As the awareness of the perniciousness of plastic grows, companies and universities are implementing initiatives to go plastic free. GW was the first university in Washington, D.C., to do so.
Inside GW’s single-use plastic policy
Each year, 380 million tons of plastic is produced and 50% of that plastic is single-use. This plastic will likely end up in landfills and will be on earth for hundreds of years. More and more companies and universities around the United States are implementing initiatives to go plastic free. As individuals become more environmentally conscious, they are opting to make more sustainable changes in their lives.
In June of 2020, the George Washington University announced an initiative to eliminate single-use plastics on campus. As the first campus in the District of Columbia to implement a policy of this kind, I wanted to dig deeper into the specifics of it. What are the specific logistics of the policy? What challenges has GW encountered implementing it? What do students think of GW’s efforts? After interviewing a director of sustainability at GW and surveying students, I got to the bottom of the story.