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MONDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2017
@thedailytexan | thedailytexan.com
Volume 118, Issue 53 INNNOVATION
` UNIVERSITY
UT student’s Biz Bot helps entrepreneurs By Maria Mendez Senior News Reporter
illustration by danielle henderson| daily texan staff
UT falling short of Zero Waste goals Can the University go from 60 to 90 percent waste diversion by 2020?
Campus-wide Recycling Rates
By London Gibson Senior News Reporter
UT is struggling to improve waste reduction on campus and has less than three years left to achieve the Zero Waste goal to divert 90 percent of the University’s trash away from landfills by 2020. The campus-wide waste diversion rate currently lies between 50 and 60 percent. When the Zero Waste goal was set in 2011, the rate was around 35 percent, according to a 2014 report. The diversion could be raised if students knew how to properly recycle, said Neil Kaufman, sustainability coordinator for the Division of Housing and Food Service. A large portion of waste is produced because students are either not recycling or recycling incorrectly, Kaufman said. “Counting on students to really sort their waste is kind of our best way to achieving our Zero Waste goals,” Kaufman said. “We have so many students on campus and … when they sort their waste correctly, that really goes a long way.” Incorrect recycling costs UT a substantial amount of money every year
90%
60% 35%*
36%
2012
2015
*Based on estimates given by the school in a 2014 report.
2017
2020 (Goal)
Sources: https://sustainability.utexas.edu/sites/sustainability.utexas.edu/files/Natural-Resource-Conservation-Plan.pdf https://facilitiesservices.utexas.edu/divisions/support/zero-waste.php Jennifer Hobson, Zero Waste Coordinator
infographic by mingyo lee| daily texan staff
in contamination fees, Kaufman said. When UT takes contaminated deliveries — two to four-ton loads with non-recyclable items or food waste contamination — to the recycling facility, the facility charges $465 plus an additional $105 per ton. Information on how much the University pays each year on contaminated
loads was not immediately available. “It’s pretty expensive, but it’s also wasteful,” Kaufman said. “When the load reaches what they say is 20 percent contamination, they just throw the whole thing away.”
WASTE page 2
When trying to sell promotional products, political communications senior Elizabeth Haynie became overwhelmed by the permits, taxes and numerous requirements necessary to start a business. To help student entrepreneurs like her, Haynie created a chatbot to navigate the world of government regulations. “I struggled a lot as an entrepreneur,” Haynie said. “I could never get straight answers for the questions I had.” Through text messages, Haynie’s new company, Biz Bot, provides instant guidance and answers to questions on how to make a business idea a reality. Although the internet already offers plenty of information, Haynie said the various web links and answers are often more confusing than helpful. “When I would use the Google search engine, the answers were everywhere, and some of them weren’t even specific to Texas,” Haynie said. “It was really frustrating because I kept getting a lot of answers that weren’t relevant or didn’t give me actionable advice.” After hearing of other students’ troubles starting or maintaining their businesses, Haynie began developing Biz Bot over the summer. Complex legal jargon and government regulations can prevent or discourage student entrepreneurs, who do not have money to hire business experts, Haynie said. “As an entrepreneur, you’re bootstrapping it,” Haynie said. “You need to save money so you want to try to do a lot of stuff yourself.” Supply chain management junior Rikin Shah created the furniture design and delivery company Moonlit Furniture but said establishing the business as a student was a slow learning process.
Until talking with Haynie, Shah said he did not know he needed sales tax permits from both the state and the City of Austin. UT offers student entrepreneurs general business resources, but legal technicalities are not covered in courses or work shops, Shah said. “If I was doing it all over again, I think Biz Bot would be very helpful,” Shah said. “It’s an avenue to get all this information that isn’t sexy enough for some organization to have an event (explaining it).” Aspiring entrepreneurs can currently text 830-5005774 for advice, but Haynie is still working on improving the chatbot’s interaction with users. Last Tuesday, she received a $1,000 undergraduate research grant, which she plans to use to run local product trials. Associate communication studies professor Keri Stephens, Haynie’s research mentor, said chatbots are a growing resource in the business world. “There seems to be this trend where people don’t want to speak to another human in real time,” Stephens said. “They don’t want to be wrong whenever they talk, and they want to plan their conversations.” Alvin Mbabazi, a Trinity University student, owns a data analytics business and said Haynie’s Biz Bot is helpful because it can provide rapid answers anytime. If Biz Bot adds jokes and motivational quotes, Mbabazi said he thinks the bot could become a widely used resource for entrepreneurs. “It’s almost like an encyclopedia,” Mbabazi said. “With time, I see it being much more intuitive.” Haynie said she wants to add references to human-based businesses within the chatbot to help answer the
BIZ BOT page 2
NATION
Trump declares opioid crisis a public health emergency By Chase Karacostas Senior News Reporter
President Donald Trump declared a public health emergency late last week to combat the opioid crisis, but critics say it will do little to abate the epidemic. The declaration eases access to some addiction treatments, increases the ability of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to
hire substance abuse specialists and allows for the shifting of funding within HIV/AIDS programs to help people eligible for those programs receive substance abuse treatment. “For too long, we have allowed drugs to ravage American homes, cities and towns,” Trump said. “We owe it to our children and our country to do everything in our power to address this national shame and this human tragedy.”
More than 60,000 Americans died in 2016 from drug overdoses, which is higher than deaths from motor vehicle crashes and gun-related homicides combined, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. Nationally, this equates to a death rate of 16.33 deaths per 100,000 people. There are 11.6 deaths per 100,000 people in Travis County, slightly higher than Texas’ rate of 9.4 deaths per 100,000, according to
the Foundation for AIDS Research. Trump also announced a new advertising campaign to discourage people, especially children, from using illicit drugs in the first place. He followed this up by saying individuals who purchase illegal drugs are helping support violent drug cartels. Lucas Hill, clinical assistant professor and director of Operation Naloxone, a collaborative that provides overdose prevention training
and resources to the health professionals and the public, said the announcement misses one critical element that could actually combat the crisis: increased funding. Without additional money appropriated for harm reduction programs and substance abuse treatment, Hill said the crisis will only continue to worsen. The emergency also has a time
OPIOID page 3
CITY
Austin’s new Central Library offers innovative services By Stephanie Adeline News Reporter
jessica joseph| daily texan staff
John West reads a story to his daughter, Josephine, at Austin’s new Central Library during the library’s grand opening festivities Saturday.The six-story library’s grand opening attracted hundreds of visitors.
Austin’s 200,000-squarefoot new Central Library opened its doors to the public on Saturday, 11 years after voters approved of its funding. Residents have long waited for the library’s opening, which was originally scheduled for November 2016, Mayor Pro Tem Kathie Tovo said at Friday’s event.
“I have overheard people talking about the central library in the grocery store, in the hair salon, in my children’s elementary school,” Tovo said. “I feel a little bit like Charlie in ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ in the moment before he walks through the gate into the doors of Willy Wonka’s factory and encounters the wonder and magic of that place.” The city commemorated the building’s grand opening
NEWS
OPINION
LIFE&ARTS
SPORTS
Student teams compete for charity donations. PAGE 2
Thought on Austin’s potential Amazon HQ and new library. PAGE 4
Weezer fails to impress on latest release, ‘Pacific Daydream.’ PAGE 8
Tom Herman had a feeling his team was ready to play. PAGE 6
with performances, speeches from city officials and a ribbon cutting. “I was here on shovel day, so this day is pretty special to me,” Interim City Manager Elaine Hart said. “Today, we celebrate the bold vision of those who imagined this aging industrial site … (to) be transformed into the vibrant grounds we now stand on.” The six-story library is
LIBRARY page 2