With help from its supplier, the University of Washington reduced operating costs while increasing its sustainability.
As colleges and universities around the United States reduce operating budgets, their facility managers are searching for ways to do more with less.
Increasingly, higher education custodial directors are turning to core suppliers to help them control spending on cleaning and maintenance supplies.
Whether they’re recycling, riding mass transit, or developing the latest clean technology, UW students are at the forefront of many environmental movements. While Huskies do a pretty good job living an environmentally conscious lifestyle, there is one area in which students could have a greater impact: promoting sustainable farming through community-supported agriculture (CSA).
Nearly 40 years ago, Congress passed legislation to control air pollution and clean up our skies. The Clean Air Act and its subsequent revisions have been widely successful at cleaning up the atmosphere and improving the quality of the air we breathe. After nearly a half-century of new scientific inquiry and discovery, we have a better understanding of the natural world. We need to update our laws to recognize and regulate anthropogenic carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases for what they truly are: pollutants.
UWMC won a 2007 Hospitals for a Healthy Environment (H2E) award at the leadership level. H2E was founded by the American Hospital Association, the Environmental Protection Agency, Health Care Without Harm and the American Nurses Association.
UWMC is the first hospital in Washington state to win the award and was one of eight recipients nationwide this year. Leadership award winners must recycle at least 25 percent of solid waste (UWMC weighed in at 27 percent) and have eliminated mercury from facilities.
In facilities across campus, students can turn a knob and out comes ready-to-drink water.
However, organizers and participants of the Carry 5 Walk for Water fundraiser want people to think twice about the value of water while raising money to provide underserved communities with access to clean water.
This weekend, participants will walk five kilometers carrying a five-gallon container of water weighing about 40 pounds around Seward Park.
If saving trees isn't enough to get you to stop using plastic bags, the fact that there is a toxic plastic gathering — twice the size of Texas in the Pacific Ocean — should probably do the trick. This isn't just about saving the environment. This is about saving ourselves.
The UW Custodial Services is kicking the bucket and replacing it with a new program called Green Cleaning, intended to reduce the UW's impact on the environment.
The UW Custodial Services and environmental groups such as Students Expressing Environmental Dedication (SEED) are working to make the University community a more environmentally friendly place not only in the dorms, but also on campus as a whole.
March 30 - April 1, Kane Hall
For a schedule, go to: www.hazelfilm.org
50 films and shorts will be played in 14 sessions on topics including:
climate change
environmental justice
energy
peak oil
mining
There are places on campus that are hidden treasures, places you don't stumble upon unless you know where to look.
One such place is the Union Bay Natural Area (UBNA). While 74 acres of wildlife area might not be that easy to hide, its somewhat-secluded location across from the IMA sports fields makes it a place many students never visit.
While the radioactive waste stored at Hanford Nuclear Reservation is 220 miles from the UW campus, 15 students emphasized their belief that these toxins impact the UW community by demonstrating on the HUB lawn yesterday.
Donning lab goggles and painter's masks, the students were dressed in yellow imitation biohazard suits.
These demonstrators, representing the Washington State Public Interest Research Group (WashPIRG), were spreading the message that the situation at Hanford "affects everyone," according to member Alicia Boulet.