Council on Environmental Sustainability
Sustainability @ the
University of Rochester
10 Things You Should Know
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"Did You Know?"
If your refrigerator is more than ten years old, chances are it's about 40 percent less efficient than newer, Energy Star-qualified models and may guzzle enough power every year to light a typical household for up to four months.
(from National Geographic)
Minimize the amount of paper you use: Use spell check and proofread before you print or copy. Print double-sided whenever possible.
(from EPA.gov)
Grasscycling is a simple method for recycling your yard waste. If you mow your lawn so that grass is never more than 2 to 3 inches tall, leave the grass clippings where they fall and allow them to decompose.
(from EPA.gov)
- The University recycled 746 tons of paper in 2007. What does this equal?
The recycling of this quantity of packaging and raw materials avoided their manufacturing and disposal, thereby conserving 12,600 mature trees and 3,100 cubic yards of landfill space. - Sixty-five percent of the University’s energy cost comes from heating and cooling buildings.
Asking Facilities to set your thermostat to 72 degrees in the winter and 75 in the summer would save $21 per room per year. - Robert B. Goergen Hall for Biomedical Engineering and Optics is the first campus building designed with the sustainability standards set by the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program in mind.
For example, all paneling in the building is milled from bamboo, a renewable source of wood; motion detectors throughout the building work with lighting, energy, and air-handling systems to reduce energy use in unoccupied areas; and outside the building a newly created bioretention basin controls runoff and filters pollutants before they can enter the stormwater system. - Beginning with the Fall 2007 semester, Dining Services will recycle 100 percent of its recyclable kitchen waste (glass, plastic, and metal).
Throwing away a single aluminum can, versus recycling it, is like pouring out six ounces of gasoline. Last year, Americans recycled enough aluminum cans to conserve the energy equivalent of more than 15 million barrels of oil.
(from Earth911) - All undeliverable third-class mail addressed to former students or employees is recycled through an outside contractor.
In 2005, 5.8 million tons of catalogs and other direct mailings ended up in the U.S. municipal solid waste stream—enough to fill more than 450,000 garbage trucks. Parked bumper to bumper, these garbage trucks would extend from Atlanta to Albuquerque. Less than 36 percent of this ad mail was recycled.
(from U.S. Environmental Protection Agency) - City Cycles, a student-run venture that seeks to become a model for campuses across the country, is a free bicycle lending library for all undergraduate students and members of the Goergen Athletic Center.
Avoiding just 10 miles of driving every week would eliminate about 500 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions a year.
(from An Inconvenient Truth) - An estimated 1,000 damaged and used pallets are ground up for use as landscaping mulch each year.
This program yields 35 pounds of mulch per pallet. - The University of Rochester is the first university in the state to join the Pride of New York program to promote the sale of locally grown and produced foods.
About 11 percent of total Dining Services purchases now comes from local sources—up from almost 1 percent three years ago. Bagels, quiche, herbs, lettuce, tomatoes, cheese, crackers, milk, Kosher products, and, of course, apples have local roots and are served throughout the River Campus. - In fall 2007, Residential Life provided each freshman and returning student with a compact fluorescent light bulb for their rooms.
If every American home replaced just one light bulb with a CFL bulb, we would save enough energy to light more than 3 million homes for a year, more than $600 million in annual energy costs, and prevent greenhouse gases equivalent to the emissions of more than 800,000 cars.
(from Energy Star) - The University recycled more than 9.7 tons of used florescent lamps in 2006. Fluorescent lamps are three to four times more energy efficient than incandescent lamps, but they also contain mercury. By recycling these bulbs we get the benefit of reduced energy consumption while keeping a hazardous chemical out of our air, water, and soil.
