CBA Green Team Minutes
Monday, September 24th, 2012
3:00pm, Mammel Hall Suite 200
Attendees: Jean Waters, Brice Miller, Edward Johnson, David Nielsen, Rick Yoder, Michael O’Hara, Ashley
Taylor, Suela Cela
Waste Sort
Goal: Tracking waste of: Electronics and Shred Paper
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Electronics Currently
o The campus deploys the unneeded electronics, or sells them on Craigslist
o The electronics do not get inventoried if there are less than 5000 items
Implementation of the new plan will require
o Jacob to keep track on the Modem’s numbers
o Suela will create an electronic “Inventory Sheet”
Shred Paper Currently
o We don’t have any data on how many times the Shred Paper bins are emptied
Implementation of the new plan will require
o Suela will create an “Inventory Sheet” for Jackie to keep track on the emptied bins
Recycling through Sept 21st
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There was high solid waste in the month of September
Reasons to this cause:
 A large number of events on campus due to the beginning of school year
G-Basis
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Started bi-weekly meetings on campus
September 4th 2012- Toured 1st Star Recycling
Upcoming Events:
o October 5th 2012- A tour of Mammel Hall with Dean Pol, and one of the Architects
o Planning to tour of the new “LEED” Platinum TD Ameritrade building
o Participating at Waste Cap Summit in Lincoln
o Working on designing new club T-shirts
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Would like to offer “Bag it” movie to UNO students
Would like to watch the movie “Switch” October 11th 2012 at Aksarben
Waste Wise
 EPA Recognition program for solid waste reduction. It offers technical assistance, expert advice and
Re-Track software- a database tracking tool for material management
o CBA was signed up for the program in March
 Entered baseline information: solid waste, recycled material and “buy recycled
product”. Data was based on sample weigh in from November 2011.
 In order to fully utilize the program, the building will need to implement monthly
weigh ins
 Based on required data, we researched additional areas that should contribute to
improvement of the processes
 Purchase of higher recycled-content paper at CBA
 Consider purchasing a scale for weighing trash and recycling by custodian staff
 Issues with shred container in offices, At this point, we will continue conversation
with administrative assistants about implementation of small wheeled locked boxes
in individual departments
 Idea for: Waste dashboard – would like to consider having a waste dashboard
(similar concept to energy dashboard) to display progress at reducing waste overall
and increasing recycling
 As part of this initiative, we will implement the use of Waste Finder app to estimate
waste and recycling generated by each department and in the classrooms.
 Ed will look into purchasing bigger blue bins for the classrooms to better convey
the visual message of recycling – we want the recycling bins to be the same size or
larger than the waste bins.
 David will include a fixture to hold both bins with signage above the bins (so it’s
easy to see as you’re tossing materials into the bin) in one classroom as a test run to
determine potential behavioral change
 Will also test a classroom that contains no waste bin inside the classroom – the
waste bin will be located outside the classroom.
Environmentally Preferable Printing
Goal: Maintain excellent quality CBA publications with lower environmental impact. Jean and Ellen Lincoln
(CBA graphic designer) will meet with four printers to review the following criteria:
 Review example sustainable publications from four printers to judge quality
 Discuss their environmental practices
 Solvents and wastes they generate
 Paper choices, ink choices, other environmental impacts
 Determine barriers – timing, costs, other limitations
 Evaluate choices based on perceived value of environmental improvement vs. costs
Green UNO – meeting was held on March 9, 2012
 Center for Urban Sustainability will be located at the PKI – the proposal will go to board of regents
in May
 Renewable Nations Institute – formerly Dana College – implementing a sustainability/energy
conservation education program; they are interested in partnering with UNO to offer university
credit
 Want to increase communications on campus about sustainability efforts; plan Earth Hour (8:30 pm
Mar 31), Earth Day (Apr 22), Sustainability event in October; Becky Brown is the contact in UNO
communications and is on the Green UNO committee. We will include Becky on our email list.
 Green Jobs panel update:
 Yum Sustainability Challenge http://yumsustainability2012.istart.org/ (Business Plan
Competition)
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Curriculum development http://www.aashe.org/events/workshops/curriculum
Oct 9: Auden Schendler & Omaha sustainability summit
opportunity http://www.gettinggreendone.com/
Recycling Pledge Project:
 Green Team members (Jean, Jonna) attended Pam Peterson’s Sales class. Students debriefed the
assignment :
o There is a lot of confusion about what can be recycled; more education is needed
o Mixed staff reaction to the pledge; the faculty rebel against authority
o The students enjoyed the project but better structure for distribution should benefit this
assignment
Old business – not discussed
60 Seconds to Green:
The following topics will be a part of our upcoming schedule:
 April – Earth Day – rain gardens at MH, surface water (Amy)
 May – Clean Air Month – Actions to reduce ozone
 August – Recycling 101 – for Mammel Hall
 September – Pooling our resources – car pooling; shuttle
 October - Tailgating (reduce food waste)
 November –America Recycles Day (recycling 201)
 December – Gift ideas (non-consumables)
CBA Sustainability Policy:
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Jean is working on a white paper for University of Nebraska system; UNO, CBA sustainability
policy; Jonna is willing to review and comment
Paper will be presented to the Green Team and Green UNO
We would like to include environmental, social and economic aspects of sustainability.
The policy should address student education
Graphic Identifier:
Next Meeting: April 17 at 3:00 pm