Housing - Sustainability Program Ideas

More Bulletin Board Ideas

RECYCLEMANIA BULLETIN BOARD

Purpose: to teach residents about the recycle mania competition, why it’s important, and how to win.

Topics to consider in your research:

Dates
History
Nationwide competition
Point system/how to win
Information on the campus wide competition
Explanation of the internal competition between halls
Why is Recycle Mania important
Proper recycling habits
Good energy saving habits

GETTING HEALTHY BULLETIN BOARD

Purpose: to help residents understand that personal sustainability (i.e. being healthy) is also important.

Topics to consider in your research:

drinking water
getting enough sleep
setting goals
healthy food options
benefits of exercise

SAVE WATER BULLETIN BOARD

Purpose: to raise awareness about water use, as well as reasons and ways to conserve water.

Topics to consider in your research:

Saving water helps the environment. It saves water for animals, preserves drinking supplies, and less use of waste water treatment plants.
Saving water helps to save energy. Save energy used to treat, make, and heat water.
Saving water helps you save money: somebody (eventually you) has to pay the bills
Only do full loads of laundry
Wear clothes multiple times before washing.
Don’t use the toilet as a waste basket. Flushing tissues or trash wastes 4-5 gallons of water per flush.
Turn the faucet off while brushing your teeth. It can save 3-5 gallons of water per day. That adds up to about 1,825 gallons a year, enough to completely fill 3 cars.
Brave the initial cold while your shower heats up.
Shorten your shower time. Cutting out 1-2 minutes can save 700-850 gallons a year, or enough water to fill a small sailboat. It’s 3.5 tons of water, the mass of an elephant or a Dodge Ram truck.
Dripping faucet? Get it fixed! It wastes more than 2,500 gallons of water each year, enough for 55 baths.
Conserve your water. If the earth’s entire water supply was a gallon, only 2 drips would be drinkable.
800,000 water wells are drilled every year in the US.
A dairy cow must drink 4 gallons of water to produce 1 gallon of milk
300,000,000 gallons of water are needed to produce a single day’s supply of newsprint in the US.
Reusable water bottles are much more environmentally friendly than single water bottles. For every 3 bottles of bottled water you drink, 1 bottles worth of oil is used.
Indirect uses of water add up quickly.
Each gallon of gasoline per week requires 1,000 gallons of water to produce.
Each can of soda requires 29,000 gallons of water.
Each newspaper company requires 66,000 gallons of water each day.
Each glass of restaurant water requires two glasses of water for washing and rinsing.
Directly and indirectly (through industry and the products you buy) Americans need 1,668 gallons of water per day. Australians use 876, British 185, and the Swiss only 77 gallons per day.
Americans directly use an average of 140-170 gallons of water per day.

REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE BULLETIN BOARD

Purpose: to educate about what it means to reduce, reuse, and recycle as well as reasons why/how to reduce, reuse, and recycle.

Topics to consider in your research:

REDUCE: the philosophy or practice of not creating or generating waste materials.
During the winter, you can save as much as 3% of the energy your furnace uses by lowering your thermostat one degree (it it’s set between 65 and 72 degrees).
Most cars on US roads carry only one person. We have so much extra room in our 140 million cars that everyone in Western Europe could ride with us.
Purchase durable, long-lasting goods.
Turn off the water faucet when brushing your teeth. This simple act cans save 3-4 gallons of water every time you brush.
REUSE: the use of a product or package at least twice, without changing the original form.
If every household reused a paper grocery bag for one shopping trip, about 60,000 trees would be saved. Bring your grocery and produce bags back to the store to reuse them.
Use the backside of paper to take notes and to do scratch work.
Turn empty jars into containers for leftover food.
Purchase refillable pens and pencils.
RECYCLE: the separation, collection, and recovery of useful materials for manufacture into new products or raw materials.
What can be saved by recycling 1 ton of paper?
What can you make from recycled plastic?
Recycling one aluminum can saves enough energy to run a TV for 3 hours.
Proper recycling technique.
Each person creates about 4.6 pounds of trash per day.

ALTERNATIVE FUELS BULLETIN BOARD

Purpose: to educate residents about alternative fuels and why they are important

Topics to consider in your research:

use of ethanol as fuel
3 main sources of ethanol (corn, sugar cane, and cellulose)
advantages and disadvantages
flex fuel vehicle facts

A GUIDE TO GREEN SYMBOLS BULLETIN BOARD

Purpose: to help residents recognize common green symbols and what they mean.

Topics to consider in your research:

Energy Star
FSC certified
SFI certified
Recyclable
Compostable

ALTERNATIVE ENERGY BULLETIN BOARD

Purpose: to explain different forms of energy (other than coal and fossil fuels) and why they are important.

Topics to consider in your research:

Bio fuels
Wind
Geo-thermal
Solar
Water current
Hydrogen
Nuclear

Some Other General Sustainability Ideas

Have a Swap Shop where residents each bring something they don’t use anymore to trade. Things that work well include clothes, books, decorations, gifts that didn’t work out for them, snacks they don’t love, etc. Emphasize that the point is to bring something they already have, not to go buy something new
Teach about simple living skills:
- Make soap, make granola, make paper, crochet or knit, learn to save seeds, learn to can food, learn camping skills.
- If you don’t know how to do these things, fret not! Look it up on Google or hang a few fliers in your residence hall asking residents what skills they have that they’d like to share. Chances are a few of these will come up.
- Also, don’t forget the resources of the LIT program and Sustainability Council are there to help you too.
Have a natural spa. This program is perfect for an exam week stress relief! A lot of cosmetics are not natural and cost a lot of money.
Have a green cleaning party. Learn why non-toxic home-made cleaners are much better for you and the environment. Make enough for all residents or make a few sets to check out from the office
Do a residence hall green makeover (or choose a few of the topics below for a shorter program).
- Take a tour of your hall stopping in common areas, bathrooms, laundry rooms, and a few of the residents’ rooms (with permission). As you go, discuss the energy and waste of each area. Give tips on how to “green” your hall, leave a trail of signage so that residents who didn’t make it to the program can still learn from it.
- Make a few sets of green cleaners.
- Explain the importance of recycling.
- Find out how much water the shower heads use by running the water for one minute and collecting in 5 gallon bucket.
Figure out how much water could be saved each day if all residents took one fewer minute in the shower.
Watch an environmental documentary and have a discussion afterwards.
Make your own environmental documentary!
Contact SAGE and see if they want to do a collaboration or presentation on environmental initiatives on campus.