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Cassie Tagert
Madame Edwards
English 400
19 August 2015
According to the Keep America Beautiful organizational website, Americans “threw
away 161 million tons of material, which amounts to about three pounds of garbage per person
per day” in 2009 (Recycling Facts & Stats). In addition to this, the same website states, that same
year only around 2 million tons of plastic were recycled in the US while 30 million tons were
created (Recycling Facts & Stats). The plastic materials that were not recycled ended up in
landfills or were discarded randomly and ended up in rivers and streams. This creates a problem
of polluted waterways within individual communities, which affects both the human community
and endangers the wildlife surrounding the affected areas. For the Longwood community, this is
seen by the contamination of Appomattox River and other nearby waterways. Each year, Clean
Virginia Waterways hosts a statewide event to clean waterways. For the Prince Edward County
area, the program works on the Appomattox River. Each year, despite the effort of the years
before, the Appomattox and other rivers continue to be littered and have other problems that,
over time, will cause them to be unusable by the community around them. Even though effort is
put forth by many people to try and clean the waters, the problem never goes away.
In order to reduce the pollution of the waterways, the Longwood community can make a
difference by reducing the amount of plastics and other materials used and discarded. An
effective way to do this would be to change all of the disposable cups and bags used at specific
food service locations around Longwood University to reusable cups and bags. This way, the
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amount of trash going into the ground and water would be decreased, and the people of
Farmville would be directly responsible for the conservation of their community.
1. Current Situation
In a brief telephone survey that I generated, an overwhelming majority of a sample of
Longwood students agreed that the community of Longwood does not do enough to help
preserve the environment. Also, none of the interviewees knew of a program that Longwood had
to protect the environment. In reality, Longwood works with Clean Virginia Waterways to help
clean the Appomattox River, and there is also an Environmental club on campus that works to
improve the environment around them. Longwood has recycling bins around the campus as well.
Unfortunately, most of the students that I surveyed were not aware of these facts, and none of
them knew that Longwood works with Clean Virginia Waterways. One of the reasons that the
students are unaware of these facts is a lack of advertisement. Another reason is, with all that
Longwood is doing to help their community stay green, there are still problems in Farmville with
pollution of the ground and water. Without any advertisement for keeping the community clean,
the students are unaware that there are any programs to get involved with, and many of the
students do not realize what they can do to help.
2. Project Summary
The community of Farmville would be able to reduce the amount of waste that is
polluting the water and ground around them with the implementation of using reusable cups and
bags at specific locations around the Longwood campus. The specific locations would be the
locations where students can use their lancer card to make their payments. Using these locations
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would both guarantee that the clientele would be part of the Longwood community and make it
easier to track how many reusable cups and bags were being bought and used. I propose that the
first bag and cup bought using a lancer card is free, and each bag and cup purchased is recorded
on the student’s card. After the first purchase, the student is charged for each bag and cup. This
plan would significantly reduce littering of the ground and water supply around the Farmville
area. It would also decrease the amount of trash going into landfills used by Prince Edward
County. With the reduction of plastic and paper pollution, this would hopefully lead to a cleaner
water supply of rivers in Prince Edward County. The students would be discouraged from
discarding their cups and bags because they would have to pay for them, and this system
promotes more consideration about how much waste is created every day. If the Longwood
community, which accounts for about half of the surrounding Farmville community, were to
significantly decrease their plastic and paper consumption and waste, the problems of pollution
in the Appomattox and the rest of the Farmville community would be reduced greatly.
This system also promotes more consideration about how much waste is created every
day. The students and, possibly, other Farmville community members would recognize how
much plastic they discard on a regular basis when they are forced to purchase reusable cups and
bags and keep them rather than just disposing of them when they are finished with them. With
the realization of how much waste they normally create, the project may also encourage the
Longwood community to take responsibility for the environment in other ways as well.
In France, a lot of stores already have a policy that requires customers to either use their
own reusable bags or pay for a new one. Some stores will also charge if you try to use a plastic
bag instead. In an interview with my host mother, she talked about how aware the French people
are of their effect on the environment and how they incorporate green habits in their everyday
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life. This shows how using projects such as the reusable bag and cup systems promotes “green”
thinking. In addition to this, the French do not have to worry as much about how their shopping
bags are affecting the environment when the majority of people use their bags continuously. If
Longwood were to adopt this system, the Farmville community would experience a similar
awareness to that of the French people.
3. Plan of Action
In addition to a proposal, a plan of action is necessary to make sure that the system is
implemented as smoothly as possible. The timeline of events involved in the implementation of
the project is as follows:
o Identify problem with the creation of waste within the Longwood community
through all of the plastics and paper being thrown away in the form of disposable
items at food service locations such as disposable cups and bags
o Create a proposal to fix this problem
o Pitch the proposal to Aramark and Longwood leaders
o Revise plan if revisions are necessary
o Renegotiate contracts between Longwood and the specified locations:

For both bags and cups:

Outta Here, Chick-fil-A, Moe’s Southwest Grill, Java City, POD,
Barnes & Noble, Starbucks, Bojangles’, Burger King, Main Street
Bagels, McDonald’s, Sheetz, Subway, Sweet Frog, and Uptown
Coffee Café

Only bags:
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
CVS Pharmacy and Rite Aid
o Design and purchase cups and bags
o Write a brochure to hand out the first day to describe the new program
o Distribute the cups and bags to each location
o Aramark hires or chooses an employee or two to pick up and deliver cups for a
cup cleaning system
o Give first cup and bag free during first weekend back (these can be given with
room key when people check into their rooms or apartments) along with a
brochure describing the new program
4. Resources
In order for the system of cups and bags to work, the biggest resource would be the plastics
and cloth that the cups and bags will come from. The cups will be made of type of plastic called
thermoplastic, which allows for the cups to be able to be recycled and reused. Thermoplastics, a
lot like glass, when exposed to extreme heat, can be softened and shaped into different products,
unlike thermoset plastics, which cannot be changed once originally made. When put back into
room temperature, thermoplastics return to their original condition (EPA: Plastics). If the cups
are made from this specific type of plastic, the students can recycle them if they choose to, which
allows for the cups to be continually used by people and reduces the chance that the cups will
end up in landfills and rivers. The bags will be made from woven cotton fibers because cotton is
biodegradable, which also reduces the chances for the pollution of the land and waterways of
Prince Edward County (Li, Frey, Browning: Biodegradability Study).
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The collaboration with Aramark would be the most important resource for this project.
Approval and implementation of the new cup and bag system would go through them. Once
presented with the project and after they approve it, it would be up to Aramark to order and stock
the cups and bags. Although this would be a huge initial investment, Aramark would be able to
make up for the money they spent and also make a small profit off of each individual cup and
bag by charging one dollar for each bag and five dollars for each cup. Their initial investment
would be reimbursed by the clientele, and therefore, the budget for this program would be paid
for by the Longwood community.
In order for this system to work, there would need to be advertisement to educate the
community of Longwood about the new cup and bag system. The best way to do this would be to
have booths at Family Weekend and Oktoberfest that gives out samples of the cups and bags and
explains how the system works to students and their families. By reaching out to Longwood’s
environmental club, I would able to run these booths with the help of some volunteers from the
club. This way, both the students and their families would be educated about the new system and
be encouraged to use their new giveaways.
5. Constraints
With the implementation of this program, a few hurdles may arise. When first learning of this
program, the parents of Longwood students may become concerned with their students’ health. If
the students are expected to wash the reusable cups themselves and continue to use them at the
self-serve soda fountains at locations such as Outta Here and Moe’s, they may question the
sanitation of the system. It cannot be guaranteed that the students will be washing the cups
completely or at all, especially when the students that live in residence halls on campus do not
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have access to a dishwasher. In addition to this, if an outbreak were to occur, much like the
outbreak of the Norovirus earlier this year, it would expected that sanitation would become an
issue.
A solution to this problem is the implementation of a community cup cleaning system that
would be run through Dorrill Dining Hall’s dish washing system. Rather than each student
keeping their own cups and washing them on their own, students would be able to fill their cups
at one of the allotted locations, take them home, and, once they are empty, return them to an
allotted location for cleaning. In return, they would receive a clean cup to use, as long as they
had already returned a cup. The locations participating in the program would be able to keep
track of the cups in use through swiping the lancer cards upon return or purchase of the cups. At
the end of each day, Dorrill Dining Hall could send out a worker to pick up the dirty cups at the
individual locations and drop off a supply of clean ones simultaneously. After, the cups would be
taken to Dorrill Dining Hall for a thorough cleaning to prohibit the spreading of germs around
campus.
Another problem that could arise with the implementation of reusable cups and bags at
certain locations would be that some of the locations may not want to participate in the program.
A location such as McDonalds may worry that they would lose money using the more expensive
cups because their clientele may not want to purchase them, leaving McDonalds unable to sell
beverages. They may also feel that the cup and bag systems are too complicated because until
this program would be put into place, they only had to worry about their own bags and cups that
were sent to them and sold to people. The addition of swiping the lancer card and worrying about
the sanitation of the cups might seem like too much of a hassle.
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A solution to this problem would be a renegotiation of the contracts between Longwood and
the locations that are allowed to use the lancer card. Essentially, Longwood could add a
stipulation to their contracts that demands that the locations must use the new cups and bags. Of
course, the locations could decide that it is not worth it, and they do not want to participate. If
they were to do that, they would lose the business of the students who go there for the benefit of
being able to use their lancer card as payment, which would not be worth it considering the fact
that the Longwood students make up almost half of the Farmville community. Losing the ability
to charge students’ lancer cards would not be in their best interest because of the possibility of
losing a large amount of their clientele.
6. Conclusion
In 2009, Keep America Beautiful Incorporated reported that only 7.1% of plastics
generated in the US that year were recycled (Recycling Facts & Stats). The rest of the plastics
were either thrown away as waste or were kept in use. Of the plastics that were discarded, many
of them end up polluting the waters and land of different communities. In Prince Edward
County, this manifests as problems with the Appomattox River and litter on and in the ground.
One way to significantly reduce the amount of plastics that pollute the Prince Edward County
community is for Longwood to implement using reusable cups and bags rather than constantly
using and discarding disposable ones. A system of using reusable products rather than disposable
ones also promotes awareness in local consumers about how much waste they are putting into
the ground and water of their own community. This system could be a stepping stone for more
environmentally friendly projects to come for the Longwood community, and, hopefully, the
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Longwood students will be able to take their awareness and knowledge of how waste affects a
community and apply it to future communities as well.