Recent Accomplishments
Here are a few steps we have taken in the last year:
Recycling
- Recycled 1048 tons of waste
- Composted 61 tons of food and yard waste
- Donated 47 tons of furniture and medical supplies to local non-profits
- Reprocessed 4 tons of medical supplies
Waste Reduction
- Saved 32 tons of paper by replacing paper based referral guide with an electronic version
- Eliminated 89 tons of waste by replacing disposable sharps and biohazard containers with reusable ones
- Created a culture where the use of reusable mugs has become the norm
Reduce consumption of Energy, Water and Fuel
- Created a west campus bike parking hub in the Lowry Garage
- Saved 5,755 gallons of gas per year by working with our neighbors to take 2 shuttles off the road
- Cut our energy use by 28 BTUs/SF
- Cut our water use by 4.4 gallons/SF
- Saved $80K in annual energy costs by incentivizing researchers to keep their fume hoods closed
Reduce Environmental Hazards
- Received an EPA grant to build a wiki for researchers to share less hazardous alternatives to common research chemicals
- Reduced our styrofoam purchases by 95%