Author: casel

Become a RecycleManiac!

Recyclemania is here!! Get ready for some friendly competition with other colleges and universities in North America and Canada (513 to be exact), as we all work to see who can do the best job reducing, reusing and recycling. During the eight weeks of February 5 – March 31, we’ll be having our waste hauler record the amount of waste and recycling removed from our campus. That volume is converted to weights and entered in the RecycleMania database for all to see … and compare our progress against other schools!

In Wisconsin, the following schools are competing in RecycleMania: College of the Menominee Nation, Madison Area Technical College, Saint Norbert College, UW – Eau Claire, UW – LaCrosse, UW – Milwuakee, UW – Oshkosh, UW – Plattville, UW – River Falls, UW – Stevens Point, UW – Stout, UW – Whitewater, and Western Technical College. How will UWGB fare against this competition?

The goal, of course, is to both reduce the amount of ‘stuff’ we throw out in the trash by thinking before we buy AND if we do need to discard something AND it is recyclable, to put it in the appropriate recycling bin.

Stay tuned for events happening the week of February 27th and check back here for updates on our progress and status.

News Bits: Cow Burps and Other Emissions

White Wave Looks to the Farm to Improve Environmental Footprint
“Of all the various sources of greenhouse gas emissions, one of the most little-known to the average consumer may be those from the wide-eyed cow and its environs.

“Some estimate that dairy industry emissions, including those from cow burps and manure, are responsible for about 2 percent of total emissions in the U.S. For some firms like White Wave Food Company, those dairy emissions account for a significant slice of their carbon footprints.

“White Wave, the Broomfiled, Colo.-based maker of Silk, Horizon Organic, International Delight and Land O Lakes, has been targeting its dairy carbon footprint for years. Between 2006 and 2010, the company cut its emissions 16 percent per gallon of product, exceeding its 10 percent goal for the time period.”

What to learn how … read more HERE.
Source:  GreenBiz.com

News Bits: Don’t Forget to Read the Label

Chevrolet Introduces Environmental Labeling on All Vehicles
“This March, Chevrolet will start providing customers with information on a number of the environmental features of their vehicles, via “Ecologic” environmental window labels that will initially appear on the 2012 Sonic, the company’s new sub-compact car.

“Later on, labeling will be rolled out across the entire 2013 vehicle line in North America, and in doing so, Chevrolet will be the first automotive brand to provide a label of this kind on its vehicles.”

Read more HERE
Source:  TriplePundit.com.

Friday Factoids

  • In WISCONSIN, we generate 4.6 million tons of trash and recyclables each year. That’s enough to fill a typical city street over 4 feet deep with trash (curb to curb) for 575 miles! If you remove the recyclables, only 357 miles would be filled with trash.
  • In the UNITED STATES, we generate enough trash and recyclables each DAY to fill 72,450 garbage trucks that hold 9 tons of trash each (which means 26,444,250 garbage trucks in a YEAR). Recyclables would fill 27,531 garbage truck each DAY.
  • The average person in WISCONSIN generates 4.7 pounds of trash (residential and their share of commercial trash) each day and recycles 1.9 pound of that trach per day.
  • The average person in the UNITED STATES generates 4.7 pounds of trash each day and recycles 1.4 pounds of that trash per day.

News Bits: “Is This the World’s Best ‘Greenest Companies’ List?”

Read GreenBiz.com Senior Writer Marc Gunther’s take on a newly released “100 Best” list…

“I’m skeptical about efforts to rank and rate green or sustainable companies, and I have been for a time. [See 100 Best Corporate Citizens? What a CROck!] It’s terribly difficult to compare big and small companies, retailers with manufacturers, software firms with oil companies, etc. We once tried at FORTUNE, and gave up because we decided it couldn’t be done right.

“Having said that, I’m impressed with the rigor and methodology used by a Canadian magazine called Corporate Knights to produce its 8th annual list of Global 100 Most Sustainable Companies, which it calls “the most extensive data-driven corporate sustainability assessment in existence.” The ratings are transparent and they encompass social as well as environmental metrics, among them energy, carbon, waste and water productivity, diversity and employee turnover, safety and, interestingly, the ratio between CEO and average worker pay — a revealing metric that most such rankings do not include.”

Source: Greenbiz.com

News Bits: Climate in the Classroom

Climate in Classrooms
27 Jan 2012

Read the full post at Dot Earth.

There’s much to explore about the challenges in teaching about the evolving relationship between people and their climate.

This subject was once pretty straightforward. After all, it was a relationship that was largely a one-way phenomenon. Climate changed. People adapted or moved. (The extraordinary books of Brian Fagan are an ideal guide.)

As humanity’s growth spurt plays out, the accumulating greenhouse gases from fossil fuel combustion — along with the impacts on clouds or sunshine from other emissions and impacts from land surfaces — have made this a two-way relationship. And that makes teaching about this subject particularly challenging, given the durably wide range of perceptions not just of the science, but of how to respond to it.

Source: Environmental News Bits

Go Green: Careers and Job Opportunities

Looking for Career Opportunities in the ‘Green’ Sector?

Check here on Wednesdays for links to websites listing green jobs and internships!

GreenBiz.com’s green jobs and career center lists current jobs and internship openings in solar and renewable energy, cleantech, green building, sustainable businesses, socially responsible organizations and more. The website’s Green Career Center also has some good resources for learning about available options for growing a career in the green economy.

Website: http://jobs.greenbiz.com/