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Environmental Studies Department |
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Campus Environmental Issues CommitteeApril 10, 2007
Attendance: Dan Hornbach, Sarah Stephens, Safiya Carter-Thompson, Molly Brown, Timothy Den-Herder Thomas, Claire Briguglio This was a small meeting open for discussion on any issues that people wished to bring up with the CEIC. During the meeting, the CEIC talked about:
President’s Climate Challenge Tim updated the group on the President’s Climate Challenge that is focusing on carbon neutrality and energy efficiency at Macalester. He has been working to set up an implementation committee and hopes to have an official meeting at the end of the semester. The committee will consist of 3 students, 2 faculty members, an administrator, and alumni. The committee will be a working group that will choose from six options written into the challenge to implement at Macalester. Timothy suggested that is important to look atlong-term choices and they have considered things such as a new heating system, electrical grid, zero waste, and food purchasing. Sarah suggested that it would be good to consider a higher position in sustainability. Dan and Tim commented that Brian Rosenberg has seriously been considering hiring someone for this position. Dan suggested that this position should strongly be associated with Environmental Studies and have a connection to interested student groups; maintaining an educational component and accountability to students. In order to integrate sustainability and the President’s Climate Challenge into academics, Tim suggested the creation of a topics course on large-scale carbon inventories and/or energy auditing. Dan also suggested adding a lab to the Environmental Studies course and that any of these courses could possibly be integrated into the curriculum of Spring’08. Zero-Waste Committee Sarah talked about zero-waste on campus. There was a zero-waste move-out meeting to discuss the reduction of waste and increase of recycling during move-out at the end of this semester. There are no student workers during finals week, so the committee talked about keeping recycling containers in the dorms during move-out, which is usually not done. The bins will be kept in the dorms and if too much cross-contamination occurs, facilities will remove the bins. Safiya, who is part of student recycling, explained that students aren’t supposed to work past a certain date, which is why there are no recyclers during move-out which adds to waste. Dan suggested that the committee brainstorm ways of funding students to recycle during finals week. Sarah said that the zero-waste committee work during finals week will not be optimal because it will be more of an information gathering practice. They will develop a procedure and document on how to best perform move out/in for future use. Sarah said that she is also working with the custodial staff to reassess bin usage and placement. Dan suggested that Sarah ask Laurie Hamre to send an email to Macalester parents, who are picking up their children at the end of the year, to reconsider dumping their garbage in the trash when they move their children out. Sarah also said that the zero-waste committee is looking at education advocacy, product buying, and many other specific projects. Eureka is starting a project with MacGroveland to do curbside composting; Macalester would be a part of this. The campus would remove recycling from the trash, remove compostable items from the trash and place these items in compostable bags. Tim suggested to also consider using compostable bags for recycling because after the recyclables are removed, the bags are usually trashed. EcoHouse Sarah talked about the EcoHouse. Students have been asked to write proposals for spending the money budgeted to the house. Facilities has allocated $50,000 to spend on the EcoHouse and that is all for a while. Sarah suggested that all of this money shouldn’t be spent at one time and that projects should really be considered for priority. CERF Timothy talked about four students’ projects that are being supported by CERF. The most immediate project is motion sensor vending machines. These will be installed by the end of the semester or beginning of the summer. Another project is water conservation devices in some of the dorms, which will probably not occur during this year. Facilities is currently funding an audit on the Veggie Co-op. Once data is collected the project will eventually be funded by CERF. The fourth project is getting front-loaded washing machines and dryers with moisture sensors that shut off when the clothes are dry. Timothy has also been in contact with someone who is looking at virtualizing all campus servers, which would combine all the physical units that store Macalester’s capacity and save energy. There was also a brief discussion on the ventilation motion sensors in Olin Rice. When more students are in a classroom, more air circulation is need, but this project allowed energy to be saved by reducing energy flow when no students are in a room. Energy usage has been cut by about 50% in Olin Rice and the project has already paid itself off. Facilities paid about $40,000 or $50,000 for the installation of motion sensors in the ventilation system and Macalester has already saved $70,000. The meeting adjourned at 1 p.m. |
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