Category: Guest Bloggers

August 6, 2013

From Guest Blogger and Office Intern: Stefan Koester

A Day In the Landfill

Monday, morning: The first thing on your mind is caffeine but you’re running late so you swing by a Starbucks. “A venti please and a bagel with cream cheese.” You drink and eat your breakfast on the go and throw the cup, lid, plastic knife and cream cheese packet in the nearest trash bin. Siting in your office you have a cold soft drink and a bottled water. You toss the daily newspaper in the trash after you’ve read it.

Monday lunch time: You and a few office mates do lunch at a new Asian place, but you have to take yours to-go. At your desk you enjoy your spicy noodles and a health drink. When you’re done you look for the office trash bin in order to toss the Styrofoam packaging, plastic utensils, and plastic cup. After unpacking some boxes you have to throw out all the bubble wrap, cardboard and packaging peanuts.

Monday evening: You come home late, exhausted from the day’s heavy workload. You don’t feel like cooking so it’s a quick, microwavable dinner from the grocery. store. After you take it out of the plastic bag, unwrap the Mac & Cheese, take off the cellophane wrapper and toss the cardboard box, you heat it up in the microwave and enjoy it with some ice tea in a plastic cup and straw.

We may not realize it, but we leave piles of trash in our wake, literally, piles of trash. The average American produces 4.4 pounds of trash every day and that amount increases every year. In fact, the US produced 250 million tons of municipal solid waste last year.[1] The Office of Sustainability wanted to find out what all that trash looks like, so we decided to visit the Charleston County Landfill & Compost facility, a 312 acre facility located on Bees Ferry Road in West Ashley. It is open to the general public for disposal and tours.

There, we saw how all of our food waste, yard clippings and trash are handled. Food waste makes up approximately 15% of US municipal solid waste in our landfills. The College, with the help of Dinning Services and Food Waste Disposal, has been able to capture a large portion of our food waste. It’s delivered to the compost facility where it’s pulped and within 90 days becomes dark, nutrient rich soil. All yard waste and clippings must be composted in Charleston County as well. These are laid out in long rows that are turned periodically in order to increase the rate decomposition. This compost is used either as a daily cover over the landfill or is also available for purchase by the public (1 ton for $10!). The composting facility at the landfill is a great addition. It extends the life of the landfill, it keeps useful resources in the supply stream, it connects the community to easily accessible resources, and it saves the county and taxpayers money.

The landfill is the most disheartening aspect of the facility. It is literally a giant pile of trash that will continue to grow for the next 20 to 22 years. It’s not neat, it’s not clean, it’s not organized and it smells bad. All day for five days a week trash trucks from all over the county come and dump around 30 cubic yards of trash. Its then smoothed over with bulldozers and finally a thin layer of soil from the compost facility is spread over. The entire mountain is swarming with birds as they swoop in for a find. Beneath our feet we saw toothbrushes, shoes, food packaging, plastic bags everywhere, water bottles, paper waste, cardboard, and an unopened toy elephant. There, in this giant pile, lay the refuse of our society.

We were lucky to witness a trash audit that was being conducted while we were there. Every few years the county does an audit of a week sample in order to determine the content and percentages. Over 70%, we were told, was either compostable food waste or recyclable. All those man made hills around us could have been 70% shorter. It was a truly eye opening experience. To see the physical evidence of all our waste was nothing short of shocking. To see the unsustainable nature of our waste disposal system was shocking. To see the amount of useful and valuable resources being tossed away was shocking.

During our few hours there, there were certainly some depressing moments. There were also some positive signs. Thanks partly to the College’s food waste disposal efforts, Charleston County is expanding its food waste composting program. Thirteen of the 43 county elementary schools now compost their cafeteria food and another 19 schools will be added this fall. As those students get older they will bring with them the values and habits of composting. The County also seems committed to expanding and encouraging increase recycling participation. Not only does the county receive money for valuable resources such as aluminum, glass, plastic and cardboard, it also prolongs the life of the landfill.

So what can you do to address this mounting problem? The first step, as always, is to think about your daily habits and routines. Think about where that disposable item may end up. Think about where those trash bags go. The second step is to try to reduce the amount of waste you produce. Bring a thermos, pack a fork and knife with you, try not to use Styrofoam or plastic food containers, bring your own food in Tupperware, refill your reusable water bottle around campus. If you want to compost your food waste the Office has resources on how to do that. Finally, recycle appropriate plastics, paper, aluminum, glass and e- waste. After you’ve done all this, your landfill waste will look pretty small.

There really isn’t much sense in endlessly burying our trash for generations and generations to come. We don’t want to leave Wall-E to clean up our endless mess. We have many of the solutions today right at our finger tips, we just have to do it!

Summer interns, GAs at Bees Ferry Landfill & Compost facility

[1] http://www.epa.gov/epawaste/nonhaz/municipal/index.htm

August 5, 2013

Incubate THIS

From Guest Blogger and Office Intern: Keri Hlavin

On Friday July 27th, our group of “sustainabilibuddies” ( a group of friends who actively seek out more sustainable life practices and activities while having fun!) traveled to Johns Island to have lunch at a local restaurant and visit Dirt Works Incubator Farm. At first reveal of this office bonding field trip day there was much question, at least on my part about the exact type of operations that occurred on such a thing called an Incubator Farm. I had no idea that it was possible to grow farmers!

We started off our afternoon eating at Rosebank Farms Café with Nikki Seibert who is the Director of Sustainable Agriculture at Low Country Local First. We did not have nearly enough time to cover the wealth of information she provided, not only about LLF and how they operate here in Charleston, but about her expertise in the way of grant writing and raising funds for businesses. The whole goal of our lunch lecture was to learn a bit more about the process of grant writing, and who better to learn from than Ms. Seibert who has been awarded so many successful grants in her position. We were able to collect some very useful tips and strategies to take back to our office as we are starting to do some of our own grant writing. Office of Sustainability is seeking ways to get funded for several projects including the purchasing of seeds for our community garden.

We took full advantage of the day and met her at the Dirtworks Incubator Farm immediately after lunch. The Farm is an effort for new farmers to have a successful chance of starting their own livelihood on local lands with the use of shared equipment. It was really great to see this initiative in action that day. While we were there a small group of local farmers were harvesting their crops and even took some time to answer our questions. It was amazing to see a part of that process.

It was explained to us that there is a crucial need for the next generation of farmers to be born! The experts or those that have been in the fields for nearly 70 years are about to retire off the soil! We need to create more young and dependable farmers who will be around to grow food for years to come. And that is how Dirtworks comes in. Since the cost of starting up a farm is so incredibly high and the risk for losing everything remains, this farm provides all the resources a new farmer would need, including tools and land. What a beautiful location for such a simple yet crucial concept. Seeing this in action was powerful. These young farmers are creating a change that is definitely a part of the sustainable solution for our planet, starting right at home on Johns Island.

July 18, 2013

Sharing Information and Sustainability

From Guest Blogger and Office Intern: Walter Blair

Half way through my summer internship with the Office of Sustainability, something important clicked for me – I have the opportunity to explain some of the projects I’ve been working on so far, but what I’d rather do is explain what clicked because it is the foundation of my work at the Office and the work I hope to do in years to come.

Here’s the last 8 years or so of my professional life and how I’ve grown to think about the importance of sharing information…described in two paragraphs!

I studied chemistry and biology in college but by graduation time wanted to do something more hands-on than lab work. I spent a year working at an aquarium (a sufficiently messy hands-on experience) and realized that I missed learning new things via research. Though I hadn’t quite experienced it in my undergraduate work, I was still intrigued by the joys of novel scientific discovery promised to every hopeful science student. A year after I decided that I wouldn’t ever be happy in a science lab, I entered the M.S. Marine Biology program here at the College. Having just finished that challenging and often frustrating research program, I realize now that my frustration is not with lab work, but it is with information itself.

I do want to discover new things, but I can’t stand the thought that the information I discover could be lost in the shuffle. Someone told me that the average number of citations for a peer-reviewed journal article is between 0 and 1, meaning that a fair number of article are never referenced by anyone. How frustrating! What is the point of generating new information no one will learn from it? Just as I felt at the end of my undergraduate work, I wanted to find work that I felt was more application-oriented…I wanted to make a real difference.

Whew! Well here I am as a summer intern with the Office of Sustainability. It wasn’t chemistry or marine biology that I wanted to work on this summer – it was information. There is so much to learn about the world we live in – the quantity of information to which we have access has exponentially exploded (how many people were there sharing their life stories online 20 years ago?), and our ability to sift through all of that mess to find quality information and to digest it so that we can make practical use of it has gotten exponentially harder. What we know is often limited to what Google places at the top of the search list, and everything else gets lost in the shuffle.

We have big ideas and goals at the Office, but we face the same problems with information that everyone else faces.

On our side of things, it is difficult to achieve a steady flow of information within the office. Each intern works incredibly hard on his or her projects and puts the necessary labor into research and information gathering in order to inform their progress, but a student-led group is always challenged with rapid turnover as students graduate and move on. In order to stand on one another’s shoulders to reach greater heights, we need to retain all of the information we gather and ensure that it is easily accessed and passed along.

On the other side of things, it is difficult to communicate what we’re doing with the community, because everyone else is struggling to keep up with exponentially growing quantities of information. We are faced with the challenge of organizing and presenting information in such a way that everyone in the community feels that he or she has the time and energy to share what we are trying to share.

The Office of Sustainability is committed to working on this information problem, and there are a number of projects we’re currently working on that we think will improve access to quality information for us and for our community. From establishing a publicly shared research database that allows anyone to access and quickly digest important peer-reviewed information, to developing our social network in order to share instant news and feedback on community projects, to experimenting with cutting edge web design to provide easy and intuitive access to information on recycling and other projects, we are working on the information problem.

There is so much quality information that is overlooked and so many curious minds don’t have access to it. For me, it’s been several years of frustration in the making, but I am convinced that what I want to do as an intern and what I want to do wherever my career takes me is to help people build and improve upon our vast human knowledge in order to reach a more sustainable future.

July 15, 2013

Bike CofC bike share is about more than adding bikes to the roads.

I have always been an avid biker. Ever since I was a kid, terrorizing suburban Georgia on my mountain bike, biking has always been my preferred mode of transportation. I have always tried to bike as much as possible, and since moving to Charleston from Atlanta, where biking is a little less safe due to busier roads and the lack of a prominent bike culture, biking has become my go to method of movement.

Since joining the ranks of bikers in the Lowcountry, I have been greatly impressed with what I have seen. Aside from a few malcontents on both sides, I have noticed a general willingness to share the roads and to let each and all transport themselves as they wish. However, I have noticed a few issues with how bikers comport themselves en route to their destination. Speeding through red lights, weaving around traffic, passing cars on the right, not properly signaling turns, and careening recklessly in the opposite direction of a one way street are some of the most frequent examples of bad biking behavior. I’m no hypocrite. I have been guilty of some of these at various times for various reasons. Sometimes it’s just too tempting on a not so crowded intersection to blow through a red light, but I know it’s wrong and something I need to work on in order to set a good example for my companions that choose two wheels instead of four.

Sometimes it’s hard for bikers to realize that we don’t get special privileges because we didn’t hop in a car that morning. I believe that often times, bikers either forget, or don’t realize, that while on the road we have to behave like we also have four wheels. I feel like this is a necessary step in raising awareness for bikers in the area and helping to increase accessibility. As a biker, I know we must look at ourselves as well as others because being a predictable biker is not only safer, but gives a better impression of bikers, and makes drivers more willing to share the road. It only takes one biker with improper road etiquette to set a bad example and leave a lasting impression. For example, take this comment from a reader responding to a recent Charleston City Paper article,

“I will never yield to a cyclist until they follow the same traffic laws as the rest of us… Which is, by the way, the LAW! If I see you run a red light because it’s just too much effort to stop, I’ll go out of my way to crowd you, and, I could care less if you scream and yell. As a matter of fact, that makes it more fun!”

This is obviously on the extreme side of the biker/driver divide. But it’s this attitude, and the bad biking behavior that fuels it, which must be addressed. I personally feel that the onus is on us as bikers to follow the rules of the road, and show drivers that we can commute safely and responsibly.

This is one of the hopes of the Bike CofC bike share program, and one of the many reasons that I’m so proud to be working on it as we prepare for a Fall 2013 launch. To not only provide biking opportunities to students, staff, and faculty, but also to educate them on proper biking and bike safety. Learning how to ride properly is almost as important as having the opportunity itself and in doing so it can only increase the accessibility of bikers everywhere.

We live in such a great city for biking, and hopefully the Bike CofC bike share program is a small step towards a safer, more accessible city for anyone who wishes to bike and share the roads with our four wheeled brethren.

June 27, 2013

Organic Pest Control Workshop

Thank you to Elizabeth Beak for conducting a organic pest control workshop at the political science urban garden. The workshop was attended by a variety of faculty, students, faculty, and community members. It was a great example of how the garden is both an educational tool and a way to bring people together.

Here are some responses from some participants of the Organic natural pest control workshop:

“We had quite the time in the garden yesterday! I would like to extend my gratitude to the passion of Elizabeth Beak and Lexa Keane who made an informative day like yesterday possible! It was an informative experience and really great to learn that there are such easy and effective natural alternatives to keep pests out of the garden. As we learn more about how to maintain and preserve the garden, I feel more and more a part of it and responsible for its’ longevity. Yesterday helped to unite different offices on campus and really made me feel like a part of something much greater than myself. Everyone at the garden yesterday was involved and truly interested in the process of making our community a place that will be around for a long time. It was so nice to hear the knowledge and experiences of other gardeners and workers present as everyone’s tricks and tips contribute to our group knowledge! What a joy to watch our campus grow together.” – Keri Lee Hlavin

“Everything I heard yesterday was very useful to me especially the Healthy Ecology, companion planting, and the Natural Pest Control. The latter was why I came to the workshop because some bug has already shredded all my collard greens that were growing very well. I also already have some of those companion plants in my garden but separately on different beds. So with this useful workshop, I hope to do better with my Fall garden. Lastly, I have the information now for future reference. Thanks for organizing it because it was very informative and worth my time.” – Laetitia Sobiesuo

Check out these pictures from the workshop and this hand out on Natural Pest Control recipes to use on your own garden!

May 16, 2013

Library has new high-tech way to reduce paper usage!

Higher Tech – Lower Impact

by Aaron Holly

Lacking a personal printer or scanner, I frequently find myself at the library computers printing off documents and watching my balance of free copies shrink down to zero. I try to not print whenever possible, but sometimes these things are unavoidable. So it came as an exciting piece of news to find out that the Addlestone Library now has a new, state of the art document scanner known as the Knowledge Imaging Center, or KIC (see picture below).

The KIC, located in the first floor copy room next to Java City, can scan all types of documents which can be saved to a USB drive or sent directly to your email. Scanned files can also be read on the KIC electronically, eliminating the need to print them out. The scanner is capable of scans up to 17 X 24 inches, or, should you ever need to scan anything really small, down to the size of a postage stamp. Scans can also be made in color or black & white. Documents can even be saved in audio format, which can be played back on any digital audio device; now if that’s not cool I’m not sure what is.

By storing your documents digitally, you can have a lower impact by reducing the amount of paper you use. Just think, if every one of the 10,558 students attending the College used their 300 sheets of printing, we use 3,167,400 sheets of paper PER SEMESTER (which=6,335 reams=633 boxes)! And that’s just students. Imagine how the faculty and staff would add to that. So next time you find yourself in the Library, think before you print, and take advantage of the KIC and all that it can do.

kic

More info about the KIC here!

May 1, 2013

Dixie Plantation Floral Inventory

Recording Floral Diversity at Dixie Plantation

Ashley Schnitker

The past few weeks have been absolutely beautiful and with all the rain and sunshine, many plants have flowered and leafed out. I have gotten to see the formation of some vernal pools due to all the spring showers.

A vernal swamp

A large number of hardwood species exist on the property and have begun to leaf out, blocking out sunlight from the understory. Such species as sweet gum, red maple, flowering dogwood and several species of oak and pine are found throughout the property and are easier to identify now that they have leafed out. The understory of these trees contains many species of small forbs that are also flowering. I have been able to collect and press several of these species for the herbarium:

Southern twayblade (Listera australis)

Sweet gum (Liquidambar styraciflua)

Resurrection ferns on the Alee of Oaks

I will be spending the next few weeks collecting data and finishing setting up the last of my plots before beginning my data compilation and analysis.

April 23, 2013

In the Garden with Lexa Keane

Spicy Flowers and Bean Sprouts

I think I’m in love. Our relationship is so fresh and new, I can’t help but get excited thinking about Friday afternoons, and all the other random chances I get to spend time with them.

‘Them’ you ask?? Yes, all the little vegetable and fruit sprouts within the political science urban garden that are pushing so eagerly to meet the sun’s rays. I find myself retreating to the garden any chance I get, making sure they are watered and nourished. I’m borderline ‘helicopter mom,’ but their youth calls for extra reassurance and devotion!

One of the many great things about the garden is the constant interaction of people and the natural world, as the garden is a centerpiece in which people gather and exchange stories, thoughts, and a sense of community. The garden demonstrates not only the physical potential of yielding produce for the local community, but the potential within each of us to flourish and help each other grow as individuals and as a community. If you think I am romanticizing this garden experience, you might very well be correct in your assumption, but I would argue that this newly cultivated plot of land is something worth celebrating.

Yesterday, after a hectic day and a long week, I retreated to the garden to harvest some lettuce, spinach and basil for a tasty salad to share with a good friend of mine. After plunking my heavy book bag down, I assessed the growing sprouts, and watered them while talking with some faculty members. The conversations extended past the garden, and into realms of personal interest and funny stories of the week. The garden is a platform for uplifting experiences, whether gathered around the actual garden, or sharing the vegetable goodness for dinner with a near and dear friend.

November 5, 2012

Office Staff Present at National AASHE Conference

Green Fees 1.0 – by Haley Thomas

While most of the students at the College Of Charleston may have spent their Fall Break relaxing or studying, eight members of the College’s Office of Sustainability traveled cross-country to Los Angeles, California to attend the 2012 National AASHE (The Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education) Conference. Jen Jones, the newly appointed Facilities Coordinator for the Office, presented at the conference on “Green Funds 1.0: Getting a Fund Started”. The presentation was a collaboration between Jen and three other administrators from different campuses. The panelists represented diversity from public to private, community college to PhD granting, and east coast to west coast. The panel presentation explored the stories, challenges, and successes of the four different institutions on their journey to adding a green fund to their sustainability initiatives.

Jen began with the very basics surrounding the concept of a green fund by explaining, “A green fund is a sum of money specifically set aside for campus sustainability projects.” As explained in her presentation, the green fund comes from student fees, campus operation budgets, administrative funds, and alumni donations. After describing the basics each member of the panel told their story of how their fee was approved and discussed the major barriers they ran into and how they overcame them, Jen gave an informative presentation on the College Of Charleston’s green fund and how is came to be implemented in the Fall of 2010. Jen’s discussion included the challenges faced and current projects funded by the Green Fund at College Of Charleston. In addition, Jen and the other panelists provided support and advice for colleges and universities that are either working on developing a fee for their institution or wish to get started on one. Jen’s panel presentation was on the last day of the conference and for everyone involved it was an exceptional ending to a long four days.

November 5, 2012

Office Staff Members present at National AASHE Conference in Los Angeles –

The Challenges to Sustainable Food at CofC – by Lydia Nickolas

Here at the College of Charleston a push has begun for the integration of more sustainable and local foods in campus dining options in addition to accountability for supply chain and waste stream management. While this movement has been largely student driven, the implementation of the desired changes is wholly dependent upon the cooperation with food service providers and garnering the blessings of upper level management within the College. In her presentation at the AASHE 2012 National Conference, Ashlyn Hochschild outlined many of the potential solutions and obstacles encountered while working with Aramark (the College’s food service provider) in designing more sustainable strategies.

Food and adequate nutrition are some of the most basic and fundamental of human needs. Since the dawn of time, the attainment of sustenance has been a community effort, founded in the joint collaboration of hunting, gathering, and cultivation in close cooperation with the natural environment. Not until recently has there been such a vast disconnect between the source of our food and its consumption. In our modern fast-paced everyday lives, concern about the origin, fate, and nutritional content of our food has been relegated to the backburner. The College serves anywhere between 3,000-3,500 meals everyday on campus, creating a significant impact based on their purchasing preferences and waste disposal methods. The hope is that shifting the purchasing paradigm to a more locally sourced effort will improve the local economy and overall quality of the food served.

In her presentation, Hochschild points out that while small steps are being taken by Aramark, there is still significant room for improvement. She called specific attention to the “Green Thread” program currently being implemented on campus which includes “green” cleaning supplies, cardboard recycling, reusable mug discounts, recycling fryer oil, serving Fair Trade coffee, the use of a compost pulper, and the reusable tray program. While these are excellent first steps, they pale in comparison to efforts being made across the nation. A specific example that was cited indicates that while the pulper was purchased over a year ago, it had not generated any usable compost until this past Friday, November 1st. Hochschild ultimately concludes that much of the fault lies in a lack of baseline data, communication, transparency, and implementation of large-scale concepts on a smaller scale.

Despite some of these challenges, Aramark has been largely cooperative and willing to lend an ear to both the Office and student input on their policies and provision of service. In order to ameliorate the broader issues, added transparency and initiative on behalf of the College of Charleston is a must. In order to create a positive and sustainable campus environment, there must be joint cooperation between the students, the administration, and their providers. A sustainable approach to our food consumption and waste management encompasses not only where our food comes from and where it ultimately ends up, but how it shapes our community and our interactions.