Largest ever campus clean-up held on April 21

In honour of Earth Day, the Sustainability Office hosted their annual campus clean-up event on April 21. More than 100 employees and students helped to pick up litter from “hotspots” around main campus, collecting over 80 bags of trash. Several groups also hosted smaller clean-ups throughout the month, including parts of the Health Sciences Campus in downtown Kitchener. Among the top litter culprits were bottle caps, wrappers, plastic lids and drink cups, reminding us that much of this litter can be reduced at the source with reusable alternatives.

The campus clean-up is also an important reminder of our shared responsibility to be good stewards of our environment and the collective impact we can achieve when we work together. A special thanks goes to many departments in the Green Office program, including teams from the Centre for Career Action, Centre for Teaching Excellence, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Dean of Environment Office, Finance, Geography and Environmental Management, Institutional Analysis & Planning, Information Systems & Technology, Library, Plant Operations (Campus Services), Recreation and Leisure Studies, Renison University College, Safety Office, School of Environment, Resources, and Sustainability, School of Pharmacy, and Student Success Office!  

This event marked the end of Earth Month: a time to focus on promoting biodiversity and naturalization efforts on campus. The Sustainability Office will continue to encourage more UWaterloo community members to reconnect with nature this spring term with events such as a seedling swap, tree plantings, Bike Month, and a BioBlitz.