The Trifecta of Environmental Challenges on College Campuses: Waste, Climate Change and Environmental Justice

Abstract

Through this thesis, I explore waste, climate change and environmental justice as a set of environmental challenges on university campuses. They are issues that exist independently of one another but can also work to exacerbate each other. The average member of a university campus community may or may not understand how these issues work in combination to influence people and the environment both on and off-campus. This study explores how different campus members perceive the interconnections between climate change, waste, and environmental justice. Do they understand the implications of a university campus’s impact on the environment and on people? Through structured surveys and focus group interviews, I find that campus members personalities tend to most closely relate to the following: (1) those who make the connections between climate change, environmental justice and waste and are acutely aware of their environmental impacts, (2) those who generally understand that there are impacts to the environment and to people from waste, but do not think about how campuses impact the environment and people, and (3) those who do not make connections between the three and do not perceive of impacts university campuses might have off campus. I find that even if campus members do make the connections between the three issues, they do not apply these same principles or associate the same impacts with a university campus.