At Thursday's "Going Green at UCSF" event, faculty, staff and students gathered for lunch in the courtyard of the UCSF Comprehensive Cancer Center to learn what the University and Bay Area organizations are doing to help the environment.
More than 10 information tables were set up with representatives from UC departments such as: Transportation, Recycling, Capital Projects, Campus Planning, Environmental Health & Safety and the Sustainability Committee. Bay Area organizations included: San Francisco Bike Coalition, Steelcase and Humanscale (eco-friendly office furniture), Justrite (waste collection), Falcon (water-free urinals), and San Francisco Department of the Environment/SF Environment.
Free lunch, as well as, Starbucks "Fair Trade" coffee was provided for those who brought their own coffee mug.
"As many as 25 trillion styrofoam cups are thrown away every year in America," said Kathryn Hyde, co-coordinator of UCSF's Refuse & Recycling Program and a member of the UCSF Sustainability Committee.
The event was organized by Adele Dow, facilities manager for Cancer Research Building at the Mount Zion campus.
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At the recent Going Green event, are from left, Adele Dow, event organizer; David Siddiqui, recycling educator and Kathryn Hyde, co-coordinator of UCSF Refuse & Recycling Program. |
"I organized this event to increase awareness in the building about recycling and the programs we already have in place," said Dow. "Also, to let leadership at UCSF know that there is a lot of interest in sustainability among students and post-docs and we'd like to see more sustainable initiatives."
This year, UCSF is prioritizing environmental stewardship on several fronts. Transportation Services recently purchased three bio-diesel shuttles for UCSF's Gray line, which travels from Parnassus to Mission Bay campuses.
In addition, Falcon Waterfree urinals are being tested at Laurel Heights and the Parnassus campus. On average, waterless urinals save about 40,000 gallons of fresh water per year, per urinal. And, all new non-hospital UC buildings will strive to achieve a Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design (LEED) certifiable rating.
What
you can do:
• Use
recycling and composting bins on campus.
•
Exchange mercury thermometers for digital thermometers at the UCSF Bookstore
on Parnassus.
•
Bring old batteries for recycling:
Parnassus - University Bookstore Genentech Hall - third floor, vending
machine room Laurel Heights - first floor, vending machine room Mission
Center Bldg. - first floor, Capital Projects & Facilities Management office
Mount Zion Cancer Research Bldg. - rooms S 111, S 211, S 311, N 423 Rock
Hall - first floor, vending machine room
Email the
UCSF Recycling Program with any questions |
UCSF completed its first project officially certified by the US Green Building Council's LEED rating system last year when it renovated the School of Dentistry's Cell and Tissue Biology Laboratory, located on the sixth floor of Health Sciences West. UC campuses are required to design buildings that meet a level of sustainability equivalent to at least a LEED rating.
One company that UCSF is working with is Humanscale, which makes office furniture from recycled materials. "The environmental value of a product is often based on its economic value, so we use aluminum instead of plastic so that there is a better chance it will get recycled in the end," said Rick Bailey, a Humanscale representative.
To promote reduction of paper going into the recycling bin, faculty assistant, Kirk Livingston, presented stacks of office paper he had collected from copy rooms in the cancer center. After two weeks, Livingston deduced that each cancer center employee generated an average of 1.5 pounds of paper per day, the equivalent of 6.5 trees per year. All UCSF campuses recycle roughly 750 tons of mixed paper annually, according to Hyde.
"The bottom line is, if you're going to print, really have a good reason to generate that waste and use both sides, even if you're going to recycle," said Livingston. "People have the mind set that since we have recycling, we can print needlessly, but, I want to show that one ton of recycled paper is still 24 trees gone."
Representatives from SF Environment focused on the four R's - Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Rot - to reduce the amount of waste created by each, individual person.
"We use the iceburg - or wasteburg - metaphor. For every one pound of waste you produce, there's 70 pounds of waste that was created upstream, from mining, manufacturing, transportation and packaging," said Annette Poliwka of SF Environment, part of the San Francisco Department of the Environment. "We want to encourage people to not only use the recycling and composting bins, but to buy less in the first place."
With a city-wide goal for zero waste by the year 2020, Poliwka is advocating the importance of composting, as 40 percent of waste put into the trash is compostable. Currently, San Francisco residents and businesses recycle and compost 67 percent of their waste.
"We are trying to make composting a social norm the way recycling has become in San Francisco," said Poliwka.
Photo/Sharon Brock
Related Links:
San Francisco Department of the Environment
UCSF Completes First LEED-Certified Laboratory Renovation
