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P r e p a r e d B y :

CHARLIE’S ANGELS: WHITE PAPER PROJECT

An inside look into the University of

South Florida St. Petersburg campus,

going-green movement.

Kh r ys t l e B o w e n

Jo s h Ik e r d

As h l e e L a c z yn s k i

A ma n d a R i c h a r d s o n

D a i s h a W h i t e n

ENC3250.796S15

Professional Writing

Professor: Dr. Francis Tobienne, Jr. 4/10/2015

Page 1

Table of Contents

Executive Summary…………………………………………………………………………….…..Page 2

Introduction……………………………………………………… …………………………………………...…..Page 3

University of South Florida St. Pete

Recycling………………………………………………………………………………….…… Page 4

Conservation………………………………………….……………………………………..Page 7

Collected Data

Graphical Representation of Group Findings………………………………..Page10

Student Interviews…………………………………………..…………………………..Page11

Surrounding Florida Universities

Florida Atlantic University…………………………… ………………………………….……Page 14

Lynn University……………………………………………………………………………Page 14

Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………….…… ….……….Page 16

Annotated Bibliography……………………………………………………………….….…….Page 17

Works Cited………………………………………………………………………….………….…….Page 20

Glossary of Terms Page……………………………………………………………….…….…..Page 22

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Being environmentally conscious has become almost a trend in the United States. But

being conscious about the environment should not be just a trend because it pertains to everyday

life. The University of South Florida St. Petersburg has gone to great lengths to their green

movement. The information that is to be presented in this report will allow the reader to form

their own opinions about this innovation and decide whether to take action or not. It will also

provide ideas and steps on how to take this project to the next level and how certain solutions

will affect their community.

Other resources that are provided in this report are personally conducted interviews,

scientific journals, and a literature source that illustrates the challenges of this project along with

the benefits for the environment. The annotated bibliography provides various sources that will

showcase the communities’ viewpoints on the project and the overall effectiveness of the project

itself.

The main goal of this report is to help the reader see how they can reinvent and preserve

their community. This report will provide different and fun ways on how to their community is

becoming greener and give options to think about different ways to live their lives. The goal for

our group is to inspire the reader to think outside of the box about the environment and make a

change towards a greener future.

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INTRODUCTION

The University of South Florida’s efforts to “go green” have been recognized through

the inclusion in The Princeton Review’s Guide to 286 Green Colleges. The first comprehensive

guidebook solely focused on colleges and universities that have demonstrated an above average

commitment to sustainability in terms of campus infrastructure, activities and initiatives.

USF has implemented not only simple things such as recycling bins located throughout

all our their campuses but they have cut down 30%-40% on water usage for plants and added a

75 cent fee per credit hour in order to be able to purchase renewable energy.

The University of South Florida is a university that has dedicated years to being a green

campus. The recycling trend continues currently with the USF Student Environmental

Association and the Patel College of Global Sustainability.

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University of South Florida St. Pete

RECYCLING

The University of South Florida of St. Petersburg (USFSP) has put a lot of emphasis on

ways our college community can help the environment, even if we have to start with the little

things first and progress from there. An example of this is all of the recycling bins that are

placed around on campus that was a project started by the Student Green Energy Fund. There

have been a number of blue recycling bins placed in all of the classrooms on campus that are

specifically for paper and other recyclables. Over 80 percent of the trash that we throw away is

recyclable and these small recycling bins encourage students, professors, and

other staffers alike to toss old papers out to be recycled instead of just trashing

them. The paper recycling bins have helped recycle well over 9,700 tons of

paper since the bins were placed in the classrooms.

The campus has been aware of the recycle movement since 2007 because it was

determined that over 48 tons of aluminum was recycled since the recycling receptacles were

placed around the campus, but there have been bigger and better investments in recycling since

then. If you were to take a look around the USFSP campus you would find that for almost every

regular trashcan placed on campus there is recycling receptacle for plastic, glass, and aluminum

placed directly beside it. There are a total of 20 of these trash/recycle bin combos that are located

on campus and each of these are made up of 937 recycled milk jugs. The project is called “Don’t

Be Trashy” and was established in 2013. These receptacles were placed on campus to encourage

students to get rid of their recyclable items in a proper and more energy efficient way.

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The bins also have a limited the amount of waste that is placed in landfills. Having the recycling

receptacles have helped save the university eighty-six dollars a week because they do not have

to purchase more dumpsters to place on campus. USFSP also has other resources in place for

people to recycle their old batteries, cell phones and computers.

The main campus of the University of South Florida (USF) located in Tampa, has also

been participating in the green movement. They were a partnership with an organization called

RecycleMania which is an organization that focuses on encouraging students to be more

conscious of recycling. They like to plan events that bring out the more competitive side of the

students by challenging students to recycle as many materials that they are able to collect and try

to beat other rival schools. The main USF campus recently dedicated 10 whole weeks to

competing in RecycleMania and found that the recycling rate on the campus is a little over thirty-

nine percent. In order to find the campus’ recycling rate, you take the weight of the targeted

materials, divide it by the campus population, and viola you have the recycling rate. Some of the

items that are accepted as recyclables, or the targeted materials, in the RecycleMania competition

range from paper, cans, bottles, food service organics, to trash and even E-waste. In 2009 it was

recorded that over 500 tons of paper were recycled throughout USF’s campuses along with 48

tons of aluminum.

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As for the competition side of

RecycleMania, there are 3 distinct divisions

for competing in RecycleMania: the

competitive division, the benchmark

division, and the 3R

Actions division. USF

participates in the

Benchmark division

which is the least strict

of the three divisions

since the rules of

weighing your

recyclables are more

lenient, and the school

schools that are in the benchmark division

may not be eligible to win RecycleMania;

they can still look at how their recycling

rates match up against other schools in

comparison. While the

recycling rate

percentage at USF may

not be very high, the

main idea of

RecycleMania is to

raise awareness about

recycling so that it

becomes a habit and not

just a trend that you

is encouraged to

participate while

A flyer that was used during the time USF

was participating in RecycleMania

casually participate.

recycling at its own pace. All though

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CONSERVATION

There are also water fountains in the class buildings that have a bottle filling option

which provides filtered water and helps to reduce the use of plastic bottles and encourage the use

of re-usable bottles. Now you do not have to only use re-usable bottles at the stations and plastic

ones are fine as well, in fact highly encouraged. Let’s say that a person drinks 2-3 plastic bottles

of water a day, they could simply use the refillable bottle drinking stations and use only one

plastic bottle a day. This could dramatically reduce the amount of waste that a person uses by

using only one plastic bottle a day.

One of the big projects that the school was obtaining is a gold LEED certification for the

Science and Technology (STG) building on a campus. The two story, 3500, square foot building

was granted this honor in 2010 shortly after being built. To be certified the building must have

the following credentials, but are not limited to, the construction of the building, the design and

a operation of the building has features that improve human and environmental health. When the

building was being constructed, USFSP received much financial support from Progress Energy

which is now known as Duke Energy. They helped build a more sophisticated and updated

laboratories for the science majors and classes. The building houses 76 class rooms and is used

constantly throughout the semester.

Another energy efficient system that the university has in place is solar docs and pole

that are located in three different places. These are power stations that let students charge their

electronics through solar energy. Two of the stations are located on the coast of Bayboro Harbor

and are in the fashion of a table with LED lighting. The other is located near the fountain on

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Harbor Walk and each of these stations are self-sustaining and made of recycled materials. The

entire project was completed in spring of 2013.

The university also supports the concept of conservation by having online drop-boxes to

submit assignments and view other work. This website is named Canvas, and it is a site that our

university and many others use to upload and download documents that people can view twenty

four hours a day, seven days a week. Instead of the professors handing out printed assignments,

students can simply be added to the drop-boxes of each individual course. This allows a massive

amount of paper to be saved since everything that we need is available over a simple internet

connection. An online drop box also gives professors the luxury of being able to review and

return assignments to students electronically.

With the help of students, faculty, and staff we are able to go-green at USFSP. Student

Green Energy Fund (SGEF) is a committee made up of several students and faculty members.

The members attend scheduled meetings where they talk about new and existing proposals about

projects on campus. Students are even encouraged to submit their own proposals on new ways to

save energy at USFSP. Once a student submits a proposal, the committee will evaluate and

analyze the proposal and will either pass it or respectfully decline the offer.

According to SGEF’s former ranking media officer Teri Deardorff, based on her

experience as a board member she believes that all the implemented projects presented to the

committee to be worthwhile and useful to the students and the surrounding community. She also

noted that out of all the projects implemented none of them seemed better on paper than they do

in real life, insinuating that all the projects were a success and are still being used to this day.

Lastly, Deardorff noted that the Solar Docks and the water bottle fill stations are especially high-

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visibility items that students have come to enjoy and rely on a daily basis. She was quoted saying

the following, “Whenever I want to go study at the Solar Docks they are almost always being

utilized by people!”

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Collected Data

GRAPHICAL REPRESENTATION OF GROUP FINDINGS

Below is a graph that depicts usage by students of four different energy efficient devices.

According to our data, about 95% of the students asked at USFSP said that they recycle on a

daily basis especially at the school. A whopping 73% of students have or are actively using the

water bottle fill stations to fill up their thermos and or water bottles with purified water for free.

There was 55% of students that said they have used the solar docs to plug in and benefit from the

solar energy at least one time or another. The most upsetting number was the amount of people

that we interviewed who recycled batteries, ink cartridges, and old electronic devices. The

Going green project utilization

10

9

8

7

6

5

4

3

2

1

0

Recycling Bins (paper, plastic, glass, aluminum

Solar Docs Water bottle fill stations

recycling centers (batteries, cell phones,

ink cartridges, computer parts)

number was less than half at only 34%. Based on these numbers we can see that USFSP is having

great progress with the different projects it has chosen to implement on the campus and has

considerable room for progress. We are not yet at full contribution from everyone yet, but we

“Fig. 1. Going

green project

utilization, Josh

Ikerd,

Independent

Survey Results

from USF

students, (March

2015).”

Page 11

only expect these numbers to rise in the future since more and more students becoming

conscious about the environment.

STUDENT INTERVIEWS

We took the liberty of interviewing four students, who wish to remain anonymous about

their contribution to going green and recycling. We asked them six simple questions that referred

to recycling that ranged from the simple question of do you recycle to their opinions on the matter.

To reserve their anonymities they will be referred to students 1 through 4 in the latter

parts of this document.

Question 1: Do you recycle at home?

Student 1: No, I want to but no recycling

bin.

Student 2: Yes.

Student 3: Yes.

Student 4: Yes.

Question 2: Do you recycle at school?

Student 1: Yes.

Student 2: Yes.

Student 3: Oh heck yes I do! Especially

paper.

Student 4: Yes.

Question 3: How do you think USFSP can

become greener?

Student 1: Put more recycling bins around

the school. Ensure the student living has

recycling options as well.

Student 2: By putting more recycling bins

next to trashcans that don’t already have

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one. This encourages people to recycle

more.

Student 3: Well, USF is obviously already a

very green school, with options to recycle

everywhere, plenty of trees and there is a

good option to use energy-saving tech, like

with the electric car parking spaces.

However, I think that it would be wise to

invest in the development energy saving

technologies here at USF, because from

what I've seen in the physics department,

most of the science that is done here has a

biological focus.

Student 4: Making recycling bins more

accessible to students and staff in other areas

other than dining, such as student housing or

densely populated buildings, and being able

to recycle paper and aluminum in more

areas in addition to plastic.

Question 4: Do you separate your

recyclables from papers and plastics?

Student 1: I do not segregate my

recyclables; it is one giant recycling bin.

Student 2: If I have two separate bins, I do.

Student 3: Yes, I do!

Student 4: Sometimes, when I have the

options and the resources.

Question 5: Where did you learn to

recycle?

Student 1: I learned from a past internship,

and in school.

Student 2: I learned it in grade school and

from my parents.

Student 3: I have learned about recycling

from science classes. I am a physics major

and I also teach environmental science, so I

try to stay updated.

Student 4: I learned recycling in primary

school and secondary schooling, as well as

at home.

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Question 6: Do you think that schools

should teach about recycling more than

they already do?

Student 1: There should be more efforts to

teach recycling in school because it is

important to save the environment. Make it

into a game that way kids think its fun.

Student 2: By doing a section of it each year

in school, it would reinforce the idea of it.

Student 3: I think that there are plenty of

people who don't know exactly how to

recycle and they don't know what is

recyclable or not. I think it would be

important to possibly have utility companies

or USF teach people about how to recycle

effectively.

Student 4: Yes, recycling is important and

everyone should at least be taught the basics.

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Surrounding Florida Universities FLORIDA ATLANTIC UNIVERSITY

There are many Florida universities

that are attempting to make their campuses

more ecofriendly. For example Florida

Atlantic University (FAU) is a campus

located in Boca Raton and is larger than

USFSP with about 30,000 students

compared to USFSP’s 6,000. Like our

Science and Technology building that has a

LEED gold certification, FAU has three

buildings that have LEED certifications. The

first building that received the a LEED

certification was their College of

Engineering and Computer Science building

that received a platinum certification on

August 8, 2011. This building was one of

the first buildings on a college campus to

receive this certification in southeast

Florida. The second and third buildings that

obtained a LEED certification were their

College of Nursing and the Dave Joint Use

Facility.

These two have a gold certification like our

STG building.

LYNN UNIVERSITY

A university that is similar in size to

ours is Lynn University that is also located

in Boca Raton. They focus on five major

areas when it comes to how they are going

to be a sustainable campus. Area one is

“Community and education” which focuses

on raising the student and community

awareness of the importance of

conservation. Area two is “Energy and

Transportation” which wants people to

reduce their carbon foot print and making

the campus energy efficiently. To help them

save energy they partnered with Siemens

Building Technologies Division so that they

can upgrade their buildings to reduce energy

consumption up to 50 percent. This process

will take some time however, an

approximated 20 years, but when completed

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it will be well work it. Area three is

“Landscape and ecology” and area four is

simply “water”. The water area wants to

reduce their water usage and take advantage

of the reclaimed water that can be used in

the Boca Raton area. The final area of focus

is “Materials and Waste” which is simply

what this papers main focus was on which is

recycling the possible materials and

reducing the amount of waste that we

produce.

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CONCLUSION

The USFSP campus has lots of history behind it but one of the most important things in

their history was their drive to become a green school. Students are really involved with the

environmental activities and programs that are offered at the USFSP campus and our in favor of the

school going green. According to our survey results students’ believe that recycling products

and promoting the “going green” movement is something they will indeed partake in during their

everyday activities.

We have continued to be a school that shows initiative and compete with schools that are

larger than us and to set an example to the rest of the community. Like our LEED certified

building that promotes “green” initiatives that has sparked a fuse on campus that is trying to

make other buildings like the Student Life Center LEED certified as well. The movement will

not just stop on campus either. Hopefully starting a good habit will carry over to other aspects of

people’s lives so we can reduce our carbon footprint so there will be resources and a place to live

for future generations.

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ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Cash, Jacqui. "USF One of Nation's Top Green Colleges." - University of South Florida. 5 May

2010. Web. 17 Mar. 2015. <http://news.usf.edu/article/templates/?a=2295>.

The following source provided a direct quote explaining just how prestigious the

recognition was for USF’s going green movement. It also provided some specific

percentages and numbers on how much the going green changes have positively changed

the campus. This source was particularly helpful with listing details on how the “green”

changes made on campus directly affected certain statistics. Those details helped put it in

perspective.

"Completed Projects." USFSP Student Green Energy Fund. USFSP, 2013. Web. 15 Mar. 2015.

<https://sites.google.com/a/mail.usf.edu/sgef-usf-st-pete/completed-projects>.

The Student Green Energy Fund website offered much insight on the completed energy

efficient projects located at USFSP. In the tabs marked “completed projects” and “follow

the proposals,” there was an abundant amount of information on the different green

projects USF had passed or still continued to be in-progress with. These links showed an

overview on the different dates of proposal, proposal status, and the proposal summary.

We will use this information to help explain the different green initiatives USFSP is

offering and gather factual information on the one’s we are currently investigating.

"Divisions & Categories." Recycle Mania Tournament. RecycleMania, 2010. Web. 24 Mar.

2015. <http://recyclemaniacs.org/participate/rules/divisions-categories>.

This is from the website of the program RecycleMania. This section of the website is

discussing the different organizations that are in collaboration with RecycleMania. It also

discusses what they do as a company and the different ways the universities can

participate in the Recycle Mania program.

Funke, John. "Power from 93 million miles." The Crow’s Nest. USFSP, 11 Feb. 2013. Web. 16

Mar. 2015. <http://crowsneststpete.com/author/jfunke/>.

The source titled “Power from 93 million miles” is a periodical from USFSP’s school

newspaper, The Crow’s Nest. Although the article at one time was a print, it can still be

found online on the Crow’s Nest webpage. This particular article highlighted information

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about the new (at that time) solar docs. The article stated where the solar docs are located,

what the solar docs do, and even what they are made of. This proved to be a very good

find, and will be used to further inform our audience on the Solar Docs we are

investigating.

Gobbo, Kristine. "First Academic Building in Southeast Florida to Achieve LEED Platinum

Certification." Florida Atlantic University. N.p., 8 Aug. 2011. Web. 24 Mar. 2015.

<http://www.fau.edu/mediarelations/releases0811/081106.php>.

The article is talking about the newly LEED certified building at Florida Atlantic

University. It summarizes what specific technological feature’s the building has that

makes it platinum certified LEED building. To input this source into our paper we will

talk about other universities and how they are becoming more environmentally friendly

and compare them to our school. We will then use that information to suggest ways that

our university can improve our step to becoming a green campus.

Goining Green. Lyyn University and Apple , n.d. Web. 23 Mar. 2015.

<http://www.lynn.edu/about-lynn/going-green>.

This site is talking about the five steps that Lynn University is taking to become a greener

university. In our paper we will be mention the five areas and briefly discussing each one

of them. This will benefit our paper because we are able to see what other universities are

doing to become green and USFSP can borrow some of their ideas and potentially make

them better and more sustainable.

"History of RecycleMania." Recycle Mania Tournament. RecycleMania, n.d. Web. 24 Mar.

2015. <http://recyclemaniacs.org/about/history-recyclemania>.

A basic summary of this site is the history of how and why RecycleMania got started. In

our paper we look at what corporation has done for the University of South Florida

specifically.

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"Science & Technology Building Earns LEED Certification." University of South Florida St.

Petersburg. 22 Jan. 2010. Web. 23 Mar. 2015.

<http://www.usfsp.edu/blog/2010/01/22/science-technology-building/>.

This article is a basic rundown the campuses Science and Technology and the LEED

certification that it received. To implement this into our paper, we will talk about how

you can get a LEED certification and why it is important. We will also be comparing to

other universities that have buildings with a LEED certification as well.

Weybrecht, Giselle. "An innovative way to making your campus more sustainable: The Student

Green Energy Fund." Primetime. N.p., 12 Dec. 2012. Web. 25 Mar. 2015.

<http://primetime.unprme.org/2012/12/17/an-innovative-way-to-making-your-campus-

more-sustainable-the-student-green-energy-fund/>.

The article titled “An Innovative way to Making Your Campus More Sustainable: The

Student Green Energy Fund” is an online article/ interview with three students from

USFSP that are working on projects with the USFSP Student Green Energy Fund. It goes

into detail about a few of the projects and how they will help the school, as well as what

the Student Green Fund is planning on doing in the future.

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WORKS CITED

Cash, Jacqui. "USF One of Nation's Top Green Colleges." University of South Florida. USF, 5

May 2010. Web. 17 Mar. 2015.

<http://news.usf.edu/article/templates/?a=2295>.

"Completed Projects." USFSP Student Green Energy Fund. USFSP, 2013. Web. 15 Mar. 2015.

<https://sites.google.com/a/mail.usf.edu/sgef-usf-st-pete/completed-projects>.

"Divisions & Categories." Recycle Mania Tournament. RecycleMania, 2010. Web. 24 Mar.

2015. <http://recyclemaniacs.org/participate/rules/divisions-categories>.

Funke, John. "Power from 93 million miles." The Crow’s Nest. USFSP, 11 Feb. 2013. Web. 16

Mar. 2015. <http://crowsneststpete.com/author/jfunke/>.

Goining Green . Lyyn University and Apple , n.d. Web. 23 Mar. 2015.

<http://www.lynn.edu/about-lynn/going-green>.

Going Green Project Utilization. Graph. Independent Survey Results: Derived from USFSP

Students. By Joshua Ikerd. St. Petersburg: University of South Florida, 2015.

Gobbo, Kristine. "First Academic Building in Southeast Florida to Achieve LEED

Platinum Certification." Florida Atlantic University. N.p., 8 Aug. 2011. Web. 24 Mar.

2015. <http://www.fau.edu/mediarelations/releases0811/081106.php>.

"History of RecycleMania." Recycle Mania Tournament. RecycleMania, n.d. Web. 24 Mar.

2015. <http://recyclemaniacs.org/about/history-recyclemania>.

Page 21

"Science & Technology Building Earns LEED Certification." University of South Florida St.

Petersburg. 22 Jan. 2010. Web. 23 Mar. 2015.

<http://www.usfsp.edu/blog/2010/01/22/science-technology-building/>.

Weybrecht, Giselle. "An innovative way to making your campus more sustainable: The Student

Green Energy Fund." Primetime. N.p., 12 Dec. 2012. Web. 25 Mar. 2015.

<http://primetime.unprme.org/2012/12/17/an-innovative-way-to-making-your-campus-

more-sustainable-the-student-green-energy-fund/>.

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Glossary of Terms Page

USFSP- University of South Florida St. Petersburg

SGEF- Student Green Energy Fund

LED- Light Emitting Diode

“Don’t Be Trashy”- project proposed and passed by the student green energy fund. Project consists of recycling bins strategically located in and around the campus.

“Water Bottle Fill Stations”- project proposed and passed by the student green energy fund.

Project consists of water fill stations located within campus buildings.

“Solar Docs + Solar Solstice”- project proposed and passed by the student green energy fund. Projects consist of stations to sit and plug in using solar power.

The Crow’s Nest- school newspaper publication.