Earth Day at SU

From the Sustainability Committee at SU

As part of SU’s Sustainability Initiatives and in celebration of Earth Day, the SU Sustainability Committee shares some enlightening facts about environmental issues and SU’s sustainability efforts.

• FACT
  It’s not that hard to recycle. You don’t have to remove staples, plastic windows or spirals from notebooks. These get strained out when the paper is turned to pulp. Remove tape if you can because it tends to gum up the machines and never recycle greasy or dirty paper (no napkins!).
• FACT
  Save Water Without Spending a Dime
   
  • Turn off the water while brushing your teeth. If you just wet and rinse your brush, you will save 9 gallons of water each time you brush
  • When shaving, fill the basin instead of letting the water run will save 14 gallons of water.
  • Fill a milk jug with stones and place it in your toilet tank to displace water.
  • Use a timer to cut your showers down to five minutes.
  • Wash full loads rather than partial loads. Washing machines use 30-60 gallons of water for each cycle.
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• FACT
  As technology improves and gets cheaper, old cell phones, computers, iPods and digital cameras end up in the landfill. In 2005, the EPA estimated that there was about 2.2 million tons of e-waste, and about 80-85 percent of that ended up in landfills.
• FACT
  Americans use 50 million tons of paper annually-consuming more than 850 million trees. What a waste! Over the course of 50 years, a single tree can generate $32, 250 of oxygen, provide $62,000 worth of air pollution control, recycle $37,500 worth of water and control $31,500 worth of soil erosion. One tree can absorb more than a ton of carbon over its lifetime.
• FACT
  Make sure your car is running efficiently. For example, keeping your tires properly inflated can improve your gas mileage by more than 3 percent.
• FACT
  Energy saved from one recycled aluminum can will operate a TV set for three hours and is the energy equivalent of half that can filled with gasoline.
• FACT
  Help reduce global warming-by recycling half of your household garbage, you can save 2,400 pounds of carbon dioxide annually.
• FACT
  Wear a sweater-by turning down your central heating thermostat one degree, fuel consumption is cut by as much as 10 percent.
• FACT
  In the U.S., we use enough office paper each year to build a 10-foot high wall that’s 6,815 miles long-or two and a half times the distance from New York to Los Angeles. Toss it in the recycling container not the trash--every ton of recycled office paper saves 380 gallons of oil.
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• FACT
  Glass produced from recycled glass instead of raw materials reduces related air pollution by 20 percent and water pollution by 50 percent. In Wicomico County, recycled glass is ground up and used as filler in paving material.

• SU DID YOU KNOW?
  In 2006 alone, SU recycled more than 500 tons of items ranging from paper and glass to electric motors and oil.
• SU DID YOU KNOW?
  Through SU’s partnership with Pepco Energy Services, Inc., SU is upgrading some 1,700 plumbing fixtures to conserve 11,000 gallons of water annually.
• SU DID YOU KNOW?
  Since 2003, SU has recycled 70 tons of its old computers and audio-visual equipment. There is an electronic recycling drop box at the Maintenance Building; for inventoried SU equipment, contact Information Technology to arrange recycling.
• SU DID YOU KNOW?
  As a certified arboretum, SU has also won the Green Award from the Maryland PLANT (People Loving And Nurturing Trees) Community for its commitment to forestry.
• SU DID YOU KNOW?
  SU continues to promote mass transit by expanding the capacity and pickup locations of the University’s shuttle service, and at SU’s urging, Wicomico County created a bicycle path from University Park to the Fruitland Wal-Mart. To meet increased demand, SU recently added 27 bike racks to campus for cycling commuters.
• SU DID YOU KNOW?
  The environment was a key concern in the construction of the Teacher Education and Technology Center. Some floors are covered with renewable and recyclable bamboo instead of petroleum-based products and up to 40 percent of the building’s structural steel frame is made from recycled materials.
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• SU DID YOU KNOW?
  Salisbury University President Janet Dudley-Eshbach signed the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment, pledging to move SU toward climate neutrality.
• SU DID YOU KNOW?
  Through SU’s partnership with Pepco Energy Services, Inc., SU is replacing aging mechanical equipment or installing more efficient equipment for heating and cooling in 14 buildings on campus. These efforts will result in an estimated annual savings of 32,688 MMBTUs per year, which is the equivalent of planting 2,145 acres of trees or removing 1,571 automobiles from the road. 
• SU DID YOU KNOW?
  Paper purchased for office use at SU is made of 30 percent recycled, post-consumer materials and then recycled itself. Last year, the campus recycled 244.20 tons of mixed paper.
• SU DID YOU KNOW?
  This year, students in SU’s residence halls are participating in RecycleMania, a national contest of more than 400 colleges and universities throughout the United States that compete to see who can produce the most recycling. Last year’s contest resulted in 41.3 million pounds of recycling.
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