In Our Nature

It's time to think twice about your carpet.

For well over 100 years, carpet has been the single most popular choice for American floors, but not without its drawbacks. Producing carpet requires the use of a host of harmful chemicals, and each year landfills acquire millions of tons of carpet that will take thousands of years to decompose.

Most carpets are made with synthetic products like polypropylene, nylon, polyester, and acrylic. The synthetic fibers are then backed with adhesives made from latex, PVC, or polyurethane, all of which are non-renewable materials and require...

Tucked behind an assortment of trees along UW's Stevens Way is a garden unknown to many. The UW Medicinal Herb Garden is home to about 1,000 plants from around the world, spread out across seven plots, and provides a relaxing escape from the surrounding campus.

The garden hasn't always been as richly populated as it is today. There's one man in particular who has doubled the plant collection over the last 20 years.

Keith Possee is no stranger to horticulture. Along with growing his own fruit, medicinal plants, and vegetables at home, he has been with the UW Medicinal Herb...

Americans only make up five percent of the world’s population, yet we produce about a quarter of the world’s garbage.

UW Environmental Studies Lecturer Kristi Straus is here to help. During a...

I was surrounded by a row of fields covered with a variety of crops, ready to learn what the UW Farm was up to this summer. Ellie Garcia handed me a tiny plum, one of the many fruits available at the farm, before detailing her experiences working there.

The UW Farm was holding its regular summer volunteer hours at the Center for Urban Horticulture. Student workers, including Garcia and Francis Olson were busy tying string to surrounding plants to maintain their posture and growth. All were smiles, considering it was overcast with a few...

Update: UW Recycling and UW Sustainability have decided not to continue a pilot program to recycle nitrile lab gloves. The pilot program, which took place over the course of spring quarter of 2016 in nine labs in the Molecular Engineering and Sciences (MolES) department and Materials Science and Engineering department, reduced the proportion of lab waste that gloves made up from an average of 23% to 7%. However, while the pilot program diverted a significant amount of lab waste from the landfill, the program could not confirm that the overall carbon footprint of recycling the gloves...

Join UW Sustainability for a Green Bag lunch talk on paper reduction and Green Offices with Lily Gebrenegus, UW Grant and Contract Accounting associate director, and Chris Toman, UW Sustainability Program Specialist, on June 30 from noon to 1 p.m. in HUB 337.

Lily will be speaking about the GCA offices' new system for processing JV request forms digitally, saving over 1,500 sheets of paper per year. Chris will provide a workshop on the UW Green Office...

Recent UW graduate Jesus Martinez-Gomez never imagined moving from a small farming community in Ferndale to cultivating his passion for science at the University of Washington.

Over the last four years, undergraduate researcher Martinez-Gomez studied the mutation of genes in flowers. He has received five scholarships, ranging from UW McNair to Excellence in Biology. He has also been a part of seven programs, ranging from UW Undergraduate Academic...

Harborview Medical Center and University of Washington Medical Center have each received the 2016 Top 25 Environmental Excellence Award from Practice Greenhealth. The Top 25 Award recognizes healthcare facilities across the country that exemplify environmental excellence and are setting the highest standards for environmental practices in healthcare. This is the tenth consecutive year for UW Medical Center to receive the top award and the...

There are many Green Laboratories at the University of Washington who practice sustainability every day. The Green Lab Certification program was created to recognize these labs, while providing resources for labs who want to improve their practices. This spring, the Green Lab program gave awards to those certified labs which showed outstanding performance even among the select group of certified Green Labs.

The Greenest Lab award for 2015-2016 went to the ZaP Flow Z-Pinch Lab from the...

HP’s printers, ink cartridges, and desktops can be found in administrative offices and computer labs throughout campus. HP is one of the UW’s main technology suppliers, and the company has many sustainability initiatives. Sustainability is firmly integrated into the company’s product design process, which aims to decrease the environmental impact of products across their life cycles. Due to its industry leadership in sustainability, HP has received much external recognition in recent years. Last fall, HP...