Photo by Alex Gross ’24

The new trash bins introduced to Brophy, created by the Student Climate Coalition worked to create this new waste system with the Corral and R City, is the biggest project the SCC has ever worked on according to Mr. Cooper Davis ’10.

The new waste system organizes aluminum and compost materials separately from trash.  The compost is given to R City to be distributed to farmers while the aluminum is sold in order to be melted down and reused.  The partnership with R City, a company that works with schools and businesses to create compost to supply to farmers, is the latest step in Brophy’s efforts to become more environmentally friendly.

The SCC has been working on multiple projects recently striving for a more eco-friendly campus.  After the addition of solar panels last year, the Student Climate Coalition, moderated by Mr. Davis, turned its attention to creating a new waste system.  The SCC has been working on this project since last year.

After the SCC released the new project, they started monitoring the success of the system, and Mr. Davis is confident about the progress of the project.  According to Mr. Davis, the success of this project has been noted by the CEO of R City. 

“We went into a bin last Thursday with the CEO of the compost company and sorted through it and he said that it was the best-sorted bin that he had ever seen coming from either a school or business and so he was really impressed with what we had going on here and I think that we can definitely keep that up,” said Mr. Davis.

The previous waste system with the blue bins used for recycling and the gray bins used for trash, was not as effective as items were only being recycled ten percent of the time according to Mr. Davis.  The design of the new trash bins is modeled to be eye-catching and easy to understand.  

The design also took inspiration from other schools’ designs.  The Student Climate Coalition looked at what other schools that partner with R City did in order to be more sustainable. The SCC also looked at ASU’s zero waste initiative, and how ASU has worked to be more sustainable.