bill 5.16

1. THE UNIVERSITY PARK UNDERGRADUATE ASSOCIATION
The Pennsylvania State University
16th Assembly
2021 - 2022 Session
Bill #05-16
September 1st
, 2021
Be it decided by the Assembly of Student Representatives,
having been brought to the floor by the Committee on Steering, a
Bill
Renewing Penn State University Park’s PLAN (Post-Landfill Action Network)
Membership and Endorsing Director Anne Lai’s Recommendations
Nature of the Situation:
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A linear model of resource consumption is a fundamental characteristic of the industrial economy.
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According to the World Economic Forum, in this model, “[c]ompanies harvest and extract
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materials, use them to manufacture a product, and sell the product to a consumer, who then discards
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it when it no longer serves its purpose.”1
As a result of this model, our world disposes 99% of
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products within 6 months of purchase, or over 2.1 billion tons of waste yearly.2
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The United States is the world’s biggest producer of waste.3 For the past 60 years, the
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environmental movement has been growing and people have been targeting “the 3 R’s”—reduce,
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reuse, recycle—in their daily practices, with a specific focus on recycling. However, the focus is
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largely on individual waste mitigation via recycling, material consumption is still incentivized and
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myriad problems continue to be created.4
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1
World Economic Forum. (2020). “Toward the Circular Economy.” World Economic Forum. Retrieved from
reports.weforum.org
2
The World Counts. (2020). “A World of Waste.” TheWorldCounts. Retrieved from www.theworldcounts.com
3
Turrentine, Jeff. (2019, July 12). “The United States is the Most Wasteful Country in the World.” NRDC. Retrieved from
www.nrdc.org
4
Economic & Social Research Council. (2007, June 16). “Recycling Is Not Enough; We Need To Consume Less, Experts Urge.”
ScienceDaily. Retrieved from www.sciencedaily.com

2. In particular, plastic has a great deal of environmental, economic, and social impacts in its
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production, use, and disposal processes. It contributes to marine pollution, wildlife endangerment,
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microplastic production, and more.5
Cleanup operations are extremely costly and have a negative
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effect on industries like coastal tourism and fishing.6
Additionally, plastic is immensely difficult
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to recycle, as it is often cheaper to produce virgin plastic,7
and plastic cannot be recycled an infinite
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number of times, as plastic quality degrades each time it is recycled.8
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Further, as a result of historical residential segregation and housing policies, landfills and plastic
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factories are disproportionately in or near communities of color. As a result, the environmental
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impacts of plastic and waste creation, like leaching, air pollution, and run-off, severely impact
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these communities.9
Over 60% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions originate from consumption.10
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Climate change also disproportionately affects communities of color11
and the ramifications of it
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are currently being seen globally in famines,12 forest fires,13 and rising seas.14
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Penn State contributes to this injustice, with thousands of tonnes of waste being disposed of at
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University Park each year. A Penn State Solid Waste Management Audit (conducted in March
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2019) indicated that, firstly, our waste streams have been most contaminated by miscellaneous
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plastics and, secondly, student-initiated participation in recycling is sub-par.15
While Penn State’s
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Waste Stream Task Force developed plans that address these problems, most of them revolve
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around post-consumption intervention and achieving higher diversion rates, rather than reduction
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at the source; however, waste management strategies must “as a whole significantly reduce
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waste.”16
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The Post-Landfill Action Network (PLAN) is an organization that works with college campuses
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across the country to help students explore ways to improve waste management on a systemic
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5
Schäli, Judith. (2016, May 31). “Protecting the oceans against plastic pollution.” World Trade Institute. Retrieved from wti.org
6
Parker, Laura. (2019, June 7). “The world’s plastic pollution crisis explained.” National Geographic. Retrieved from
nationalgeographic.com/environment
7
Ibid, 3.
8
Mitte Team. (2018, July 18). “The truth about recycling plastic.” Mitte. Retrieved from mitte.co
9
Villarosa, Linda. (2020, July 28). “Pollution Is Killing Black Americans. This Community Is Fighting Back.” New York Times.
Retrieved from www.nytimes.com
10
Ivanova, D., Stadler, K., Steen‐Olsen, K., Wood, R., Vita, G., Tukker, A. and Hertwich, E.G. (2016). Environmental Impact
Assessment of Household Consumption. Journal of Industrial Ecology, 20: 526-536. DOI:10.1111/jiec.12371
11
NAACP. (2020). Environmental & Climate Justice. NAACP. Retrieved from www.naacp.org
12
Walsh, Bryan. (2014, Mar. 17). “Climate Change Could Cause the Next Great Famine.” TIME. Retrieved from time.com
13
Gleick, Peter. (2020, Sep. 11). “The future has arrived. These explosive fires are our climate change wakeup call.” The
Guardian. Retrieved from www.theguardian.com
14
Lu, Denise & Christopher Flavelle. (2019, Oct. 29). “Rising Seas Will Erase More Cities by 2050, New Research Shows.” New
York Times. Retrieved from www.nytimes.com
15
Kessler Consulting, Inc. (2019). Pennsylvania State University: Solid Waste System Assessment of the University Park
Campus. Retrieved from wastestream.psu.edu
16
Ibid, 15.

3. level, with a focus on challenging waste creation and the Linear Resource Economy.17
Member
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universities have access to manuals and resources, leadership training and workshops, discounts
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to zero-waste companies, advising services, and a collaborative network of other institutions.18
At
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member universities, these resources are made available to all students, staff, faculty, and
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administrators at these institutions.19
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This past academic year, UPUA Director of Sustainable Waste Management Anne Lai oversaw
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the purchasing of a yearly membership to PLAN and the dissemination of PLAN’s available
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resources, via email and social media, to students and student groups working in sustainability.
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Director Lai made official recommendations for the continued success of this project, in Appendix
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I.
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Her official recommendations include a request that the University Park Student Fee Board
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(UPSFB) impose new allocation guidelines for offices. The UPSFB is a board of students that
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hears allocations requests from various offices and organizations such as Campus Recreation and
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the University Park Allocation Committee (UPAC). The UPSFB recommends the allocation of
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student fee dollars collected with a student-initiated fee.
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The exact amount of waste currently generated by UPSFB-funded entities is unknown due to a
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lack of awareness and accountability. However, identifying how much waste they generate and
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reducing this amount of waste is likely to have a significant impact on the university’s total waste
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generation. This is true for student organizations as collective forces, too, as they wield immense
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power to influence levels of waste creation. With over 900 student organizations registered in Org
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Central, these affiliations clearly play an important role in campus life.
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The Post-Landfill Action Network offers resources for these student organizations and offices to
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reduce their waste generation and guidelines to do so, specifically with an emphasis on reducing
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the amount of waste generated at the source, rather than just diverting it to compost and recycling
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at the end-of-life.
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Recommended Course of Action:
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The University Park Undergraduate Association (UPUA), on behalf of the undergraduate student
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body at University Park, acknowledges the harm of the Linear Resource Economy and shall fund
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a $1,000 membership to the Post-Landfill Action Network (PLAN) for all Penn State students,
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staff, faculty, and administrators.
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17
Post-Landfill Action Network. (2020). “About Plan.” PLAN. Retrieved from postlandfill.org
18
Post-Landfill Action Network. (2020). “Membership.” PLAN. Retrieved from postlandfill.org
19
Ibid, 18.

4. The UPUA resolves to advocate for the recommendations of Director of Sustainable Waste
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Management Anne Lai as written in Appendix I. As such, the Department of Public Relations is
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charged with coordinating an advocacy push utilizing SoftEdge and social media towards the
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relevant actors to adopt these recommendations.
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The Department of Public Relations is also charged with collaborating with the Department of
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Environmental Sustainability to create graphics and disseminate information about how to utilize
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PLAN through UPUA social media accounts.
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Name of General Expenditure
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Item Cost Quantity Total
PLAN Membership $1,000.00 1 $1,000.00
Total $1,000.00
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Amount remaining in Type-40: $144,730.17
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Special acknowledgement to the Department of Environmental Sustainability, Director of
Sustainable Waste Management Anne Lai
Respectfully submitted,
Annmarie Rounds-Sorenson
At-Large Representative
Sam Ajah
At-Large Representative
Committee Vote: 5/0/0
Assembly Vote: /N/A
Speaker of the Assembly ________________________________________________
President of the Student Body ________________________________________________
The University Park Undergraduate Association
Erin E Boag

5. APPENDIX 1: Recommendations of Director Anne Lai
Analysis of year one:
In March of 2021, a survey was sent out to sustainability-themed student organizations to better
understand how PLAN’s resources had been used over the past year. As the pandemic had
rendered a virtual learning space, it was difficult to assess PLAN’s full potential in delivering
conferences, summits, and other events. However, students were able to effectively use PLAN’s
manuals/case studies and one-on-one advising calls to further their initiatives. A student even
cited that PLAN’s resources were “immensely helpful in completing research and creating the
framework for the [Environmental Sustainability] Fund's rubric.” Overall, students would have
liked more guidance and detailed direction on how best to use said resources. Additionally,
PLAN’s impact can be maximized if it is leveraged by entities holding greater power over campus
function — a development in this project not yet realized.
Recommendations for next year:
● Like last year, and given that PLAN membership will be available to all Penn State
undergraduate students, I believe that the Department of Environmental Sustainability and
the Department of Public Relations should be charged with disseminating information
about PLAN member-school resources to the Student Sustainability Advisory Council
(SSAC), Eco-Action, the EcoReps program, the Sustainability Institute (SI), and other
student organizations for broad utilization of these resources.
● Given that PLAN’s impact can be maximized if it is leveraged by entities holding greater
power over campus function and students have increasingly demonstrated an interest in
increasing the environmental sustainability of campus life, I recommend that student-fee
funded offices should be required to begin developing zero-waste targets and be
encouraged to use PLAN resources to do so. I believe this is aligned with the UPSFB’s
value of sustainability, as the linear model of resource consumption for plastics contributes
to environmental, economic, and social adverse impacts during its production, use, and
disposal processes. By creating this requirement, the UPSFB can bring their value of
sustainability to life. I have outlined additional stipulations for this requirement below:
○ Offices should begin to outline their zero-waste plan by 2025 for the purpose of
becoming zero-waste by 2030.
■ Zero-waste should be defined as reaching at least an 80% diversion rate;
and a net decrease of waste consumption from 2025 to 2030, measured by
waste audits.
■ These zero-waste plans should emphasize a reduction in single-use plastics
and decreasing waste at the source, not just through diversion.
■ These zero-waste plans should include a timeline that outlines that and when
these offices will complete a waste audit, revise current purchasing policies

6. to make zero waste (and include students in this process), and these new
policies’ intended outcomes.
○ Offices can ask for additional funding for the purpose of making their operations
zero-waste by hiring consultants or the additional staff time required to run a waste
audit.
○ Current and future fee-funded offices should be penalized for failing to meet the
above criteria.
○ To make it easier for offices to understand and comply with the above criteria,
UPSFB members should supplement them with additional guidelines and/or
requirements.