Going Green @ Haverford

As the Grounds Manager, I consider strolling the campus daily, a necessary ritual. There’s no better way to keep an eye on things than a walk-a-bout. On a recent stroll I was passing the President’s House at 1 College Circle where Horticulturist Mike Startup was doing some weeding. Haverford’s campus is always drop dead gorgeous, but there are some days when you come upon something that takes your breath away. The work Mike has done on the native garden at the “Prez Rez” is second to none. He forwarded some pictures to me for your viewing pleasure. You can read his blog at news.haverford.edu/blogs/arboretum/

Enjoy!

With the expansion of the student garden into fruit production, Siena Mann  and David Robinson received a tree planting lesson last Friday. Both members of the class of 2014, Siena and David have been extremely active in Haverford’s environmental movement. Their enthusiasm has been infectious, the past academic year has been one of the most productive in CER history.

Apples, cherries, apricots and pears were planted this past Monday. I’d give you an update on how the planting went, but I think I’m going to let David and Siena blog about that.

While titled “The Planting Lesson,” I’m going to take this opportunity to mention the rest of CER.  Steve Griffith, our first official Sustainability Assistant, set the bar extremely high. Whoever follows has their work cut out for them. Thanks, Steve!  Caileigh Feldman, along with David Robinson, ran the Recyclemania Competition. Caileigh also installed our first two permanent recycling containers on campus. David also has been promoting the Green Office Program, and along with Gilda Koutsiouroumbas, have signed up our first six green offices. Tamara Agins was great in organizing the green roof tour. Our newest members, Robin Chernow, Claire Perry and Nell Durfee, are still getting their feet wet, but are showing great enthusiasm and dedication. I’m really looking forward to working with them over the next few semesters.

Special thanks to our faculty members. Helen White’s input was invaluable. Thanks Helen! Indradeep Ghosh was great in organizing Peter Brown’s visit. We have students going to Montreal this summer to attend his conference.

Last, but definitely not least, is our treasurer Donna Ruane. Donna has been great with helping us get the Greening Haverford Fund up and running. As our link to the Center for Peace and Global Citizenship she has been instrumental in providing guidance to our committee.

There’s not enough room to list all the projects we worked on over the last year; what’s listed here is only the tip of the iceberg. I wanted to talk about Earthquakers as well, but I think they deserve to get a separate blog. They rocked this year! To get it all, visit the Greening Haverford website.

The final results from Recyclemania are in. For those of you who haven’t been following the blog, Recyclemania is a nationwide recycling competition with 605 participating colleges and universities. Haverford ended up 26th out of 320 schools in the Per Capita recycling division, while it finished 170th out of 605 in the Grand Champion division, which measures the percent of total waste recycled. If you are interested, the final results can be found here.

While I originally praised our recycling efforts, I am not so sure that our high ranking in the per capita classic is such a good thing. In fact, our high ranking seems to  show that that we use more disposable items than most colleges. Moreover, according to the grand champion data, we recycle approximately 25% of our total waste. American University, the winner of the grand champion division, recycles 85% of their total waste.

There are some valuable lessons to learn from these results. First, we need to consume less. Our per capita recycling is high because we use a lot of items that we then throw in the recycling. While this impulse is a good one, we need to focus more of our energy on reducing and reusing. Recycling should be a last resort. Second, we need to recycle more and throw out less. If other colleges can recycle a majority of their total waste, we can too.

In the end, recyclemania has served its purpose. It shows us where we need to improve to make our campus for eco-friendly. Thoughts on how we can make this happen?

…to the President’s Office and Vice President of Finance and Administration for becoming Silver Squirrels in the Green Office Program. They are our fifth and sixth offices to achieve the award.

It’s official. We all know that Haverford has a beautiful campus, but it’s nice to know that others do too. Just in time for Arbor Day, the Haverford College Arboretum has been named a Tree Campus USA by the Arbor Day Foundation. This program recognizes college and university campuses that effectively manage their campus trees, connect with the community to foster healthy urban landscapes and involve the student population with learning opportunities centered on campus, community and forestry efforts.

This national award, however, goes beyond beauty to the ecological benefits of trees. Planting and maintaining trees reduces carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Trees also significantly reduce the amount of energy a campus and community need to generate. Finally, green spaces give students, faculty and staff a setting to relax with others or on their own, ultimately providing a better environment for learning.

Speaking of Arbor Day, mark your calendars for Friday, April 27 at noon and come  to Chase Hall where Haverford will mark its 112th annual celebration of this national event by planting the yellow-blooming magnolia, ‘Elizabeth.’

Martha

For those who did not read the earlier post about Recyclemania, it is a nationwide competition for recycling between colleges and universities. Haverford is participating for the 3rd straight year.

As of week 7 of the 8-week competition, we have recycled 16.24 tons that otherwise would have been thrown into a landfill. For those of you who are not math wiz’s, thats roughly 32,000 lbs of recycling.

As of week 5, Haverford is 1st in the Centennial Conference in per capita recycling at 18.98 lbs per person, and 1st in Pennsylvania out of 27 schools.

We are 22nd in the entire per capita competition out of 320 schools!

Stay tuned for the final rankings.

Keep on recycling Haverford!

Composting!!  Specifically, food waste composting.

Over the last few years nothing has generated more discussion in Committee for Environmental Responsibility (CER) meetings than how to dispose of our food waste.

Let me give you a brief history…

In 2008 CER hired a consultant, Niche Recycling, to do a waste audit to determine how much we were really sending to the landfill. Turns out quite a bit. Food waste alone was running over 4,500 lbs. That’s almost two tons folks!!

To help offset this, CER agreed to compost pre-consumer waste. For 18 months,  three times a week, the front end loader picked up pre-consumer waste and composted it.

During this time, CER was working with Niche Recycling to bring in-vessel composting to campus. In-vessel composting officially defined is:  ”The aerobic decomposition of shredded and mixed organic waste within an enclosed container, where the control systems for material degradation are fully automated”. Sound expensive?? Yup!

CER was not deterred by this fact, we figured where there’s a will, there’s a way. Vendors were brought in to look at the dining center to find out what was feasible. Turns out that the dining center is  ”old” and would not support a lot of the technology.

So, where are we now?

A year or so ago we went trayless. Studies suggest that going trayless reduces food waste up to 30%. It’s always better to reduce before you recycle.

And, we’re still tracking. Better Together, a Quaker Interfaith Group, collected food waste as part of an awareness initiative. Their findings were astounding. Over 600 lbs per day!

The latest endeavor brings Bryn Mawr College into the mix. Because of consumers demanding greener alternatives to landfills, waste companies are starting to offer programs where they will pick up food waste and take it to composting facilities. On March 19th, 2012 Bryn Mawr and Haverford Colleges will be working with Republic Waste Services on another trial to see how the two colleges can work together to help solve this issue.

Stay tuned.

Claudia

It is with great enthusiasm that I introduce the newest Fund available on Haverford’s campus – The Greening Haverford Fund.  Designed as a carbon offset initiative of the Center for Peace and Global Citizenship (CPGC) in partnership with the Committee of Environmental Responsibility (CER), the Fund will allow Haverford to further engross itself in environmental integration, learning and activism. Support is available to all Haverford College students upon acceptance of their proposal and the scope of Fund is intentionally broad, including (but not limited to) the financing of on- or off-campus initiatives, conferences, workshops, speakers and events related to environmental sustainability.

For more details about the application, please visit our website at: www.haverford.edu/greening_haverford/greening_haverford_fund/. Also, do not hesitate to contact us with any questions or ideas you might have. We look forward to receiving our first applications!

If the possibility of seeing an actual silver squirrel was your reason for viewing this post, I advise you to look elsewhere. For everyone else, I have great news about the progress of the Green Office Program at Haverford.

CONGRATULATIONS to the Center for Peace and Global Citizenship, the Chemistry Department and the KINSC Administrative Office for becoming the first 3 offices to become Silver Squirrel certified as part of Haverford’s Green Office Program.

Established at the beginning of last semester, the Green Office Program seeks to make departments and administrative offices on campus more green. The program provides a checklist of sustainable actions. Examples of these actions include:

“We recycle our small printer cartridges in the green 5 gallon trash can in the Dining Center Lobby.”

and

“As incandescent light bulbs burn out we request CFL’s (Compact Fluorescent Light bulbs) from either Facilities Management at facilities@haverford.edu  or Claudia Kent, Sustainability Coordinator at ckent@haverford.edu.”

Departments and offices become certified to either a silver, gold or green squirrel (the highest level within the program) by completing all of the actions within a certain category. The document covers five sustainability categories: Waste Prevention and Purchasing, Energy Conservation, Transportation, Recycling, and Participation.

Congrats to our first 3 offices, and to learn more, click HERE!

The following came in through the suggestion box  from Elizabeth Finley in Alumni Relations and Annual Giving. It’s an interesting collection of articles.

Claudia

Hi:

I work in Alumni Relations & Annual Giving and meet with alumni regularly. I recently met with Seth Heald ’75 in Washington, D.C. He is passionate about climate change. He forwarded me the following information and links that may be interesting for you.

Elizabeth

Here are some links to news about Washington and Lee’s solar project, the largest in Virginia.

Seth Heald ’75
news.blogs.wlu.edu/2012/01/16/new-solar-energy-system-generating-power-at-wl/

This has gotten a lot of press because of Dominion Virginia Power’s attempt to block the project. The press may be more valuable to the climate movement than the reduction in greenhouse gases directly attributable to installing the solar panels. A good example of how a college showing some leadership on an issue can have an impact on the larger community.
www.newsleader.com/article/20120129/NEWS01/201290342/Staunton-solar-firm-faced-utility-challenge?odyssey=topicpage

www.newsleader.com/article/20120201/OPINION01/202010316

www2.wsls.com/news/2012/feb/01/state-law-hurting-virginias-green-future-lawmakers-ar-1657330/