Office of Sustainability

Washington University in St. Louis, Teamsters Joint Council 13 and St. Louis Green partnered to help used artificial turf from WUSTL’s Francis Field find a new life on the floors of playgrounds, parks and more throughout the region. The efforts are keeping about 1 million pounds of waste from landfills.

WUSTL diners can toss a used napkin and food scraps into a campus compost bin, and 4-6 months later, their trash might be feeding the tulips in front of Brookings Hall. With the help of the WUSTL community, WUSTL Dining Services and the Office of Sustainability are working to turn more food scraps and trash into fertilizer through composting.

Volunteers plant a rain garden on the south side of Eads Hall on the Danforth Campus of Washington University in St. Louis April 24. As part of Earth Day week activities, university staff, faculty and students were invited to help plant a rain garden (or bioswale) next to Eads Hall.

WUSTL students: No room in the truck for the futon, extra boxes of macaroni or nearly new T-shirts during move-out? Instead of throwing those items away, donate them to Share Our Stuff (SOS). WUSTL’s SOS program seeks to reduce waste and share goods typically thrown away during on-campus and off-campus move-out with those in need in the St. Louis region. SOS hosts drop-off points at Danforth Campus residential areas and off-campus.

Washington University’s new Green Offices Program has launched to encourage offices in all WUSTL campuses to become more sustainable. By launching the program, the Office of Sustainability and Resource Management aim to give offices concrete sustainability tips that can easily be incorporated into offices’ everyday routine and practice.

Faculty, staff and students commuting to all WUSTL campuses are encouraged to leave their sedans, SUVs and minivans in the garage and go “car-free” for April 16-27 as part of the university’s Car-Free Challenge during Car-Free Month. The Car-Free Challenge offers teams of individuals a chance to try alternative means of transportation, track their progress in calories-burned and CO2-saved, and benchmark against other teams. 

The pilot Danforth Campus Green Labs Initiative in Brauer Hall, held this past fall, resulted in a significant savings in carbon emissions and money, announced the Office of Sustainability. The program, modeled after a similar initiative at the School of Medicine, aims to spread energy awareness and conservation among the 850 labs on the Danforth Campus.

The 2012 RecycleMania contest, which pits WUSTL against other U.S. and Canadian colleges and universities to see which campus can keep the greatest amount of waste materials from landfills, begins Sunday, Feb. 5. It lasts eight weeks and ends Saturday, March 31. Last year, the university community recycled approximately 278.3 tons of waste during the contest to launch WUSTL into a top 5 percent finish.

WUSTL community members interested in topics of sustainability can sign up for the Office of Sustainability’s weekly email newsletter, “Sustainability @ WUSTL”, by following the link on the right-hand side of the page at sustain.wustl.edu. The e-newsletter serves as a compilation of sustainability-related news, updates, events and jobs on-campus and in the region.

Phil Valko, a WUSTL alumnus, has been named director of sustainability at Washington University in St. Louis, announced Steven P. Hoffner, associate vice chancellor for operations. The director of sustainability is responsible for providing leadership, vision and strategy to advance WUSTL’s sustainability efforts.