Sustainability Committees works toward greener campus

The Campus Sustainability Committee, led by Dr. Matthew Kropf, director of the Energy Institute at Pitt-Bradford, is taking steps for the campus to leave as little of a carbon footprint on the environment as possible, with the goal of one day leaving virtually none.

Campus sustainability is one of three main focuses of the Energy Institute, and the committee, comprised of Kropf, other faculty and staff, and a student representative, is divided into four subcommittees: outreach, grounds, materials and recycling, and energy usage.

Outreach is intended to engage those on campus and in the community about different sustainability issues, including types of energy and the benefits and hazards of each.

The group’s first forum, held in April, brought speakers Ray Vaughan, an environmental scientist, and Larry Foulke, professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Pittsburgh’s campus in Pittsburgh, to educate attendees on nuclear power and energy, laying the positives and negatives of such usage.

Attendees also heard an expert, in-depth description of the Japan reactor scenarios resulting from the earthquake and subsequent tidal wave last March. Kropf said the committee tries to bring in reputable and distinguished names to best inform everyone, allowing audience members to form their own best possible conclusions.

The committee has two forums planned for the fall, including one on Marcellus Shale drilling, which will happen in September or October, followed by a regional sustainability forum in November.

The grounds subcommittee’s current project is a new composting center.

Students in Free Enterprise, a group on campus, conducted a survey of excess food thrown away in the university dining hall. Building off that, the composting center will take discarded food from the dining hall and convert it into fertilizer for the many plants and trees found on campus.

The composting will reduce spending, since there will be no need to buy fertilizer (and the university could sell the excess), and it puts to use students’ half-eaten cheeseburgers and pizzas.

The grounds subcommittee is also looking for ways to better drain the campus of excess water and salt used during the winter months, which can damage trees, plants and soil.

The largest plan of the committee is to build a large-scale greenhouse on campus for educational and environmental purposes. While Kropf admits this plan is much further down the line than others, he said that it is gaining support, and he hopes to see it happen in a few years.

The materials and recycling subcommittee is implementing the recycling initiative on campus as well as finding new ways to be environmentally conscious.

Led by Rhett Kennedy, director of auxiliary services, committee members are looking into reducing the paper printing output by printing on both sides of paper as well as putting a quota on how many pages a student can print.

Committee members are also looking into making the student residence halls more efficient by cycling the heating and air conditioning inside the building rather than continuously pumping it out and installing new showerheads that reduce the output of water. The research suggesting a change in shower heads was presented to the sustainability committee by an environmental studies student last year.

“We try to help and encourage student-led initiatives,” Kropf said of the Environmental Studies Club, the Green Team and SIFE research. “They are the ones pushing for the change.”

The Energy Usage subcommittee is led by Kropf and monitors gas and electric consumption and establishes long-term plans and changes to get the campus to its goal.

One of the first things Kropf did when he arrived on campus was suggest energy monitors for campus buildings.

“I knew when I first got here that every building needed to have energy monitoring, just so that we could see what changes we needed to make,” he said.

He built the first one himself, using his experiences in electrical applications, but then learned that the University of Pittsburgh has taken on the project to professionally install the monitors for the campus buildings.

The main goal is to find a way for Pitt-Bradford to offset its carbon emissions to zero, leaving virtually no mark on the environment. Most of the campus emissions come from coal burned for electricity and natural gas heating on campus.

“These emissions can be ‘offset’ by having lawns and trees, increasing efficiency and reducing energy consumption, and establishing clean energy sources,” Kropf said.

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