June 23, 2005
UW scores best in BEST awards
The UW took home several honors from the fourth annual Businesses for an Environmental and Sustainable Tomorrow (BEST) awards, including the Mayor’s Environmental Leadership Award.
This award, the “best of show” honor, was presented to Facilities Services with the Capital Projects Office and recognized “a broad commitment to sustainable business development.” The award highlighted accomplishments in waste prevention and recycling, water conservation, energy conservation and sustainable building.
“Our efforts have progressed to sophisticated technological measures in partnership with major utilities,” says Jerri McCray, associate vice president of facilities services. “But our success has been because our efforts are inclusive, seeking out every potential saving, including the non-technical. We rely on individual students, staff and faculty — a culture of conservation. It wouldn’t be successful without the individual, day-to-day participation.”
The UW has been operating a recycling program since 1973, evolving “a sophisticated campuswide collection and diversion system.” Over the past 14 years the UW has been able to increase the amount of recycled waste from 15 percent to 35 percent of the total waste stream. In addition to collecting common materials such as cardboard, mixed paper and aluminum cans, the UW also collects fluorescent lamps, batteries, motor oil, tires, construction materials and plant trimmings.
The Surplus Property office emphasizes reuse, handling 47,000 items last year. Of those, 36 percent were sold to bargain hunters, 35 percent were recycled, 19 percent were disposed of as waste, and 10 percent remain in marketing mode.
University use of water has actually declined, despite steady growth in the facilities and population on campus. Facilities Services has replaced more than 700 toilets with ultra low-flush models that use just 1.6 gallons per flush, and has also replaced about 100 conventional urinals with water-free models. In addition, a computerized, central control- system monitors water flow and usage along the extensive irrigation network to quickly find problems and identify possible leaks.
The University has pursued energy conservation measures vigorously over the past 15 years, with measures that range from the use of more energy-efficient light fixtures to the installation of occupancy sensors on 200 vending machines and the use of variable-speed drives on return and supply fans for buildings’ ventilation systems.
The award also highlighted the UW’s commitment to sustainable building through the use of LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) principles. The design consultants that the University uses must demonstrate their familiarity with sustainable building design. This has led to the UW having more LEED-accredited professionals than any other higher education institution in the country. Currently the UW has six projects in various degrees of LEED certification with another six projects under consideration for certification.
In addition to the Mayor’s Award, the UW Consolidated Laundry was recognized for its water conservation. The laundry recently implemented a water recycling system that saves the laundry 1.5 million gallons a month. The system uses natural earth media to filter contaminants from the laundry wastewater; disinfection is accomplished using ozone and ultraviolet techniques before the water is returned for re-use.
UW projects receiving honorable mention in the competition included Facilities Services’ work in energy conservation and the Merrill Hall remodel (as a sustainable building).
Information about energy and water conservation at the UW is available at www.washington.edu/admin/facserv/conserve2005.html.
