Concordia sifts through your trash

Concordia performed its fifth annual waste audit last week. Volunteers and Sustainable Concordia employees put on their goggles, pulled on their gloves and slapped on some coveralls before digging into tons of waste produced at Concordia’s campuses. “I didn’t think we’d have a lot of volunteers,” said Sebastien Sanchez, this year’s audit coordinator. One of the goals this year, he said, was to see if people were throwing recyclable or reusable materials into the trash. Volunteers sorted through about 40 kgs of garbage every day, separating organic waste from plastics and metals; paper from hazardous waste, glass and tetra-pack. “We want to see if the Concordia community has a sense of individual waste consciousness,” said Sanchez. “We have to see if we need to design new campaigns or educate people differently.”