Zero Waste committee decks the halls with green at EcoFest

Audrey Curtis ’25, Web photostory editor • November 27, 2023

Katherine Phelps ’25 volunteers for Service League of Girls (SLOGS) at the festival, aiding with a variety of crafts.

During the beloved holiday season, the amount of waste created increases between 25% and 43% according to the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control. Between the gifts, cards, decorations, food and parties, the average American produces 8.75 more pounds each week.

Zeroing in on this common complaint about the holiday season, the Zero Waste committee set out on Saturday, Nov 11, to reduce the waste from the holidays by providing Westport shoppers with eco-friendly gift options.

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The holidays can be super wasteful. People are typically buying things that are not environmentally friendly.

— Kayla Iannetta

Each Westport public school has its sustainability group. Staples’s own Zero Waste Committee is managed by Co-Chairs Kayla Ianetta and Jennifer Cirino. This committee considers itself to be more than a club and runs numerous events such as EcoFest, formally called the Holiday Green Festival.

“We founded [a] compost initiative at Staples,” President of ZWC Isabel Tobin ’24 said, “and ended up reducing the school food waste by 30%.”

Isabel Tobin ’24, president of the Zero Waste Committee (ZWC), sells handmade cards for shoppers to raise money for the club’s future initiatives. (Photo by Audrey Curtis ’25)

In addition, the club also started a thrift store, offering a way to step away from fast fashion. This thrift made its appearance at Saturday’s event, along with numerous other pop-ups. Each pop-up contained sustainable gifts such as sea cards, aromatherapy, handmade crafts and anything promoting sustainability.

“We brought vendors from all over Connecticut to the cafeteria,” Tobin said.

These local shops provide an alternate option to the typical gifting tactics.

Crafter Susan Freedgood, resident of New Canaan, was a featured vendor at the festival. She creates colorful fish out-of-stockade fencing or broken fences. To do this, she cuts the wood and then paints them to hang outside. (Photo by Audrey Curtis ’25)

“The holidays can be super wasteful,” Iannetta said. “People are typically buying things that are not environmentally friendly.”

Instead, through this event, there is an opportunity for shoppers to do just the opposite of that. By keeping it holiday-themed, many are excited to take part in spreading holiday cheer, without spreading garbage throughout the ecosystem.

If the fair becomes as large as the club hopes, they will be able to use the funds for a variety of improvements to Staples.

“We’d like to change some things at the school,” Cirino said, “such as more water filling stations, TerraCycle boxes for more in-depth recycling and reducing single-use plastic in the cafeteria, among other initiatives.”