Commercial Recycling Changes
You may have heard FirstStar Fiber, Omaha’s materials recovery facility, made changes to their commercial recycling processes, effective June 1st. They will no longer be accepting “single-stream” recycling (all recyclables mixed together) from commercial customers.
To be clear, this will not change any aspect of residential/curbside recycling, it is only affecting commercial/businesses.
This change largely due to the level of contamination in the single-stream containers. Contamination in recycling can be items that are not recyclable (Styrofoam) or items that are recyclable, but are dirty, usually with food and liquid (greasy pizza box). Food contamination can also lead to issues for the people doing the sorting, as it can attract bugs/vermin. A little contamination can be dealt with, but a large amount usually means the load gets taken to the landfill. Contamination can be caused by a lack of education or laziness, but can also by people who place an item in a bin and just hope if it gets to the recycling place they’ll figure out how to recycle it. Nope. I understand the wish and the hope, but this action ultimately means less items are being recycled.
What does this mean for the Medical Center?
Right now, it does not affect us. We are already sorting our recyclables into 3 streams: Paper, Cardboard, and Mixed Plastic & Metal. Because of this we are already in compliance but are lucky—other businesses got less than a month’s notice which sadly means they are scrambling to figure out what to do and a lot of recyclables are probably going to go to the landfill.
Even though our process isn’t currently changing, we want to make sure everything that goes in a recycling container is recycled and that we do not have a contamination problem. Please:
- Visit our recycling page for information on recycling on campus
- Put all paper in the blue bins. It all gets shredded and recycled; easy peasy.
- Flatten cardboard boxes, regardless of size or cardboard type
- Empty all food and liquids prior to placing them in the plastic/metal bin
- Containers do not need to be washed clean
- Empty any food you don’t eat into the trash
- Dump liquids out of bottles, no need to rinse
- S. Get a reusable bottle! You’ll save money, it’s better for your health, and you won’t be drinking plastic pieces.
- Contact LiveGreen@unmc.edu or your LiveGreen Ambassador with any questions.
- Containers do not need to be washed clean
Earth Month Wrap-Up
The first campus Earth Month puts up impressive numbers
In years past we have always had “Earth Week”—a weeklong celebration of International Earth Day. You requested more events and to have events spread out so it was easier for you to attend. We were happy to oblige and even happier to combine forces with UNO to be able to offer additional events while making sure you were aware of community events brought to you by the Nebraska Science Festival.
A special thank you to all of our awesome volunteers—without you this week would not have been possible!
All month long we asked you to join the Drawdown EcoChallenge and our team ranked 40th in the nation, with an impressive environmental and personal impact!
We kicked things off by providing you with personal care recipes, so you can reduce your exposure to chemicals, save money, and because we tested and use all of them, know they work. If you missed out, click here for copies.
UNO hosted the Sustainability Expo this year and we’ll host it on our campus next year. Snow (?!) and then rain forced us to move the “Yoga on the Green” sessions inside. As usual, it rained during the personal document shredding and electronic/battery/techno trash recycling event, but it’s still our most popular event with hundreds of you dropping off items:
- 141 eyeglasses donated to the TEI clinic; ~8000 pop tabs to Ronald McDonald House
- 401 pounds of VHS tapes, DVDs, CDs, and floppy disks
- 5,657 pounds of electronics
- 2,740 pounds of TVs and computer monitors
- 7,280 pounds of paper for shredding
- 150 pounds of alkaline batteries
- 16,228 total pounds (that’s almost 2,000 more pounds than last year and equals 8.1 tons or 4.5 average US cars!) diverted from the landfill. That impact?*
- 15 trees saved
- 151 gallons of oil not used
- 340,040 hours of electricity saved
- 4,603 gallons of water
We ended the week celebrating our status as a Tree Campus USA by the Arbor Day Foundation, replacing an Eastern Redbud tree that was removed due to disease, giving away Red osier Dogwoods and wildflower seeds, and asking Master Gardner Susan Siebler lots of questions.
We want to provide activities that are meaningful to you, both personally and professionally. If you have any additional comments, suggestions, or changes for next year please email us.
*Estimated impact; actual totals may vary slightly depending the exact mix of electronics turned in.
30×30 Nature Challenge
You may not have heard of the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), but you’ve probably heard of LEED (Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design) certification for buildings, which is the credentialing the USGBC provides for building construction. Here, we are covered by the USGBC Nebraska Flatwater Chapter.
The USGBC understands that the built environment is important, but it envisions “buildings and communities that will regenerate and sustain the health and vitality of all life within a generation.” Essentially, the built environment needs to work with nature instead of against it, or by dominating it. Working against nature can negatively affect our health and overall wellbeing.
The USGBC is asking everybody to spend 30 minutes outside in nature for the 30 days in June, hence the 30×30 challenge. That can’t be hard, right? Just 30 minutes of your day outside? You can take the dog for a walk, read in the shade of a tree, spend time in the garden, explore a new walking path, take the kids to a park and/or admire the sights, sounds and smells from anyplace—just get outside!
Benefits to you include:
- Decreased stress
- Exercise
- Stronger relationships
- Lowers blood pressure
- Reduces fatigue and helps children focus and control impulses
- Greater productivity, at home and work
- Increased satisfaction
- Improved memory, problem solving, creativity, and attention span
- Building community/camaraderie among neighbors
- Have a heightened sense of well-being
You can do this before work, on your lunch or break, or after work. Don’t forget that some of your favorite places are different in the dark, and that’s worth exploring too.
Like trees? Studies show heading to a forest can have additional benefits, and Fontenelle Forest is a great local attraction, (and they have Nature Discovery Day Camps for kids!).
After your 30 days are up, take stock of how you feel (bonus points for keeping a journal along the way). What benefits have you observed in your own life? Do you take a walk at lunch and find that you get more done in the afternoon? Did you have more or deeper conversations with your kids? Did your overall stress diminish? Maybe you lost a few pounds? Is your dog less destructive indoors?
Whatever it is, everybody will benefit from the 30×30 challenge. So what are you waiting for?
photo credit: freeimages.com/brianlary
Emerald Ash Borer Reminder
The Emerald Ash Borer (EAB) was confirmed in Douglas and Cass Counties in 2016, forcing quarantines and treatment zones 5 Nebraska and 2 Iowa counties. It is an invasive beetle that whose larvae bore into the layer of wood beneath the bark, which is responsible for water and nutrient movement in the tree, and this eventually kills the tree. Once an area is infested, it’s estimated that 80% of ash trees will be killed in the first 8 years.
Omaha has an estimated 100,000 ash trees, all of which could be wiped out by an EAB infestation. This will remove 14% of Omaha’s tree canopy and change the landscape of our city, while increasing air-conditioning costs. To help spread awareness, the Omaha Parks Foundation and City of Omaha Forestry Division have participated in EAB Awareness Week for several years. Ironically, this is how the EAB was discovered. Several trees have been wrapped with bright emerald ribbons to show what’s at risk. This includes several trees on campus.
While we have a diverse species of trees on campus, almost every tree lining Emile and Farnam Streets on the 42nd and Dewey campus are ash trees, including the trees the purple martins use in their migration. Almost all of the trees lining Regency Parkway, Abbot Drive, and along the streets of Memorial and Elmwood parks are ash trees.
Not only will we lose the trees and the benefits they provide, but removal of the dead trees will cost millions of dollars. EAB has killed hundreds of millions of ash trees in the U.S. since its discovery in 2002.
So what can you do to stop the devastation?
- Educate yourself on EAB, identify ash trees in your area, educate others.
- Observe the quarantine preventing the movement of firewood, mulch, timber, and green waste as beetles and larvae can hide, be transported, and infect other areas.
- Plant more trees now.
- Plant diverse species to protect against future loss.
- More than 60 species of broadleaf trees can be grown successfully in eastern Nebraska.
- Check out Keep Omaha Beautiful’s Trees for Omaha program.
Are you a homeowner with an ash tree?
- Remove ash trees in poor condition.
- Treat healthy ash trees to slow down the spread of EAB.
- Spray and soil applications are available; talk to a certified arborist.
- Plant more trees now.
- Plant diverse species to protect against future loss.
Get out and enjoy summer
Graduation is upon us, kids are getting out of school, and the unofficial beginning of summer is upon us!
Did you know that spending time in nature is great for kids and adults and can improve health? There are many inexpensive ways to spend time outside whether you are a seasoned naturalist or a newbie, and you don’t even have to leave the area.
If you are interested in different plants and animals but aren’t a pro at identification, check out the iNaturalist app. It’s free (used in the City Nature Challenge this year) and is very good at identifying species—just snap a pic with your cell phone. Your sightings also help experts track biological diversity.
Henry Doorly Zoo and Lauritzen Botanical Gardens, are fantastic choices, but LiveGreen would like you to know there are LOTS of other options in and around this area: hiking, biking, fishing, bird watching, trains, camping, relaxing, there’s something for everybody. Locations are linked to easily allow you to find details/make plans for your weekends or staycations (and some have day camps for kids and teens, if you need to keep someone busy):
- Fontenelle Forest
- Two Rivers State Recreation Area
- Chalco Hills & Wehrspann Lake
- Mahoney State Park
- Hitchcock Nature Center
- Neale Woods – which includes the Millard Observatory
- Heron Haven
- Boyer-Chute National Wildlife Refuge
- Loess Hills State Forest
- Ponca State Park
- Kramper Lake at Danish Alps
- Omaha City Trails
- Prairie View Recreation Area
- DeSoto Bend National Wildlife Refuge
- Gifford State Forest
- Blackbird Marsh County Preserve
- Fremont State Recreation Area
- City of Omaha Parks (lists all parks, locations, and amenities)
- Schramm Park State Recreation Area and Ak-Sar-Ben Aquarium
- Platte River State Park
- Prairie Queen Recreation Area
- Fort Atkinson State Historical Park
- Lake Manawa State Park
- Douglas County Parks with access to rivers
- Lee G. Simmons Conservation Park and Wildlife Safari (Check out the calendar so you can time your visit to see enrichment activities for the Wolves and Bear. Go in the summer but make sure you come back in the fall to hear the elk “bugle”, it’s an experience you won’t forget!)
- Nebraska Game and Parks
Have fun and enjoy your summer!
P.S. Know of something we forgot? Feel free to share it in the comments below!
A great time for TravelSmart
Cost
TravelSmart is a perk and can save you money while reducing pollution and promoting a healthy lifestyle while reducing parking pressure and traffic congestion.
Yes, it’s FREE! Sign-up is free and your free bus pass will always be free. It’s not tied to your Metro Credit Union account; your badge is used only to identify you as a rider.
If you choose to carpool and all members of the carpool turn in their parking permits, you will receive a FREE carpool pass to the best parking lot among you (your group’s choice); and nobody pays for parking.
Carpool
If you want to carpool but don’t know who to drive with, check our carpool matching page. By using this service, which you can restrict to see only people coming to this campus, you aren’t committing to signing up for carpooling, or even talking to your matches. It just shows you options.
NEW: this software can also help you find a walking/bicycling (both have free shower/locker room access) partner or a person to ride the bus with you on your first trip.
Parking Permit
Not quite ready to relinquish your parking permit? You can keep it and still use any of the active transportation options with access to all the support programs. You can use active transportation as frequently as works for you. Turning it in will save you additional money. Our Savings Calculator will tell you how much money you can save and whether it’s financially advantageous for you to keep your permit or turn it in—but either way it’s still your choice. As gas prices continue to increase, you’ll see even more savings.
Daily Rate Flexible Parking is available if you need to drive to campus and don’t have a permit. It’s cheap, lots are located around campus, and you can pay via smartphone or website.
If you carpool partner isn’t coming to work, you can still use your carpool pass. If you are both driving that day, one can use the carpool pass and the other can use Daily Rate Flexible Parking.
The 3 month trial starts when you turn your permit in. You save money while you test out TravelSmart, and get your same permit back if you still want it.
Questions?
If you have more questions visit our FAQ page or Video/Resources page. Or email TravelSmart@unmc.edu , we are happy to help!
Registering for TravelSmart
Click on the appropriate button on our registration page to go to the correct self-service page. Please note that Nebraska Medicine and Clarkson College employees need to check the “Olympus” box prior to logging in. If you are unfamiliar with that page check out the instructions with screen shots on our registration page to help guide you.
Tree Campus USA Award
In 2013 the campus applied for, and for the first time, was granted Tree Campus USA designation from the Arbor Day Foundation.
Each year, an internal committee made of faculty, students, staff, Grounds, and community members and a certified arborist review the campus tree plan, set goals, track expenditures, complete a Student Service Learning Project, and plan an Arbor Day observance as part of completing the Tree Campus USA application for the following year.
I am happy to report we have received Tree Campus USA designation in 2017, for the 5th straight year! We will continue to pursue this honor each year while sustaining our community forest and educating individuals on the importance of trees.
Trees play a vital role on our campus: beautification, shade, energy savings, water retention, home to the migrating purple martins each year, and most importantly, provide the oxygen we need to breathe. Did you know that visual exposure to trees can reduce stress, specifically by lowering blood pressure and muscle tension?
For more information on our application or to see past applications, please see our Tree Campus USA page. You can also visit the Arbor Day Foundation’s Tree Campus USA program page.
If you would like to be on the Tree Campus USA committee or help plan Arbor Day activities, please contact LiveGreen@unmc.edu
Last Friday we celebrated Arbor Day by planting an Eastern Redbud tree outside the Administration Building, replacing a tree that was not in good health and had to be removed. We also gave away free dogwood trees and wildflower seeds, (I’m out of both) and asked Master Gardener Susan Siebler all kinds of questions—and we got to do it in the sunshine! If you missed the event, we’ll do it again next year.
Don’t forget that planting trees at home has lots of benefits too; in addition to oxygen production and health benefits, they absorb carbon dioxide, increase property values, and lower your energy bills.
Going Green for Cancer
By Melanie Stewart
This past weekend the exterior lights on the Fred & Pamela Buffett Cancer Center turned green for Earth Day.
Why does a Center focused cancer care about the environment?
You may be surprised to know that the quality of the environment we live in can be directly correlated to our risk and incidence of cancer.
We’ve talked about the connection between sustainability and healthcare before; and that is why the Med Center works to be more sustainable. While it’s easy to understand that polluted air can increase asthma attacks, or worsen bronchitis, did you know that it also increases your chances for lung cancer?
The American Cancer Society’s “Cancer Prevention Study II” followed more than 1.2 million people and found a direct correlation between air pollution and lung cancer. This is largely
caused by particulate matter, small pollutants you breath in, resulting from burning coal and wood, vehicle exhaust, industrial exhaust, and even wildfires. The data is specific enough that they could track trends based on where you lived. e.g. areas with more pollution had a higher incidence of cancer. Last year a study published in the medical journal Cancer found that risk was specific to the county you live in; with counties ranking the worst on pollution having 9% (!) more people being diagnosed with cancer.
Additionally, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) studied deaths from 2010 and found that 223,000 lung cancer deaths were caused by pollution. Not smoking or second-hand smoke, just pollution. They also found that it increases the risk of bladder cancer. While the IARC had classified components of pollution as cancer-causing, this data was so compelling they classified outdoor air pollution carcinogenic.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t stop there. Another study published last year in the journal Environmental Research found that chemical exposure early in life increased risk for breast cancer diagnosis later in life. Identified chemicals include air pollution, specifically from burning wood and coal, as well as solvents used in products we purchase, gasoline, and DDT.
The journal Cell found that aldehydes, chemicals found in glue, building materials, cosmetics, vehicle exhaust, and cigarettes, among others, may destabilize the BRCA2 gene or trigger a mutation thereby increasing the risk of cancer.
So “go green” for cancer prevention! Reduce your exposure to chemicals, be a mindful consumer, reduce pollution (don’t forget to TravelSmart!), and eat your greens too!
Annual Personal Recycling Event Returns
Spring is in the air (well, kind of, maybe?) and campus Earth Month activities are in full swing.
If you are starting spring-cleaning, we can help! We want to help you keep your personal information safe and responsibly dispose of items in your home, and I’m happy to report we can do that while recycling!
If you are a UNMC, Nebraska Medicine, UNO, or Clarkson College student/faculty/employee, please plan to attend our recycling event next week. The basic information is here, but please see our website for complete details.
Tuesday April 24th 10am-6pm, and Wednesday, April 25th 6am-2pm:
Have items at home you need to dispose of and can’t put in the trash? We will accept:
- Personal electronics to recycle; hard drives will be shredded. Most items will be free, but there will be a nominal cost for tube TVs, CRT monitors, and hard drives.
- Don’t forget that reuse is best! If your electronics work consider donating them. See the website for opportunities.
- Free personal document shredding.
- Free personal single use alkaline battery recycling.
- Free ‘techno trash’ (computer disks, CDs/DVD, VHS tapes) shredding & recycling
- Eyeglasses will be collected for donation to those in need.
- Have pop tabs for Ronald McDonald House? Bring those too!
UNMC/Nebraska Medicine Photo I.D. will be required to drop items off. We will be in a covered location and will hold event regardless of weather. For more details and a map of the drop-off location, please see our website. Really, I’m not kidding, click on the link; it will answer your questions and provide the details you need for drop-off.
If you can’t attend these events, there are a few other options:
- Several member groups have paper shredding events; check personal communications
- Keep Omaha Beautiful has several neighborhood clean-ups, you can attend any/all
- Electronics will be collected at Earth Day Omaha this Saturday
- Pop tabs can be directly taken to the Ronald McDonald house, 38th Ave/Jones St
- Eyeglasses can be taken directly to the Truhlsen Eye Institute
- If more opportunities arise, we’ll share them on our Facebook page: LiveGreenNebraska
If you are interested in other Earth Month events; on campus, at UNO, or Nebraska Science Festival events, please click here.
Drawdown EcoChallenge
If you aren’t a sustainability geek, it’s likely the release of Drawdown didn’t hit your radar. Drawdown was a landmark book that used immense amounts of data, (peer reviewed) research, models, and maps to determine the impact a variety of known solutions to global warming, centered around carbon reduction.
The authors predicted not only the global impact, but also the cost to implement as well as the economic savings, where applicable. It’s probably not surprising that #2 is wind turbines and #8 is solar farms but it may surprise you to know that management of refrigerants is ranked #1. Would it surprise you to know that #5 and #6 on the list are Education of Girls and Family Planning? Those stats caught a lot of attention, not only because they are an atypical response to climate change, but if you combine their impact, they easily become #1 on the list.
Lots of solutions made the list: LED bulbs, silvopasturing, mass transit, land management, methane digesters, etc. and most can be accomplished or influenced by everyone…no engineering or sustainability degree required. Some strategies are more applicable to specific areas of the world and/or can only be implemented in specific conditions, but all are capable of being implemented now…there’s no need to wait on future technology to be invented.
In the interest of starting to put these items into action, the Northwest Earth Institute has created the “Drawdown EcoChallenge”; a 21-day engagement program taking place between April 4-25, following the solutions highlighted in the book.
Ready to join our team?
You can sign up for free, track/share progress online and earn points. Points help us to compete against other groups while you have the chance to earn prizes. You can select as many actions as you want, ranging from replacing a bulb with a LED, to watching a video indigenous land management, using mass transit, or pledging to spend a specific amount of time learning about a topic. You can pick whatever piques your interest as there are over 80 actions to pick from in 7 different categories:
- Materials
- Food
- Transportation
- Land Management
- Women and Girls
- Electricity generation
- Buildings and Cities
So what are you waiting for? Join our team today to turn intention into action; all while having fun and winning prizes—oh, and having a positive impact on the planet and humanity.
