Campus map shows 1 recycling bin for every 13 trash cans

This map of the SDSU campus was put together by Ian Bevan, e3's Green Commissioner for 2007-08. The green marks are locations of recycling bins. The red marks represent trash cans.

The current recycling project aims to turn about half of the existing trash cans into recycling bins, but organizers are having trouble working with campus planners and the CSU aesthetics code to do this. Bevan said rules regulating the color and space for bins are hard to work around, and will require more work than E3 would like, but that he has been working with the physical plant to outline a plausible plan for the recycling program.

E3's green tips

The enviro-business society at SDSU is hard at work planning Earth Day 2008 on campus, and has put up a video with green tips on YouTube. While the video was posted a while ago, the tips are still relevant today, and it is actually quite interesting!

Green Love to get official

A charter in support of the creation of a sustainability board on A.S. council was submitted last week, and the draft will officially be read at the council's regular meeting on April 16.
Justin Motika, who oversees the Green Love movement with A.S. said recruitment has begun for members to fill the committee. The current draft will probably be changed in regards to membership, but Motika said the mission statement and purpose will remain the same.
The board will oversee $225,000 for sustainable upgrades for A.S. facilities and work with student organizations to become certified as a green organization.
This certification, according to Motika, would require changing all light bulbs to compact fluorescent bulbs, and faucets to lo-flow faucets, among other requirements, to be hashed out following the approval of the sustainability board on April 16.

A.S. councils go green

At last week's A.S. council meeting, many student organizations reported that they have gone green by reducing the amount of paper wasted when printing minutes and agendas for their organization's meetings.

Here are the highlights:
*A.S. Executive Vice President Jameson Desantis reported that the Facilities board recently has its third paperless meeting.
*A.S. Vice President of External Affairs Jeremy Ehrlich reported that the Educational Advisory Board is going green soon.
*A.S. Vice President of Finance Justin Motika reported that a university sustainability Web page has been created, and a senate sustainability char and committee have been formed. The charter for a sustainability board on A.S. council has also been submitted. (Web page was not working today, will check back later.)
*PSFA Representative Sara Rosetto reported that PSFA's Success-Enabled Pilots Flight Club is distributing Energy Star energy-saving light bulbs with the money they raised from their recycling program at Piedra Del Sol. They also have a Web site.
*The recreation board approved the installation of solar panels at the Mission Bay Aquatic Center to supply 100 percent of the electrical needs of the facility.
*The first reading of the resolution in support of a bicycle lane on campus was read, and will be examined at the next meeting of A.S. council.

E3's Globe of Waste

The Enviro-Business Society (or E3) is organizing Earth Day at SDSU this year on April 22, and one of the exhibits will be a paper mache globe, made entirely out of papers recycled from bulletin boards throughout campus.
The project is designed to show how much paper is wasted when bulletin boards are cleaned off each week. Papers clogging the bulletin boards are usually thrown away, but E3 has been working with the Campus Sweep Program since Nov, 2007 to collect them. The globe will be on display all day in Campanile Walkway.

Hybrids as bad as Hummers?

A friend told me this weekend that the batteries in Hybrid cars have so much iron... or mercury... or something.. that they are actually as bad –or worse– than Hummers on the environment.
I did some research, and apparently, this has a lot to do with the cost of disposal of the batteries in Hybrids versus the actual energy usage of a Hummer –one of the biggest offenders in the environmental debate on which cars to drive– not the relative exhaust expelled by the cars.
The Car Connection has a summary of the official report.

SDSU's Green Campus

Associated Students' "Green Campus" initiative has worked to create a green environment and awareness accross campus for the last two years. Their Web site recently underwent an upgrade, and I think that it really shows the program quite well. Something is up with the links here, so I will just have to post it the old school way and tell you to go here: http://as.sdsu.edu/greenlove/index.html