GCSU assigns Green Initiative Taskforce to cut cost and conserve

Making GCSU a “greener” campus may be, literally, the $100,000 question.

Since GCSU’s electricity bill totals, on average, $98,754 per month, efforts by organizations such as the Green Initiative Taskforce may be seen as an easy fix to our empty wallets.

The Green Initiative Taskforce held their first meeting of the semester last Wednesday to discuss ways to make the campus more environmentally sustainable. The main focus of the group is to develop ways that will help make GCSU ‘Clean and Green’ and to educate the community on how to accomplish this. Doug Oetter, a founder of the taskforce, feels that the group can positively impact the school and the surrounding community.
“The Green Initiative will help our campus save money and resources so that we can continue to provide a quality education at bargain prices,” Oetter says.

Not only will the group be helping the cost to the university, but a very large focus is on the conservation of the environment. Kelley Smith, vice-president of the environmental club, has recently gotten involved with the organization. Through the club, she has seen how much the university needs to improve.

“Once you start working recycling drives on front campus, work for nine and a half hours, collect nearly four tons worth of material and have to hall it all off at the end of the day, you begin to see just how many resources the campus uses,” Smith says.

The university has a long way to go in becoming more environmentally friendly, but it has already taken steps in the right direction. The GCSU Environmental Club has a recycling program for white paper and is planning a recycling drive for this semester. It will also host RiversAlive clean-ups and hold discussions in the residence halls on sustainability.

“As environmental conditions continue to change dramatically in the coming decades, humanity is going to be screaming for solutions, and universities are responsible for creating intelligent ideas to protect us from ourselves,” Oetter says.

Residence hall occupant Kelsi Nilsson feels efforts by the university, such as looking into alternative lighting options, installing new washers and dryers in the residence halls, and asking for lights to be turned off, are all steps in the right direction.

“We already see today the effects our actions in the past have contributed to, such as high levels of pollution and water shortages,” Nilsson said. “If we do not realize this is a serious problem, these issues will only become worse, leaving our generation and future generations in an unsafe and diminishing world.”

Sophomore Meredith Carpenter thinks students should be conserving energy on a daily basis.

“I don’t leave things plugged in if they aren’t being used, because that creates dead energy,” Carpenter says. “My roommate makes sure that we are always turning off unneeded lights in order to save energy.”

Turning lights off, taking shorter showers, and being educated about wasting natural resources are all things the Green Initiative Taskforce is trying to emphasize. GCSU spends an average of $17,787 on water, $28,035 on natural gas, and $1,995 on fuel oil per month, in addition to the electric bill.

To try and cut down on the costs and harmfulness to the environment, the university has already begun to make changes. Lighting is being made more efficient and old boilers and chilled water facilities have been updated. Natural gas prices have been frozen since hurricane Katrina, which prevents rates from rising, even during the current gas shortage.

Housing employee Evin Winkelman has already noticed some of these changes.

“In the housing office, many of our lights are motion sensored and the ones that aren’t have stickers on them that remind everyone to ‘turn off the lights,’” Winkelman said.

The Green Initiative Taskforce has played a large part in these changes and will continue to encourage more improvements.
“It’s now time to put the council in the hands of an array of faculty, staff and students that can really make the program work, and make (the taskforce) official,” Smith said.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Sep 26 2008. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry