In Our Nature

By Mishu Pham-Whipple

Electronic waste, or e-waste, is yet another new problem inhabitants of the 21st century must face. There are ways to recycle this waste but the recycling of this e-waste often looks much different from what we imagine recycling to look like. The waste is often shipped to developing countries through loopholes in international convention where toxic components are handled by workers who do not have proper training or safety practices. Only a portion of the materials are actually recycled and the rest is either discarded or burned. With solutions to...

There's a whole new lineup of sustainability events this week, ranging from discussions on climate change to bike to campus month and UW Farm volunteer hours. Some of the week's highlights are listed below, and you can find out even more items happening on campus with our full Sustainability events calendar, which is the best place to find the most up-to-date listings and details on all events. If you know of any events which should be added to the calendar, please let us know. And if you'd like to get a weekly email of all the upcoming...

Two sustainability-focused groups at the University of Washington, UW-Solar and the Green Greek Representative Program, are collaborating on a project that has sunny prospects and dazzling potential. Essentially, the two groups will be working together to determine opportunities for solar power in the UW Greek Community.

UW-Solar brings students and faculty together to carry out solar energy projects. The project tasks range from planning, governance...

The Daily was on Red Square for Earth Day and put together this video of the festivities, featuring UW Earth Club president (and Husky Green Award winner) Aaron Tam. 

By Mishu Pham-Whipple

The “Carbon Challenge” at the UW Tacoma campus, led by professor Ellen Moore, was part of a project funded by the Green Seed Fund. The Carbon Challenge consisted of three tiers of challenges: 1) professor to student ("lose 5,000 pounds"); 2) professor to professor competition; and 3) student to other members of the UW community. The multi-faceted project incorporated the classroom carbon reduction competition, data analysis of written reflections by students, faculty support of sustainability principles through revised syllabi, and...

By Mishu Pham-Whipple

In 2013, a team from the Green Futures Lab in the Department of Landscape Architecture designed and oversaw construction on the UW Biodiversity Green Wall on the side of Gould Hall. Funding to build the wall was secured through the Campus Sustainability Fund (CSF), which is supported through student tuition. The wall was originally planned to be built to study the potential benefits of green walls, which include increasing biodiversity, reducing the heat island effect...

Coming up on May 6 and 7, the UW Botanic Gardens invites you to join our 2016 BioBlitz at the Washington Park Arboretum! A BioBlitz is an intense period of biological surveying in an attempt to record all the living species within a designated area. Groups of scientists, naturalists and community volunteers conduct an intensive field study over a continuous time period. Sign up this year and help us look for bats, birds, insects, lichens, weeds,...

The UW Botanic Gardens is hosting the 8th annual Urban Forest Symposium on May 17: "Sustaining the Urban Forest During Densification."

Explosive population growth is underway in the Puget Sound Region. The 2016 Urban Forest Symposium will explore approaches to sustaining the urban forest in the face of this rapid densification. Speakers will introduce the tenets of Smart Growth initiatives which have been widely adopted by policy makers, influencing land use decisions and the urban forest in Seattle and around the...

There is a secret and unassuming energy hog lurking throughout our campus, consuming vast amounts of electricity. They are out of sight, but can be found in our buildings’... server rooms. Wilson Waldrop, IT Director of the Department of Physics, has been working with his team to make the Physics server room dramatically more efficient. 

As Wilson put it, leaving a server on is like “leaving a car running”. Not only are they always plugged in, but the room has to constantly be cooled to keep the servers from overheating. Many servers, like the one that hosts the department’s website...

Jessica Kaminsky is an Assistant Professor in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at the University of Washington. A scholar of engineering projects and organizations, she conducts research on infrastructure for developing communities with a particular interest in topics of social sustainability. As part of the UW's Earth Day celebration, she gave a talk on how cultural values impact sustainability. Read the text below:

My name is Jessica Kaminsky; I am a UW professor of civil and environmental engineering. Welcome to our Earth Day Celebration! And another...