The Building and Energy Management position serves to aid CMC in reducing its emissions in a cost-effective manner by creating a baseline and tracking current emissions through sustainability reporting, greenhouse gas emissions reporting, and building and energy management. The internship also increases the number of student sustainability positions on our campus and assist in setting an efficient emissions reduction pathway.

— Andrew Bradjan ‘22, Sam Becker’19

The Sustainable Dining Intern position was created in collaboration with Jennifer Carbajal and has been revised with Pam Franco, the new Manager of Collins. The position will be filled during Spring 2020 and Fall 2021. The Sustainable Dining Intern will work with Collins to help make its day-to-day operations more sustainable. By working with dining staff and students to initiate and implement programs that seek to reduce and divert food waste and encourage consumption of more sustainable food, this intern will reduce CMC’s carbon footprint and, thus, contribute to CMC’s efforts to be carbon neutral by 2050.

— Carolyn Weisman ‘21, Tallan Donine ‘21, Sam Becker ’19

Working with the staff of Collins Dining Hall, students helped administer an Impossible Burger Bar event that featured the first perfect substitute to the beef hamburger—the “Impossible Burger”. The event occured in October and was nearly identical to the Impossible Burger bar event from March 2018 that was planned with Jennifer Carbajal and Chef Paul at Collins. The Impossible Burger is a new innovative product that looks, tastes, and cooks exactly like beef but is made from plants. This is not your typical faux beef burger, however—it is made using a proprietary technology that produces hemoglobin from plants, thus making it a true perfect substitute. By serving the Impossible Burger for just one meal, Collins and the wider CMC community will decrease its consumption of beef by 50 pounds (or 800 ounces). By eating a perfect substitute like the Impossible Burger, one saves 75 feet of land, averts the equivalent water usage of a 10-minute shower, and spares 18 driving miles of greenhouse gases.

Collins expected around 450 people to attend dinner and 1069 people showed up. The event saved 30,000 square feet of land from being used for animal agriculture, conserved the equivalent water usage of a 4,000-minute shower, and spared 7,200 vehicle miles worth of GHGs.

— Alex Brussell ’18.5, Sam Becker ‘19

With the Diva Cup Event, Power of Women (POW) aims to provide a safe environment to engage in critical discussions around periods, and empower trans-men and cis-women to counter societal shaming of periods. POW provided a presentation on the environmental and societal issues linked to periods, particularly regarding waste, financial burden, trans issues, and patriarchal norms. We also demonstrated how to use a menstrual cup. Afterwards, we hosted a movie screening on the theme of empowering women. 

— Zoe Carlson ’22, Gayle Lee ’20, Jamie Bitz ‘22, Liv Baker ‘20, Laura Brenalvirez ‘22, Miriam Farah ‘23, M. McCue ‘23, N. Augustyn ‘23, and A. Larson ‘23

This collaboration is an effort to disrupt the cycle of waste produced by the purchase of single use plastic cups at events and parties. This program is implemented by the EAC through the Eco Reps. Through an effective awareness campaign, we are certain that students would find the statistics on the toxicity of cups alarming. The goal of this initiative is to adjust the current GreenWare policies to encourage students to use reusable cups.

— Anna Graves ‘20, Zoe Carlson ‘22, Savi Rathi ‘21, Hallie Spear ‘22, Isa Jia ‘22, Grace Lu ‘23

The ReRoom program seeks to end the cycle of waste by collecting resalable items that students do not want at the end of the school year and reselling them to first-year and returning students. Because local organizations are flooded by the sheer number of donated items, many end up disposing of perfectly good items because they have limited space. ReRoom provides students direct access to functional items that are cheaper than or on par with the price of items at local thrift stores. ReRoom also provides students with a source of employment during finals week and the week before all students return to campus, both of which give students an opportunity to make money at a time when most CMC student jobs are not in action.

— Sam Becker ’19