It’s been an eventful few months- work, teaching, a pesky dissertation, kids, and general life activities have filled the days. I was, however, able to spend a few relaxing weeks with my extended family overseas. Before we go any further, I know that commercial aircraft produce HUGE amounts of greenhouse gases, but I do try to offset my carbon footprint in other ways (so don’t label me a hypocrite just yet). For example, I did ask the gentleman at the Hertz desk in Zagreb if I could have a fuel efficient vehicle. I assumed I would get a Fiat, VW, or Seat Diesel, but I was given a Seat Leon FR (petrol, 1.0 liter turbo with a decent 128hp) which gets a staggering 50.4 MPG!! While not the topic of this post, I often wonder why the majority of Americans seem to choose massive vehicles (and drive alone most of the time) that get under 20mpg when the rest of the world, Europe in particular, offers mid sized cars with smaller engines that achieve the mpg numbers of our hybrid vehicles. Anyway, that’s another post for another day.

What I want to talk about in this post is our amazing ability to produce waste- specifically when we meet in large groups. For a typical day at work, I bring in my own silverware, brew my coffee at home and bring it in a travel mug, use glassware for my lunch, bring my own washcloth to avoid using paper towels, and pack it all in my reusable/washable lunchbox. Compare this to almost every group meeting that I go to- plastic silverware, paper plates, Styrofoam cups, single use coffee pods, and rolls of paper towels. Anyone presenting at the meeting will print out packets with slides/notes for the group and there will be an agenda passed around to every person in the group (despite everyone knowing what the meeting is about and having an agenda emailed to them). The amount of waste that is produced during these meetings is incredible. I wonder why so many people in these meetings will go out of their way to live a sustainable and waste-minimizing lifestyle, but those behaviors go out the window when its time to gather in a group. What are the contingencies that support sustainable behaviors in isolation, and why do they fail to maintain those behaviors when the number of participants rises past n=1 or n=2?

Now consider these wasteful behaviors and the amount of waste produced when the number of participants rises from a department meeting of 20 people to a national or international conference of 500-1000? As an example- In the backpack next to me I have the BABAT registration packets from 2016, 2017, and 2018. The packets contain a conference brochure, promotional flyers, name badge in plastic holder, agenda, and pen. Are these things helpful? Yes. Would they be just as helpful if they were emailed to me and I could open them as a pdf? Yep.

This got me thinking- is a waste-neutral, plastic-free conference possible? The answer is yes. The Australian Marine Sciences Association- with 570 attendees- held a fully plastic-free national conference. (for more information, read the full article from TheConversation.com here ). How did they do it?

• stiff cardboard name badges with no plastic pockets

• bamboo lanyards with metal clips

• 100% natural conference tote bags

• no printed envelopes for registration packs, and no printed conference abstracts

• all necessary printing was done on sustainably sourced paper, by a company using a solar-powered printer

• delegates were asked to bring their own reusable water bottles and coffee cups, or preregister to buy a reusable coffee cup at the conference

• coffee carts with reusable/washable cups

• water jugs with glassware (or to refill personal water bottles) at the back of each presentation room

• no plastic-wrapped mints or candies

• sustainably sourced pencils instead of pens

• plates, silverware and glassware for meals

• plastic free give-away products

The best part about it? They did this all without increasing costs to the participants of the association. With the number of Behavior Analysts interested in sustainability, and the proof that this can be done without additional costs, why can’t our conferences be plastic free? BABAT registration will begin this week and, while there might not be enough time to make BABAT 2019 a plastic free conference, why don’t we set a precedent and agree to make BABAT 2020 the first plastic-free ABA conference? If you’re interested in making this happen, please email us and let’s get working on it!

——As a note- I love BABAT! I am not calling it out for any reason other than it’s the conference that I go to yearly and, as a Massachusetts resident, I’d like to see a conference in our state set the bar for sustainable behaviors! Also, I know there are many other ways to hold sustainable conferences. Making conferences virtual so that we didn’t have hundreds of cars and planes taking people to the conference location would be the most sustainable option, but I’m not sure that we’re there yet. Maybe that’s our 2021 goal?

Brian Jadro, MA, LABA, BCBA