Reimagining Dirty Training

Macalester provides first years with three workshops orienting them to Mac values and culture. SEXY training teaches students about consensual & safe sex and queer identities. POP (power, oppression, privilege) training facilitates dialogue among first years on issues of identity and social justice, examining privileges and biases. Dirty Training has historically taught students how to properly sort waste, compost, and recycling in our three bin system across campus. This upcoming school year, the sustainability office is changing the curriculum of Dirty Training to focus more on the reasoning of why we sort our waste, and how it relates to environmental justice.

Since 2014, we have had single stream recycling and composting bins next to traditional trash bins on campus. Why?

Waste reduction is environmental justice. In general, wealthy people and particularly white people have had more say in decision making that affects the environment. For example, deciding the location of a landfill whose toxic waste will pollute local water supplies, where a new highway will go, or a new incinerator all are decided by the government, who rarely accurately represents the population they control. As a result, the negative environmental consequences have often been pushed on low income communities and communities of color. It’s not an accident that landfills and incinerators ended up in communities of color: redlining and segregation forced these communities to live nearby.

Furthermore, production of single use plastic, fast fashion, and throw-away culture usually exploit the workers as well as the environment and the people living in the local environment. Refusing means breaking the cycle of production and consumption altogether. We want to encourage students to refuse unnecessary stuff and reuse items they have already purchased as much as possible before purchasing new. The Mac Free Swap is a free item exchange that diverts things from ending up in the landfill while also acting as a free clothing, books, school supplies, and many other random item “thrift” location. Zero Waste is behavior change on the consumers’ end, prompting producer responsibility.

Image of inverted triangle with "refuse" on top, then "reduce," then "reuse," then "recycle" with "rot" at the bottom.

With COVID-19 radically changing the entire world’s normal way of life, the three first year workshops will be affected as well. Normally, we meet in the first year dorm lounges, continuing a sense of community first years have on their dorm floors. This year however, we will not be able to have in person meetings, so we are working with Residential Life and our Dirty Training facilitators to figure out how we will safely give Dirty Training to first year students while still encouraging community building. We are planning on a Zoom call based on First Year Courses. More information will come as we move closer to the beginning of the school year.

Written by Sustainability Office student worker Charlee Gorham