Undergraduate Student Government’s Green Team is working to make ASU more Earth-friendly by setting up composting and recycling stations at different events on campus.

Green Team plans to have compost and recycling containers placed around the Homecoming Block Party on Oct. 31.

At the Family Weekend Tailgate on Oct. 17 and 18, recycling and compost stations were also available. More than 2,000 people attended the events and members of Green Team said they recycled 284 pounds, composted 437 pounds and had only 36 pounds of trash.

Sustainability and industrial engineering sophomore Alex Davis, a member of Green Team, said the family weekend events were among the first zero-waste events to happen at ASU. “Zero waste” means that 90 percent or more of the event’s waste is diverted from landfills.

“In this case, this was definitely a zero-waste event,” Davis said. “I was impressed with the numbers, especially for one of the first events of this caliber.”

Davis said it’s important to work on recycling and composting at ASU.

“We have a limited number of resources to use efficiently and landfills just aren’t pleasant,” Davis said. “Also, it takes less energy to recycle old products than to make new.”

Sustainability sophomore Natalie Fleming, USG Campus Environment Department director, said she thinks composting and recycling are important for a lot of reasons.

“It shows we can get closer to having zero-waste events and how easily sustainability can be integrated,” she said. “We are also able to use the compost on campus, so this really goes full circle.”

Green Team is excited to be involved with the Homecoming Block Party this weekend, Fleming said.

“We plan on having a recycling bin and a compost bin everywhere there is a trash can,” she said.

Industrial engineering sophomore Andrew Latimer, another Green Team member, said the block party will be different [from parents’ weekend] because there will be many more people on campus.

“This weekend is going to present a new challenge, but I don’t think it’s anything we can’t handle,” Latimer said.

ASU doesn’t do composting particularly well and there aren’t many composting areas available yet, Latimer said, but that’s something the Green Team is working on.

“We’re also working on helping the athletics department with recycling and composting, hopefully by next year, maybe even a few games later in the season,” he said. “Right now it’s just a lot to ask them to pay for those extra bins that would be needed and to pay the help to clean it up. But we are working with them to find a solution, both economically and environmentally.”

Reach the reporter at sheydt@asu.edu.