Student Organizations

Residence halls and dining facilities generated 600 tons of compost at the UW last year, and some ASUW senators are attempting to increase this effort with a resolution to expand composting to other areas of campus.

The resolution recommends that UW Recycling and Solid Waste create a pilot program to place compost bins in buildings throughout campus. ASUW will vote on the legislation in the coming weeks.

“Right now, we have the momentum,” said Matt Zemek, ASUW senator and sponsor of the resolution. “I saw that HFS had a very successful composting program.”

Were Washington’s senators on your Valentine’s Day list this year? University of Washington WashPIRG members hope so. On Feb. 9 and 10, WashPIRG volunteers set up a card-making shop under the Suzzalo-Allen Sky Bridge complete with valentines, glitter, glue, markers, and candy hearts to munch on.

Their goal was to get students to sign Valentine’s Day cards pledging their support for global-warming initiatives.

Bathrooms in the residence halls tore through 14,000 rolls of paper towels from March to October 2009, a number that got Kara Tebeau thinking about waste — how much we put out as a society and as students.

“UW is a really sustainable, green campus; we set the bar when it comes to being green, right? Why don’t we be green in every way we can?” Tebeau, a member of Students Expressing Environmental Dedication (SEED) said.

WashPIRG hosted a CFL light-bulb swap with the help of more than 30 eco-conscious volunteers yesterday, marking the culmination of a project that began earlier this year. Former senior Chris Bruno expressed interest in reducing the UW’s carbon footprint, so he asked Seattle City Light last April to make a small donation; 3,500 light bulbs later, Bruno had successfully converted three-fourths of the campus. WashPIRG will be tackling all remaining light fixtures over the course of the next several weeks, which will amount to approximately $12,000 per year in energy savings.
 

UW Housing and Food Services is one step closer to reaching its goal of zero-waste with the introduction of the first compostable soda cup lid.
 
Previously the on-campus community was taught to compost both the straw and cup, but to remove the lid. A compostable soda straw has been used on campus for over two years and a compostable cold-beverage cup has been in use since November of 2008. The lid was the missing link up until last week.
 
Now when a soda cup is purchased on campus, every piece is compostable--making composting more user-friendly.

If green is the new black, then the University of Washington is one of the trendiest campuses in the nation.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the UW is the second most eco-friendly college in the country, behind only the University of Colorado, Boulder. The UW’s high ranking is largely due to the fact that Housing and Food Services (HFS) recently teamed up with International Paper and the Coca-Cola Company to create an ecotainer cup that is 100-percent compostable.

Think about where your salad comes from — the crisp bed of greens you find in the dorm cafeteria or conveniently prepackaged at the supermarket. There’s a chance the lettuce hails from Mexico, the tomatoes were plucked in California and the carrots, quite possibly, traveled to your plate all the way from Chile.

Fourteen UW students know precisely the source of their food, and it’s as local as a piece of land bordering Fluke Hall. In an organic garden dubbed a P-Patch, they tend 10 plots of vegetables, fruits and herbs from seed to harvest.

Late last month, the city of Seattle adopted a new recycling program to provide more recycling options for the city’s residents.

The change means Seattle residents can now recycle more paper, plastic and metal items, which includes cups, deli trays, plastic plant pots and aluminum foil. Residents can also recycle glass bottles and jars together.

UW Housing and Food Services (HFS), however, has yet to implement these changes, which could cause confusion when it comes to campus recycling.

With the help of green-minded student volunteers and light bulbs donated by Seattle City Light, senior Chris Bruno hopes to exchange more than 4,000 incandescent light bulbs across campus to improve campus energy efficiency.