Two issues ago, I wrote a piece on how sustainable Longwood really is. A few days ago, I was given the opportunity by Kelly Ann Martin, the Sustainability Coordinator and her intern, Haley Vest, to tour the Biomass Heating Plant and Recycling Center on campus. After the tours, I felt as if I should do a sort of update because my personal information was updated and the students’ knowledge should be too.
Throughout my tour of the heating plant, I was in awe. I walk past that building seven days a week and never imagined how extensive the process of burning sawdust is. Burning sawdust is the cheapest option that Longwood has.
If we, for example, change to burning oil for heat, there will be a jump in the amount of money that students will have to pay to keep the building running. There is four million dollars that students don’t have to pay because we burn sawdust. It’s not money that the school is saving; it is money that we would have to come up with if we changed the resource to electricity or oil.
I won’t even describe the process of burning the sawdust because it is so extensive. What I can say is that the heating plant produces approximately 700 pounds of ash each week from burning the sawdust. This ash is composted with the campus food waste and used around campus in the flowerbeds and other landscaping projects.
The smoke that I mentioned in my last article has been explained to me in terms that I am okay with accepting. There will be smoke occasionally because when wood is burned, it smokes. However, most of the smoke that comes from the smoke stacks is steam.
Another really good thing that the heating plant is doing is purchasing sawdust from several local sawmills. Longwood does not cut down trees just to burn them. The heating plant gets its sawdust from these sawmills because it’s what’s left over when they’re cutting the wood for other things. The sawdust that would usually go into a landfill is coming into the school and heating the buildings on the main campus.
After I took a tour of the heating plant, I went to the Recycling Center and spoke with Martin about the questions I had in my last article.
She explained to me that the grounds people are not dumping the blue recycling trashcans in with the regular trash. The trashcans on the backs of the trucks or golf carts are the same color as one another, which is quite confusing for the students to see. Making the recycling trashcans a different color is an easy fix to this problem. She agreed that there is a perception problem with students at Longwood.
We recycle more than the students think at Longwood. There is a push for more effort from students too. Since I have spoken with the Office of Sustainability about the recycling bins around campus and Martin calmed my worries about whether or not the school is actually sustainable, there is ample opportunity for students to recycle at school.
The Office of Sustainability cannot force students to recycle, but it would be nice if more began to care. This is important, and Longwood is attempting to recycle items that would wind up in a landfill.
Another thing that is significant for students, faculty, staff and community members: the Recycling Center is open to any and everyone. You can come into the Recycling Center and separate your paper, plastic, aluminum and cardboard. This is a great thing!
Everyone should get more involved. Everyone can get involved in recycling more than we throw away. There are recycling opportunities all over campus. It’s not as time consuming and hard as it seems. If every student on campus recycled each day, the efforts of the Office of Sustainability would be recognized.
The Office of Sustainability would like to hear from you if you have any questions, comments or concerns. Also, the Biomass Heating Plant will schedule tours for students or anyone else who is interested in learning more about the process of heating our university!
