Other Projects

ESW/MOSS has been involved in several on-campus projects to improve the sustainability of Harvey Mudd College. These projects are initiatives which complement our yearly projects such as the Dorm Energy Competitions and Earth Week. If you would like to participate in any of these projects or have suggestions for other initiatives, please contact us at Mudd.Sustainability@gmail.com or attend our meetings.

Successful Projects

Recycling

A way in which ESW/MOSS has been able to make a tangible difference on the campus is through its recycling initiative. The club noticed that recycling bins were lacking throughout the campus, both in the residential and academic ends. Though on the residential end students are encouraged to recycle cans and bottles to make money for the dorm, wastes such as paper were commonly thrown out. As a result, a group of ESW/MOSS students worked with the campus Facilities and Maintenance department to purchase large recycling bins to be placed around dorms and in the academic buildings. The result was the appearance of the bins shown in the photograph all around the campus. Recently, the Facilities department has furthered this initiative independently of ESW/MOSS and has purchased more aesthetically pleasing recycling bins which match the colors of the buildings.In addition, ESW/MOSS asked for smaller bins to be placed in each dorm room. As a result, Facilities and Maintenance now gives each incoming freshmen a small recycling bin for use in their room. Dorm attendants collect the waste from these bins in separate blue bags and recycle them.Though this project has brought the campus a long way toward recyling more of its waste, we feel that the current system is still not perfect. A combination of education about recycling as well as more bins in the academic end of campus is necessary to complete the HMC recycling program. We are currently working to achieve this goal and make HMC a more sustainable campus.Water BottlesESW/MOSS sold water bottles at the beginning of the semester at a subsidized rate to Harvey Mudd students to encourage the use of these bottles instead of disposable cups and bottled water. The club sold over 120 bottles to the Harvey Mudd community.Dorm Representatives

Each year, ESW/MOSS members from each dormitory are chosen to servea as a dorm representative to their residence hall. These members are responsible for bringing up sustainability topics within the dorm at dorm meetings and during special ESW/MOSS events. They provide a friendly face for all HMC residents to ask questions regarding sustainability. When special events and competitions arise, they encourage participation within their dorm and serve to answer questions regarding the event.

In the past, dorm representatives have passed out sheets regarding energy conservation as part of the Dorm Energy Competition held on campus. Currently, the representatives are encouraging e-waste recycling within their dorm, especially of old batteries. Batteries are commonly thrown away in normal garbage bins, but the harmful metals in them (cadmium, nickel, lead, etc.) can be very damaging to soil and groundwater. Each dorm has an e-waste recycling bin for batteries specifically-a fact little known to most students. Thus, dorm representatives are currently engaged in a campaign to spread knowledge concerning the effects of improper e-waste disposal and encouraging students to dispose of e-waste properly.

If you would like to learn more about e-waste disposal at Harvey Mudd College, Facilities and Maintenance has an excellent resource online. You can access it by clicking here.

Educational Videos

Led by Claire O'Hanlon (HMC '09) and Lauryn Baranowski (HMC '09) , ESW/MOSS is filming a series of short videos on different sustainability topics including vampire electronics and water use on campus. The videos will be released online to the Mudd community throughout the semester and shown in Hoch-Shanahan to raise awareness about environmental issues. Each will be roughly five minutes long and will feature members from the club as well as professors and other students from the campus.

Printing and CIS Master Plan

ESW/MOSS was approached earlier this year by Joseph Vaughn, the head of Computing and Information Services at HMC about adding a section on sustainability to the CIS Master Plan. A task force led by Ben Keller (HMC '10) and Seanna Vine (HMC '09) took comments from the entire club and prepared a document for CIS which included suggestions such as ensuring all computers were turned off when not in use and that stringent power saving settings be applied even when in use. In addition, they also encouraged a mandate for purchasing only Energy Star rated equipment for the computer labs in the future. In addition to this, ESW/MOSS is pursuing with Joseph Vaughn the idea of placing card swipes on all printers. This will ensure that students who send documents to the community printers are actually present to pick them up. No fee will be implemented for printing and no limit will be placed on how much a student can print. The monitors will only serve to cut down the amount of wasted paper and ink is used on printing which is never collected.Food WasteIn conjunction with the effort by Dining Services to reduce the amount of wasted food at each meal, ESW/MOSS is investigating methods of encouraging conscious food choices among students. The club is trying to use posters and other incentives to reduce the amount of food taken at meals by students but ultimately not eaten. One method being considered is weighing the food waste everyday and showing the results the next day or week with the hope that awareness will lead to conscious thinking.

Projects in the Works

Composting and Gardening

The use of fertilizer is known to be a highly unsustainable practice which can degrade groundwater and surface water when applied in excess. Furthermore, the creation and transport of chemical fertilizers releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Thus, for local gardening, composting is a good solution to create rich organic matter to provide nutrients to the soil without the negative side effects of chemical fertilizers. Given the amount of biological waste at HMC through leftover food at the dining hall and fallen leaves, composting seems to be practical. However, there are two problems. First, there is limited space on campus, and there may not be room for a compost pile, and second, there are limited places on campus where compost could be used. To solve these, ESW/MOSS is working with the Harvey Mudd Facilities and Maintenance department to find a compromise where place where composting can occur. The college maintenance staff is very open to the idea and willing to help the group get started both by providing space and expertise. In addition, the club is considering a way to expand the student gardens, again by working with Facilities and Maintenance, to provide a venue for the compost in addition to the college-owned planters on-campus. Students are also working with Dining Services to encourage the service staff to collect pre-consumer food waste which can be composted. Hopefully, this will be a long-term project at Mudd which will continually be fueled by student support.Design LabsSince the club is based at Harvey Mudd College, a science and engineering school, ESW/MOSS plans to sponsor one or two design labs throughout the semester. These will be open to the entire college community and will call upon teams of students to compete in a one-day event to create a solution to an environmental problem. Given a limited budget and limited time, the teams will work to solve a problem such as water purification within the constraints of the problem statement defined by the club. The hope is that these will both foster environmental awareness on campus as well as provide potential solutions that the club can implement in its on-campus and international efforts.