Sustainable efforts on campus are about to take another step forward.
The Zero Waste Wagon, a joint effort by Colorado Mesa University (CMU) students to help conserve plastic waste, is moving to a more permanent location on campus for those looking to save money on soap, detergent and cleaner.
New Way Refillery is a local business next to Lucero Hall run by owner Kate Bennett and will likely be where the Wagon is moved.
“We were Resident Assistants (RA) in the same building and we were brainstorming ways to bring [a refillery] to a dorm. We ran into Kate and then started using her products and got an actual wagon with four big containers,” project co-founder and CMU RA Leah Molè said.
Former CMU student Lucas Torres and co-founder CMU student Cloè Fortier-King were also responsible for starting the project. Torres came up with the idea of bringing a refillery to campus after visiting Denver.
The Wagon itself is what it says: a large wagon with four containers filled with hand soap, dish soap, laundry detergent, and all-purpose cleaner. Each Friday starting in March of 2021, the group would bring the wagon around to each dorm on a schedule and students could refill their empty detergent or soap containers for free.
It was difficult to continue the project because of the time demanded of the volunteers, which is why the group decided to look elsewhere in late 2021. Many times a volunteer would have to spend six or seven hours running the wagon.
“We would knock on every single door to try to encourage the residents to come down if they hadn’t noticed from the publicity and the social media posts,” Fortier-King said.
The Student Life office and Sustainability Council helped fund the project. Sometimes the Wagon would attract hundreds of students during their busiest days.
Now the Wagon is moving in a different direction. Instead of taking the wagon to dorms each Friday, the students plan on working with Bennet and her New Way Refillery to let students refill their containers at the store instead.
“We decided on keeping the wagon idea, but having a little area in Kate’s [Bennet] store [for it]. And then students can now go there, show their MavCard and then get free products,” Molè said.
“We love the chance to do it and help contribute to sustainability on the campus, but it’s kind of an overwhelming project, so we’re hoping to take it in a direction that’ll make it easier and simpler for everyone involved,” Fortier-King said.
While the group wasn’t directly a part of Sustainability Council, the project was an opportunity to conduct applicable sustainable work on campus and form a partnership with the Council along the way.
Fortier-King stated the project was good because it was flexible and a really good outlet for problem solving and creativity.
“What’s essentially happened with this project, it’s taken on a new incarnation. Since now we have a brick and mortar store, you can bolster both efforts into one. You consolidate the endeavors of both in one place, and it’s overall the best case possible scenario, because now you have a permanent presence within the campus jurisdiction that revolves exclusively around sustainability,” President of Sustainability Council Ryan Biller said.
The project with the refillery is tentatively going to be set up by the end of March 2022.
“Sometimes it’s like being sustainable, being zero waste as a human seems unattainable. But it really starts with something small and just doing little little things that can add up for yourself,” Molè said.
