In Our Nature

Adam Fehn is a Program Coordinator with UW Recycling

It's October and you know what that means: spooky season is upon us! Now is the time for us to carve pumpkins, curl up on the couch watching scary movies and dress up as ghosts and ghouls. Unfortunately there's more for us to be afraid of this year other than witches and goblins. Holidays can promote wasteful and unsustainable practices, and Halloween is no exception. COVID-19 is also ensuring that all of our Halloweens are going to look a lot different this year, but that doesn't mean that we can't have a little fun! UW...

The UW Farm has held an annual Farm to Table dinner for about a decade, to highlight the roles of the Farm at UW and serve as a major fundraising event. This year, the dinner cannot be held. The UW Farm has been hit hard as funding from Housing and Food Services is lower than usual as demand for Farm produce is down, and the UW Farm relies on fundraising even in good years to operate.

In order to help bridge that gap, the UW Farm will be holding a virtual "Dig In! Fun-draiser" on October 28 at 7 p.m. This one-hour, family-...

The Society for Ecological Restoration - UW Chapter works to promote ecological restoration and bring students together around this goal at the UW. SER-UW organizes restoration volunteer work parties across campus. This quarter, they're able to hold work parties in groups of five people or less.

You can follow SER-UW on Instagram or visit their website to learn about these as they are scheduled.

There are also two regularly scheduled work parties during Fall quarter. Every Friday from 12...

You're probably already familiar with the 3 R's: Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. And when we think about if something can be recycled, we usually think of the material as the main factor. Paper, check. Metal, check. Glass, check. Easy! Well, we'd love it if it was that easy. What determines if an item can be successfully recycled is actually more complicated. This is why recycling can seem so confusing.

Although we would love for every item to be thrown in the recycling bin, sorted, and then repurposed, it is only possible to recycle an item when it meets certain criteria. While you can...

The UW Program on the Environment is hosting a series of structured conversations this Fall with UW campus leaders who have helped create change, called "On race: Talking, Listening, Making Change." These "Open Spaces Conversations" will happen every Friday at 3 p.m., although some of them will be for Program on the Environment students only. 

The conversations are intended to have both historical and pragmatic dimensions, exploring what key individuals who have helped create change within and beyond this university have leared about the processes of institutional and social change...

The Renewable Energy Scholarship Foundation is now soliciting applications for scholarships which will be awarded for the 2021-2022 school year.

Applications can be submitted until Februrary 15. At least four scholarships will be awarded to students who are studying renewable energy in any sense. Issues such as energy storage, demand response, grid-interactive efficient buildings and load flexibility, advanced grid modernization and greening of the grid all fall under the umbrella of renewable energy. Electrical engineers, computer scientists...

The Washinton & Oregon Higher Education Conference (WOHESC) is seeking workshops, panel discussions and presentation proposals for the 2021 conference happening February 10-12, 2021 at South Seattle College. The current deadline to submit your topic ideas is Friday, September 11th, 2020.
 
WOHESC is a platform for inspiring change, facilitating action, and promoting collaboration related to sustainability within the Cascadia region's higher education institutions. Conversation, workshops, and networking opportunities will empower participants to advance...

Hi everyone, I’m Kalina and I am the UW Sustainability Project Assistant. I am a first year graduate student pursuing a Master’s in Public Administration through the Evans School. Before coming to Seattle, I lived in Wisconsin for all of my life and attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison where I received a BS in Community and Nonprofit Leadership. My passions are directly related to community health and how we can better our systems to improve the lives of those around us.

Outside of the office you’ll typically find me reading, doodling, or adventuring throughout Seattle as I...

Adam Fehn is a Program Coordinator for UW Recycling. He took a personal challenge to go plastic-free during the month of July.

Why Did I Go Plastic Free?

As a recycling Program Coordinator, I was very aware of the amount and types of plastics I used and I knew that many of those items were packaging and single-use plastics. Like most people, I was caught up in the convenience of a system that perpetuates the cycle of disposable plastics. When I heard that we at UW Recycling were going to start a social media campaign surrounding...

Post by Gabrielle Coeuille, UW Recycling Waste Diversion & Reduction Intern

When we go to the grocery store, it’s hard to avoid plastic. From produce, to meat, to dairy - packaging is everywhere. Plastic has become so entwined with our food system that it is hard to remember a time when all your seasonal berries didn’t come in a carton that lasts practically forever. So I asked myself this question:

Is it possible to have a truly plastic free meal without going to a bulk store or the farmers market? Additionally, is it possible to make this meal as low impact as...