The Post-Landfill Action Network (PLAN) equips students with the resources and tools necessary to holistically understand the Waste Crisis and lead solutions on their campuses.

PLAN was founded in 2013 by a group of college students at the University of New Hampshire. These students witnessed a systemic waste problem on their campus and developed the first student-led, financially self-sustaining, zero waste move-out program of its kind. Other campuses wanted to replicate the program and from there, PLAN was born.

Since then, we have established a collective network of students and campuses across the country that are working together to vision beyond the Linear Consumption Economy. We now support students and staff with enacting a wide range of infrastructure changes on campus. Through this work, we strive to create a model for holistic, systemic change that goes beyond waste.

PLAN follows the Points of Intervention theory as described in the book Beautiful Trouble. This framework shifts and challenges various social injustices, addressing "specific places within a system where a targeted action can effectively interrupt the functioning of that system, opening up space for change."

Our work combats the Linear Consumption Economy. This is our current dominant system where resources are extracted from the earth to produce a product, which is distributed across the world, sold to consumers, and finally discarded to a landfill or incinerator. This exploits people and the planet at every step along the way, generating exponential profit for the powerful and leaving the rest of us increasingly behind. We believe students have the power and responsibility to challenge this system. Whether it be blockading the path of a pipeline, starting a residence hall compost program, or distributing an educational zine about upcycling across campus, everyone has skills they can use to intervene — their personal Points of Intervention.

No one can do everything, but everyone can do something. This has been a guiding mantra for PLAN's work over the years. Together, we can fix this broken system.