Sustainability News and Events

On another leg of our tour of waste, we visited the Montcalm Material Recycling Facility in Indianapolis.  What a sight!  At this facility, run by Republic Services, workers sort, bale, and then ship the materials to customers who will melt them down and form them into new things.

In addition to aluminum, tin, steel, and paper, the plant is only able to sell plastics number 1 and 2 (the bottle and jug kind).  All other plastics, number 3-7 and the oddball 1’s and 2’s, are baled but just kept in the warehouse as they search to find a market.

In this picture, workers are sorting

through aluminum to make sure there are no items that don’t belong.

Here are some other facts about the plant:

• 50 employees
• receive 70 tons /day:
  • 2 truckloads of newspaper
  • 4-5 truckloads of everything else
• items defined as “trash” are always re-sorted to make sure there are no recyclables among them
• do not currently recycle plastic Starbucks-type cups, yogurt cups, or plastic bags
• all post-consumer
  • the Langsdale plant handles “pre-consumer” clippings of unused paper

To help us better understand the waste process at DePauw, Missy!, Taylor, Craig, and I shadowed a team of third-shift custodial staff members in the Julian Center on Sunday night.  This experience allowed us to debunk some myths as well as get to know some workers we never see during the day at school.

We saw . . .

• the color-coded reusable microfiber rags for cleaning
• picking up trash and recycling and taking them to their respective outdoor bins
• a CFL getting replaced–and a confirmation that in six years, they still haven’t had to replace all of the bulbs in Julian
• professors’ trash cans full of recylables

As part of our effort to follow our waste and educate the DePauw community about what happens to it, Professor Everett, Missy!, Craig, and I visited the Sycamore Ridge Landfill in Terre Haute.

We learned of the complicated layering process that lies beneath the waste to protect from leeching, and we were able to watch a tractor-trailer dump it’s load on the ground.  Our guide, the general manager of the landfill, estimated that 10-15% of the waste we saw was plastic, including plastic Kroger-type bags that get blown around and become a nuisance.

PLUS, we were astounded to see the “community investment” that has been made around this landfill.   The former, now completed and closed landfill across the street produces methane–as do all landfills.  Instead of selling this methane back to the grid for use as energy (which wouldn’t be economical), Republic Services sells it directly to Boral, a brick factory right next door.  This methane provides enough energy to supply the majority of the factory’s needs.

In addition, Boral gets its clay for the bricks from land that had been strip mined before regulations were in place.  Boral’s involvement removes arsenic from the soil and will leave the land a better place in about 70 years.

DePauw Environmental Club celebrated Earth Week on April 21 -26, coinciding with Earth Day on the 22nd. Each day featured a different theme: reduce/reuse/recycle, education/outreach, voter information, endangered species/biodiversity, and arbor day. Celebrations included musical guests Blueprintmusic and a collaboration of efforts between both DePauw and Greencastle proper.

Read more in The DePauw!

• 4/22 news announcement
• 4/29 summary

Dr. Michael Maniates of Allegheny College spoke Monday, February 4th at the Janet Prindle Institute for the Ethics on “Boldness, Prudence, and Freedom: Tough Choices for the Liberal Arts in a Warming World” as part of the 2008 DePauw Colloquium on Liberal Education–The Liberal Arts in a Time of Climate Crisis.

To read more, visit the 2008 colloquium webpage.

As part of a nationwide teach-in initiative to combat global warming, DePauw participated in Focus the Nation this month. Professors from all departments were asked to lead forum sessions relating their discipline to the ever-pressing issues of climate change. Keep updated on this through the Focus the Nation national website or read more about this event at DePauw:

• DePauw News announcement
• DePauw FTN webpage
• The DePauw–
  • news, 2/01
  • editorial, 2/01

For National Day of Climate Action, Nov. 3, members of the DePauw Environmental Club gathered in academic quad to spread awareness, united with 1 Sky’s Step It Up initiative.

The theme for this year’s ArtsFest, October 27-November 4, centered around the Environment, coinciding with the University-wide sustainability theme for the 2007-2008 school year. The community bikes that were released to commence the festival are examples not only of art, but of practicality–encouraging students to ride around campus instead of driving.

Read more:

• DePauw News announcement

  

• The DePauw–
  • Community bikes, 9/11
  • Re*Cycling Art Parade, 10/26
  • Faculty reading, 11/2

This year’s DePauw Discourse, October 4-6, focused on sustainability and global citizenship, and featured several speakers, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Bill McKibben.

Read more:

• 2007 Speaker Bios
• DePauw News–
  • Bill McKibben
  • J. Nichols, ‘89
  • Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
• The DePauw–
  • 10/5: editorial
    • Bill McKibben,
    • The 11th Hour screening
  • 10/9: RFK Jr. lecture and press conference
    • Discourse wrap-up

Each year, the Compton Center for Peace and Justice hosts Peace Camp on the lawn of Academic Quad, tackling issues from all areas of spectrum of social justice. This year’s Peace Camp takes place from October 1-6. Read more in coverage from The DePauw on October 2.