Loggers Live Green

Sustainability Highlights:

• Live Green Challenge, a competition between Resident Halls to reduce waste and increase recycling from October to November. Collectively, all Resident Halls increased the volume of recycling. Congratulations to Sewlangster who won the Live Green Recycling competition between Resident Halls.
• Sustainability in the Diner:
  • Composting in the Diner, Puget Sound is partnering with the City of Tacoma Environmental Services on a pilot “InSinkErator” project in The Diner dish room.  An InSinkErator is similar to a large, commercial garbage disposal except it is designed for effective pre- and post-consumer food waste processing.  City of Tacoma waste treatment facilities have been designed to convert pre- and post-consumer waste via the waste water system into Tagro fertilizer.
  • Farm to Table, the Dining and Conference Services (DCS) partnered with Tahoma Farms this past year to provide local and seasonal produce almost every month this past year. DCS collaborated with Students for a Sustainable Campus in an effort to educate students and campus community members about the benefits of buying local. In the past, DCS has featured tomatoes, beets, winter squash, and kale depending on the season availability.
• Capacity Building in SAC Outreach:
  • Communication, SAC Outreach created new Loggers Live Green Facebook page and blog to promote sustainability events and projects throughout campus.
  • New Loggers Eat Green Logo, SAC Outreach created a new logo Loggers Eat Green to encompass all of the effort in the Diner to provide local and sustainable produce.
  • Graduation Fair Green Pledge, graduating seniors have the opportunity to pledge and account sustainability as they enter a career by signing a pledge and wearing a pin upon graduation.
• ASUPS Sustainability Efforts:
  • Green Fee, ASUPS in collaboration with SAC developed a Green Fee where students will contribute $3 to create a pool of money for students to apply for grants to create projects to promote sustainability on campus.
  • ASUPS Director of Sustainability Position, ASUPS introduce a new sustainability liaison position that will next year represent and promote sustainability within ASUPS programs. The Director, Sadie Boyle, will work directly will help manage the Green Fee.
• Why Bottled Water Campaign, the Why Bottled Water campaign is a partnership of Students for a Sustainable Campus (SSC), Associated Students of University of Puget Sound (ASUPS), Sustainability Advisory Committee (SAC), and Puget Sound’s Dining and Conference Services who together are working to decrease the number of single-use plastic water bottles sold in the Diner.
• Earth Week, Puget Sound participated in the 43rd anniversary of Earth Day in a week of events. The week began with SSC’s biannual Student Market that featured an array of handmade crafts and baked goods all created by students. Next, SAC celebrated the range of sustainability accomplishments on campus in the Earth Day Showcase where President Ronald Thomas spoke on behalf of Loggers Live Green.  All week long a range of events promoted living sustainably fromthe E-Waste campaign that collected electronics, to SSC and Ocean Intellect’s joint Earth Economics and Sound Keepers Presentation and documentary. Additionally, the Diner led two successful cooking demonstrations that taught students and faculty the ease of making homemade ricotta and mozzarella cheese, as well as grilling local and seasonal food.
• New Greek Sustainability Council, Greek life created the new Greek Sustainability Council this spring that organized the first ever full Greek life event, Thrift Shop for a Cause. The GSC collected items from all the Greek houses and from others unaffiliated to install low-flow showerheads in the Greek houses. The GSC is currently creating bylaws to continue to work on sustainability into next fall.

Students for a Sustainable Campus and Dining Conference Services partnered to present the water bottle sculpture as part of the Why Bottled Water campaign on campus. The water bottle sculpture is designed to provide an estimate of how much plastic waste students produce on a daily basis. The sculpture contains approximately half of the ~ 65 water bottles used by students on a daily basis. Plastic waste is contaminating all areas of our planet, most prominently the marine environment. The jellyfish and barnacles in the sculpture provide an example of how plastic is becoming a large part of marine environments. Plastic may never entirely decompose, therefore it is crucial that we move away from our reliance on one use plastic bottles.

Artwork done by Chloe Boulay

Excerpt from recent press release celebrating the new recognition: University of Puget Sound is one of the 322 most environmentally responsible colleges in the United States and Canada, according to The Princeton Review. The education services company published its 2013 The Princeton Review’s Guide to 322 Green Colleges today.

The free, downloadable guide says that at Puget Sound “green isn’t just a color, but a way of life.” The campus has involved students, staff, and faculty in sustainability on multiple fronts, ranging from what is taught in class, to travel and food programs, to recycling, to constructing environmentally certified buildings, to educational events, to commitments to nationwide climate awareness programs.

“We are truly pleased to recommend University of Puget Sound, along with all of the fine schools in this book, to the many students seeking colleges that practice and promote environmentally-responsible choices and practices,” said Robert Franek, publisher for The Princeton Review. Franek said his company’s recent survey indicated significant interest among college applicants in attending “green” colleges.

“Among 9,955 college applicants who participated in our 2013 ‘College Hopes & Worries Survey,’ 62 percent said having information about a school’s commitment to the environment would influence their decision to apply to or attend the school,” Franek said.

The guide notes the impressive work by the Puget Sound Sustainability Advisory Committee, which focuses on consumption, curriculum, climate, and public outreach. The committee reduces waste on campus through recycling and composting and through sponsorship of zero-waste events such as LogJam, Spring Lu’au, and an electronic waste collection drive.

SAC also has started an innovative program of appointing “Green Advocates” to every residence hall to encourage peer-to-peer education about sustainable living. Several other campus groups also initiate “green” measures. When students moved in on campus last fall, Sustainability Services diverted 5.5 tons of cardboard, almost 2 tons of comingled material, and 155 pounds of Styrofoam. When students move out this May, the  Community Involvement and Action Center will run Operation S.A.V.E., which collects and donates to charity everything that students leave behind.

Read more by clicking here.

This Saturday, May 4th from 11am-4pm in the Rotunda there will be a Thrift Shop event on campus to raise money for the new Greek Sustainability Committee! We have been collecting items from all the greek houses and from others unaffiliated and will be pricing things for around 1-5 dollars. Some items we have collected include desk lamps, mens and women’s clothes, stuffed animals, books, text books and shoes. We will have free food at the event, and will have music and other entertainment as well. The Harlequins will be doing a set at noon.

Make sure you don’t miss this event! All proceeds will go towards reducing water waste in the Puget Sound community and any unsold items will be donated to goodwill. Come support the Greek Sustainability Council, and if you have any questions email us at upsgsc@gmail.com

Excerpt by Jenni Chadick, Assistant Director of Residence Life

Last Friday marks the end of Earth Week at Puget Sound, a week of programming and awareness around sustainability initiatives at Puget Sound. This, along with our recent naming as one of 322 “Green Colleges” (according to the Princeton Review) provides a great opportunity to share our top five strategies in Residence Life to make our living facilities more earth friendly.

5) the Live Green Challenge

Started in 2009, and revamped in 2012, the Live Green Challenge is an inter-hall competition to increase the amount of recycling and reduce the amount of trash produced by each residential community. The Residence Hall Association (RHA) tracks the amount of recycling collected each week, and compares this to a benchmark calculated the month prior. Whichever hall increases their amount of recycling wins! Aimed to educating students on sustainability on campus, this program is a great introduction for new students to the way to recycle at Puget Sound, and in Tacoma. This year’s winning team: Sewlangster – the portmanteau for Seward, Langlow, and Regester halls.

4) the Live Green House

As part of both an institutional and residential commitment to sustainability,  the Live Green House is a LEED Gold housing option for five lucky students. The house, a complete retrofit of an older home owned by the university, was completed in 2008. Some features include: 100% recycled particle board cabinetry, 55% recycled flooring, 50% post consumer recycled paint on all walls, solar power panels, ultra high efficiency HVAC system with no ozone-depleting refrigerants, Energy Star-rated appliances, low flow toilets and shower heads, a compost bin, and rain barrels to collect water for irrigation.  The residents of the Live Green House are supported and encouraged to participate in various campus initiatives around sustainability, and in 2011 the residents of the Live Green House purchased a composter that can be utilized by any residents living in the 50+ campus houses.

The Live Green House is a LEED Gold certified housing option for 5 lucky students

3)  Operation SAVE

In partnership with our Community Involvement and Action Center (CIAC) Operation SAVE (Sharing Abundance through Volunteer Efforts) Residence Life has helped students donate gently used items to community organizations during move out. Students often have too many items to pack, bring home, or utilize over the summer that those in the community can benefit from. For over 15 years this program has provided students a way to get rid of their stuff in a convenient way that benefits the community, AND diverts items from the waste stream. Prior to its inception, many students would simply throw away the clothes, small electronics, mirrors, or lamps they could not haul away. Donating items to be reused is an area of sustainability Residence Life cares deeply about, and is an often overlooked area of the “recycling” brand. Our students have been generous with this program, and in 2012 over 600 60-lb bags of items were donated to charity.

To read more click here to visit the Residence Life Blog.

To celebrate the Earth Week the Diner has organized two cooking demonstrations to teach students, faculty and staff how to cook local and seasonal produce. To the left is a picture from Tuesday’s cooking demonstration that featured homemade ricotta and mozzarella cheese. The Diner will offer a second cooking demonstration on grilling vegetables. Want to participate? Sign up at the Earth Week table in Wheelock between 11-1p.m. for the second cooking demonstration between 2:30-4p.m.!
Afterward, make sure not to miss the film Minds in the Water to learn about professional surfer Dave Rastovich journey to protect dolphins, whales and the oceans.  Tomorrow at 6p.m. in Rausch! Before then, if you haven’t yet recycled your electronics, bring them tomorrow or Friday at 7:30-930 a.m., 11 a.m.-1 p.m. & 3:30-5:30 p.m. in the Facilities Services Complex.

Celebrate Earth Day (April 22nd) come to the Rotunda between 12-2pm and learn and have the opportunity to question sustainability at the University of Puget Sound. Hear President Ronald Thomas speak about sustainability in relation to the campus at 12:15 then stay and enjoy local treats and learn about sustainability on a running Powerpoint.

Looking to recycle some old electronics you’ve had lying around? Want an easy, responsible way to unload an old iPod or TV so you never have to worry about it again? Or maybe you’re just interested in learning more about electronic recycling and processing in the Puget Sound area? If any of these sound appealing to you, you may want to participate in Sustainability Services’ e-waste collection event from April 24-26.

 This will be the University of Puget Sound’s first e-waste collection event, and a landmark in the evolution of our sustainability program. It’s an excellent opportunity to recycle any of your unwanted electronics, whether they’re new, old, functional, or completely busted. Everyone knows an iPod from six months ago is already pretty much obsolete anyway, so why not do something useful with it? You’ll have a few options for recycling. The first option is to bring them over to our collection station on April 24, 25, or 26. This will be open for three windows of time each day: 7:30-9:30 a.m., 11 a.m.-1 p.m., and 3:30-5:30 p.m. We’ll have signs around campus to point you to the main collection station, which will be located in the facilities complex behind the Fieldhouse. A second option is our satellite collection bins, which will be placed in the lobbies of all residential halls including Union Avenue (“Greek Row”). A third option is to sign a pledge sheet for those electronics that we can’t wrench out of your hands quite yet.  We will use these pledge sheets to coordinate with you during move-out and make sure that your electronics get recycled appropriately.

What makes this method better than just throwing them in the garbage or using another e-cycling resource? Aside from the obvious facet, that is, you getting to interact with Puget Sound’s wonderful sustainability crew, the issue goes quite deep. As far as electronic waste processing organizations go, many will be willing to take e-waste off your hands for a low price, but very few are certified to prove they will actually process it in a way that is both efficient and humanistic. Oftentimes, processors only harvest all of the most valuable components of the electronics they receive and ship the remainder to other countries. At this point, the waste still contains recyclable materials and a variety of harmful elements, such as lead, mercury, and cadmium. This means when e-waste arrives in third-world countries to be scrapped, the workers who deal with it (as well as the environments around them) are exposed to dangerous materials. Think about it: a toxic, mutated landscape of dead trees and animals, all because you gave your e-waste to the wrong people. Even Ayn Rand couldn’t evoke such a horrifying reality. Beyond environmental and health concerns, many of the materials that could be recycled in the U.S. are disposed of in favor of components that can be sold for a profit. All in all, this makes e-waste processing a careless, unsustainable practice for many uncertified processing facilities. If your electronics end up in a landfill instead, these same toxic elements adversely affect the entire landfill and its surroundings. Climb in a landfill and up-end a bucket of cadmium in it, and chances are you’re gonna get some sour looks, too – it’s not necessarily illegal, but don’t come running to us with your tail between your legs when you get in trouble for dumping your old PC. We tried to help you. Plus, all valuable and non-valuable materials alike go to waste and can take hundreds to thousands of years to decompose. We like to at least THINK Earth is going to be useful for that long, so let’s try and keep it kind of pretty.

Green PC, the company that processes our e-waste, doubles as a computer sales and repair company. Not only do they collect our school’s electronics, they cut out the proverbial middle-man of the recycling process by re-using functional parts of the electronics they receive. Re-used materials mean less waste and less energy expenditure from processing. Green PC also uses a DOD-certified data destruction program to wipe any personal data from your devices, so intricate parts like hard drives can be put right back to use and you don’t even have to worry about strangers reading your old e-mails or text messages.  Green PC breaks down and recycles all electronic equipment in accordance to the environmental and safety standards of E-cycle Washington, through which the company is certified. Metal, plastic, and glass are separated and sold for reuse as commodities, and only about 2% of the materials end up in landfills. Among Washington’s recycling companies, Green PC is outstanding in their ability to handle e-waste both responsibly and efficiently, which is why we trust them with our electronics.

Start thinking about what electronics you might want to bring by. Computers, phones, mini-fridges, video game consoles, printers, appliances, and just about anything else that uses electricity is fine to drop off. We’d be happy to answer any questions you have, so feel free to drop by our table in the Wheelock Student Center when you see us, send an e-mail to recycling@pugetsound.edu, or visit our website: www.pugetsound.edu/sustainability-services. Happy recycling!

Brady McCowan ’15 is Sustainability Program Field Lead for Sustainability Services, a division of Facilities Services.