Sustainability summer interns save thousands

Sustainability interns As interns for the Committee on Sustainability (COS), Tyler Koontz ('09) and Judi Sclafani ('11) spent their summer months evaluating William & Mary's recycling and waste services. Photo by Stephen Salpukas

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by Phil Zapfel, W&M Sustainability Fellow | September 4, 2009

As interns for the Committee on Sustainability (COS), Tyler Koontz '09 and Judi Sclafani '11 spent their summer months evaluating William & Mary's recycling and waste services. Thanks to that work - and a recommendation by the students - the College will now save $40,000 annually.

COS Summer Internships are an ongoing, competitive grant program supported by funds from the Green Fee that was initiated in the spring of 2008. The grants are intended to afford summer research opportunities for graduate and undergraduate students that directly serve the sustainability needs of the College. Koontz and Sclafani '11 were awarded two of the four grants made available in May of 2009 for their proposals to evaluate and improve the College's recycling program.

"As an undergraduate student, to be given the opportunity to conduct meaningful research as part of the College's commitment to sustainability has been exciting, unique, and both personally and professionally rewarding," said Koontz, adding he hopes to see the recycling program continue to grow. "I am confident that the recycling program has the potential to become a model for other universities nationwide."

COS asked the students to focus their research on improving the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of recycling on campus. Within the first four weeks of the internships, they had found a way to cut recycling expenditures by half. By shifting the recycling pick-up schedules from "on-call," where bins were emptied only when the College notified their recycling vendor, to a regularly scheduled service, Koontz and Sclafani estimated that the College would save around $40,000 each year. They also discovered that the solid waste dumpsters were emptied too often, creating the potential for tens of thousands of dollars in additional savings. Both were included in a final report issued in August.

Koontz and Sclafani set multiple tasks for themselves at the beginning of their internships, including examining the current recycling and waste practices at the College, exploring programs at other universities, finding new vendors in the region, and determining the relationship between the recycling and solid waste programs of the College. Their research highlighted promising new possibilities for improving recycling and lowering costs at William & Mary: the recommended changes made to the recycling contract make recycling cheaper per ton to service than solid waste, creating a needed economic incentive to increase the amount of waste diverted into recycling.

The students were advised and assisted by Sandra Prior, director of environmental health & safety, and Rowan Lockwood, professor of geology and the chair of the COS Programs and Education Subcommittee. Helping the students navigate the intricacies of the recycling and waste programs were Dave Shepard, associate vice president of facilities management, and Bill Sanders, the College's support services supervisor. Shepard was particularly active in Koontz and Sclafani's research, suggesting avenues of inquiry and accepting many recommendations. "Their research points to significant cost savings for the processing of the College's recyclable materials and provides a strong foundation for the growth of the program to achieve more sustainable operations," Shepard said.

Neither student had previous experience in waste or recycling before the internship, but both had worked on sustainability projects on campus before. Sclafani is a member of the William & Mary Student Environmental Action Coalition (SEAC), and served on a working group within COS during the 2008-2009 academic year. Koontz has worked extensively with government professor Maria Ivanova on environmental policy research and assisted with the writing of the student green fees proposal in the spring of 2008.

Sclafani saw this internship as an opportunity to solve a visible campus problem. "I knew that recycling was something that people had been looking for a solution to for awhile," she said. She credits Shepard with much of her and Koontz's gathering of recycling and waste knowledge, but noted, "There was no crash course. We pretty much just picked up information as we talked to everyone."

COS Co-Chairs Lynda Butler, law professor at the William & Mary Law School and Dennis Taylor, professor of marine science at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, both commented, "We are pleased to see this success coming from the COS Summer Interns program. It is an excellent example of how small investments from the Green Fee can result in large sustainability advances for the College."

Sustainability Tips

Here are some great tips for sustainable living from the COS. More...
Reduce waste by carrying a reusable water bottle-refill it rather than buying plastic bottles of water.
Cut the cord! Be sure to turn off your lights and appliances when you’re not using them. Many electronic devices continue to drain energy even when they're turned off, so unplug your computers, cable boxes, and TVs, when they're not in use.
Avoid high speeds. Fuel efficiency drops rapidly above 60 mph.
Avoid printing out documents that easily can be read and filed electronically.
Take public transport, carpool, walk or cycle instead of driving. You’ll save money, get fit and reduce your contribution to climate change.
Too often plastic and paper grocery bags end up sitting in landfills! Transport shopping using your own refillable bags—you can carry more and you’re saving the environment.
Save a tree by switching to electronic billing. Most utilities, credit card companies, and banks now offer this handy service.
Save hundreds of gallons of water by washing only full loads in your washing machine and dishwasher.
Avoid idling. Turn off your car whenever possible.
If you're flying with checked luggage, try to pack less. The more you carry, the more fuel the plane burns.
Carrying your own coffee mug is a great way to cut down on waste…Especially if you’re addicted to caffeine!
Remove yourself from junk mailing lists. Does anyone need all those catalogues?
Save energy and stop your sweaters from shrinking! Use cold water plus a cold water detergent in your washing machine.
Turning your thermostat down by one degree on a warm winter’s night saves you 3% on your heating bill.
Here comes the sun! During winter months, keeping your window curtains open on south-facing windows lets the sun heat your home naturally during the day.
Save energy and prevent fires by regularly cleaning out your dryer vent to make sure it’s not blocked.
Add air to the tires of your car so they're properly inflated—you’ll get better mileage.
Use task lighting. Instead of brightly lighting an entire room, focus the light where you need it.
Buying a new appliance? Be sure to look for the Energy Star label, which tells you that that appliance has met strict efficiency guidelines set by EPA and DOE.