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College Employees Value Campus Environment, 'Chronicle' Survey Finds
When a Chronicle survey asked college employees what they value about their jobs, they put the physical environment in which they work at the top of the list. (Chronicle photograph of Washington & Lee U.)
Rise in Tornadoes, Floods Poses Risk to Colleges
What if the sort of extreme weather that has left the University of Iowa inundated in floodwaters is not a freak event? What if it is a sign of things to come? (Photograph by AP Images)
Art & Architecture Renovations Near Completion at Yale U.
Paul Rudolph's 1963 Brutalist icon is getting a makeover, plus an addition by Charles Gwathmey.
Guest Blogger: Marc Mayerson
Like swashbuckling movie heroes, facilities planners take on herculean tasks.
Other News
Campus Planners Discuss Challenges in Attaining Sustainability
Analyzing How Students Choose Colleges Is Key Topic at Meeting of Planners
Specialized Developers Helping More Colleges to Meet Housing Needs
New campus buildings
Multimedia
A Green Building as a Billboard for Science
(A 2006 Chronicle video)
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About Buildings & Grounds
Buildings & Grounds is written by Scott Carlson (left) and Lawrence Biemiller (right). Scott Carlson writes about architecture, facilties, energy, and sustainability, among other topics. Lawrence Biemiller writes about architecture and facilities and contributes to Notes from Academe. What's happening on your campus? Let us know.
At Eckerd College, Eco to Go
The EcoClamshell, a reusable to-go container, may reduce waste at Eckerd College. (Courtesy of Eckerd College.)
Those infamous polystyrene clamshells for takeout food might last hundreds of years in a landfill, but at Eckerd College their days may be numbered.
Taking their place is the EcoClamshell — a teal-colored, reusable plastic vessel. For $5, students sign up in Eckerd’s dining facility to use the containers to carry their take-away burgers and fries. The studente are responsible for bringing the containers back, and the containers are then sent through the dining facility’s dishwasher and put back into circulation.
Audrey M. Copeland, a 2007 graduate of Eckerd who is now an intern at the college working on environmental projects, developed the idea from an environmental-studies class she took in her second year. In a class assignment, she learned that more than two million tons of polystyrene products are dumped into landfills nationwide every year. She started trying to think of ways to reduce that waste on the campus.
It took two years, three cafeteria managers, and a $32,000 grant from the Environmental Research and Education Foundation in the summer of 2007, she says, before the project got off the ground. Finally, Ms. Copeland had a working prototype, which the college’s dining-service provider and a Texas-based manufacturer picked up shortly afterward.
Ms. Copeland hasn’t calculated how much waste the containers have averted since the college introduced them in March, and only time will tell if they catch on. Of the 1,000 students on the campus meal plan, 200, at last count, had signed up to use the EcoClamshell.
“We didn’t want to back people into a corner,” says Ms. Copeland, but she hopes the visibility of the bright teal containers will create a bit of social pressure.
They’re not exactly easy to lose, she says. —Hurley Goodall
Hurley Goodall | Friday April 18, 2008 | Permalink | Contact usComments
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Perhaps a college cafeteria should not provide take-away food, but only serve food for which you have to sit down, using a plate, fork, and knife. I must be oldfashioned
— peter Apr 18, 10:23 AM #
Take-away food from a typical college dining hall is the same food offered on a plate- the student simply places the food in a box. It ranges from self-made salads to pork roast to burger and fries. And yes, burgers and fries are old-fashioned.
— Tom Apr 18, 10:39 AM #
As an Eckerd grad, ’96, I am thrilled to see things like happening at my alma mater!! Eckerd has always been and always will be a place for free thinking out of the box people. No, take away food may not be the best choice, perhaps people should always sit down and eat, but have any of you ever been to Eckerd??? It’s right on the ocean, surrounded by lots of seawall, has tons of grassy areas, benches, hammocks, and such all over the place, and is usually privy to some pretty snazzy balmy weather. We always eat outside!! So if there is a better say to take your food outside and enjoy it, leave it up the Eckerd grads to figure it out. High fives all around.
— Jennifer Apr 18, 11:39 AM #
Kudos. At Caltech, in the Los Angeles area, Dining Services has introduced a lot of changes in this vein:
* Styrofoam to-go containers have been replaced with containers made of a 96% natural fiber, water, and biodegradable mixture. The same material is used in the “paper” plates which replaced the plastic disposable plates.
* Clear plastic to-go containers have been replaced with 100% compostable corn-based containers.
* Standard paper napkins have been replaced with non-bleached, recycled paper napkins.
* The campus Convenience Store’s plastic bags have been replaced with 100% compostable corn-based bags.
* Paper and foam soda cups have been replaced with compostable, corn-based cups.
* Coffee cups and soup containers are made from 100% biodegradable paper. Lids for these containers are 100% biodegradable corn-based.
* Coffee insulators (“java jackets”) are produced from 100% biodegradable sugar cane.
* Plastic cutlery has been replaced with 100% biodegradable potato-composite cutlery with a 200 degree temperature tolerance.
* Plastic trash bags have been replaced with 100% biodegradable, corn-based garbage bags.
* Currently trans-fat free fry oil is purchased in bags (instead of the standard plastic tubs). Plans are in place to make a similar change with other bulk items, such as salad dressing.
Next up: commercial composting of waste, including much of what you see listed here.
— Busy Beaver Apr 18, 04:35 PM #
Ahhh Florida sunshine and Eckerd, I miss ya! Audrey and EC Enviro Studies you make us proud! -Jen ’04
— Jennifer Donovan Apr 28, 09:45 PM #