By Gwendolyn Turnbull
This past summer, I had the wonderful opportunity to work as a Zero Waste fellow through the Hanley Sustainability Institute’s Summer Undergraduate Fellowship Program. Now in my sophomore year at Sinclair Community College as a University of Dayton Sinclair Academy student, I’ve found the fellowship to be one of the most rewarding job experiences.
This fellowship gave me the opportunity to move away from home and live on my own for the first time. I loved living on my own and in a dorm in the summer, for it was very calm and quiet, and just a 20-minute drive to my friends and family at home. Because of this opportunity, I got to acclimate myself more into the University of Dayton, where I will be attending for my last two years to complete my Bachelor's of Environmental Geoscience degree.
One of my main projects involved leading the recycling standardization throughout residential spaces on campus. The project was phase one of a multi-stage process to improve recycling access and education through new infrastructure and signage all across campus, and is being funded by a Recycle OhioEPA grant awarded to HSI in April 2025.
The project started with conducting walkthroughs of all residential halls, collecting data on where new recycling bins could be installed, noting how many bins would need to be ordered for each building, and writing proposals to receive approvals for the new system.
This project was possible because of the study that Lia Schmidt, the previous Zero Waste fellow, had conducted during the summer of 2024 in Marycrest Hall. Lia had piloted different methods of recycling setups and found that the recycling hub system was by far the best in terms of reducing contamination and collecting an exceptionally high amount of recyclable items. With this success in mind, my goal this past summer was to install the recycling hubs in all six residential buildings on campus.
It was important to identify common areas during the walkthroughs because I knew all of the buildings would require different recycling hub layouts. The hubs were placed in high-traffic areas near trash rooms for convenience, while ensuring they didn’t disrupt the space. Taking these considerations into account, we decided that it would be best to have the recycling hubs in the common areas of residential halls.
Each of these recycling hubs consists of two recycling bins and one informational signage sticker above them on the wall. The informational signage displays real images and text of common items that can be recycled, which aligns with what is accepted by UD’s waste and recycling hauler, Rumpke.
I am thrilled to say that the hubs are now officially launched in Campus South, Marianist Hall, Caldwell Frericks Apartments, Stuart Hall and Virginia W. Kettering Residence Hall, with a total of 55 new hubs.
Throughout my childhood education, I admired how many of my teachers would always make conscious choices to reduce waste and encourage recycling — whether it was sharing big packets in groups, making assignments online instead of on paper, or always making the recycling bin a key part of the classroom.
My father, who has worked in environmental services in the public sector throughout most of his career, always made my sisters and I aware of recycling and thinking of how we can be less wasteful. When I got to high school and noticed that they wouldn’t recycle anymore, it really bothered me and made me question why we would stop now. I never got a clear answer, but I just knew that I wanted to do something about it in my future.
Now that I have contributed to the improved recycling infrastructure at the University of Dayton, it feels like a dream come true. When I was onboarded to HSI in the summer and introduced to this new project, I had never been so excited about going to work.
There has been a lot of planning done in the past few months, and I am so proud to be a leading part of this project. My supervisor, Cassie Austin, has been my guide with the obstacles we faced throughout this summer, such as figuring out how to organize the data, what we needed to order in Google Sheets, how to write the proposals, and asking volunteers to help install the hubs. The Facilities Management staff has also been a key stakeholder of this project, and with their support, we were able to install all of the bins in just one day.
I am very thankful for the amount of support that I have received while managing this project, and I could not have done it alone. Witnessing first-hand how a university functions with all of its moving pieces taught me a lot about project management and how to manage, plan and delegate. This hands-on experience not only further developed my professional skills, but also was an amazing first internship where I got to work with all of the people kind enough to make this dream a reality. I truly believe that this job was made for me because it deepened my passion for sustainability and gave me the perfect opportunity to know every single building, which will become very useful when I transfer to the University of Dayton in my junior year.