Creative memes wanted for Beyond Waste competition

Campus Sustainability Office February 9, 2022
Batman slapping Robin meme about recycling glass

As part of this year's Beyond Waste campaign at Cornell, organizers are hosting a meme competition to encourage fun and creative submissions related to the themes and behavior change targets of the waste and purchasing-focused campaign.  Here's how to participate.

Beyond Waste Meme Competition

Submissions accepted February 14th - March 14th 2022

Enjoy the occasional Internet meme? Do you deal with feelings of existential dread upon reading yet another headline about plastic in our oceans or fast fashion by creating funny images?  We need you for this year's Beyond Waste Meme Competition! This semester, from February 14th to March 14th the Cornell Environmental Collaborative is hosting a waste, consumer culture, and resource use-themed meme competition as part of the annual waste campaign with support from the Campus Sustainablity Office.

How to Participate: Create and submit your memes around themes related to waste, consumer culture, (un)sustainable resource usage, or any topic related to the Beyond Waste campaign. Bonus points will be awarded for making connections between waste and other social issues, such as climate change, political polarization, or environmental (in)justice, or connecting memes to the four key impact areas outlined in the 2022 campaign. 

Competition Principles

  • Memes will be judged based on originality, quality, good faith, sense of humor, and perceived cathartic effect

  • Limited to three submissions per person.

  • Each participant is responsible for not infringing on any copyright.
    Cornell University is not responsible for any copyright infringement.

  • Meme must be submitted in jpg or png format. No gifs, sorry!

  • No offensive or NSFW content.

  • Event organizers reserve the right to publish meme submissions to the internet (including our social media account), with appropriate attribution.

Participants are welcome and encouraged to share their memes on their personal social media accounts and/or the Cornell subreddit. May the best meme win!

Winners: Submissions will be judged by event organizers and displayed at the end of the competition. Top winners will have memes displayed in a real-life on-campus location during the month of April. Plus, bragging rights.


About Beyond Waste

Beyond Waste is a 2-month institutional waste reduction campaign that empowers every member of the Cornell campus community to rethink our relationship to products we use everyday.  Beyond Waste invites us to move beyond recycling and waste management into a creative life-cycle approach to how we purchase, use, reuse, and dispose of goods and materials across campus systems.