So far, 100% of the people who responded think Washington Hall is often too hot or too cold, so I will definitely look into that!

Contrary to what I’ve been told, 71% who responded do *not* have recycling bins. 100% of those who don’t said that they don’t said that they would use one if given one. This will be a priority.

88% said they would use a font that would save ink.

Some other things we’re looking into:

• smart powerstrips for the faculty lounges
• classroom DOTs
• painting a mural on the walls
• writing an “eco-beat” on the MDLL website
• defining what “sustainable content” means with regard to curriculum

Shelia Eubank tells us that most in the MDLL department have recycling bins, that efficient lightbulbs are used, and that the department purchases recycled paper from our suppliers. What are your thoughts? Are there enough recycling bins? What can we do to reduce paper use? Remember that there are three R’s: reduce, reuse, and recycle. Recycling is not a panacea!

A survey is in the works to gather information. This should be sent out to the department soon! The first question in the survey is, “How do you define sustainability?” I’m looking forward to reading the answers to this.

My questions are, what are our objectives after we receive these results? How do we measure savings?

A first objective could be to provide recycling bins for every professor in the department. I hope that hearing the voices of the department will lead us toward more projects!

As an aside, read my foodblog to learn about the carbon footprint of eating.

Happy fall break, everyone!

–bc

• Professor Jonathan Arries brought up bike flex benefits. Would more people bike to work if they received some sort of compensation? Anita pointed out that the area around William and Mary has few bike lanes. This seems to be out of our scope.
• How are the bike racks in front of Washington Hall?
• Jonathan also mentioned getting recycling receptacles for aluminum cans. I think recycling is an issue we can tackle. Is SEAC already working on this?
• Expand the DOT campaign to the Modern Languages department.
• I made a survey to figure out what’s been done and what needs to be done in the department, and this needs to be revised to be more quantitative. Need to figure out how to administer this survey online!

Other things I’ve thought of since then:

• Why is it that whenever you print something from a school printer, it always gives you an extra sheet that says something like -bxchu 20 pages-? What is the point of this? If you look at Swem’s recycling bins, this wastes a lot of paper.
• My roommate Felicia introduced me to ecofont, which is font that has holes in it that saves 20% of your ink. Brilliant! If we could get the modern language faculty to use this font, we could save a lot of ink. I don’t know the mechanics of laser printers, so I’m not sure how effective this would be.
• Su Laoshi mentioned that Washington Hall turned its AC off and heater on today. Long Laoshi says that it is now too hot in Washington. This needs to be fixed!

That’s it for now!

–bc

• sustainability survey to see what has been done / what needs to be done
• energy audit
• creative recycling uses
• kill-a-watt to determine where energy can be conserved
• LED exit signs?
• windows should be okay
• remember 3 R’s, not just recycle!
• inkjet saves 90% power (but have to buy cartridges??)
• HVAC
• unplug microwaves & printers at night (get powerstrips)
• create own cleaning products
• auditorium consoles
• 2-sided copies? scan instead of copy?

–bc