Go green or go home!

For this week's blog post, I am to show how sustainable or "green" the Riverside Community College campus is, and show some other College campuses have gone "green" as well. In addition to Riverside Community College's campus I decided to research the campus of the University of Southern California or USC for short. USC's "Going Green" program started back in 2008 and is still thriving today. Throughout this weeks blog, I will be discussing what factors make USC a green campus as well as talking about how Green RCC's campus is and what I can do to either fix or improve the method used. Going green is the communities way of giving back to the Earth, this can be anything from using solar panels to reduce the amount of energy caused to produce electricity, to recycling more to reduce the amount of waste and pollution cause by the SEVEN BILLION humans walking the Earth. The amount of waste and pollution put into the Earth's atmosphere on a daily basis will have a long lasting effect on the future of the Earth and the way people we live. In this blog I plan to give an Idea of what we at RCC and other college campuses can do to be a little more "green". 



Solar panels are an alternate energy source

Some factors that we can use to determine how green the RCC Campus is would be to find out if an how much the RCC Campus recycles. Are there alternative energy sources like solar panels? Do we have a garden or grow our own vegetables? What do we do to reduce the amount of paper used and trashed?

One of the intentions RCC plans to pursue is implementing a going green culture and give seminars on the three R's (Recycling, Reuse, Deduce). This was to take effect as of the 2010 year. Rcc has been in partners with student activities for campus cleanup , making a garden and possibly growing their own organic fruit's and vegetables rather than out sourcing. Rcc has been involved with a few community gardens that not only help make the campus green but helps the community as well. Another thing the RCC administration has implemented is more online classes. With the use of online classes it cuts down for the need and use of reams of paper because most work is submitted online rather than in person.

RCC has a strong recycling plan and has followed this since 2009. A report in August of 2009 shows the amount of recycling RCC has done in past years.

Landfill Disposals:

• Trash dump truck: 131 tons or 10.9 tons per month.
• Greens diversion: 90 tons or 7.5 tons per month.

Trash Compactor:

• Wet & Dry trash: 390 tons or 32 tons per month.

Recycle:

• Cardboard boxes, white paper: 144 tons or 12 tons per month.

Information provided by (http://websites.rcc.edu/greeninitiatives/environmentally-responsible/)

RCC has met the minimal requirements for recycling and plans to improve this by as much as 75% in 2012. A few ways that RCC and the students can make this happen is:

 1. Converting our trash compactor to dry waste only.

 2. Less landfill disposal by implementing reduce, reuse recycling tactic.
 3. Improve campus wide recycling program to include plastic, aluminum and construction waste.
 4. Dedicate small dumpsters for wet waste that is considered contaminated waste from the cafeteria.



In 2008 USC developed the USCEI (USC Energy Institute). This Energy Institute was designed for a Student based function in which the students would come together to take charge on making the campus and possibly other campuses more green. One of the studies the students at the USCEI took focus on was different ways to make carbon-based fuels more efficient for daily use as well as promoting a more renewable energy source. USC has done so much to promote energy preservation the even host DORM ENERGY COMPETITIONS (prizes included for the winners). This dorm energy competition is a one month challenge in which two competing dorms measure how much energy they use, the dorm with the least amount of energy used wins, and everyone in the winning dorm receives a prize. The energy consumption is tracked through this website: http://myactions.org/. Through this website the change in each resident's habits can be tracked to see who uses what energy. Some more factors that show USC is making a difference in going green on their campus is:

 1. Using Organic vegetables in the cafeteria
 2. Building green houses for the plants
 3. Proper waste management and recycling
 4. Offering transportation (buses and trams) powered by natural gas.

For more information on how USC's campus is going green or for more information on how to participate you can visit their website. http://green.usc.edu/