We all know the rules when it comes to disposing waste on Swarthmore’s campus: green for compost, blue for recycling, and black for trash. However, as seemingly simple as correctly throwing away the remains of a late-night dinner may sound, sustainable practices can be difficult in reality. Green Advisors (GAs) Keira Miles ’28 and Gavin Rigby ’28, continue a years-long effort to create a healthier and greener athletic community with the goal of zero-waste and the campus-wide effort to be carbon-neutral by 2035. Through a series of engaging initiatives, Miles, part of the volleyball team, and Rigby, part of the baseball team, seek to educate other student-athletes and encourage a stronger communal effort surrounding sustainability.
On Sept. 27, the duo hosted the first Zero-Waste Green Game of the year. At the men’s soccer game against Franklin & Marshall College at Clothier Field, Miles and Rigby ran an informational table near the audience stands to raise awareness on waste life cycles and ways to reduce waste pollution. They handed out compostable towels, an example of an everyday need redesigned to reduce landfill waste by naturally breaking down into organic matter. During halftime, they had the opportunity to speak to the audience about sustainability practices.
Miles and Rigby plan to host Green Games in both the winter and spring seasons, with the goal of establishing the event as a lasting tradition “across all sports teams.” By adding more interactive booths, educational resources, and keepsakes like Green Game shirts, the GAs aim to transform the games into “a larger community event.”
On the same day as the GA-sponsored men’s soccer game, the volleyball team, of which Miles is a member, had two away games against Suffolk College and Scranton College. Due to Miles’s efforts, players wore green ribbons in their hair to recognize the sustainability efforts and responsibilities of college-atheletes.
Additionally, Miles and Rigby reach out to teams directly, giving sustainability presentations to athletes about the life cycle of waste produced on Swarthmore’s athletic facilities and the negative effects of poorly managed waste on community health.
“I don’t think a lot of people realize that the trash that you dispose of goes to an incinerator in Chester, PA, twenty minutes away from Swarthmore,” Miles said. Alongside the more obvious environmental effects of pollution created by trash incineration, waste incinerators negatively impact the economic well-being of the Chester community, particularly low-income communities and communities of color, through increased health costs, depressed property values. Miles and Rigby seek to show how a student’s sustainability habits affects communities beyond the ones on campus.
“The goal of our program is to increase the thought of zero-waste in athletics at Swat,” Rigby said. “Student-athletes and athletic influence is an essential aspect of campus culture, and sustainability is integral to life on campus and the mission of the school. However, there is a divide between these two parts of Swarthmore, and our goal is to bridge that gap and lead with passion for both perspectives.”
The GA team also regularly organizes pop-up events in the Lamb-Miller Fieldhouse for student-athletes. This fall, they hosted interactive quizzes to test an athlete’s ability to sort common objects used on campus by athletes, such as gatorade bottles, grab-and-go meal boxes, and energy drink cans. This engaging activity helped athletes “familiarize themselves with the tri-bin sorting system,” according to Rigby. “Achieving Swat’s zero-waste goals requires collaboration from everyone: integrating a zero-waste mindset into the culture of athletics is essential for achieving sustainability goals.”
Miles and Rigby feel the effects of their sustainability project when teammates and friends in other sports appropriately sort their waste during practices, games, and off-the-field parts of life. “We are having some sort of impact on the athletes,” Miles said.
Rigby and Miles are confident that understandings of teamwork and goal-setting that have been ingrained in athletes help keep themselves and teammates accountable for the steps they take to partake in the sustainability effort.
“I think a big part of being a team is accountability,” Miles said. “Goals are easier when you hold your team accountable to rise to them; accountability brings everyone up to a higher standard. If I can make a change, the person next to me can also make a change because we’re working toward a unified goal.”
