitated visioning sessions with stakeholders to gather ideas of how we can improve our waste management thinking beyond the constraints of common limitations such as funding, space, and staffing. Linnea is currently working on Stage 3: Create a Zero Waste Action Plan for her Senior Project. This will involve researching the specific details of what is needed for COA to become zero waste and writing a series of proposals to reflect the implementation of different suggestions identified in the Stage 2 visioning process. This plan will address a variety of different waste issues from the management of surplus materials to compost and disposable dishware and will work towards standardizing COA’s waste management processes.
