Dr. Gabbe talks about "Going Green" and what's being done at OSU to support sustainability.
Hi, we hear a lot these days about “Going Green.” You may recycle at home, buy products that are environmentally friendly, and make decisions on the type of car you buy based on the impact to the environment.
Here at OSU, we’re making changes to move us toward being a more sustainable or green environment as well.
President Gee has recently established the President’s Council on Sustainability at The Ohio State University.
This council has been formed to research and coordinate all sustainability initiatives on campus. We are working to create a campus culture that embraces sustainability, communicates its benefits, and rewards innovation.
We already have successes to celebrate. On campus, additional recycling containers have increased the amount of recycled material. During football season, 47% of the waste at Ohio Stadium is recycled, and that doesn’t even include the Michigan Football Team. All campus buses have switched to biodiesel, and dining services have partnered to sell used cooking oil as biodiesel, just to name a few.
Here at the Medical Center, we are working to be more sustainable as well. We’ve made changes including: Discontinuing some of the bottled beverage products carried in the Café; implementing Seasons Online Express, the Web-based deli ordering system to reduce paper usage; switching to disposable trays made from recyclable paper; and installing a pulper unit that reduces food and paper waste volume from patient and cafe trays from 10 cubic yards to one cubic yard.
From February 2008 through March 2009, the OSU Medical Center recycled the more than 21,000 pounds of plastic and aluminum and more than 1.5 million pounds of paper.
To put this into perspective, that means the amount of plastic and aluminum recycled so far is the equivalent of 8 Honda Civics. And recycling one ton of paper saves 17 mature trees. This means we have saved 13,345 mature trees. Recycling that same ton of paper also saves nearly 400 gallons of oil. For the Medical Center that equates to a savings of more than 300,000 gallons of oil. Wow!
I want to thank you for your ideas and your creativity. Many of the ideas around sustainability here at the Medical Center come from you. Your ideas are important in helping us to make changes and in helping us to become more sustainable today and into to the future.
Well, have a great week.