Rice Idea
Vault
Rice Idea
VaultThis is the repository for all of the environmentally-minded ideas that get submitted to Bank. Each idea will have an index listing, contact info, a detailed listing, and a comment from the editor when applicable. Please note that this is just a community-wide brainstorm and does not represent support or action from the Rice Administration. This is just a place for ideas to sit and be accessed until somebody comes along and makes them into a reality (and that someone could be you!). If you are interested in an existing idea, please click on Other Interested People and indicate with which project you are interested in helping.
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Reusable Mugs
From: Student Environmental Action Guide
Many Universities have cut much of their waste due to disposable cups (styrofoam and waxed paper), with a mugs program. These programs (run by student governments, environmental clubs, and school administrations) have sold mugs as fundraisers and then saved the school money by cutting down on disposal fees, not to mention diverting waste from landfills. These are usually accompanied by refill discounts both on campus and in the surrounding area. You could even approach local businesses and offer to sell mug-space for advertising (in return for some funding and refill discounts). This could also be expanded to reusable plastic cups, which could be used for softdrinks and at parties, further cutting down the waste stream (remember how many disposable plastic cups there were lying around at the end of that last party...).
Cut Paper Use
From: Student Environmental Action Guide
An incredible amount of Rice's waste stream is paper, so anything that can be done to reduce it will have an impact. Some suggestions are:
Save money with Lighting
From: Student Environmental Action Guide
There are lots of ways to cut down electricity from lighting:
Expand Recycling
From: Student Environmental Action Guide
Rice already has a healthy recycling program, but there's always room for improvement. Right now, we currently collect aluminum, glass, paper, and cardboard for recycling in certain areas of campus (mostly in the colleges). The most immediate thing we can do is to expand this to all parts of campus (departments, stadium, student center, etc.). We need to find a company to recycle plastic and maybe even styrofoam.
Have an Eco-lympics
From: Student Environmental Action Guide
Hold a competition between colleges for energy reduction (calculated as a percentage decrease from last year's average consumption). Encourage students and colleges to become aware of the electricity consumption, and give a prize to the winning college. We might even be able to work with HL&P to help the colleges accomplish their goals. Other events could be: amount recycled, water used and food wasted (per capita).
Adjust placements of utensils, cups, and napkins at food service
From: Ryan McMullan, envintrn@rice.edu
By altering the placement of utensils, cups, and napkins we can help to cut down on basic wastefulness and help students form better habits. While trays have to be put at the beginning of the line, utensils should be put at the end of the line, so students can choose only the utensils they need, instead of just habitually grabbing everything. This will cut down on the number of washings that need to be done as well as the labor of the washing staff. Cups should be arranged so that plastic cups are easy to get to and paper cups are harder to get to. Many students grab paper cups for dine-in, just because they're easier to grab (or because they're larger), and this could help cut down on the number of cups we go through (see reusable mug/cup idea, too). Finally, napkins should be placed on the tables, instead of in the lines, since many students grab a fist full of napkins in line ("just in case"). With the napkins on the tables, students can take them as they need them and not end up throwing away 5 clean napkins after using 2 (thus reducing purchasing costs and lowering waste stream).
Green the Campus Store
From: The Student Environmental Action Guide
There are many ways that students can encourage the Campus Store to become more environmentally friendly. Selling or loaning reusable cloth bags is one way, by cutting down on the number of plastic bags that pour out of there. Another way is to do a little research into "green" products that the store can stock, and present these to the store manager (with the offer to do a little free advertising for these products). We can also affect the Store as customers, by doing little things like asking for "green" products, refusing to take all of those annoying adds stuffed into our plastic bags, etc. This has the added advantage of being more visible to the world beyond the hedges. This could even be packaged together as an Earth Day celebration, with big displays of recycled products and environmental (fun to read) books.
Reduce Disposables in the kitchens
From: The Student Environmental Action Guide
There are a lot of food items available from CK that are individually packaged and have about as much packaging as food, such as ketchup packets, BBQ and sweet-and-sour sauce, butter, etc. These could instead be offered in large, refillable dispensers, reducing packaging waste. It would be worth while to look around the kitchen and see which items have the most packaging, and then evaluating whether that packaging is absolutely necessary (Snackwell's chocolate cookies come to mind, with a huge box and six little cookies...).
Buy recycled
From: The Student Environmental Action Guide
Recycling isn't really complete unless you complete it by buying recycled products. Rice is very good in some areas about buying recycled (napkins, hand towels, and toilet paper come to mind), but there is always room for improvement--the administration just doesn't have the time to go searching for it. If students can research which recycled products are available and beneficial to the campus, it will greatly help the administration.
Bring Recycling to Off-campus students
From: Sarah Turner, sturner@rice.edu
It would be cool if Rice Envi club could work with some of the apartment complexes that are popular among off-campus students (like Greenbriar, Holly Hall, etc) to set up recycling programs where they are not available. I live at the Greenbriar and they do not have any sort of recycling program. I see so many newspapers thrown out that could have easily been recycled if it were convenient. Since almost 1/4 of Rice students live off-campus, this would be a way to include them in environmental efforts. I don't think it would be hard to convince apartment managers that this is valuable and it would only require setting up a program on Envi club's part.
Save energy on heating and cooling and provide end-users with a more pleasant working environment.
From: Chris Johnson, cjohnson@rice.edu
I think that a survey should be sent out to each department and person who works in the buildings around campus to see how satisfied they are with the temperature of their environment (based on the observation that most buildings are really cold in the summer). This survey could be combined with an awareness program for people on how they can save energy and contact F & E to have them change the temperature.
The recycling of Wiess
From: Chris Johnson, cjohnson@rice.edu
I hope that plans are already being made to properly designate materials from Wiess for reuse and recycling. If it isn't done early, we may not "be able" to do it.
Green building products and practices for the new colleges and buildings.
From: Chris Johnson, cjohnson@rice.edu
Along the same lines, I think the University should be looking in to assuring that the materials and practices used in constructing the new buildings are as green as possible. They should start by composing an environmental or developmental goal for the new buildings and explain to the people involved in building how this interprets into an environmental concern.
Houston air quality awareness
From: Chris Johnson, cjohnson@rice.edu
Maybe a demonstration or display can be brought to Rice in conjunction with the awareness campaigns that have been going on in the city to make Rice students aware of just how dangerous the air is in Houston and what the potential health effects are. Also, it is important to understand what can be done about it.
A Houston Recycling Information Database
From: Chris Johnson, cjohnson@rice.edu
A list of where just about anything can be recycled in the area around Rice would be helpful. That way, when things like batteries, oil, tires, etc could be recycled, we would know where to take them. We could even do this with a map display.
Recycling bins where we need them
From: Chris Johnson, cjohnson@rice.edu
More recycling bins should be placed in areas like the disposal areas in the commons, in computer labs (where everyone snacks at night), and the library (where much of the waste is paper). [Ed note: In addition, it's generally a bad idea to have a recycling bin without an accompanying trash can, or else the recycling bin starts being used for general trash.]