UEPI News and Commentary

Earth Day at Oxy

On Friday, April 21, 2006 the Environmental Stewards class helped out at the Oxy Earth Day Fair in the quad at lunchtime by setting up a booth to talk about the many things that we have been doing this past semester to encourage campus greening. There was a decent turnout to the event and everything seemed to go smoothly. However, one thing stood out in my memory as something that was not as friendly towards all the acts that my classmates and I had been taking to help Occidental to reduce, re-use and recycle.

If it's yellow, let it mellow?

Recently, I was sitting at one of the neighborhood watering holes when, unwittingly, I was left with questions that I thought would be great to address in this blog, and on campus.

So what was the topic that finally led me to post on this site?  Toilets of the world, of course.

Bio-Diesel and Occidental: Is it Possible?

I was watching television recently and in the middle of the Super Bowl a commercial for GM cars came on. It did not start out like a normal car commercial. It began by talking about how people should help to protect the environment by using renewable resources like bio-diesel fuel. I thought that this was a great commercial at first because we have been talking about using bio-diesel in many of the classes that I am taking. Then the commercial started talking about how GM is now making cars that use bio-diesel fuel rather than regular gasoline and how if people really wanted to protect the environment then they should all go out and buy one of these new GM cars. It bothered me that the commercial failed to inform people that all cars that are functioning right now are capable of using bio-diesel. All that a car needs is a few adjustments in the engine and to be cleaned out so that the two types of fuel do not mix. It then led me to think about how it was GM that helped to push us towards massive car use in this country by taking over many of the public transportation systems in major cities and eventually shutting them down or making them so awful that it would be more convenient for people to buy cars and use those as the major mode of transportation.

water conservation

I think that it's great that Occidental has planned to use plumbing in the new dorm that conserves more water, and I was thinking that another way that we can try to use water more responsibly would be to conserve more in the amount that is used to water the vegetation around the school. All too often I have soaked my flip-flop wearing feet in water run-off from lawns that are being over watered. Although I am not sure how facilities decides how much to water the plants, I think that it may be a good idea to do some research into how much water different species plants need. I'm pretty sure not all of them need to drown in water to be hydrated sufficiently. I was also thinking that the timing of the sprinklers may have something else to do with this issue. It seems that watering the plants at midnight (as I have often seen happen) is not the ideal time for all plants, because during the day is when plants need the hydration the most, I would assume. Perhaps in the morning would be an appropriate time, at least that's what I heard Martha Stewart say once...OR, perhaps the best idea would be to rid Oxy of all these non-native plants and put in some that are more adapted to Southern California's arid climate! That way we would use a lot less water all together. Yay! In any case, perhaps the watering issue may be something that the Environmental Stewards can address next semester - I call dibs...

Landscape Experiment

The Occidental Landscape is a very interesting one, filled with many different buildings, pathways, and carefully kept landscape. To measure the heat island effect, the Landscape team planned to perform an experiment that measured the heat of different surfaces around campus. For example, we planned to take the temperature of areas that had the three major types of landscape on campus in close proximity to each other like the area near the Tiger Cooler, as well as other major areas on campus for example the large cement area between Johnson and Fowler Academic Halls or near the Oak Trees in the Academic Quad. We hypothesized that the cement and other hardscape around campus would retain more heat for longer than the other surfaces. Grassy areas and hardscape alternatives would offer less heat retaining and more environmentally friendly surfaces that are also aesthetically pleasing.

Heaters in dorms

As the winter rolls in (kind of), the dorms on campus are now turning on their heaters.  In many dorms, including Pauley hall where I lived my freshman year, each room has a heater unit attached to the central unit in the building.  Sure it's nice to have heaters in every room, but the only problem is the type of heaters used.  In Erdman, large "radiator" units are set in the walls.  These units are about 3 feet high and a complete eye sore.  On top of all this, when the heaters turn on, the stench is awful, it takes about 30 minutes for the things to get warmed up and they are a huge fire hazard. I'm not entirely sure if every room has the option of switching the unit off, meaning it's on whenever the dorm heater is on. Obviously, not every person is cold when it dips below 60 but believe me, there are plenty of warm-weather students here at Oxy.

native plants on campus

After doing some research for the landscaping team on the issues of water use and native plants on campus, I think that it would be valuable for our school to get students involved in the selection and planting of native plants on campus. If Occidental was to hold an event where students could get together and physically participate in the planting of native species, this would be a great way to raise consciousness around the issue as well as give students the sense of personal agency that is often missing when trying to effect change in a bureaucratic institution. This would provide students a fun and educational way to get involved in environmental issues on campus. This is a project that could easily be taken up by the environmental club, future stewards or incorporated into a CSP or ecology class and used as an educational tool about the flora of the region. If people saw students they knew participating in this project it would create a campus wide dialog surrounding the issues native plants and water use that otherwise never occur to many students. This would also provide an exciting opportunity for students to learn about the ecology of the southern California, helping foster a sense of place and stewardship towards the local region.

REcycle

So, a couple of the posts have been about recyling here on campus, and I think that it is a very important issue that we can definitely do more to solve.  Most of the places around campus either have paper OR bottle recycling, but usually not both (or nothing at all).  I am interested to know who we can ask to put more recycling bins around campus?  Also, does the school receive money for the recycling it collects?  What is done with that money?  I think this project would be something we can work on next semester and it is also an opportunity for our class to collaborate with the environmental club on campus.  In addition to working on student areas of campus where more bins are needed, the administration building could also use more recycling areas.  Recycling has come a long way on campus, and I think that we can do even more to improve the system we already have.

Trash and Recycling Pile Up on Campus

I believe that one of the largest hinderences to on campus recycling is the amount of trash we produce and the way in which it is disposed.  I find that when I walk through Chilcott (the dorm that I live in) there are ten recycling bins and one trash can (four trash cans if you include the ones in the bathroom, which are always filled up with paper towels making them useless to the students).  Does Occidental believe that over 45 students produce only one medium-sized bin's worth of trash?  The question I'm seeing here is, "How can you recycle when every bin available is contaminated with trash because of the overwhelming amount a dorm produces?"  You might say add a couple more trash bins and make it work.

Recycling in dorms

Before our class meeting on Thursday I saw one of the custodians in our dorm digging through a trash can and pulling out the recyclables.  I think our college does a pretty good job with providing some games and contests that motivate the student body, i.e. the Halloween costume contest, among others.  Yet, I believe that one of the major problems on campus is recycling in dorms.  What I propose is that the college creates a recycling contest among all dorms on campus.  I believe that this contest will help alleviate the problem of students neglecting to recycle in the dorms.  Whether it is due to pure laziness or sure neglect, by giving the winning dorm a prize that all of the students can enjoy will motivate them to recycle. 

Do E-Reserves lead to excessive paper waste?

I remember my freshman year core class and the first thing that comes to mind is the excessive reading that was assigned to us using E-Reserves, an option that allows professors to post the class texts online to be downloaded, usually in the PDF format. I also remember running out of my alotted "printing money" early on due to the amounts of pages that I had to print using this method.

THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY

So tonight I attended the General Assembly in Johnson.  Also in attendance were our friends Harold Hewitt, David Berkus, Barbara Avery, and Jim Tranquada all there to present on this epic Master Plan.  David Berkus, Chairman or the Policy Oversight Committee on the Master Plan and of the Building and Grounds Committee, began the presentation.

 

Gettin' Involved

While browsing on the Internet for things to strike my muse for this entry, I came upon this article in the Stanford Daily from October 2004.  In a quick summary, it is a report of the car-sharing experiment at Stanford during the school year.  The experiment did not fare as well as expected, presumably because of the campus setting and range of student users.  Those without cars received rides from friends, or rented a car from a normal place for longer trips instead of utilizing the program.  On the other hand, the article also mentions the success of the car-sharing program at UC Berkeley. 

 

Paper Recycling on Campus

Recently I had a presentation in which I made handouts for my class.  They were excellent handouts.  Pleasing to the eye and very informative.  I worked on them for at least an hour and a half.  After my presentation and passing out my handouts, I looked around the empty classroom and saw that almost all of my handouts were still sitting on desk tops, not to forget about the extras I had made for people who had not bothered showing up to class.  Anyways, I collected all of the handouts plus a few other pieces of paper scattered throughout the class.  I then looked around the building for a paper recycling bin, but to no avail.  I could not find one in the entire building.  I looked up and down, high and low.  I went from building to building, garbage to garbage, and recycling bin to recycling bin, only to find recycling for cans and water bottles.  Now, I am glad our campus is recycling water bottles and aluminum cans, but what about paper?  Think of all the trees being wasted because our school does not supply paper recycling bins to classrooms, dining facilties, and most areas of residence halls. 

Thoughts on Campus Event

The event was better than I anticipated. It was a good idea to use up the amount of space we did with the car and the posters of the master plan. Also, from the point of view of a transportation team member, we raised awareness of our goal of transportation reduction and the notion that there are practical ways for students to work toward this goal. In retrospect, however, I wish I had a clearer picture of what we are up against, including who the main targets are and the power they hold, so that the event could have been framed more as a campaign with a goal in mind. This would have given students a greater sense of involvement and increase our support. Any thoughts?

Outraged by the comment made by Woody Studenmund!

I was extremely outraged by the comment that was made after Woody found out about the LEED memo we worked on.  To say right after he gets the memo that, "I would rather spend extra money on the greening of the outside of the dorm” is down right insulting for all the work that we put into in it. By saying what he did I feel that it was a waste of our time even working on it!  I feel that everyone in the school needs strive for the best possible situation for the school and I believe that obtaining the LEED certification will really push the school to make better decisions about the future of the environment around Oxy for years to come.  The LEED certification will give Oxy recognition far beyond anything the school has ever had. It will bring publicity about how Oxy is striving for environmental awareness.  But the question I pose is ... do you think it is possible that the school wanted to work toward the LEED Certification, but not go through with it because they don’t want to have to live up to those standards over the next 20 years or so?