Doing the Sustainable Thing at Cascadia Community College

An article in a business publication in Washington State details some of the sustainable programs going on at Cascadia Community College. This is notable because it shows, once again, that community colleges are becoming intensely interested in sustainability — despite having a transient student population, tight budgets, and (as someone put it to me recently) a physical plant built for disposability.

The article was written by a sustainability adviser in the architecture firm working with the college, so assess the article for what it is — a publicity piece. However, it does provide a guide to a number of innovative programs that might prove useful at other colleges.

The college used goats, instead of chemical weed killers, to clear its landscape of brush, and it has set up worm composters to eat its garbage. (Worm composters, you might already know, produce very potent fertilizer. Two Princeton students started a fertilizer company in which worms are the primary employees.) The campus has also stopped using pesticides in favor of integrated pest management, which uses a number of natural methods to control insects and other pests.

The college is planting trees and restoring a wetland, which will serve as a reservoir for storm-water runoff.

And the college is also putting up a building that is shooting for a platinum rating in the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program. College officials hope that the building will be a zero-energy building.