October 2013 Sustainability Profile: Bradley Angell

Each month, our newsletter features a person or group on campus that is working toward a more sustainable world. This month features Brad Angell, an administrative analyst who works directly with Grounds Services and the Physical Plant on campus.

We asked Bradley Angell what he thinks about sustainability and how it relates to his work at UCSC.

Name:  Bradley Angell
Title:  Administrative Analyst, Grounds Services, Physical Plant

Education:

• Ph.D., Department of Architecture, Texas A&M University (College Station, TX), December 2012
• Master of Architecture, Texas A&M University (College Station, TX), August 2006 w/ Graduate Certificate in Sustainable Urbanism
• Juris Doctor, McGeorge School of Law, University of the Pacific (Sacramento, CA), May 2001
• Bachelor of Science, Agricultural Development, Texas A&M University (College Station, TX), May 1998

Favorite Green Tips: Eat less meat.  Drive less, walk when you can, use public transit when you can’t.  Compost as much as possible – food waste causes methane that is 20X worse than carbon dioxide per unit in terms of greenhouse gas accumulation in the atmosphere. 

What does "sustainability" mean to you?  Sustainability expresses an overall quality of urban design, operations and societal professionalism. Beyond a superficially environmental connotation of the word, meaningful sustainability refers to an expectation of longevity, stewardship and attention to the details of human civilization.

How does sustainability relate to your role at UCSC? What's one cool thing you've done to make UCSC a more sustainable place? My position is principally focused on meeting the sustainability standards set for UCSC.  As an agent in the Grounds Services department, I am primarily concerned with seeking operational innovations that will allow our campus to meet its 2020 goals of zero-waste.  First, I am charged with executing a new waste metrics system that directly links our front-loading trucks to a cloud-based system for weighing individual dumpsters on campus upon their pickup.  Second, I have been working on a pilot “Smart Dumpster” program that will allow Grounds Services operators to manage our system of resource recovery on a real-time “needs” basis, freeing up our crew to undertake other recycling and stewardship projects.  Finally, I have been working with other on-campus design professionals to develop a robust composting program to recycle a dramatically higher volume of organic materials on campus grounds.  

How do you practice sustainability in your daily life? Bike to work. Compost at home including vermicomposting (worms!). Practice vegetarianism to reduce my carbon footprint. And avoid watering the lawn if possible.

Have you had a favorite sustainability moment at UCSC? My favorite sustainability moment at UCSC occurred when I was presenting our waste metrics program at the 2013 California Higher Education Sustainability Conference.  There, I presented our innovative approach to waste diversion that includes accurate data collection, the process of converting our resource measures from a volumetric norm to an exact weight basis, and our continued coordination in redirecting what would go to the landfill into other streams of reuse and recycling.

UCSC Receives Sustainability Best Practice Awards

UCSC will be recognized with two Best Practice Awards at the statewide Higher Education Sustainability Conference this summer in the categories of Monitoring-Based Commissioning and Sustainability Innovations.

The Monitoring-Based Commissioning award goes to the Earth & Marine Sciences Building project, which significantly reduced the carbon impact of the Earth and Marine Sciences Building through a process known as MBCx (commissioning). This project was made possible by the diligent efforts of campus facilities staff, including (below): Dan Miceli (HVAC supervisor), Dave Ciolino (Project Management), Gabe Sandoval (bldg tech) and Patrick Testoni (Energy Manager).

The Sustainability Innovations award goes to the UCSC College Dorm Bi-Level Stairwell Lighting Retrofit and Green Revolving Loan Fund. Together, these projects are sustainably innovative because our campus was able to reduce energy consumption and utilize associated cost savings to fund future energy efficiency projects. The revolving aspect of the loan is an innovative solution to funding sustainability projects on campus that can generate quantifiable monetary savings and reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. The Green Revolving Loan and Bi-level Stairwell Retrofit were made possible through the collaborative efforts of representatives from the UCSC Carbon Fund, Physical Plant and Facilities, Planning and Budget Department, the Sustainability Office, Alliance to Save Energy PowerSave Green Campus Program, and College Housing and Educational Services.

Read the list of best practice awards state-wide here, and find out more about the conference on the website.

Tour of Physical Plant

On the morning of Thursday, February 28, the Student Environmental Center hosted a tour to UC Santa Cruz's Physical Plant, which provides services for the school in facilities & infrastructure operations, building maintenance, custodial services, grounds & road services, and refuse & recycling services. It was an opportunity for students to see what happens to campus waste and recycling behind-the-scenes.

Students and staff who attended the tour were first given a presentation about what streams of waste are sorted. The locations where waste is collected include the main campus, the marine campus at Younger Lagoon, as well as campus construction and demolition sites. The waste collected by Physical Plant includes cardboard, mixed paper, office paper, containers, compostable materials, metal scrap, construction and demolition diversions and organics (wood chips, grass, trimmings).

Student Environmental Center Waste Prevention Campaign Coordinator Darya Soofi and Intern Alexandra Corvello present about campus waste to students and staff who attended the tour of Physical Plant.

One thing that we learned during the tour was that 34% of residential waste from campus is from soiled paper, or used paper towels, alone. Stevenson College is the first college at UCSC to remove paper towels from the residential dorms in an effort to reduce this huge contributor to waste. Read more about the project at Stevenson here, and find out about how Cowell College is also making the switch here.

Food scraps and compostable items from the Dining Halls are trucked to a Marina composting site, but sometimes students take compostable containers from cafes on campus and dispose them in trash and recycling bins, where they are unable to be composted. If you take a container with you that says it's compostable, find a compost bin (cafes like Global Village Cafe and the Owl's Nest have them) to dispose it in.

Physical Plant also sorts recycling. UCSC receives money for recycling items by sorting out CRV (California Refund Value) containers from other recyclables and waste. This income helps fund operations and improvements to their recycling program.

Waste that cannot be diverted to recycling or compost is trucked to a landfill in the City of Santa Cruz called Dimeo Lane, where it costs $75 per ton to dump waste. A typical load of waste is 7-10 tons.

After the presentation, we were able to walk around the grounds and see all of the different types of trucks. The most exciting part was being able to see the conveyor belt that is used for sorting out all of the containers from the recycling.

How can you get involved with waste prevention?  Contact Elida Erickson about getting involved with the Zero Waste Team in the Sustainability Office or find out about the Waste Prevention Campaign at the Student Environmental Center by emailing Darya.

Washing the fleet without contaminating the Bay

Physical Plant, Be Smart About Safety, Fleet Services, & Grounds Services has finished construction on a pressure washing system supplied by a closed-loop water recycling system. This system does not drain out to the sewer or the Bay. Rather, water is cycled through the system using microbes to eat and digest contaminants, such as oil, and the final water that comes out of the pressurized hose is used to wash engines, vehicle exteriors, and other oil-soaked vehicle components.


With the completion of this system, we are now able to locate and eliminate oil leaks that find their way onto UCSC and Santa Cruz County-wide roads and keep the vehicle fleet clean using less water in the process.

Sustainable practices on campus road projects

Last summer, UCSC's Physical Plant worked on a number of road projects, including the McLaughlin Road Rehabilitation Project. During this particular project, construction crews used a technique called Full Depth Reclamation (FDR), which grinds existing asphalt, base rock, and native soil in place, mixes it with 3% dry concrete, and then compacts it into a sub-base. A new 3" asphalt overlay is then placed atop. By using this technique, Physical Plant reduced the amount of truck trips on and off campus as well as reduced the amount of new material needed to construct the road. What an awesome way to integrate sustainability into an important construction project!