The Majestic Plastic Bag - A Mockumentary

YouTube video link. Ah, the plastic cycle of life! Heal The Bay produced this advocacy video, the message of which is: put an end to plastic pollution. The short-form "nature mockumentary" is narrated by Academy Award-winning actor Jeremy Irons and tracks the "migration" of a plastic bag from a grocery store parking lot to the so-called Great Pacific Garbage Patch in the Pacific Ocean.

California Bill Seeks To Ban Plastic Shopping Bags!!

California’s Senate will vote today to determine if the Golden State will become the first in the nation to ban plastic bags at grocery, drug and certain convenience stores. The ban, which passed the Assembly in June, already has the support of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has said he would sign the bill into law. “We are taught to reduce, reuse, recycle in that order because we can’t recycle our way to a better world,” said Assemblywoman Julie Brownley, who authored the legislation. “This bill gets to the root of our litter problem by reducing our use of disposable bags.”

Several N.C. coastal counties have already banned plastic bags. How can make N.C. the second state to ban plastic bags?

You Don't Need To Spend A Lot Of Green To Live A Green Lifestyle!

Sure, buying a hybrid car or installing solar panels on the roof of your house are big ways to be more eco-friendly. But you also can make a difference with easy, lower-cost changes, whose savings can add up over time.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency the average home is responsible for twice the greenhouse-gas emissions as the average car. The average household spends $2,200 a year on energy bills. You can save about 30% of your energy cost and qualify federal tax credits. (Visit energystar.gov/taxcredits for more information) You can also visit Database of State Incentives for Renewables and Efficiency for a list of utility rebate programs

Consider doing the following;

Use a programmable thermostat. You can save roughly $180 a year on energy bills with a programmable thermostat.

Get an annual check-up. You should have your heating and cooling systems checked annually to ensure that they are running properly.

Replace filters for your systems at least every 90 days.

Seal and insulate. The average home has holes that expose it to drafts equivalent to leaving a window open all year round. Make sure you caulk around your windows and seal up...around doors, walls and in the attic. Doing so can save you as much as 20% annually on heating and cooling costs, according to the Alliance to Save Energy.

Welcome Back Students!

I originally posted this video over a year ago. It is worth posting again.

Charles Moore and Dirty Talk about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch! Everyone should be required to watch this video. It will change the way you think about plastic and our “throw away” society. Reduce. Reuse. Recycle.

The Los Angeles Public Works department removes debris caught by booms from the L.A. River after a storm. Photo courtesy Algalita.org.

Music Festival -A Model for Raising Awareness About Sustainability

Appalachian State University graduate and local entrepreneur Jimmy Hunt ’09 manages a local music festival that operates as a model for raising awareness about sustainability, while also providing Appalachian students with invaluable on-the-job training to complement classroom lessons.

Music on the Mountaintop is an ecologically driven, large-scale music festival that features several popular bands and musicians and specializes in providing educational awareness on current environmental issues. Hunt worked with the Center for Entrepreneurship to launch the first annual festival in 2008. “We are very proud of what Jimmy has accomplished, and continue to work with him to this day,” says Bryan Toney, Director of the Center for Entrepreneurship.

To learn more click here.

Student Showcase 2010

Student Showcase is an annual event where students present projects that they have produced throughout the semester. A wide range of topics are presented from biology to early childhood development to sustainability efforts. Lucy Stone and Amanda Norris presented "Green Revolution at Peace" to a full classroom. To view the presentation click here.

Scrap to Sculpture Contest

The Peace College Green Team has created an entry for Cameron Villages Scrap to Sculpture Contest. Immie Miles and the Green Team designed and assembled a peace sign using scrap material. Stop by Talbots at Cameron Village to see the art!

Peace Green Team and Stunt Night!

Stunt Night is an annual Peace College tradition where students create skits and parodies of life at Peace that year. In this clip students portray the "Green Marches" that the Green Team frequently go on around campus catching faculty and staff off guard! Click here to see the video.

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Peace College Community; Leaders in Reduce, Reuse and Recycle

Congratulations to the entire Peace College Community for ranking number 68 out of 267 participating colleges in RecycleMania 2010! For 2009 year Peace College finished at number 119. RecycleMania is a competition between colleges and universities in North America to reduce waste. Every spring, students across the country compete for national supremacy to determine which school can reduce, reuse and recycle the most campus waste.

Our reduced waste stream and increased participation in recycling is a credit to all the staff, students and faculty at Peace College. Particular credit and thanks goes to goes to the Green Team and its enthusiastic leader, Immie miles.

Sustainability Leader

Walmart the largest private employer in the U.S. announced it would squeeze 20 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions from its supply chain, the retailer rolled out Supplier Energy Efficiency Program (SEEP) with the goal of helping its suppliers save electricity and money, in turn bringing down the price of products.

The premise behind SEEP is simple -- share with its suppliers the expertise it has accumulated through making its own fleet of clubs and super stores more efficient. The program gives suppliers access to a slew of proven energy efficient technologies in the areas of lighting, HVAC, building envelope and building controls -- at the same prices Walmart pays. The results are very good!

In addition, Walmart also is promoting its Sustainability Product Index, a guide for rating the sustainability of products. The project will be rolled out in three phases, starting with a survey of all of Walmart's suppliers around the globe. The survey consists of 15 questions in four categories: energy and climate, material efficiency, natural resources and people and community. Suppliers were asked to complete the questionnaire by October 1, 2009. The Supplier Sustainability Assesment can be found here.

Visit the Walmart Sustainability web site to learn more.

Reusing 2 Liter Bottles

Click here to see a fun video of things to create with an empty 2 liter bottle.
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Shifting from Saying to Doing at Tufts University

“The goal is to transform the norm from being environmentally unfriendly to being more sustainable. People usually act out of convenience and do not realize their choices are made through what is already the default. In our society, the default is not environmentally friendly. It takes a small group of people to work to change the default to greener policies.”

Dallase Scott, a graduate student in the Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning program at Tufts University

Tufts’ latest environmental campaign. Shifting from Saying to Doing, is trying to change campus culture in regard to paper waste. While members of the class last semester focused on the issue of trays in the dining halls, this semester, students have turned their attention to paper usage at Tufts.

Rather than merely discussing environmental policy, students study behavioral approaches to change and their own individual impact on the environment with the goal of empowering their peers to adopt greener practices. Students keep weekly blogs to reflect on the personal challenges they face in the paper-reduction campaign, as well as to practice effective activism and communication. To learn more click here.
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Sustainability: Different Shades of Green in Higher Education

More than 100 higher education leaders from around the country will gather at Wake Forest March 22-23 for “Taking It to the Next Level: Strategies for Adaptation across the Sustainability Curriculum” to discuss and debate the ways sustainability can be better integrated into academics. More than a dozen other national leaders in sustainability in higher education will speak at the conference. Here is the complete program: http://sustainability.wfu.edu/conference/agenda/.

The conference is free and open to the public, but registration is required. Register at http://sustainability.wfu.edu/conference/registration/
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Johns Hopkins University to Halve CO2 Gas Emissions in 15 years

According to a press release from last week, Johns Hopkins University says it plans to cut the school's carbon dioxide emissions in half over the next 15 years. University officials announced one of the more ambitious sustainability initiatives in higher education, with a goal of cutting carbon dioxide emissions by more than half by 2025. The plan also calls for creation of an Environment, Sustainability and Health Institute. Officials state they will invest more than $73 million in conservation and efficiency measures.

In addition the university recently added a new undergraduate major and minor in global environmental change and sustainability as well as a new master's degree in energy policy and climate.
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Green Plastics Breakthrough by IBM and Stanford

Think of IBM, and it's most likely that computer hardware or software will come to mind well before the development of new, greener materials. However, IBM has staked out an impressive track record in matters of environmental responsibility and sustainability over the past several years. IBM's latest contribution arrives through a partnership with Stanford University researchers with whom the company has made progress in the development of sustainable, biodegradable plastics.

As described in an article on IBM's Building a Smarter Planet Blog, the collaborative research effort is leading to findings and developments with beneficial implications for improved recycling, pollution reduction, and medicine.

Environmentally sustainable plastics, smarter recycling methods, new ways to deliver medicine – these are all areas that could benefit from recent discoveries in green polymer chemistry by some of our scientists at IBM Research and Stanford University. The discoveries will be published in a paper in the American Chemical Society Journal, Macromolecules, on March 10th. You can find an abstract of the paper now at acs.org.

IBM, Stanford Unveil Green Chemistry Breakthrough You Tube Video
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Go Green And Stay In The Black

From Forbes magazine, 20 tips for going green and saving money. As an example Vanderbilt University has installed 1,500 low-flow toilets and faucets and water-free urinals since 2008. The school is already saving $250,000 a year in water costs and keeping 37 million gallons out of treatment plants--enough to cover four football fields with 30 feet of water. To read the full article and view the slide show click here.

30 Minutes on a Treadmill, Forever in a Landfill

Great 30 second commerical from Brita Filters! Click to watch.

Click here to visit FilterForGood.com
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How Much Can Be Achieved Thru Simple Measures Like Behavior Change?

There's a lot to be said for improving the efficiency of our existing building stock. But upgrading old buildings can be an expensive business, and once you tackle the low hanging fruit, there is inevitably a law of diminishing returns. So just how far we should go in retrofitting old buildings, and how much can be achieved by simple measures like behavior change—a new flagship project aims to find out.  Read the full story on bioregional.co.uk.

Americans Have Room to Improve Their Conservation Behaviors

According to the results of a national survey released recently by researchers at Yale and George Mason universities, there is a significant gap between Americans' conservation attitudes and their actual behaviors.

Large majorities of Americans say that it is very or somewhat important to turn off unneeded lights (93%), lower the thermostat in winter (82%), and use public transportation or carpool (72%), among other conservation behaviors. Yet the study found a number of large gaps between these positive attitudes and actual behavior. For example:

• 88 percent of Americans say it is important to recycle at home, but only 51 percent "often" or "always" do;
• 81 percent say it is important to use re-usable shopping bags, but only 33 percent "often" or "always" do;
• 76 percent say it is important to buy locally grown food, but only 26 percent "often" or "always" do;
• 76 percent say it is important to walk or bike instead of driving, but only 15 percent "often" or "always" do;
• 72 percent of Americans say it is important to use public transportation or carpool, but only 10 percent say they "often" or "always" do;

The results come from a nationally representative survey of 1,001 American adults, age 18 and older. The sample was weighted to correspond with U.S. Census Bureau parameters. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 3 percent, with 95 percent confidence. The survey was designed by researchers at Yale and George Mason universities and conducted from December 24, 2009 to January 3, 2010 by Knowledge Networks, using an online research panel of American adults. The report can be seen here.

Sustainable Campus Committee Mission Statement

"The mission of the Sustainability Committee is to provide a comprehensive strategy for improving our resource management through measures such as recycling, waste stream management, energy conservation, green purchasing, and raising campus awareness on environmental stewardship. "

Over the last few years we have made steady progress towards achieving a sustainable lifestyle at Peace College. We have migrated away from traditional cleaning products and now use green cleaning products from Rochester Midland Corporation. RMC was the first company in the world to receive Green Seal Certification (GS-37) of industrial and institutional cleaning products. Switching to green cleaners can significantly improve indoor air quality; reduce cleaning-related health problems and absenteeism and increases performance of students and staff alike. Green chemicals are safer for the housekeeping staff, everyone that works or visits our campus and the environment. In addition we have made important reductions in water and energy usage. Our reduce, reuse and recycle efforts have reduced our waste stream by nearly 1/3 pound per person and increased our recycling by 41% since 2008.

The Green Team continues to affect behavioral change throughout campus. The food and trash audits and office inspections with pass/fail certificates help to encourage each of us to reduce, reuse and recycle. Click here to view a partial list of our accomplishments.

Did You Know?

Since 2008

• That we have reduced our waste stream by 20.5%
• That we have increased our recycling by 41%

Click Here for the details.

Things you can do to help reduce our waste stream at Peace College- Cancel subscriptions to unread magazines and newspapers
- Cancel catalog deliveries from companies that you do not purchase from or those that have digital catalogs
- On average we discard 1/4 to 1/3 pound of food per person, per meal. This includes only edible food disposed of by consumers, not kitchen waste. Only take portions of food that you will eat.
- If you do not have a recycle container ask for one by sending an email to rbass@peace.edu

Did You Know?

That the Peace Community is recycling nearly twice the amount of material that we did a year ago?

That the residents of New Res consistently recycle more than any other dorm on campus? And that Finley Dorm is a close second?

That the staff members on the 1st floor west wing of Main Bldg consistently recycle more than other offices? And that Financial Aid is a close second?

That lights in the men’s restroom are off when unoccupied more frequently than in the ladies room’s?



That on average each fulltime employee and student uses 152 sheets of printer/copier paper per month?

That if each of us committed to use 1 less sheet of paper per day we would save over $2,000 per year?

That if you turn your monitor off when not in use, at the end of the day you save 17cents in energy costs per day; $62 per year? Potentially this could save Peace College more than $21,000 in energy costs annually.

That Security turns lights on at night for our safety and that we ALL are responsible for turning off lighting that is not needed?

Most environmental problems are caused by human behavior and have long-term implications. A cost effective method of reducing energy can be attributed to behavior change. As an example, the Juneau School District has saved $1.2 million by reducing its energy consumption and expenditure by 30 percent during the past 30 months.

Those savings and reductions have mostly been through "little bitty things that we're doing to change behaviors," said Joyce Kitka, the district's energy education manager. Click here to read more.

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Celebrating MLK with Quotes

On Monday January 18th we celebrate the birth and life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. In observance of his birthday, Peace College is closed. Dr. King was born January 15, 1929. He would have been 81 years old on this Friday. Martin Luther King, Jr., day is observed on the third Monday of January each year. It is one of four United States federal holidays to commemorate an individual person. Each of us has that have read quotes and/or heard Dr. King’s words have been inspired by his wisdom.

My favorite quote from Martin Luther King Jr;

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

Have you got a favorite quote from Martin Luther King, Jr.? I have created a Google doc (survey) that lists some of Dr. King’s memorable quotes. Click here to choose your favorite. On Tuesday, January 19th I will share the results of our survey.