Loggers Live Green

Greetings from the student-perpetrators of research, more research and proposing a new sustainable food-purchasing policy on campus! Behind the scenes of Dining Services this semester, Hayley Gray and I (Emerson Sample) with the support of the Sustainability Advisory Committee [S.A.C.] have been learning about how Puget Sound buys its food, and how we can do “better.”

Our definition of “better” for this project is comprised of the values of the community as assessed by our campus survey, and those that S.A.C. holds. We are currently compiling data from surveys released in March to asses the values of the community, while S.A.C. stands for the purchasing of local* foods, which is to say food grown in the area, and – if the item is a product like cheese – that it get processed locally as well!

Anyway, we students will be going through invoices (yes, it’s a little bit of dirty work) to look through our food purchases here at Puget Sound to investigate all of the possible areas for improvement in terms of our values as a community. So far, I have discussed that as local, but once all our results are in from the rest of the community, we’ll have a better picture of where we’re headed with our proposal to the university.

Why do you care about this? There are surface-level reasons and not so obvious ones. Surface Level: (a) this project shows that through the people in the Puget Sound community, this school supports sustainability in its food purchasing practices. (b) Students get to pursue interests in conjunction with the school.

Less obvious: (a) Purchasing more from local sources will help local farmers who have organic practices. These farmers are an important piece in our food system. (b) Establishing local purchasing practices as a part of policy will put Puget Sound in the position to be a leader, not a follower, in sustainability within higher education institutes. (c) Because it shows that the university is willing and able to work with students and support their endeavor to tie this school closer to the food system in the Tacoma area. Initiative from individuals is what creates sustainability and food justice action on this campus. When presented with student interest and work power, communications master Barb Weist, marketing director John Hickey, professor Dan Sherman, Dining and Conference services team members Terry Halvorson, Mark Stewart and Kenzie Giusti along with many other faculty and staff of this school have collaborated to help make sure this works out.

THANK YOU to everyone who reads this for your interest, thanks to everyone who has helped out. Here’s to good food, Emerson

*Local is defined as within 250 miles in the STARS program, which is the 3^rd party sustainability measurement system this school is using.

On April 9th, the third annual Food Justice Panel will be held in the Rotunda at 6:30. Previously, this event has brought together campus members and the larger community. The question “What is food justice?” will be discussed and the panelists will describe the different ways they think it should be implemented or achieved. The speakers come from different backgrounds, positions, and approaches, so this conversation will be an enriching demonstration of the diversity of programs, policies, perspectives, and persons collaboratively working to achieve food justice objectives.  Our panelists this year will be Dean Jackson, director of Hilltop Urban Gardens, Beth Elliot, executive director of FISH Food banks, Canyon Little farm manager for Mother Earth Farm, and Kristi Lynette, Environmental Policy and Sustainability Manager for the City of Tacoma. Come join the conversation and hear what’s being done around Food Justice in Pierce County!

The phrase “Lots of moving parts” has been my “go-to” word to describe the InSinkerator and my experience managing its installation. I don’t mean to use it lightly or to be facetious. I’ve used this particular adage because it is a very accurate and nice way of saying this project was far more complex than I could have imagined. Its complexity, on a number of occasions really frustrated me. Now, do not misunderstand me, I think the InSinkerator is the right decision for our campus; and I’ll get into why but first let me discuss how we settled on this type of option. I’ll also endeavor to explain the nature of the installation of this particular item as well.

We at Puget Sound are challenged in that actual composting take space, period end of story. The more that you’d need to compost the larger your space need becomes. The traditional way of composting, i.e. windrows pictured to the right, requires a lot of space. Unfortunately, as you can imagine, there is not a lot of space on campus to do a large industrial operation like this (let alone the smell and animals it would attract to an urban neighborhood in North Tacoma).

Thus we are left with mechanical based options; those usually range from dehydrating or liquefying apparatus to pulping options. I’ve seen a lot of critical peer research (see this informative link by LMU) that has shown that drying or liquefying machines and the techniques they employ have a huge potential health problems. Further the “products” that they create are just another form of waste that isn’t reusable in any application.

Thus we are left with pulping, which simply grinds up the material and depending upon the model may also dehydrate (what separates it from the dehydrator above is that it doesn’t use a specialized process/bacteria/enzymes/etc. to do it). What comes out is this gross junk:

This is not fun; not fun for the people who have to grind it, not fun for people who have to sit in the dish room and deal with the smell, not fun for the people who have to haul it out of the Diner, and not fun for the Facilities Services staff who have to do the inevitable disposal of it. That said this solution is usually combined with some form of composting; whether it is on site or off. Again, since we don’t have any on campus application we’d have to contract to haul it out. The closest option is in Puyallup through the City of Tacoma’s pilot composting program. The only problem with the city’s program is that they would only pick it up once a week; the amount of volume that the Diner produces would out pace that by several times.

Thus, using the InSinkerator is a great option because it grinds it up and then flushes it down a sewer line and it gets mixed with other bio-solids and gets turned into compost via the City of Tacoma’s Tagro program. If you’d like to read more about exactly how it is digested follow this link. Thus no fuss, no smell, and no mess for Puget Sound staff to deal with.

Getting through all of the above methods, understanding why we needed to go with something like the InSinkerator, and then getting the product has taken awhile. Some, myself included, ventured to believe that the hook-up phase would be easy and take only a week. As it turns out I was off by three weeks and a whole lot of heartache. Let me explain why:

Step one: find a waste line. The majority of the waste water lines in the diner go through a grease interceptor. What this does is separate out the grease that is sometimes present in larger kitchen operations from going down the sewer system and clogging it up. Heavier solids sink to the bottom the oil stays on top and the water flows out to the sewer system.   Since the whole idea of the InSinkerator is to send the ground up bio-solids to the waste water treatment plant, it would make sense that the city and the univerity wanted this to go directly through a sewer line. The only problem with that is trying to locate such a line. I spent an entire day crawling around mechanical spaces until I found a line that got us in approximately the right area.

Step two: bring electrical, plumbing, and water within 3 feet of the machine for hook-up. On face value a simple 3 inch pipe connection line and 120 volt 2 phase electrical connection sounds relatively easy, in reality it wasn’t. The reason for its complexity was due to the nature of the project. That is to say coordinating four different groups each with their own needs: The Facilities Services Department on plumbing and electrical work, the City of Tacoma for testing of the water qualities prior to installation, the vendor to get them to deliver the machine and fabricate a new stainless steel sink to house the unit, and finally the Dinner so that we could shut off the dish return to weld in the new sink as well as preform the other hook ups. If you can, try to imagine the number of meals that go through the dish return, now try to find a “good” day to go completely paper products only. Thus finding days to get the necessary items completed to just prep for final hook up took several weeks to coordinate.

Step three: finally hook the darn thing up. I didn’t have a big hand in this part. That said I was still on call making sure everyone had what they needed and handled any potential problems that arose. The hook up went smooth-ish sure it had its own set of unforeseen circumstance. Yet, through extra cylinoids, piping questions, changes to the stainless steel trough, and moving equipment we thought we wouldn’t have to move we got the thing connected as of Friday of break.

All and all I’m very excited. Mostly for my part to be done in the project; there was a lot to do and some days I felt like I was drawn in three different directions. From this point on the Diner, City of Tacoma and Kina Fox-Dobbs’ Envior 101 will be doing a study on the fats, oils, grease, suspended solids, oxygen present in the pulped liquid waste and the total volume divert from the landfill. I will look forward to the results and hopefully less solid waste coming out of the diner.

Travis Freidman is the University of Puget Sound’s Sustainability and Energy Manager

Unfortunately, we must immediately discontinue our pilot eco2go reusable food container program, which was approved by our local health department and introduced to campus last fall.  The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is requiring colleges and other dining operations to discontinue this program.  The FDA is concerned that reusable containers may be outside of dining operations for long periods of time in an unwashed condition and may present a risk for the transmission of communicable illnesses, although there have been no such reported incidences.

We regret the need to terminate this sustainable to-go program and will certainly consider reintroducing it if the FDA changes its stance in the future. You may keep your eco2go container for personal use outside of university dining facilities.

If you have questions, please send an e-mail to Terry Halvorson, Director of Dining and Conference Services, at thalvorson@pugetsound.edu.

Thank you for your understanding and cooperation.

Students for a Sustainable Campus will be screening Tapped on Tuesday April 2nd at 7:30 in Rausch that examines the role of the bottled water industry and its effects on our health, climate change, pollution, and our reliance on oil. This screening is a component of the Why Bottled Water campaign that has been working on educating students on the environmental impacts of single-use plastic water bottles.

Read the press release to learn more about Tapped: Is access to clean drinking water a basic human right, or a commodity that should be bought and sold like any other article of commerce? Stephanie Soechtig’s debut feature is an unflinching examination of the big business of bottled water. From the producers of Who Killed the Electric Car and I.O.U.S.A., this timely documentary is a behind-the-scenes look into the unregulated and unseen world of an industry that aims to privatize and sell back the one resource that ought never to become a commodity: our water.

From the plastic production to the ocean in which so many of these bottles end up, this inspiring documentary trails the path of the bottled water industry and the communities which were the unwitting chips on the table. A powerful portrait of the lives affected by the bottled water industry, this revelatory film features those caught at the intersection of big business and the public’s right to water. Click on this link to watch a promo for Tapped.

Blog post written by Barb Weist in Communications: Let me start this post by noting I am *NOT* inviting or encouraging anyone to keep chickens on campus, or even in off-campus houses. But in the interest of info students might use when they leave Puget Sound, or info that may be of use to other community members, I’m going to talk chicken.

Keeping chickens, even in the city, has become very popular in recent years, with emphases on sustainability, local food, and other such topics. I grew up in a small city, living in an apartment for most of my youth. We had no chickens. We couldn’t even have a pet. But a few years ago, we decided to try our hand at farm fresh eggs for breakfast: we went in with some friends to get a flock of Arucana hens, the kind that lay those pretty green and blue eggs, affectionately called Easter Eggers (appropriate for this time of year)! This was not a popular enough breed that the local feed store (yes, there are feed stores, even in urban areas) carried them in the spring, at the time.

So there’s a first point that many people don’t know: how do you GET chickens? Well, IF you know where the local feed store is, they often have a variety of chicks in the spring for you to take home, as well as all the necessary accoutrements, which they are more than happy to sell you. You can pick out one, two, three, or more. If you want a specific breed they don’t have, or want chicks at a different time of year, you can order them through a well-reputed hatchery. They come in a cardboard box via postal mail. Don’t worry; they don’t drop them in your mailbox. They call you when they arrive at the post office so you can go pick them up, pronto. Little peepers make a lot of noise!

Once you’ve decided on breed, based on what size chickens you want, coloration, cold-tolerance, docility, and even egg color, the next hurdle is making sure, if you desire, that you get only FEMALE chickens, called pullets or layers. In the name of the barnyard birds and bees, let me just tell you a lesson my five-year-old has already mastered: you get eggs with only female chickens; but they can only be FERTILIZED (meaning baby chicks) if you also have a ROOSTER. Therefore, most backyard flock enthusiasts want to make sure they get female chickens, or pullets. If you see a sign that says straight run, that’s not the chick for you. That means they have not sexed the chickens, and you’ve got a 50/50 chance of getting a rooster with each chick you pick!

So WHY don’t you want roosters? Well, first, city ordinances often prohibit roosters (ordinances also cover if you can even have hens in the city limits; be sure to check FIRST). They are noisier. You know that crowing you hear in movies? It’s not just in the early morning. Take my word for it. We had not one, but TWO roosters (accidentally) with our first flock. Second note on roosters: they get along fine (at least ours did) when they’re bachelors. But when you introduce the ladies… well, them’s fightin’ words, my friend. One of the roosters became more dominant and wanted to keep the other guy away from his harem. Roosters have spurs, which help them to defend their flock against other predators. But generally, if you don’t want chicks, you don’t need a rooster.

Where will you keep your chickens? You can build a coop that keeps them contained and needs to be mucked out (think straw with lots of chicken poop) regularly (how often depends on how many chickens you have). Or, if you have a little space, you could opt for the solution we’re trying this time around, with our second flock: a chicken tractor. It sound glamorous but really isn’t. It’s basically a portable pen that you keep the chickens in and move it around regularly so that the droppings go right into the ground and the chickens get some yummy bugs to supplement the feed you give them. It really makes them happy. It’s like of like restricted free ranging: they are protected from predators, but they get a variety of treats!

So what do you need to keep chickens? Or cute little baby chicks that eventually turn into chickens? Chicks need food, water, bedding, and heat. We have ours in a plastic bin in our bathtub with a heat lamp overhead. The little thermometer we bought to gauge the temp shows a balmy 95 degrees to start. Each week we reduce the temp a few degrees until they don’t need it. There are special food and water containers you can buy, or you can buy special parts that attach to regular old mason jars, like we have. Bedding collects the manure and gives them a comfy place to rest. We use pine shaving animal bedding. You don’t want CEDAR. It’s bad for our little feathered friends. Laying hens require a nestbox when they become “of age.”

There’s a little more to it, but basically, you feed them, water them, collect the eggs. We have a book on raising poultry that answers any questions we might have. Like what to do when they start pecking at each other (where do you think the term “pecking order” comes from?). Or if the egg shells are too soft (they need oyster shell for calcium). Really they’re no more or less work than any other pet I’ve had. Except they lay eggs we eat. No perks like that with a cat.

Students for a Sustainable Campus is collecting University of Puget Sound one use plastic water bottles for an art project. If you have any water bottles lying around bring them to the drop of bin located next to the conveyor belt for tray drop off in the Wheelock Student Center. The art project is part of an educational campaign designed to highlight the detrimental effects that one use plastic water bottles have on both the environment and our health. Click here for more info on the Why Bottled Water campaign.

Puget Sound is joining World Water Day along with over 600 other water related events that highlight the need to conserve clean fresh water. Puget Sound introduced the Why Bottled Water campaign this spring in a campus-wide effort to promote tap water consumption and decreased single-use plastic bottles. In doing so, the Diner offers water bottles labeled “Why Bottled Water” to open bring awareness to the community about their purchasing. Instead, the community is encouraged to “Tap That” and reuse water bottles.

Click here to water the Story of Bottled Water. Short film description: Story of Stuff style to tell the story of manufactured demand—how you get Americans to buy more than half abillion bottles of water every week when it already flows from the tap. Over five minutes, the film explores the bottled water industries attacks on tap water and its use of seductive, environmental-themed advertising to cover up the mountains of plastic waste it produces.

Read more on events happening around the world by checking out the the United Nations International Year of Cooperation website.

Written by Barb Weist from the Communications Office:

In December I posted initiating a solar project at my home. In just a few short months, it’s gone from theory to reality! In January, we had a 5.46 kW solar system installed, which should produce approximately 5151 kWh/year based on our 96% solar availability (our house sits atop a cleared hill with full south/east exposure) and 10% roof incline. This will offset approximately a third of our current energy needs, more if we can continue to economize our power use. The array will include 448 square feet of solar modules in a fixed east-facing mount using all Washington-made parts.

Gross cost for the system is over $38,000, with no sales tax, one of several incentives to do the project now. That alone is a savings of over $3,600. By going with this traveling project that groups several projects in one area together for cost savings, we saved over $2,200. A rebate from the electrical union, IBEW, of $1,000 allowed us to maximize the size of the system we got, as the system cost just over the maximum amount of the loan financing we used to fund the project until the incentives pay it off in approximately 8 years.

Next year we’ll file for the 30% federal income tax credit, a savings of nearly $12,000! Washington State has a production incentive through 2020, where they pay 54 cents us for every solar-produced kilowatt hour. Estimates show that will yield a check once a year for over $2,700. By 2020 that’s over $22,000!

With all the costs and taxes this project at full price would be nearly $42,000. After all those incentives and savings, less than $2,000 of the original cost will come out of our actual pocket, plus the financing interest on the loan for the 8 years it will take to pay it off with those incentives.

But wait, there’s more! We also get net metering with our power company, which is actually a small local cooperative. What is net metering you ask? Well, let me tell you, in simple layman’s terms (you know, the only ones I can understand!): our solar array will be hooked into the power grid. In the sunny summer/fall months, our power consumption will likely spin BACKWARDS, effectively earning us CREDIT to use in the rainier winter months when solar isn’t producing so well. Projected savings for first year are around $400. Multiply that by 8 years and we’re projected to be paid off around that time! And after that, we still earn the net metering savings. Indefinitely.

Now that the modules are in place on our roof, I get very excited on sunny days, and look at the production meter several times a week to gauge our progress. The modules feed into a power inverter, then into a production meter tracking how many solar kWH we produce, and then into our regular power meter to the grid. I can’t wait for the sunny days of summer!

Stop by the Wheelock Student Center to see the new Why Bottled Water water bottles introduced in Diner as a tactic to encourage the campus community to be conscious about drinking bottled water.

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.

To learn more to go to the Why Bottled Water link by clicking here.