Spring 2021, Duke Student Government SAS Committee and Environmental Alliance put their heads and resources together to organize the first student org - led audit, following in the footsteps of a class project audit that had taken place in 2017. This audit took place with the intention of creating transparency in campus waste systems, generating data to inform waste education and infrastructure decisions, and exciting students about sustainable solutions. The data that we collected indicated that students, more than half of the time, did not know how to sort their landfill, recyclable, and compostable items. Robust data, administrative support, and positive community responses have encouraged us to keep going, even amidst the complications during COVID. We are delighted to continue this project and hope that it will become an annual event.
Last year's waste audit received a positive response from Duke administration and the student community, and as such, several student organizations united with Sustainable Duke and Duke Dining to form The Sustainable Task Force. We collaborated to add on to last year's short waste audit project with the focus of measuring possibilities of compost expansion via contamination reduction. The task force successfully conducted two waste audits in the 2022 Spring semester – one at the beginning (February) and one at the end (April). An educational campaign took place to help students learn how to sort waste; students' sorting performances before and after this treatment were observed.