Changes to Daily Rate Flex Parking
The completion of the construction in parking lot 1 has allowed Parking to add much needed daily rate flex parking (DRFP) stalls in two locations on the 42nd & Dewey campus.
Lot 6, newest parking garage located on the corner of 41st & Dewey Streets:
Twenty one (21) stalls were added in Lot 6; the stalls are all located on the top level and are marked with standard DRFP signage for daily rate parking only (picture above).
Lot 17, located on the southwest side of campus. To access Lot 17, enter at 45th & Leavenworth:
Fourteen (14) stalls were added to Lot 17, the stalls are adjacent to the stairway that leads from Lot 17 to Emile Street.
Please refer to DRFP Map for exact locations, as well as photographs of locations for your reference.
As a reminder, Daily Rate Flex Parking spaces are for individuals who are coming to the 42nd and Dewey campus for work related purposes and do not have a parking permit. They are often TravelSmart participants but can also be colleagues who work at other locations coming for meetings or to cover shifts, or casual employees, etc. that have inconsistent schedules and choose not to have a parking permit.
Colleagues and students with a parking permit cannot use Daily Rate Flex Parking and will be ticketed if they do so. If you do not have your parking permit with you, please call the Parking Office for validation.
For information on using Daily Rate Flex Parking, to get the free Park Omaha app (which can also be used to park in other locations in Omaha), or website payment instructions, please visit our website.
Are you a TravelSmartie? Participating in TravelSmart is always free, a great way to save money, is generally better for your health, and reduces both emissions and traffic congestion.
Not sure? If you have thought of riding the bus, walking, biking, or carpooling, but aren’t sure where to start, need help finding a bus route or carpool partner, email TravelSmart@unmc.edu and we will be happy to help! There’s no commitment required in looking at options or contacting us, and the free emergency ride home will be available to you too.
Radon Action Month
January is Radon Action Month.
Radon is a naturally occurring radioactive (?!?) gas released in soil, rock and water as an indirect decay product of uranium or thorium. As radon itself decays, it produces solids that stick to surfaces, such as dust particles in the air. If the contaminated dust is inhaled, these particles can stick to the airways of the lungs and increase the risk of developing lung cancer. Radon is tasteless and odorless, and there are no early-warning physical symptoms to tell you you’re getting too much exposure.
Exposure to radon is the second biggest cause of lung cancer after cigarette smoking, and is the leading cause of lung cancer among non-smokers. Combined exposure to radon and cigarette smoke increases the likelihood of dying from lung cancer. Click here to see a video made for physicians by the Iowa Cancer Consortium.
The average outdoor level of radon is insignificant. However, radon can build up to dangerous levels inside our homes, particularly in crawl spaces and basements. It can be spread throughout the house by the heating and cooling system. Because radon is heavier than air, opening the windows or living in a drafty house doesn’t decrease the level of exposure.
One out of every two radon tests conducted in Nebraska shows elevated levels. Eastern Nebraska and Western Iowa are in a “Zone 1”designation from the EPA, indicating some of the highest levels of measured radon.
So what can you do to protect yourself? The U.S. Surgeon General and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recommend that all homes be tested for radon and installing radon abatement in homes with radon levels at or above 4pCi/L. The World Health Organization sets the threshold for remediation at 3.0 pCi/L. The EPA also recommends that people in homes with levels between 2 pCi/L and 4 pCi/L consider fixing their homes.
Testing and fixing your home is relatively easy. Test kits are available at local hardware stores and home centers, as well as by mail, and you can conduct the test yourself. The Nebraska Department of Health & Human Services has directions for testing and for installing a radon abatement system, as well as helpful information if you want to have a professional do these tasks for you. Homes should be tested every couple of years, even if a radon abatement system is in place.
Hit the Bottle
The New Year always seems to bring about resolutions, many surrounding health. Hydration is an important aspect and bottled water seems like and easy solution. But before you buy that bottle consider:
- Bottled water is 3,000% more expensive per gallon than tap water.
- The federal government requires far more rigorous and frequent safety testing of municipal drinking water. Bottled water generally is no cleaner, safer, or healthier than tap water.
- Up to 50% of all bottled water comes straight from the tap—no extra filtering.
- Bottled water samples have been shown to contain phthalates, mold, microbes, benzene, trihalomethanes, arsenic, and even pieces of plastic.
- It’s worse if that plastic bottle is heated (left in hot car, etc.). Heat helps to leach synthetic chemicals (see above) which have been linked to cancer and promotes bacterial growth that can be passed on to you and negatively affect your health.
- Bottles are not shipped in refrigerated trucks, so there’s no way to avoid the risks.
- It takes 17 million barrels of oil to make the bottles to meet America’s annual bottled water consumption. That’s enough to fuel more than 1 million cars for a year!
- That same process also emits 2.5 million tons of CO2.
- Only 14% of plastic water bottles get recycled. That mean 86% go to the landfill or become litter.
And none of these stats pertain to other plastic bottle beverages—when you consider pop, juice, sports drinks, etc., the effect is staggering.
Sadly, there’s more.
The world spends more than $100 billion on bottled water a year which gives some corporations incredible power. They work through governments to privatize water sources. This is so prevalent it’s contributing to worldwide water scarcity. Occupants of third-world countries may be forced to walk for a day to get water clean enough to drink and/or are left without a basic human necessity. We are affected too. Companies are taking water from streams and springs, even in drought stricken areas, draining crucial resources and leading to increased pollution.
So, what can you do?
- Don’t buy anything in plastic bottles.
- Instead, buy a reusable bottle (stainless steel or glass is the healthiest choice) and fill it with tap water. Buy a filter if you need to.
- Order carafes of water with reusable glasses at your next event.
- Refuse plastic-bottled beverages at events and parties.
- Educate yourself and others, starting with this video.
Holiday Wrap-Up
We provided ways to reduce waste and recycle during the holidays; as cleanup begins there are many ways reduce the amount of waste heading to the landfill and you can help others.
Christmas trees can be reused in your own yard; whole to provide birds some shelter or branches can be cut off and placed over perennial plants to protect again frost heave. Omaha provides recycling locations, click here for rules, updated locations, and hours—including the times when volunteers will be there to help unload.
If you are taking down outdoor lights and find they are dead or you don’t need all that you have, take them to Scrap Central, for free recycling. Remove all packaging, bags, twist-ties, and rubber bands and Scrap Central will recycle them, donating the proceeds to schools and firefighters.
While recycling is great, reducing and reusing is the best way to go. Did you or your kids get battery operated gadgets? Rechargeable batteries are worth the up front cost, both for your budget and the environment. If you upgraded your electronic devices, remember to repurpose or recycle the old ones.
Did you struggle to buy gifts for people on your list? Get gifts you don’t want or need? Maybe you have leftover canned or packaged goods bought for holiday cooking you didn’t end up using? Or struggle to find time to get it all done? Start talking to your family now about ways to make changes for next year; focus less on presents and more on your time and happiness.
Speaking of the gifts you don’t need, don’t throw them away or let them clutter up your home, donate them. Lots of people donate items during the holiday season, but the need is there year round, and especially when it’s cold outside.
Unopened toiletries (including hotel/travel size), scents, clothing, functional items, electronics, and non-prepared food can be donated to a variety of shelters and charities, including the VA Medical Center, Youth Emergency Services, Siena Francis House, Food Bank for the Heartland, Salvation Army, Paralyzed Veterans of America, Habitat for Humanity ReStore, Open Door Mission, just to name a few. Check out Donation Town to find a charity near you.
If you or your child received books and you need to make room on your shelf, don’t forget the Little Free Library!
image courtesy freeimages.com/mairakouvara
Plastic and Metal Recycling arrives at Village Pointe
We are excited to announce the new recycling bins provided by grant from the Nebraska Recycling Council funded by the Nebraska Environmental Trust have come in and are in place at Village Pointe.
- Tall or short green bins for mixed plastic and metal
- Both of these bins will hold both metal and plastic, comingled. The plastic that goes in must be rigid—the number doesn’t matter, but the plastic must hold its own shape. e.g. pop bottles, plastic trays, frozen lunch plates, yogurt cups can all go in. Plastic bags, saran wrap, cellophane, bubble wrap cannot.
- Items need to be emptied of food and liquid prior to placing them in the bin but they don’t need to be super clean. Not every bit of food needs to be out or off, but the bulk should be removed—you can use the napkin you ate with to get the excess out and call it good.
- Clean patient care/work-related items can go in the bin as well. Examples include saline bottles, plastic jugs, etc. Tubing, items that have had patient fluids on them (even if they normally go in the trash), or items that look like medical waste cannot be placed in the containers. If you are not sure if it looks like medical waste, please consider it trash until you confirm with LiveGreen@unmc.edu
- Lobbies have stainless steel “triple bins”. They are all attached as one unit, but have 3 distinct bins: paper/locked/slot opening, landfill/square opening, mixed plastic and metal/round opening.
The bins must stay in the location they are placed in. We worked with colleagues in the space to determine where bins were needed and then found a location that meets code. If there is an issue with a bin location and you want to relocate it, please email LiveGreen@unmc.edu so I can verify the new location is acceptable.
If you see your Environmental Services workers, please thank them! This is a big change for them and they now have more containers/more work to do. They have willingly taken this on and are happy to help recycle! Also know that recycling bins aren’t emptied until they are ¾ full. This helps with efficiency but also decreases the number of plastic bags we have to use, an unfortunate side effect of recycling.
Thank you for your help in bringing recycling to Village Pointe and for your patience while we got the bins and service added there! We know other locations are recycling on their own and would like to see this change too. We are working on it and thank you for all your recycling efforts and patience.
Heartland B-Cycle Stations Now On Campus
by Tina Spencer
Have you seen the new B-cycle stations on campus? As part of an expansion to the B-Cycle network, four Heartland B-cycle stations were added to our campus last week. Station locations were determined by a campus-wide survey:
44th & Farnam, by Doctors Building North drive
Fred & Pamela Buffett Cancer Center drive entrance
Lot 15, between Student Life Center & Maurer Center for Public Health
42nd & Dewey, next to bus shelter on SE Corner
Heartland B-cycles are available for anyone to use. If you’re looking for a way to add some activity to your day or to get from one place to another on campus or in the community, the B-cycles can be checked out at your convenience. You can buy a monthly pass at the station or the B-cycle mobile app. All passes include unlimited 1-hour trips that start when you check a bike out of one station and end when you return it to any other station in the system. Additional options are available.
Bicyclists are required to follow the same rules of the road as motorists, should abide by state bicycle laws, and are encouraged to wear a helmet. Our campus is connected to the Field Club Trail which connects to the Keystone Trail and the rest of the Papio Trail system.
B-cycles are another form of active transportation with many benefits—studies have shown that biking also has many health benefits, both physically and mentally, and daily exercise helps relieve stress and anxiety. With your membership, you can track your distance ridden, estimate calories burned and calculate the carbon emissions you have offset by choosing to commute using a bicycle instead of your car. If you choose to do so, make sure you get the other free benefits associated with TravelSmart!
The Heartland B-cycle expansion means there are more than 70 stations right here in Omaha, from Aksarben to the River’s Edge Park, as well as Chalco Hills. Whether you need to head west and go to UNO or east to Blackstone, Midtown or Downtown, there’s a B-cycle station conveniently located to get you there. Hungry for lunch but don’t want to use all your time to walk to your parking lot and drive a block or two? Check out a bike at a station near you and burn off some extra calories before and after lunch.
Exciting Changes at Nebraska Café
Last year Sodexo took the last step in eradicating Styrofoam from all of their restaurants and cafés on campus, as requested by diners, by changing to compostable clamshell to-go containers.
I’m excited to tell you that user feedback has also helped with the introduction of reusable plates for dining in the Nebraska Café. If you are taking your food to go, please continue to use the to-go containers; reusable plates are not to leave the Café.
Reusable plates are available at the salad bar and you can ask your café server for a reusable plate at all other food stations. In addition to improving your dining experience in the Nebraska Café, these plates will reduce waste and keep costs lower.
While visiting the Nebraska Café you may have also noticed a change to the tray return area. To help support the reusable plate program, ensure items left on the tray return are recycled, and prep items for composting (we aren’t composting yet, but we’ll let you know), we are asking users to help sort the materials they place on the tray return.
We are asking you to sort items into three categories:
- Top level: Landfill; soft plastics, coffee/soda cups, glass
- Middle level: Recyclables; plastics 1-7, plastic containers, aluminum or tin cans
- Bottom level: Reusable plates, fiber to-go containers, any food waste, napkins.
There are table tents in place to help you prep your items, and graphics next to the tray return to help when you get there—see the picture above.
Many of us like to compact our trash before we leave the table—you know, you stuff your saran wrap and your banana peel into your yogurt cup—but resist that urge! Those three items will got on the three different levels at the tray return.
The café sorters behind the tray return are really busy (did you know the Nebraska Café serves over 6,000 meals a week??) and they don’t have time to take everything apart to sort it. By sorting items on the tray return, you are helping to decrease your waste and the waste on campus.
Thank you for your help with this new initiative. If you have questions about where to place a particular item, please post a comment here or email LiveGreen@unmc.edu If you have other comments, please submit them via the comment cards in the café, near the condiment station.
A Happier, Healthier Holiday Season
Americans continue to say they would prefer to reduce the focus on gifts during the holidays, with a recent survey showing 69% would agree to forgo gifts entirely so they could save money and spend more time with loved ones. Even if that’s the desire, the reality is that consumption is still a focus, and this causes waste to increase by 25% (1 million tons/week more to landfills) between Thanksgiving and New Year’s. Not really surprising when you start thinking about all the shopping, eating, and traveling.
Seemingly little actions add up and there are lots of things you can do to reduce your waste and have a happier, healthier holiday season:
- Reduce the focus on gifts and concentrate on the things that really matter, especially your sanity.
- If you exchange gifts, consider buying experiences, like museum/zoo membership, or make donations instead of buying stuff. If you do buy gifts, look for locally made items.
- Consolidate your shopping trips to save gas, take reusable bags, consolidate online shopping to save on shipping, and look for products that contain recycled content and responsibly sourced materials.
- Wrap gifts in reused materials. If every American household wrapped 3 gifts in reused materials (brown paper, maps, Sunday comics, cloth bags, cereal boxes) enough paper would be saved to cover 45,000 football fields! For everything else, use recycled content paper and reusable gift-bags, boxes, and bows.
- Recycle old lights to help local groups and replace them with new, efficient, LED lights, which use 70% less
- Hosting? Buy food in bulk to reduce packaging waste, but menu plan to reduce food waste, and serve with reusable plates/cups/utensils/napkins.
- Make it easy for guests to recycle, and recycle everything you can’t reuse.
- Consider sending E-cards; saving trees, your time, and money. Recycle or reuse any cards you receive for decoration, future gift tags, or craft projects.
- If batteries are needed, buy rechargeable—they’ll save you money and trips to the store in the long run. Recycle single use batteries.
- Check your thermostat: more people and more cooking means the temp can be lowered. Every 2 degrees lower saves $100 a year, saves the equivalent carbon emissions as driving a car 3,000 miles, and people get to be comfortable in their (reused) ugly Christmas sweaters.
- Reduce junk mail by contacting Catalog Choice to remove your name from marketers’ databases.
- Instead of a cut tree, buy a live tree to decorate that can be planted in your yard once the holiday season is over. Dig the hole now, before the ground freezes.
- If you buy a cut tree, leave it in your yard for birds during the winter and then compost, or take it to the city’s recycling sites.
Wish-cycling
November 15th is America Recycles Day, a nationally recognized day dedicated to promoting recycling, and buying recycled products.
America Recycles Day is easy to celebrate because it takes no preparation. If you’re finished using a product and it is recyclable, then put it in the correct recycling bin—that’s all there is to it!
Not sure what to recycle on campus? Watch this short video to find out, or visit our webpage for on-campus information. Check out the Wasteline site for recycling information in and around Omaha.
It’s more important than ever Recycle Right! Make sure you recycle items in the correct containers. This reduces contamination, which could send the entire load to the landfill, while ensuring that everything in the bin can be recycled.
Don’t be a “wish-cycler”! Wish-cycling is the common, but damaging process of intentionally placing questionable items into a recycling bin, in the hopes it will be recycled. Those of us that care the most about recycling are some of the worst offenders. We desperately want to believe that the item can be recycled or that they will find a way to do so, but it actually creates more problems: sorting machines get clogged or broken, which takes time/money to fix, it’s more time consuming for hand-sorters, and it creates more waste! It also costs us (wastes) an average of $250,000/year.
Recycling is important and has huge impact on our planet and our economy. In order to complete the loop and make sure your recycling effort has value, buy products made of recycled content. When you purchase a product take a look at the label. If it contains the 3-arrow triangle (often referred to as the recycle symbol) it is recyclable. If that triangle is inside in a circle, that product is made from recycled content. The package should tell you percentage of that item that was made from recycled materials, and if the materials are “post-consumer content.”
Post-consumer means the material came from the end-user and that material would have otherwise ended up in the landfill, like cans, newspaper, or plastic bottles. Pre-consumer/industrial content is still recycled material, but was produced during the production of another product, e.g. wood chips, sawdust, and glass or metal shavings.
Recycled content product diverts materials from the landfill while protecting new or virgin resources, so make sure what you are buying has the highest percentage possible of recycled content.
Doing some “fall cleaning” and have items that aren’t meant for the recycling bin? Reusing is always better than recycling! Donate clothing, warm weather gear, and toiletries to people in need, and local charities will take other household items.
Cenergistic Energy Specialists Have Arrived
Left to Right: Jon Hilton, Art Dominguez, Blaine Richter, John Khong, not pictured Nicole Mattson
Last month, University of Nebraska President Hank Bounds, Ph.D. announced a five-year partnership with Cenergistic, aimed at finding energy savings across the campuses through technology- and behavior-based strategies that will help maximize NU’s use of its facilities and equipment. Nebraska Medicine agreed to the same five-year partnership so the entire Med Center campus can be optimized.
“Campuses have done an excellent job of enhancing sustainability over the years, but we can always do more to be better stewards of our environmental resources,” Dr. Bounds said. “We’re excited to have Cenergistic on board to help us think through how we can be an even more sustainable and more innovative university.”
A team of Cenergistic engineers and conservation experts are on-site now, working with facilities to gather information about space and energy use in the university’s buildings. That includes, for example, building temperatures, use of lights, space utilization and other information.
Cenergistic, will recommend guidelines aimed at improving energy conservation and cutting costs. Guidelines will be vetted by campus leadership and will take into account, for example, the unique energy and space needs of research facilities, the hospital, and others factors.
In addition to the engineers and conservation experts, there will be Omaha-based energy specialists in specific spaces—offices, auditoriums, hallways, conference rooms to see how those spaces are performing, verifying data, and sometimes speaking with the occupants to learn how the space is used. They will also be in buildings at night, as unoccupied spaces should be using much less energy than they do during the day.
The energy specialists are Blaine Richter, Nicole Mattson, and John Khong and will be led by Jon Hilton and Art Dominguez, all seen in picture above.
Cenergisitc will also deploy data-logging devices in many spaces, to not only verify what the system says is going on, but also to look at what is happening on one end of the room compared to the other. These devices will only monitor temperature, humidity, and light levels. Please do not touch, move, or interfere with the data-loggers.
Buildings will be notified prior to any data-logger installation. The first buildings to be surveyed will be some annex buildings and then some of the education buildings.
All Cenergistic personnel have undergone campus safety and privacy training, background checks, required screening, and will have med center issued photo ID badges. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact LiveGreen@unmc.edu
