Paper Towel Free for a Week!

From April 10th- 17th of this year, I didn’t use a single paper towel. Surprisingly, it was the easiest routine change I’ve ever tried. Through helping promote the Chancellor’s Challenge with the Sustainability Office this year, I'd already started to use less paper towels, but going paper towel free for a week really solidified my opinion— that paper towels (specifically in restrooms) are unnecessary. I

now choose to shake my hands after washing them and then dry them on my clothes or sometimes run them through my hair when paper towels are the only option. I used to think it was rather gross to leave the restroom without completely dry hands but I realized one day that it shouldn’t matter to me. Reason being, I live with a fairly common condition known as hyperhidrosis where the sweat glands in my hands are overactive— I have to shake peoples’ hands and open doors with extremely not-dry hands all the time anyway. It’s difficult, but I’ve just come to accept it and usually (but unfortunately not always) people understand! I know not everyone can relate to this specific condition, but I know many people have had to use a sketchy public restroom before with no paper towels or air dryers, and you know what? I think we survived leaving with not-dry hands! There are of course several factors to removing paper towel dispensers campus-wide, but for now I at least encourage trying to go paper towel free for even just a couple days, because it’s a surprisingly easy habit to change and simultaneously makes a huge impact on waste at UCSC!
By Lauren Korth

"Bring Your Hand Towel to Work Week" at UCSC Financial Affairs Office

By Lori Van Briggle, Data Entry Supervisor for UCSC Payroll

The Financial Affairs Green Team's second annual "Bring Your Hand Towel To Work Week" wrapped up on February 7. This year we set up a table in the mezzanine of 2300 Delaware for the week of February 3-7 with a whiteboard asking Financial Affairs staff to pledge to take the Chancellor's survey and to use a hand towel for one week. If you took the pledge, your name and unit were written on a leaf and the unit with the highest percentage of participants won treats from Kelly's Bakery.

The participation was amazing! Not only did we have volunteers manning the table (sacrificing half hour of their lunchtime) for 2 hours each day, but we also had 82% of our staff take the pledge! Our hope is that after using a cloth towel for a week, staff would realize it is not a difficult change to make in order to save resources and put fewer paper towels into the landfill.

Awesome work, Financial Affairs Office! To learn more about what the Financial Affairs Green Team is doing to make UCSC a more sustainable place, email Kirk Lew at kllew [at] ucsc [dot] edu to join their newsletter list!

Zero Waste Events: Student Perspective June 2013

As the year comes to an end the Zero Waste Team has been wrapping up some amazing pilot projects that got launched this year.  Along with the successful Bring Your Own Mug (BYOM) campaign, collaboration with PTAGS on paper towel removal from the dorms, collaboration on the creation of the position of Student Sustainability Advisors, and the Green Lab Certification Program, the Zero Waste Team has been working on the Zero Waste Commitment for student organizations on campus and a zero waste commencement 2013!

Zero Waste Event Commitment 

The goal for this pilot project is to increase the number of Zero Waste events on campus. Since a Zero Waste Event often requires more planning and support than a normal event, we hope to address this by providing training, materials, planning and volunteer support to help student groups make a commitment to Zero Waste. A Zero Waste Event (or a “Zee Wee” as nicknamed by Wikipedia) is an event that follows sustainable practices to send the least possible amount of waste to the landfill. This involves having a waste station to sort out trash, recyclables and compost. Check out the Sustainability Office  How to Hold a Zero Waste Event Guide  or the Plastic Free Blog  to learn more.

Milestones:

1. Made a pitch and conducted brief trainings for Tri Chi Sorority, CARe Project, Chinese Student Association, Student Union Assembly
2. Created an official logo to build a visual identity for the campaign
3. Designed a Zero Waste Event Kit to be given out to orgs in the Fall
4. Created a Trash Talkers’ pamphlet in collaboration with SEC
   
   Are you tired of waste at your events? Want your organization to be greener and help UCSC achieve Zero Waste by 2020? If interested in making the Commitment Pledge to make a future event zero waste, contact us now at zerowasteucsc@gmail.com  

Zero Waste Commencement 2013

The Zero Waste Team is working on making graduation at all ten colleges a zero waste event this year. Graduation is a wonderful opportunity to show the entire student community and the many visitors that our campus is committed to sustainability and our Zero Waste goal by 2020! We’ve partnered with Candy Berlin, Program Coordinator, UC Santa Cruz Dining, Zaunna Wells, Operations Manager, UC Santa Cruz Conference Services, Steve O'Neil, Bookstore, and Bob McCampbell, Executive Director Bay Tree Bookstore to make all ten college graduation ceremonies zero waste!

By providing waste stations for attendees to recycle and compost their waste, selling and giving away reusable water bottles at each ceremony with water refill stations, and promoting Zero Waste through signage and trained “Trash Talkers” to redirect recycling and compost from the landfill at the ceremony, we are truly committed to achieving our Zero Waste goal by 2020!

UCSC to Go Paper Towel-Free in Dorms Next Year

UC Santa Cruz is going paper towel-free in the residence halls next year after a successful pilot program at Stevenson College this year. Following years of student interest in this project and discussions with administrators and staff all over campus in the past year, the University has decided that in order to support our goals of zero waste by 2020 and to promote more sustainable behaviors among students in our residence halls, paper towels will no longer be provided for drying hands in shared residential restrooms. After all, 34% -- by volume -- of the waste coming out of the residence halls is paper towels. That's a lot of waste that can easily be reduced by simply removing the towels from these restrooms.

Instead of providing wasteful paper towels, students will be asked to bring a supply of reusable cloth hand towels to school with them in the fall, just as they will bring their own reusable bath towel and other supplies. Students, if you'll be living in the residence halls next year, don't forget to pack your own reusable hand towels!

This is an exciting accomplishment that not only makes sense (10 years ago, there weren't paper towels in the residence halls, anyway), but it shows that student-initiated projects can really achieve campus-wide change. It sometimes takes time and conversations with many different stakeholders, but it is possible to see a sustainability vision for the campus come to fruition.

Congratulations to everyone who has been working on this project, including Path to A GreenerStevenson, the Sustainability Office Zero Waste Team, and many other students, staff, andadministrators who made this possible. Special thanks to Sue Mathews, the Associate Vice Chancellor in Colleges Housing and Educational Services for being the institutional leader who helped make this project a reality.

Read about the history of this project in Stevenson College and why the campus is choosing to remove paper towels.