USC hosts events educating students about sustainability practices.
It’s Earth Month, and USC is taking out the trash. To recycle, of course.
As part of the month’s festivities, the university is hosting several different sustainability-themed events, including “E-Waste Collection Days,” where university officials collected 11 laptops, 60 CPUs, 20 headsets and 50 phones for recycling, as well as a workshop on “How to be a Sustainable Trojan.”
Over the course of three days, USC Human Resources, Equity and Compliance, or HREC, set up bins at various locations where students and faculty could drop off old electronic devices.
“We always try to give our items that we’re recycling a second or third life to avoid diverting toxic metals, glass, and plastic to the landfills,” said Anthony Rodriguez, a USC hazardous materials supervisor.
According to Rodriguez, HREC recycled 337,000 pounds of electronic waste last year. The lead organizer of the event, Emily White, explained that all devices collected are wiped by the publicity team and then wiped again by a contracted company.
Additionally, HREC has an outreach program that expands their reach beyond the borders of the university.
“We donate [devices] to schools when we can,” White said. “We go to the 10 schools within USC first, and then we go to the community at-large.”
On Wednesday, the USC Staff Assembly hosted “How to be a Sustainable Trojan,” a workshop where students and faculty learned about USC’s sustainability efforts and how to personally help the university in achieving its goals.