How Sustainable is Riverside City College?

For this weeks assignment we were asked to evaluate and draw up a tentative plan to improve how sustainable the Riverside City College (RCC) campus is. To evaluate RCC it is necessary to observe the "life"of the campus and ask yourself questions like: "How many people attend this college" "How much trash do we produce here?" "Are there an efficient number of trash cans for the produced waste?" "Is recycling promoted?" "Is the waste we produced able to be reused?" "Are we utilize sustainable resources or do we to rapidly consume resources that are nonrenewable?" "etc..." All these questions, and more, are good questions to ask and can help identify a problem, or a group of related problems, on the campus. And Identifying existing problems is always the first step towards improvement!

Picture of RCC from merchantcircle.com

So what next? Well, if you believe that an area on campus needs to be improved then the chances are there are other students who feel the same way! Talk to other students, share your concerns about areas in which you believe the campus may need to improve, and listen, with an open mind, to other student who may share your concerns or have concerns of their own. Obtaining others opinions can either provide validation for your concerns or give you a heads up that you over looked something while problem solving. Either way a second, third, or fourth opinion is a good idea! 

A problem that I see on the Riverside campus is waste! No recycle bins and lots of waste thrown into the trash cans! So where do you start? With a club! Did you know it only takes one professor's support to initiate a club. Find a professor who supports green sustainability and ask for their support! Power in numbers! 15 students can change 15 times more then one student by themselves! Then find out why! Ask Marvin Osejo, the Custodial Manager, why RCC does not recycle? Why don't classrooms have bins to recycle paper? If our campus has vending machines why don't we recycle aluminum? Ask the Food Service Department why RCC does not use reusable service ware. Interview ED Bush, Vice President of Student Services, to find out why the bookstore does not promote the use of reusable bags. Seek outside assistance. Riverside County Waste Management Department is an excellent outside resource! Develop an obtainable plan. Use the information that you and your peers acquired and develop a feasible plan to present. Anticipate the reasons why your plan may be rejected an incorporate ideas that explain why your plan is achievable. Present your ideas to each department that could help initiate your plan. Lastly, be persistent and flexible because change usually occurs gradually, little by little over time.     

We were also asked to investigate colleges that have already initiated plans to promote sustainability. Happily there are a lot! According to The Daily Green colleges such as Oberlin College, in Ohio, has developed a completely self sustainable "living Machine" on their campus! Which is great but requires a great deal of resources to replicate. On a smaller scale, and probably more obtainable for RCC and most other colleges, are changes that schools like the University of Santa Cruz have initiated. Changes, according to USnews, like the implementation of organic food served in the cafeteria, the use of food waste to promote the growth of an organic garden, and to use a tray less dinning system which saves "30,000 gallons of water per month." Changes like these may seem small but they are a great place to start. They promote sustainability on campus and may lead to greater changes later on. The students and facility at Oberlin had to start somewhere, and it may have been by planting an organic garden or promoting water conservation in the cafeteria. You never know!

At the End of the Day...

For our third environmental blog we are asked to break our lives up into 8 categories and list EVERYTHING in our lives that we use or consume that comes from the Earth in a typical day. At the end of my day my life is broken down as such:

• Food and Drinks: eggs, bread, popcorn, chicken, cabbage, carrots, dressing, sweet potato, oranges, water, grape juice, ice cream, oil, butter, spices, paper bags, glass bottles, electricity.

• Housing and other Building: approx. 17,000 square feet of land, concrete, wood, brick, various fabrics, lots of electricity, water for plants. 

• Transportation: gasoline, asphalt, metal, an extraordinary length of road, two shoes (canvas and rubber), concrete sidewalk.

• Clothing: water to wash, cotton shirt and socks, denim pants.

• School Supplies: lap top, paper, notebook, pencil.

• Personal Care: lotion, soap, lots of water (showers, hand washing, toilets).

• Leisure Activities: nothing today.

• Other: cell phone, water for pets, food for pets, money.

That is a lot of consumption for one day!

We were also asked to choose an item that from our list (above) and trace its roots back to its origin (planet Earth), describe how it may impact our environment in the future, and what I can do to lessen the impact. So I chose to research electricity. Its not a tangible item but it definitely stems from our planet. So I asked myself, how do I get our electricity? And I found the answer. I found out that San Bernardino county receives its electricity from a plant in Redlands. A plant which is a natural gas (fossil fuel) burning plant (http://www.edison.com). And I wondered  how many people, in California, obtain their energy from gas burning plants? And the numbers turned out to be 29-42 percent while 10-20 percent receive electricity from hydroelectric plants (http://www.cpuc.ca.gov).

The yellow dots represent existing hydroelectric plants while the the orange dots represent areas where damns with turbines may / could be used to generate electricity. The purple areas can not be used for various reasons (http://national alatlas.gov).

10-20 percent is a small group of people who are using hydroelectric when compared to a possible 42 percent (myself included) who are burning large quantities of gas to produce electricity. Why is 42 percent so detrimental? It is detrimental because out of the approx. 3,000,000 people who live in the United States 1,260,000 people are burning natural gases that can not be renewed. In other wards there are well over one million people,here in the U.S., who are slowly depleting a natural resource that cannot reproduce or be synthesized. Imagine what the number may be for the entire plane! I'm imagining more than a lot of people. So, what can I do to prevent the depletion of our natural gasses? Or what can we do? Well the first thing is to be WELL INFORMED! Realize that there are other options than burning natural gases such as the power of moving water. Water is a renewable source and if it is consumed or used sparingly can be used as a continual energy source! We can also reduce! We can reduce the amount of energy that we use. Southern California Edison's web page has a number of ideas to reduce the use of electricity from installation of solar panels to learning which house hold appliances are energy efficient.

Doing a short search about electricity helped me to visualize a broader picture of how many people one Earth or one resource is trying to support. I am better able to see how important diversity is in order to sustain or stretch out a resource as best as we are able. I was surprised to learn how feasible it may be to use water to produce our electricity. So what can I do. Well I can conserve. Conserve electricity by using energy efficient appliances, I can turn off the light when I'm not in a room, and I can try to study outside in the sun. I can conserve water to make sure there are water sources available to produce electricity. I can make sure there are no dripping pipes in the house, I can sweep the back porch instead of washing it with water, I can Use pressurized faucets and shower heads, and I can make sure the sprinklers water only the grass and not the sidewalk. The possibilities are almost endless and I believe that one person can make a difference.