Holiday Waste

Holiday time is upon us and with it can come added joy, stress, and even an increase in household waste. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, household waste increases by 25% during the holidays. Here are some ways to decrease the amount of waste your household generates to make your holidays a little greener:
• If you haven’t already opted for a reusable artificial tree, make sure to visit your local recycling center where used trees can be mulched after the holidays for later use in landscaping.
• Do you have old towels or blankets being replaced by newer ones this year? Your local animal shelter would love to put them to good use.
• What about those strings of lights that won’t light up like they used to? Home Depot has an Eco Options Program and will recycle your old, broken lights for free.
What ideas have you come up with to minimize waste this time of year? Please share in the comment box.

Bldg E Green Tour

The Bldg E Green Team hosted a tour of Bldg E for Arapaho & Roosevelt National Forests and Pawnee National Grassland employees in the Supervisor’s Office on April 1st and again on April 25th for employees of the Canyon Lakes Ranger District.
The tour began with an update on forest-wide sustainability actions that have been accomplished to date and others in the works. Forest-wide energy and water consumption information was shared with employees, including consumption specific to Bldg E. Next, the participants rotated through four stations manned by Green Team members that focused on different environmental footprint areas.

Station 1 (Fleet & Transportation)
Station 2 (GreenPurchasing)
Station 3 (Sustainable Leadership)
Station 4 (Waste Prevention & Recycling)

The idea for the tour evolved from a Forest Leadership Team tour of New Belgium Brewery. New Belgium Brewery is a well-known local Sustainability champion where the culture and core values of sustainability are clearly evident within their employees and their business practices. The Green Team’s mission was to motivate our fellow employees to think about our own business practices and make sustainable choices.

To learn more go here.

Bldg D gets ClimateWise Platinum!

USDA ARS (Building D, NCGRP, and CRL) received the Platinum Partner level for the 2012 reporting year!  This is the highest level of achievement currently available from the Fort Collins recognition program, and we are one of only a dozen organizations that reached Platinum this past year. Thank you all for your efforts to increasingly “green” your jobs.  Your outstanding work has really paid off.

Results from 2012

Utility Data:

Electrical consumption for all 3 buildings combined = 6.8 million KWh (up by 0.8%)

Natural Gas for CRL and Bldg D = 237,000 therms (up by 5%)

Steam for NCGRP = 3,575 million BTU (down by 1.5%)

Domestic water for all buildings = 3.2 million gallons (down by 8.2%)

Raw water for irrigation at Sugarbeet Farm and LIRF = 36 million gallons (up by 320% due to drought and research needs)

 

GOV transportation:

147,000 miles driven (down by 13.3%)

11,200 gallons of gasoline, diesel, and biodiesel purchased (combined) (down by 20%)

 

Air travel:

585,000 miles traveled by air (up by 28.3%)

 

Solid Waste:

49,000 lbs of waste landfilled from Bldg D and NCGRP (down by 62% – I’m guessing there must be an error in the data I received from CSU, but I don’t know for which year)

320 gallons of food waste vermicomposted at Bldg D (up by 237%)

12,600 gallons of research (including some food and paper towel waste) and germination waste composted commercially by CRL and NCGRP (down by 33.7%; but the vast majority of this is dictated by SBRU research needs)

13,100 lbs + 50.6 cubic yds of comingled materials recycled from all 3 buildings (different units make comparison to last year impossible)

 

Commute Travel:

52,148 commuter miles saved!!  (up by 44%) The breakdown of car travel saved can be seen in the graph below.  Numbers are likely an underestimate since not all users of alternative transportation report mileage.  Because the level of reporting varies each year, the difference in miles saved could reflect, at least in part, this reporting difference.  However, the increase in teleworking between 2011 and 2012 is real.

So much more to recycling in Building A

Last month, I had a chance to talk with Judy Knaub, our Building A Support Services person, on recycling opportunities in Building A. There is so much more to recycling than our single stream buckets in our kitchen areas. Here are some other opportunities you should be aware of:

• batteries – tape ends and deposit down in mailroom. Aso there are boxes on some floors to collect batteries (Judy can tell you where)
• bins in business centers – recycle not only paper and magazines but also old books!
• your old office supplies (folders, notebooks, small items) – bring to the mailroom – there is place for folks to pick up used items and reuse them.
• Other things you may not be aware of – Judy recycles toner cartridges, wooden pallets, boxes, and office furniture
• And don’t forget our whole building composting! Please see some of the past blogs on composting (https://nrrcgreen.wordpress.com/2011/10/07/which-bin/)

We appreciate the work Judy does in recycling. If you have questions please e-mail Judy

Which BIN???

Confused about which bin to throw it in?? Here are few helpful hints…
1) If it can DECOMPOSE (food, paper towels) place it in the blue bins in the kitchenettes or inthe restrooms. No plastics or containers with foil please

2) If it can be RECYCLED place it in the single stream recycle container. Look at the list of items posted on these bins
3) Anything else goes in the trash – last option

WHY take the time to sort???

a) It reduces the load at the landfill (future generations will not have to swim in our garbage)
b) It reduces the COST we have to pay to haul and dump at the landfill
c) It creates high quality compost not garbage
d) It creates local jobs

Recycle Campaign for Yard Signs & Stakes at Sign-A-Rama Fort Collins

Looking for something to do with all those campaign yard signs rather than throwing them in the trash now that the election is over?

Northern Colorado residents can now recycle Campaign Signs and Sign Stakes at Signarama Fort Collins. Rigid corrugated plastic yard signs, plastic bag campaign signs, and fold-over paperboard yard signs as well as wire stakes and metal frames will be accepted for recycling until November 19th, 2010. Bins will be available during business hours 8:30 am to 5:30 pm weekdays at 1600 E. Mulberry St., Unit 1, Fort Collins, CO.

More details on the recycling drop off location and directions to Signarama Fort Collins can be found at http://bit.ly/RecycleCampaignSigns or call 970-204-1805 for more information.
Signarama Fort Collins is a full-service custom sign shop committed to providing high quality signs, personal service & sustainable business practices.