This engagement installation physically displayed information from a waste audit for Rapson Hall by the Center for Sustainable Building Research at the University of Minnesota.

The building is the headquarters for the College of Design, so the installation has several elements to engage that audience. Topic Stations, such as the coffee cups below left, asked for solutions to specific waste materials. Rethink It actions, such as the four above, displayed other designer's reactions to waste products [30 total]. Graphic analogies and physical sculptures of waste translated quantifiable statistics into amounts that designers can easily understand: such as annual paper waste per person being equal to twelve trees worth that are as big as telephone poles. 

Hundreds of people viewed the exhibit, and provided some reasonable solutions that were ultimately funded by the department. Rapson Hall studios became a pilot for the university organics recycling program, a student was hired to build new recycling bin prototypes, and the environmental activism student group worked with Hennepin County on design opportunities for the energy-from-waste facility that is across from the new major league ballpark in downtown Minneapolis. 

special thanks to Virajita Singh, Dana Donatucci, Nate Tickner, and Michelle Ney for assisting Sarah Wolbert in the information and assembly of this project.