Strawfree.org Attends UCI Housing’s 2016 Fall Sustainability Fair

On Tuesday, October 18, 2016 StrawFree.org hosted a booth at the University of California, Irvine at a sustainability fair with the theme of “Living Zero: Small Steps. Big Impact.” The zero waste event featured sustainable vendors, interactive booths, an open mic/entertainment stage and various sustainable campus organizations. The fair was part of UCI’s 2020 zero waste goal in which they are aiming for campus-wide 95% waste diversion from landfills – this goal is shared by all of University of California campuses.

Gissel Enriquez, UCI Housing’s Sustainability Student Programmer, coordinated the fair with Rachel Harvey, UCI Housing’s Sustainability Program Manager. “I personally feel like UCI has a great sustainable infrastructure…but we don’t have the heart of a lot of students,” Gissel says. “We need to educate and show students the importance of sustainability and the fair provided students with a lot of interesting organizations on and off campus that are making a great impact!”

StrawFree.org’s booth was set up as a lemonade stand as a nod to our origins (StrawFree.org’s first partnership was a lemonade stand). Students who visited the booth were briefed on plastic pollution, asked trivia questions, and were given the chance to win a bamboo straw or free lemonade with an interactive prize wheel. We ended up giving away about 200 bamboo straws to students who pledged to be say’ no’ plastic straws and be #strawfree.

Here are some pictures of some lucky UCI Anteaters below: