Sustainability at Blackburn

UPDATE Magazine 2011

All over the Blackburn campus, students and facilities have been Going Greener in
order to help the community and the environment. In 2008, President Mim Pride called for a
creation of a Sustainability Planning Committee to review the aspects of the colleges operations
with a concentration on environmental responsibility. In 2009, the Board of Trustees was
presented with a five year Sustainability Strategic Plan, which has taken place over the past
couple of years on campus. The Strategic Plan is organized into sections to help make the
environment a safer place to live including: energy conservation, using less paper and water,
Blackburn food service becomes greener, recycling at Blackburn, and environmental
sustainability in the curriculum.
The Leave It To Beaver store located on campus is a free store where students are able
to find new uses for things they no longer need. They can donate these items to the store and
other students come and take them at no charge. The store was started in 2009 by Blackburn
students and is a way of recycling that helps students save money, whereas they would go to a
store and purchase the same item. It also helps reduce the amount of items that go into the trash
and put into a landfill. Marcella Polera, the Blackburn student in charge of Leave It To Beaver,
says, Its a fantastic resource to have so close because we only have so much room in our dorms
for things we dont need, and we can only spend so much money on things we may want. If there
are things we cant use or have been around for awhile, we take donations to Catholic Charities
in town. The concept of the store is entirely environmentally friendly. Instead of throwing away
binders or notebooks, or clothes or electronics, they are available for people that might need
them. I hope that its something that people can use as a resource and be proud that we have on
campus.
The recycles bicycle project at Blackburn is also in effect and allows students to rent bicycles
so they can have a low transportation cost around town. The program receives donated bicycles,
abandoned ones, etc. and students help with the repairing and refurbishing of the bikes so
students can have a reliable transportation around campus and around town. Students can rent a
bicycle for only $20 and if it is returned at the end of the semester in usable condition, the
students receive a $10 refund.
Over the years, Blackburns dining services have also participated in the going greener
program. Previous years at Blackburn, students were given trays and studies have shown that
more food is wasted with trays. This year, the Blackburn dining services have taken away the
trays, only allowing students to select as much food as they can carry on their plates. Without
trays, it also helps reduce the amount of heated water that is used to wash the 400+ trays that are
used each meal. The dining services have also been serving locally grown food to help conserve
petroleum since it has to travel a shorter distance. At the Snack Bar located in the Demuzio
Center, students are able to fill up their own mugs with coffee or soda and get a discounted price
on the beverage. This helps reduce the plastic bottles and cups that are used and end up being
recycled. In the dining area, each table has a container of napkins, with a sign on each container
saying the napkins are made from 100% recycled paper.
Not only is the campus dining area helping in greener ways, but so is the entire campus.
All around campus, there are multiple signs encouraging students to help partake in this project.
In the residence hall bathrooms, small posters have been placed urging students to conserve
water when they wash their hands, shave, or brush their teeth. In all of the classrooms around

campus, small signs are posted under each light with Uncle Sam pointing a finger and saying I
want you to turn off the lights. This catches students eyes and encourages students to flip the
light switch to off as they walk out of the room. The copy machines around campus are now
printing two-sided, reducing the amount of paper used by half. Academic course information is
transported to the faculty and students electronically now, saving up to at least 45,000 sheets of
paper for the year. There have also been flowers and shrub gardens that have been planted around
campus to reduce the watering during the summer. Around campus, Blackburn is now starting to
purchase paper that is manufactured using recycled paper and the Blackburn Bookstore now sells
paper to students that are made from recycled paper.
Blackburn College also helps with the Going Green project by saving energy. Blackburn
burns natural gas to heat campus buildings, which adds to global warming. The money that the
college saves by not buying as much heat for the campus goes towards the support for the
teaching and students programs. Not every building on campus is heated, thus saving more heat.
The campus also uses a computer-controlled Energy Management System that has a schedule of
when to turn on and off the cooling and heating. During the winter, some buildings tend to lose
some of the heat. In order to conserve more heat from going to waste, Blackburn has added
insulation to the attic of multiple buildings like Mahan, Demuzio Center, Visual Arts, Hudson,
and Lumpkin Library.
The Recycling program at Blackburn is the easiest action anyone can take to help protect
our environment. While recycling, students are helping save energy and helping with the
reduction of natural resources. On campus, cardboard, paper, catalogs, magazines, newspapers,
bottles, bottle caps, and aluminum cans are all being recycled in every building around campus.
Recently, Dr. Jim Bray, a Biology professor, was granted a total of $15,750.00 for a
composting grant and to help in the biodiesel fuel production here on campus. The composting
grant enables waste paper to be turned into compost with the production of biofuel along the
way. The used cooking oil from the dining area is saved and taken to a local recycler that allows
the oil to be able to go into its diesel truck. This will help reduce the amount of gasoline and will
also reduce the amount of cooking oil that goes to waste. Many students are involved with these
projects, including Nick Delong, Masey Blasa, Rob Hausmann, and Dan Long. Rob Hausmann,
a Biology major, says: We are in the early stages of our research at this time, but we are waiting
on the right weather to start our construction. What we are trying to do is to establish the fungal
growth on recycled paper products from the cafeteria and other places around campus. We want
to eventually extract the oily-by-products from the fungi and use them to create biodiesel. This
will help decrease the amount of oil that is wasted from the cafeteria.
In order to get the students to be more involved with the recycling program at Blackburn,
a contest takes place annually between the six residential halls. Each hall has recycling bins for
each item and the bins get dumped and weighed every day. A poster is shown in the Demuzio
Center that keeps track of which residential hall is in the lead at the end of each month.
Roger Fenton, the associate dean of the work program, comments on the Going Green
Project by saying: The Work Program is fully supportive of the program and has and will
continue to allocate work positions in support of the initiatives not only because they are
important to the college community and society for environmental reasons, but also because they
are excellent learning opportunities for students.