Nicodemus Wilderness Project -- Global Registry of Apprentice Ecologists

Coordinating a zero-waste event for my club swimming team has been one of the most profound moments of my college career. It was the first time I was able to personally spearhead an idea into a real project. I was inspired to bring this to my club swimming team after volunteering at zero-waste events for Ohio State's synchronized swimming team. Seeing that zero-waste was possible to do in an aquatic setting, I set out to do it for my club team. I brought up the idea with the officers for the team and they were on board. To major problems coming into this were finding enough volunteers to sort the waste of 650 people and funding for the compost bins. Both problems were solved successfully. We were able to get outstanding participation from members of the team itself, with nearly 50 people volunteering to stay after the meet and sort through the waste and make sure it was going into the proper waste stream. A funding source was found, we were able to split the cost of renting out the compost bins for the event. Overall the event was a success, achieving a waste diversion rate of 71.26%, more than doubling the Universities diversion rate of 35%!