While Richard loves most plants he considers himself a tree man.  Scattered around his wooded garden are, at last count, 25 small trees that he has planted. Whether he bought them from the Forest Farm nursery catalog, a local native plant sale, or plucked them out of cracks in the sidewalk in Avalon, each plant is lovingly labeled the year it was planted and fenced off. Not just for protecting it from deer, but his own feet as he moves through the garden.

Chemical free, Richard has some unique ways of dealing with invasive species. Lesser celandine over the last decade has taken over our local woodlands, choking out the native flora. Richard has hand dug the bulbs, wheelbarrowed them over to a remote part of the property, and has covered the bulbs with a tarp. He’s hoping, one day, to be able to use the soil again. Another technique is picking up discarded boxes from the Dining Center and laying them over the plants he wants to eradicate and covering them with compost or wood chips. Previously, he had been using old carpet to smother the plants, but felt the cardboard boxes were a more sustainable approach as they can be tilled in once they break down.

Moving through the Dahlias, Crocosmia and Daylilies you come upon a grove with stone picnic benches built by Oakley, the home’s original owner. Shaded by evergreens, the tables and benches are covered with rocks.  When asked about them Richard replied, “They just grow by themselves.” What to do with them? “My plan is to make a plan,” he replied.

His love for the garden is unmistakable. As horticulturists, the Arboretum crews have often walked through his garden and appreciated his work. Richard commented that this is the first year he feels that he’s seeing results that even the lay person can appreciate.  So next time you bump into Richard on campus, ask him about his garden, he’ll be happy to fill you in.

This spring, Haverford College Dining Services along with the Committee on Environmental Responsibility(CER) started composting pre-consumer food waste. Since its inception in March of this year we’ve composted almost 10,000 lbs of melon rinds, potato peels and lettuce leaves etc. In turn the composted material is being used in the student garden located at the Haverford College Apartments (HCA) and in the community gardens located below Facilities Management. CER is currently working on in-container composting system where both pre and post consumer waste is composted.

“I am very pleased and impressed with Haverford’s results for our first year in the competition,” says Meg Dickey-Griffith ‘09 a Committee on Environmental Responsibility member and one of the coordinators of the event. ” As a small school focused on community and personal responsibility, it is fitting that we placed  so high in the per-capita competition.  Now that the student body knows what RecycleMania is and how well Haverford can do, I am optimistic for even greater participation and more recycling next year.”

Here are the results:

- Per Capita Classic Division, which pits colleges against each other to see who can collect the most acceptable recyclables per person:

Haverford ranked #17 nationally (out of 293 schools entered) and was #1 in the state (out of 30 schools entered).

-Gorilla Prize – Competition Division, in which  schools compete to see which can collect the highest gross tonnage of recyclables, regardless of campus population:

Haverford ranked  #171  nationally and #15 in the state, with  61,307 pounds of recyclables collected.

-Food Service Organics, in which schools compete to see which can recycle the largest amount of food service organics per person:

Haverford ranked #28 nationally and #5 in the state.

Visitors who go to http://www.electronicsrecycling.org can click on the “Ecycling Basics” tab on the left side of the page to be taken to links to three websites that allow you to search by zip code or an interactive map of the U.S.
Once visitors have found some recyclers in their area, the next task is to
make sure the recycler is reputable. NCER offers the tools to do that as
well, in the “Ecycling Basics” section titled “How To Choose an
Electronics Recycler”.

In the “Resources” tab on the left side of the page, there are many links to resources that include Advocacy Group Reports, Electronics Disposal Studies, Environmentally Sound Management Guidelines, and International documents. Visitors interested in keeping up with the news from NCER, can sign up for their newsletter in the Google groups box, which is located below the menu on the left side of the page.

From The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2009.
 http://news.haverford.edu/blogs/goinggreen/?p=167 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.