November 2018: OPERS Towel Service Changes

An afternoon day at OPERS.

The UCSC Office of Physical Education, Recreation and Sports (OPERS) has recently taken a new step towards becoming more sustainable. Susan Wittmann Harriman, new director of Athletics and OPERS, has made the decision to stop providing towel service to gym visitors.

The reason: Three big industrial washer and dryers are constantly being used to wash not only towels, but also lifeguard jackets, recreation equipment, and intramural jerseys. By doing this, “we stop washing and drying the towels, reduce natural gas, electricity, water and machine repairs, as well as the cost of buying towels that get stolen,” says Todd Hammonds, Associate Director of Facilities and Operations. Hammonds estimates that it will result to $25,000 in savings. 

"People were constantly taking towels or not bringing them back. Over the summer, we were opening up a package of around 20 towels, every couple of days. We had to keep on replacing them because people were constantly taking towels and not bringing them back," says Brianna Mendoza, Facilities Operations Lead Manager.

"At first, people were not happy with the change but now more people are starting to understand the reason why we are doing this. The washers were always breaking, and we had to deal with customers complaining about why towels were not available at certain times. Cutting away towels makes everything more efficient." Now towels are only available for NCAA athletes, and athletes in training.

UCSC is the first campus to implement this change. Although some gym visitors are not yet used to the change, faculty and staff patrons have shared positive feedback on this sustainable effort. This is just the beginning of many changes OPERS is planning on implementing in the future. Among these plans include replacing the majority of the paper towel dispensers with hand driers to conserve the massive amounts of paper used. They received a UCSC Carbon Fund grant that will help to cover the majority of the cost.

Thanks for demonstrating one example of what it means to be sustainable slugs, OPERS!