No More Waste: Converting uOttawa Banners to Bags

I often marvel at the amount of time that disposable items serve a purpose for us before we discard them. If it takes hundreds of years for plastics to break down, surely we would hope that the useful life of that plastic would reflect its slow decomposition rate.
Sadly, if that were the case I probably wouldn't be writing this post.

• Plastic garbage bag - 2 weeks of collecting waste and then sent to landfill
  (out of a potential 23,464 weeks before decomposition)
• Plastic wrap - 1 week to hold your leftovers and then sent to landfill
  (out of a potential 23,464 weeks before decomposition)
• Balloon - 3 days (if your lucky) before it deflates and then sent to landfill
  (out of a potential 164,250 days before decomposition)
• Styrofoam cup - 30 mins to drink your coffee and then sent to landfill
  (out of a potential 236,500,000 minutes before decomposition)
• Plastic straw - 20 minutes to drink your beverage and then sent to landfill
  (out of a potential 236,500,000 minutes before decomposition)
• Q-tips - 1 minute to apply your make-up or clean around your ear and then sent to landfill
  (out of a potential 236,500,000 minutes before decomposition)
• Plastic stir stick - 15 seconds to stir your coffee and then sent to landfill
  (out of a potential 14,190,000,000 seconds before decomposition)

I know that this list focuses only on transactional things, unlike packaging which could hold something for a long time before it is disposed of. And I know that there are useful single-use plastics out there (like needles, applicators, and other medical equipment). But the shear volume of single use items that are, for lack of a better word, 'wasted' is simply intolerable.

Now that you know that I have a hate on for plastic things with short life spans, imagine how I felt when I discovered a pile of discarded event banners on campus. These banners weren't single use plastic as such, but they definitely weren't recyclable.

Promotional banners are tricky items to deal with. It's worth mentioning that marketing and promotions hold a special place in the minds of people. They think that the messages that banners carry are of sufficient importance that it justifies the consequent waste that they become. For example, we need banners for way-finding or to promote an important message (like flu vaccines or something). So even if they are garbage after your campaign is done, They are still thought of as a necessary evil.

But I don't believe in the inevitability of waste, and so my office set out to find a solution to this pile of used banners. Our first thought went to recycling them but... well... recycling isn't always what it is cut up to be. The Centre for Clean Air Policy (CCAP) has a wonderful graphic that sums it up; recycling is not the most preferable option.

Even more, some items are more worthy than others when it does come to recycling. Metals and glass are great items to recycle because they can be infinitely recycled. Items like plastics and composite materials less so, as they tend to downcycle.

So if downcycling is what we want to avoided, we decided to upcycle instead. It was at about this time that we circled back to the organization EcoEquitable, a wonderful group that we have worked on projects with in the past.You can read up on all the amazing things they do on their website.

After a quick back and forth, they told us that they could upcycle our banners into something else... reusable tote bags! We locked down a contract later that day.
Now let me be clear, waste reduction is still the best option to handle things like banners. If there is a better way to reduce the need for more banners and delivering a message more efficiently, THAT is your best option. But since we already have these banners, we thought that reusing them was the next best thing.

So those banner bags should be ready and delivered by the end of the summer if not earlier. We haven't decided if we want to give these bags away as prizes or as swag. And if things go well, we might use this option to deal with future banners.
BUT, as I mentioned before this is only the second best option so we are hoping to find a better alternative to banners... and this is the part where I ask for any of your suggestions.

~jonathan rausseo - campus sustainability manager