The Office of Sustainability had the great opportunity to join Charleston’s first STEM festival at Liberty Square on February 8th. CofC’s tent hosted by the Lowcountry Hall of Science and Math was packed with a full schedule of groups that rotated through to showcase the awesome STEM-related work being done at the College.
Spring 2014 Interns Virginia Whorley and Drew Gardner represented the innovative work of our Office by demonstrating our new solar-powered aquaponics system.
Photograph by Drew Gardner
This system is pretty cool – We took a Back to the Roots aquaponics kit, planted our own “crops” from Sea Island Savory Herbs in Johns Island, adopted a betta fish from our local Age of Aquariums in West Ashley, and installed a solar power system from West Marine in West Ashly to power the water circulation pump. With this system, we were able to demonstrate a practical model for some very complex and versatile concepts. We were able to tell people about alternative energy generation and storage, unconventional agricultural technology suited to urban environments like our own, food systems, and complex biological ecosystems.
Photograph by Drew Gardner
This was a perfect venue for our Office, because we were able to talk to people of all different ages, from elementary school children to adults, and everyone found some part of it that interested them. It’s hard not to hope that some of the little ones will grow up to engineer systems that rethink the way we do things for a more sustainable future.
Photograph by Drew Gardner
Hopefully we’ll get more opportunities to combine education, STEM, outreach, and sustainability. Stay tuned!
I wrote last summer about my interest in information and some of the ways I was exploring the information problems that organizations such as our own face. I saw two big areas where information is increasingly difficult to handle – managing information flow within an office as well as effectively communicating information to the public.
It’s interesting for me to revisit my thoughts from when I was only a few months into my work with the Office of Sustainability. I was just becoming familiar with the goings on of my coworkers and the College as a whole as well as getting a feel for how I could marry my talents with the Office’s needs. Having now been in the Office through one full semester’s cohort of interns, I’m still very much interested in the information-related projects that I was pursuing last summer. The Mendeley research library, for example (geeky but aaawesome!) seems to me more important than ever to help sustain all of the amazing knowledge and experience gained from our interns as well as sustainability offices at neighboring institutions. While we’re on the subject of my geekdom, it’s worth mentioning that when our new multimedia intern Drew suggested that the Office could benefit from a logical filesystem that he could create for us, I almost wept with joy (Drew, you are the man). But projects aside, what I’d like to share at the moment is how my perspective on information has developed since the summer.
In some sense I feel like I’ve been catching up for the last few months. I was very interested in learning how to present information online in a way that was convenient, intuitive, and maybe even slightly attractive. I’ve been working hard to pick up skills in web design in order to better communicate information to the public. Check! Aside from dabbling in some pretty cool AWS technology, I feel like I have recently caught up to maybe 2004-2005 in terms of a fluency with online resources. A feat of which I am nonetheless very proud!
Now I’m facing the new information problem – communicating with the public is not really about having pretty websites anymore. They certainly don’t hurt, but what I realize now is that communication is about reciprocation. This is a pretty big step for a guy who still has a flip phone.
I understand that social media tools have been around for a few years now, but what taught me the lesson that effective communication requires mutual engagement and interaction wasn’t signing up for Instagram. Teaching in the classroom has helped me understand that students are at their best when they feel like they have a voice and when they realize that they have important lessons to teach fellow students as well as the professor.
My sense of how to share information has changed, and now it’s time to learn the necessary skills for the task at hand. I can’t think of a better context in which to do it – the Office of Sustainability has been a wonderfully supportive and challenging environment. I’m excited about our new online magazine Synergies, because this publication is an awesome opportunity to take our Office’s capacity for communication to the next level. We are reaching out into the broader community and region and will therefore have even more opportunities for our students to learn new skills and perspectives in the process. I can’t wait to share what happens next.
What is a better way to bring students together or at least get them fired up than through a little friendly competition? That is why The Office of Sustainability will be hosting another campus-wide competition in the Spring of 2014 that of course will promote changes that will benefit our campus today, tomorrow and long after we have all graduated. Although this sounds far away, February will be here before we know it! If you want some inside info on the upcoming competition, then keep reading.
What is it?
Campus Conservation Nationals (CCN) is the largest electricity and water reduction competition program for colleges and universities in the world. In its fourth year, CCN gives a common voice and motivation to hundreds of thousands of students across North America, all working together to reduce consumption and mitigate the impacts of climate change. CCN is an opportunity to organize students and staff, host educational events and challenge students and staff to participate in fun events that can have an immediate and lasting impact on your school’s carbon emissions and campus culture. CCN is jointly organized by the U.S. Green Building Council, Lucid,National WildlifeFederation, and Alliance to Save Energy.
How it Works:
Our office Res Life Intern will be conducting several orientations in the Spring with individual Res Halls and Houses, however there are FOUR upcoming webinars that she will be hosting this month. Please email hlavinkl@g.cofc.edu if you are interested in attending. Each session will be held at The Office of Sustainability on King Street and will last for one hour.
Program Goals:
Engage, educate, motivate and empower students to conserve resources in residence halls and other campus buildings
Foster a culture of conservation within campus communities, and propel campus sustainability initiatives.
Enable students to teach each other conservation behaviors that they can employ on campus and in their future homes and workplaces.
Enable students to develop leadership, community organizing, and career development skills
Achieve measurable reductions in electricity and water use, preventing thousands of pounds of carbon dioxide from being emitted.
Highlight the ability of behavior change tools such as competitions, commitments and social norms to conserve energy and water
Please contact Keri via email hlavinkl@g.cofc.edu if you have any additional questions! Our goal is to kick off the Spring semester with a competition that will bring us all together around some pretty important issues! More importantly we hope this competition and others will also help to encourage lasting behavior changes like conserving energy and water usage, long after you leave the College of Charleston campus.
As someone who considers himself both a conscientiousness consumer and an environmentalist, I have always taken the effort to learn about the effects of my buying habits. Do the grapes I enjoy come from hundreds or thousands of miles away? Was my coffee sprayed with pesticides or did it cause untold environmental damage to the local ecosystem where it was harvested? Do the dollars I spend go towards promoting socially responsible or local businesses that I support? I take pride in being a consumer and citizen who tries to understand how and where my decisions affect the world around me.
Yet there was one glaring omission in my perspective around our food system. Who was actually responsible for getting the produce from the field to my plate? You have probably seen the bumper stickers around Charleston that read “Eat Today? Thank a Farmer”. While farmers certainly deserve our continued respect and support a more appropriate bumper sticker would read “Eat Today? Thank a Migrant Farm Laborer”. That’s because more than 60% of the produce picked in the United States is picked by a migrant farm laborer who makes, on average, less than $11,000 annually. They come from economically and socially precarious places and work long, dangerous hours without the rights and regulations that any other laborer has come to enjoy in the US.
For the past 2 years Green CofC has hosted an annual Food Week each October. Each year we focus on the role that food plays in our social, environmental, and cultural life. Last year our focus was around local food and cultural preservation in the Lowcountry. This year we decided to focus on a facet of our food system that is continuously neglected, farm worker’s labor rights. With the help of an ESPC grant Green CofC was able to bring in a keynote speaker from Student Action with Farmworkers, an organization based in North Carolina that works with farm workers throughout the southeast. Atlee Webber, an alumni of the University of Virginia, came and spoke with us about both the history and situation of farm laborers as well as her personal experience with migrant labor camps in the Charleston area. Her talk was incredibly informative and provided a good opportunity for those who might not have been aware of the situation that many farm workers are in.
In addition to Atlee’s speech, Green CofC hosted a Green Bag lunch panel as well as a benefit dinner that raised almost $300 for the East Coast Migrant Head Start Project, a local organization that provides education, health care, and family services to the most vulnerable and least empowered members of our society.
I thought I was an informed consumer. I thought that I had the power to influence important issues with my dollar. However, now I realize that there is a whole sector of the agricultural industry that I was neglecting. I know about the dangers of processed foods, pesticides, meat consumption and the need to buy organic and local, but I never once thought about those who picked, packaged, and delivered that food from the fields to my fork. What we can do as individual consumers is sadly limited. This issue will take more than switching from one farm to another. It is a wide and systemic social and economic issue that will take a political movement along the lines of what Cesar Chavez did in the 1960s for farm workers in California. We can enjoy the delicious fruits of the field without the human suffering that comes with it today. The first step is to educate yourself and spread the word.
As I hiked a trail with my newly made best friends in Zakynthos, Greece, I took a moment of silence to take in the breathtaking beauty of the Mediterranean Sea. We were in Gerakas Beach, one of the most untouched, natural places I have ever seen. I took a deep breath of the fresh salty air and pondered how lucky I was to be standing in such an amazingly natural place.
Later that day we met Yanni, the founder of Earth, Sea & Sky, a non-government organization part of the Ionian Nature Conservation. This organization was founded to research the effects of tourism in Greece as well as to monitor the nesting of the Loggerhead sea turtle and the Mediterranean monk seal. As a volunteer we researched and recorded the effects of tourism on the local environment, provided information on the local flora and fauna to visitors, rescued injured animals, and participated in beach and forest clean-ups. As a participant, we learned about the basic care and maintenance of aquatic, marine, and reptilian animals at the Wildlife Information Centre. One of our main and most interesting jobs was the monitoring the nesting and population of the Loggerhead Sea Turtle.
One night Yanni led our group on a night survey of several beaches on the island. Little did we know one of the most disturbing sites we would ever see was in our near future was an area called Laganas Beach. If we didn’t understand how negatively tourism can impact our environment and such beautiful places we did now. With no regulation from the Greek government, restaurants and hotels were built only feet from the water line. Scantily clad club-goers drank and dined literally 3 feet away from the crashing waves. In that space lay hundreds of lawn chairs and umbrellas leaving zero room for turtles to lay eggs. The beaches were quickly eroding leaving minimal space for sea turtles to nest. Not only was this a sad fate for the Loggerhead sea turtles, but once a breathtaking view was now clouded with scrutiny. Out of all of these disturbing images, the one that affected us the most was recognizing the connection between Laganas and Charleston. On most given nights you can find intoxicated college students and tourists roaming the streets of Charleston hopping from bar to bar. Many of these hotspots lay close to the bay and what used to be natural wonders. All I could think about in Laganas as I saw partying tourists were flashbacks to nights out on the town with me and my friends. Did we really do as much damage as these tourists? What really sets us apart from these people? These questions ran through my mind as I struggled to find a balance between tourism and sustainability. How many times and how many places must we ruin to have a good time?
It quickly became apparent to our entire group that if mass tourism continues in this way, we will lose the natural beauty of our environment. Our entire group thought how we are just as big a part of the damage to the environment as the people visiting the island of Zakynthos. As a group, we began to brainstorm ways we can continue to visit different cultures without negatively impacting the environment. We left the island with a vow to look for alternative ways of travel and participate in sustainable tourism.
Questions are frequently asked about how lunar cycles facilitate gardening activities at many of the workdays and events for the Political Science Garden. In response to many inquisitive folks, I have created a quick FAQ about the lunar cycles and gardening with the help of Louise Riotte’s book, “Astrological Gardening: The Ancient Wisdom of Successful Planting and Harvesting by the Stars.”
What is lunar gardening, and how is it effective?
Coordinating garden maintenance and related activities by the lunar cycles not only provides a more intentional experience to gardening, but it also proves
beneficial for the soil ecology and vegetation. For example, certain gardening duties must be scheduled around the waning and waxing periods of the moon. During the waning phase, when there is increasing light, annuals that produce above ground should be planted, unlike biennials, perennials, bulb and root plants that should be sown during the waxing period, when light is decreasing. This is because the gravitational pull of the lunar phases affect the water cycles, thereby affecting the seed’s capacity to absorb water at certain times, such as right before the full moon.
Is there significance in planting with the astrological signs?
According to Rudolph Steiner, gardening activities such as harvesting, planting, watering, transplanting, fertilizing, and cultivation can be synchronized with the elements of the astrological signs- earth, air, fire and water. The signs are broken down into the elements as so:
Earth: Taurus, Virgo, and Capricorn
Air: Gemini, Libra, Aquarius
Fire: Aries, Leo, Sagittarius
Water: Cancer, Scorpio, Pisces
Each of the elements correlate with specific parts of the plant, which are the 1. stem/leaf-water, 2. seed/fruit- fire, 3. flower- air, and 4. Root- earth. These correlations are based on the processes that occur within each of these parts of the plant. For example, the seed begins life by determining the genetics and biology of the plant, which is associated with fire; whereas the flower is associated with air because of the necessity of wind or insects for pollination. The moon cycles pass through each of the astrological signs, and signify when certain gardening practices must be implemented. For instance, Gemini is considered an air sign, which is suitable for weeding, removing pests, harvesting, and cultivating the garden. The moon in Cancer, however, is a time for planting and irrigation due to its association as a water sign.
Do other cultures plant by the lunar cycles?
Many indigenous groups across the globe have coordinated their crop planning and agricultural practices with the lunar cycles. Check out the link below on an article about indigenous people, such as the Mayans, Hawaiians, Polynesians, and Ketshua Indians (to name a few), and their synchronized practices with the lunar cycles.
Are there specific sustainable agricultural methods that use Astrological gardening?
Yes, astrological gardening can supplement a wide variety farming techniques. Biodynamic farming is one example of an alternative agricultural method, which was founded by Rudolph Steiner in the 1920’s. Biodynamic farming works to balance nutrients and diversity by cultivating health and fertility through a closed loop of nutrients from the farm ecosystem. Biodynamic initiatives encompass the triple bottom line of ecological, social, and economic sustainability to foster unique partnerships and collaborative efforts for a thriving agriculture. Biodynamic farmers may also use the lunar cycles to indicate when to create homeopathic sprays for the garden, which may enhance the fertility or nutrients within the soil or vegetation. Organic farmers may also utilize the lunar cycle as a means to organize their crop planning and cultivation to encourage natural growth.
Still curious about lunar gardening and alternative agricultural practices?
The Charleston peninsula is a vulnerable place threatened by rising sea levels and a whole host of social justice issues at play such as homelessness and gentrification. Despite these challenges, the Charleston community has responded in unique ways to instability and unsustainable practices. Urban agriculture programs have provided a unique opportunity in response to similar issues, and are on the rise, as well as a growing appreciation for local farms and sustainable agriculture. While city life can be quite luxurious, especially in a top destination town, people are desperate to get dirty. Urban gardens have provided answers to vulnerable communities, food deserts, and have enabled collaboration to transcend socioeconomic boundaries.
Because urban garden programs are relatively new and just gaining momentum in the area, one challenge is the lack of synergies and shared knowledge on growing practices. As the garden coordinator of the Political Science Urban Garden program, I thought it necessary to engage with other groups around town. One such example of an expanding and thriving urban garden program is the MUSC urban farm, located in the heart of the medical university’s campus. Adjacent to the dental school, the urban farm inhabits a half-acre plot of land, and serves as an education hub for a variety of groups related to MUSC. A fellow intern and I decided to walk over to meet with the farm educator, Jane Madden. She was very eager to give us a tour of their beautiful urban plot, and gave detailed explanations on the programs involved, farming practices, seasonal advice, and seed information. It was refreshing to exchange local and ecological knowledge on gardening practices, such as methods to resolve garden dilemmas like the infamous squash vine borer!
While there are major strides being taken for farm to school initiatives, there is still much room for improvement here in the Lowcountry. Creating synergies among urban garden programs, as well as grower groups provide opportunities for like-minded individuals to exchange experience and knowledge, and to strengthen the programs. In order to create sustainable relationships with each other and the land, collaborative efforts must be made. The lack of interaction and connection is merely a symptom of our current systemic structures, but working towards a sustainable future requires creating new patterns of communication and interaction among society and groups. Our trip to the MUSC urban farm provided much insight on quality urban garden program structures, and most importantly, how to engage in efficient collaboration. Special thanks goes to Jane Madden, and to the efforts made at MUSC for providing such holistic experiences to the Charleston community, as well as all those who are involved in sustainable agriculture!
Check out the first Greenbag Lunch Series event of the semester! Co-hosted by the Carter Real Estate School, Sustainable Resilience in Our Communities: Building a Better Future with Lessons from the World Trade Center will take place on September 11th from 12pm-1:30 in Tate 202. The panel will feature Jeff Baxter, Co-founder of Cityvolve, Eleni Giekas, CC&T Real Estate Services Development Associate, and Kathleen Rose, President and CEO of Rose Associates. This panel discussion will also be moderated by Office of Sustainability Academic Coordinator Dr. Jesse Baker.
Light refreshments will be provided, but attendees are encouraged to bring their own packed lunch to enjoy. This event will feature locally sourced produce provided by GrowFood Carolina as well as pre-and post-consumer composting of event waste!
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.
Some food waste compost
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
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.
