Going Green @ Haverford

The U.S. Green Building Council and the Princeton Review recently released a Guide to 285 Green Colleges. Haverford is described as having “so many accomplishments on its green scorecard that it’s hard to know where to begin”. Learn more>

CPGC Cafe

On Wednesday April 14^th the Center for Peace and Global Citizenship, in partnership with the Committee for Environmental Responsibility, cordially invited the entire College community to attend a luncheon to celebrate the kick-off of the “Going Greener” campaign!

CPGC is walking the walk when it comes to going greener. The café is using corn based flatware that can be composted. New containers have been clearly labeled for composting, recycling and trash. Food scraps are collected and delivered to the dining center for composting.

Below is the menu for the “Local Food” luncheon prepared by the dining center.
o    Potato Leek Soup (Local Potatoes and Leeks)
o    Turkey Sandwiches (Local Turkey)
o    Grilled Portabella and Romaine Sandwiches (Grilled Portabella Sandwiches-Portabella Mushrooms and Romaine);
o    Egg Salad Sandwiches (Local Eggs)
o    Spinach Salad with Apples (Local Spinach and Local Fuji Apples)
o    Artichoke Salad (Jerusalem artichokes, carrots turnips, parsnips )

And they’re not done yet. Director, Parker Snowe and his staff are looking into carbon offsets for their students who travel abroad this summer. Stay tuned…

Check out the full story
www.haverford.edu/news/stories/37431/10

The Committee for Environmental Responsibility (CER) had a very productive fall semester. I’d like to share some of the highlights.
Desiderata for new Tritton Dorm. In anticipation of the new dorm CER proposed the following features.

• Ground Source heat pump HVAC system
• Integrated Smart Metering
• Dual flush toilets to help conserve water
• Green Roof
• Grey water reuse
• Sustainable landscaping
• Covered bicycle parking
• Incorporating recycling work flow into plan

Green Plan for managing and reducing waste on campus. With assistance from an outside consultant, CER devised a plan that would eventually shift the campus-wide waste management and recycling practices toward more sustainable methods.

• Provide for on-site composting of Dining Hall food waste.
• Develop a plan to double Haverford College’s recycling rate and implement programs that would allow Haverford to materially benefit from the increase in recoverables.
• Revise waste collection practices to reduce amount and frequency of trash removal from campus.

Preliminary approval has been given to purchase a Vegawatt Power System which turns waste vegetable oil from food service operations into electricity with a 5kW generator.

Student Farm/Garden proposal. Students got approval to expand the current student garden at HCA. Historically, farming has been a part of Haverford College and CER students would like to resurrect this tradition.

CPGC: Walking the Walk. CER has joined with the Center for Peace and Global Citizenship (CPGC) to help them “Go Green”.

• CPGC has agreed to higher costs for using sustainable products for their cafe events.
• Educating the college community on recycling.
• Composting food scraps from the cafe.
• Buying “Green” office products.
• Buying offsets for business travel and visiting speakers.

Recycling.

• Encouraging , libraries, administrative departmentsto purchase recycled  paper for all uses.
• Educating that recycling guidelines have changed. We can now recycle plastics 1-7.
• Recyclemania kicks off March 2010.

RecycleMania is a friendly competition and benchmarking tool for college and university recycling programs to promote waste reduction activities to their campus communities. Over a 10-week period, schools report recycling and trash data which are then ranked according to who collects the largest amount of recyclables per capita, the largest amount of total recyclables, the least amount of trash per capita, or have the highest recycling rate. With each week’s reports and rankings, participating schools watch how their results fluctuate against other schools and use this to rally their campus communities to reduce and recycle more.

Starting in the Spring, it is part of the President’s Climate Commitment. Check it out: www.recyclemaniacs.org/overview.htm

Did you know?

• It takes 15 million barrels of oil per year to make all of the plastic water bottles used in the United States.*
• 15 million barrels of oil would be enough to run 1.5 million cars on U.S.  roadways for an entire year.**
• Only 20% of those bottles are recycled, the rest end up in landfills.*
• The bottles that drift from landfills and litter streams are washing out to the Pacific Ocean and have formed a huge “raft” that is twice the size of Texas.*
• It takes 1,000 years for a plastic bottle to break down in a landfill.**

That’s not all folks…

• The US consumes 100 billion plastic shopping bags.**
• That translates into 12 million barrels of oil.**
• Worldwide it is estimated that 1 trillion bags are used.**
• Translate that and you end up with 120 million barrels of oil.**
• Oil is used in the manufacturing process in making bottles and bags.

Tips

• Consider using a reusable water bottle.
• Hook up a purifier to a water faucet.
• Purchase cloth or reusable bags.

The Haverford College Bookstore sells reusable bags and water bottles!

*Source: E Magazine May/June 2008
**www.treehugger.com

Fernandus Hall, Assistant Director of Facilities Management, Housekeeping Services, reports:

“We are currently revamping our recycling program.  Allied Waste Management – our waste management/ recycling vendor – has switched to a Single Stream System.  This system allows us to consolidate or various categories of recycling in one container.  As a result of Single Streaming we are going to stream-line our process.

So far this year we have recycled over 1,300.00 yards of recycling, paper, cardboard, cans, bottles and plastics.  We are hoping to expand our recycling effort to include more recycling items.

We are looking forward to working with Students and Staff in improving our recycling program.  Stay tuned for future updates.”

View a PDF of what materials can be recycled on campus.

The recycling dumpster (pictured above) at the facilities complex is emptied every two weeks during the school year.