Fulfilling student organizations’ requests, Green Events comes to tailgates, general meetings and campus celebrations with composting and recycling bins rolling in tow. 

The student-led organization Green Events helps other student groups arrange low-waste events by encouraging them to buy compostable items like paper plates, cups and utensils. Additionally, at each event they participate in, Green Events collects the waste in large bins behind the Student Services Building. More specifically, Eloiza Dy, an accounting sophomore and new member of the organization, said recyclable material gathered from the events goes to a local recycling center and collected compost goes to the UT Microfarm and gardens around campus to produce food for the community. 

Caroline Gamble, co-lead of Green Events, said the organization strives to put as little waste into landfills as possible because the greenhouse gas emissions from landfills can contribute to global warming. 

“Methane emissions from landfills are something that a lot of people don’t focus on because there’s that big drive in fossil fuel emissions, and it’s become a really prominent part in United States politics,” said Gamble, a sustainability studies and economics sophomore. “I needed to raise awareness about something that was equally as important — that’s why I joined Green Events.”

In 2018, Green Events accumulated 600 pounds of compost and recyclable materials that otherwise would have ended up in landfills, according to the Campus Environmental Center.  Since the beginning of this semester, Green Events has collected 208 pounds of compost and recyclable material from organizations that use their services, according to a spreadsheet of their recorded data. 

Green Events also provides student organizations with free consultations on how to make waste from their meetings and events almost completely landfill-free. 

“We go over in detail how many people we should have there to monitor the event, how many compost bins they want, how many recycling bins, what kind of material they’ll have and a lot of time we will suggest certain food vendors that are more sustainable,” Gamble said. 

Michael Reilly does consultations with Green Events for the Student Engineering Council. As the vice president of operations for SEC — which has produced around 45 pounds of compost and recyclable materials this semester — Reilly said Green Events provides for their weekly meetings and collaborates with them on sustainability initiatives. 

“If you’re not sustainable, you’re probably wasting money and resources and leaving a negative impact on the planet,” said Reilly, a chemical engineering and science and technology management senior. “We’re all here at UT because what starts here changes the world. We’re all here to make a better impact, and it starts with being sustainable.”

Dy recently joined Green Events because she said the organization proactively works to make the campus better rather than just talk about sustainability. 

“For a lot of students on campus living on (their) own for the first time, you realize how much food you go through,” Dy said. “Living in a city like Austin, students don’t have gardens here, so it doesn’t make sense for them to want to compost or go out of their way to compost. But with Green Events, we’re trying to make it a little bit more accessible.” 

In the future, Dy said Green Events wants to expand its composting reach not just to student organizations, but also to all dining halls, making the UT community at large low-waste. 

“Sometimes, the reason people shy away from focusing on sustainability or topics like climate change is because it’s such a big scale thing and you’re like, ‘What I do doesn’t make a difference,’ but being sustainable even on a personal level can help out so much,” Dy said.