News & Events

For the 5th consecutive year, Aquinas competed in RecycleMania 2013.
RecycleMania is a friendly competition and benchmarking tool for college and university recycling programs to promote waste reduction activities to their campus communities. Over an 8 week period (February 3 to March 31), Aquinas reported recycling, composting, and trash weights, to be ranked against over 600 participating colleges and universities in the U.S.

Our Michigan peers in RecycleMania include: Albion, CMU, GVSU, Kalamazoo (1st in the state 2012), Kendall, MSU, U of M, and Washtenaw CC.

RecycleMania 2013 results are in! Nationally, Aquinas was ranked as follows:

• Grand Champion Category: 49th (44.18% recycling rate)
• Per Capita Classic: 70th (14.8 pounds of recycling per person)
• Waste Minimization: 88th (33.5 pounds of trash/recycling generated per person)
• Food Service Organics: 17th (10.4 pounds of compost generated per person)

To learn more about Aquinas’ composting and recycling programs, click here.

If you have any questions about a particular material/item, contact Jessica Eimer (x1994) at any time. For more information on the RecycleMania competition, visit their website here.

Throughout the entire month of February, “The Biggest Loser:  Waste-Loss Challenge” will be held in St. Joe. Each floor will be competing to recycle and compost the most waste (computed in pounds per person). Weekly “weigh-ins” will be held during the St. Joe Staff Meetings on Thursday evenings at 10:00pm, and the first will be held February 7^th.

All large cans in campus bathroom are now designated as paper towel only, and a small trashcan provided for non-compostable materials. (If your bathroom is not yet equipped with both containers, it will be this week!) This small step will make a big difference in helping us achieve our zero waste goal by 2014.

Paper towels and other compostable waste will eventually become nutritious plant food instead of being trapped in a landfill for generations or incinerated, which releases harmful emissions into our air. Our composting, including paper towel waste, is sent to a windrow composting facility in Zeeland owned by SPURT.

Please join me in thanking the Housekeeping Department for their assistance in this transition. Housekeeping staff is helping to collect and keep the paper towels separate from other trash. We could not make such strides in our zero waste goals without their help, so please give your housekeeper a big thank you!

What’s the best part of this new program? It’s so easy! Remember, all food waste and food-soiled paper can be composted, and help us to “TRASH the trash can.” If you have any questions, please contact Jessica Eimer (x1994). Thanks for your cooperation.

The AQ community salsa garden (located on the west side of Fulton House) needs volunteers for planting day and for summer-long maintenance.

You can help with the planting day on May 10th at 10:00 a.m. and/or you can sign up to be a volunteer this summer by committing to work in the garden one day per week (Monday through Friday) for at least thirty minutes. If interested in becoming a summer volunteer, please email the following information to Kaitlyn Aholt, kea001@aquinas.edu: what days and times you can volunteer and how many hours per week you can work.

Important volunteer notes:

1. Volunteers must gain approval from their supervisors if they are volunteering during their shifts.

2. Staff/Faculty members can volunteer in the garden during normal business hours, but they cannot be officially on "college time". Hourly employees must punch out, and all employees are still expected to complete their weekly hours.

Questions? Contact Kaitlyn Aholt at kea001@aquinas.edu or Jessica Eimer at eimerjes@aquinas.edu, x1994

Official rankings out of 605 colleges:

• Grand champion-162 (campus recycling rate of 25%)
• Per Capita Classic-241 (6.76 pounds of recycling per person)
• Waste minimization-53 (27 pounds of waste generated on campus per person during competition, trash and recycling combined)
• Food Service Organics-28 (9.11 pounds of organic waste was composted per person on campus during competition)

Because we expanded our composting program this year, a large portion of compostable materials that were originally recycled were no longer part of our recycling data, causing us to rank poorly compared to previous years in every category except "waste minimization" and "food service organics".

Overall, we have reduced our solid waste to landfill by 14%, while increasing our composting 700%! This is a great step in the direction of reaching our goal of zero waste to landfill by 2020. Keep up the good work Aquinas!

Click here to link to descriptions of the competition categories.

Also, Aquinas has simplified its recycling program this year by designating only one bin for single stream recycling. All recyclable items can now be placed together in the blue bin. (Paper does NOT have to be separated from plastic, glass, and tin.) Green and blue bins can be found in every building on campus. Posters located above each bin contain information on the composting and recycling programs.

The Center for Sustainability has expanded the campus ink cartridge recycling program with the help of TMH Corporation. TMH will recycle and repurpose Aquinas’ ink cartridges and in some cases, even pay the college for certain cartridges. In place of the large collection boxes in Regina and St. Joe’s, you will now find small, cardboard collection boxes next to the recycling bins in Regina, St. Joes, Dominican, and the apartments. For more information or questions, please contact Jessica Eimer (632-1994, eimerjes@aquinas.edu).

Click here for more specific information on where and how to recycle your ink cartridges.

Aquinas College made the Sierra Club's Coolest Schools list concerning Sustainability (#94). The only other Michigan schools on the list are University of Michigan and Kalamazoo College.

A collection of inverted-u bicycle racks were installed this summer on the east side of Dominican Hall, to accommodate overflow bike parking. Numerous bikes have been seen attached to trees and poles around Apartment D, rather than in the racks provided. Not only is this an eye-sore, the bikes are getting in the way of the grounds crew. The new bicycle lot is intended to provide sufficient parking for Dominican Hall, Apartment D, and the nearby Woodward Ave. houses. If the bike racks outside your dorm are full, please use the Dominican Hall Bicycle Lot. Thanks for the cooperation.

Aquinas College now has a revitalized and relocated community garden on campus.  The 30’ x 30’ community garden is located near Fulton House.  The garden was recently planted with a variety of fruit, vegetable, herb, and flower seeds.   No synthetic fertilizers, herbicides or pesticides will be used on the garden.  Aquinas volunteers will be caring for the garden in the coming months.  Be on the lookout for updates about the garden’s progress throughout the summer.

Click here to view pictures of the garden and the transformation it has undergone on the Center for Sustainability’s Facebook page.  

In anticipation of students moving out and cleaning their dorm rooms, electronic waste recycling will be available in the lobbies of St. Joes and Regina, near the main entrances. All unwanted and broken electronic items are accepted, including cell phones, alarm clocks, radios, and computer parts. All items with a battery or a cord can be dropped off in the designated boxes through Friday, May 6th.

Aquinas faculty and staff can also bring electronic waste to Chad Buczkowski in the Media Center anytime throughout the year. Collected electronics will be donated to Comprenew Environmental, a non-profit e-waste recycler who reprocesses all e-waste collected for resale or disassembles into component parts for reuse by suppliers. For more information or questions, please contact Jessica Eimer (632-1994 or Jessica.Eimer@aquinas.edu).

The excessive idling policy successfully traversed the sustainability initiative process in the spring, and received the final approval from Provost Gunnoe on April 28th, 2011. (The proposal received a 5- on a 1 to 5 scale- in the Joint Sustainability Committee on March 2 and passed the Student Senate on April 20th.) By limiting the amount of time vehicles are permitted to idle, the policy helps to preserve the natural beauty of campus while simultaneously supporting AQ's pledge to the American College and University Presidents' Climate Commitment (ACUPCC).

Click here to view the final pdf version of the policy.

Click here to download the policy education brochure.

Aquinas College has decided to change its recycling system to a single stream collection system.  This means that paper, plastic, glass, and tin no longer have to be separated, and all recyclables can be placed in the same bin. The large green and blue recycling bins will remain in common areas, but clean recyclables can be placed in either bin. The small recycling can in each office can now be used as a single stream container as well. Therefore, you can now place plastic, glass, and tin recyclables in your office recycling container, in addition to recyclable paper! The types of items that are able to be recycled have remained the same; the process of recycling has just become easier. 

If you are unsure if an item is recyclable or not check the signs that are located on all recycling bins on campus. Remember: You no longer need to separate paper from plastic, glass and tin anywhere on campus! Please continue to empty and rinse out your recyclables before placing in the collection container.

Please contact Jessica Eimer (Jessica.Eimer@aquinas.edu) with any questions concerning the new single stream recycling system.

• Grand Champion Competition- 36th: Aquinas College has a recycling rate of 46.56%
• Per Capita Classic- 66th: Aquinas College averaged 19.98 pounds of recyclables per person during the 8 week competition
• Waste Minimization- 94th: Aquinas College produced 42.91 pounds of waste per person on average during the 8 week competition
• Food Service Organics Competition- 31st: On average 8.04 of food waste were composted per person during the 8 week competition

Click here to view a pdf graph depicting the final RecycleMania results.

Electronic devices consume electricity even when they are not being used.  This draw of electricity is often referred to as vampire power, because energy is “sucked” out even when the device is not turned on.  Vampire power is completely preventable by unplugging electronic devices when they are not being used.

The Center for Sustainability and Residence Life are encouraging all students, faculty, and staff to unplug all electronic devices before leaving for spring break.  If everyone unplugs their electronics electricity can be saved, and carbon dioxide emissions can be avoided.

Click here to view a pdf flyer about unplugging over break.

The Center for Sustainability will now be releasing a monthly electronic newsletter to keep all sustainability groups on campus informed about upcoming events and ongoing projects at AQ. The purpose of this newsletter is to promote collaboration and information sharing between all individuals involved in sustainability efforts on campus.

In addition to updates on current projects of the Center for Sustainability, the newsletter will include a monthly sustainable business student feature and updates from the Students Striving for Sustainability (S3) club. We are encouraging a variety of perspectives on sustainability through the periodic inclusion of articles submitted by campus community members.

All students, staff, and faculty are welcome to submit news and ideas to be posted in the newsletter. Please e-mail Sustainability Initiative intern Jessica Eimer your submissions by the 25th of each month.

The Center for Sustainability has partnered with Residence Life to obtain permission to install vending machine misers on vending machines around campus. Vending machine misers are a device that can be installed to vending machines to reduce power consumption. The misers have a sensor that attaches to the vending machine; when no one walks in front of the machine for a given period of time, the machine powers down and turns off its internal lights. Vending machines misers can also regulate the temperature of the vending machine, shutting off the compressor when the internal temperature is cool enough, and repowering when necessary to maintain a cool temperature for products. These energy saving features help vending machines to operate at a more efficient level, saving money on electricity bills and carbon emissions. Pepsi Co. has agreed to donate one vending machine miser to Aquinas College for trial purposes.

As you may have noticed, digital media signage and new computers serving as information kiosks have been installed in public areas around campus. These devices are equipped with auto power-down features to save energy when they are not in use. There is an auto shutdown in place on the digital media signage ensuring that they are shut down for overnight hours. For all of these features to function properly, it is important that the devices not be manually shut down, as that overrides the settings that have been put in place.

Aquinas College now subsidizes the use of Rapid Van Pools by staff, faculty, and students travelling to school or work! The van pool system is perfect for people with long commutes who are interested in "sharing the ride." The Rapid provides vans to vanpooling groups on a month to month basis, for a small fee. Approximately 20 Rapid vans travel from Lansing, Kalamazoo, Muskegon, and other communities within 60 miles of Grand Rapids. Individuals meet at a Park and Ride lot, and share driving responsibilities on the van. The monthly fee (without the subsidy) is approximately $83-$100, depending on the number of van riders. This covers all costs to ride the van - a very desirable situation for commuters.

Aquinas successfully completed the 2007/08 carbon footprint report and submitted the results to the American College and University Presidents' Climate Commitment. Within one year of signing the commitment, all signatories must complete a comprehensive inventory of all greenhouse gas emissions and update the inventory every other year thereafter.

Aquinas' full carbon footprint report can be viewed at the ACUPCC website.

During the summer of 2009, the Sustainable Business Academic Department and Residence Life Office purchased 19 additional inverted U-Racks for bicycle storage on campus. Existing bike rack sites (Academic Building, Wege Courtyard, Grace Hauenstein Library, Regina Hall, and St. Joe's) received supplementary U-Racks to facilitate the increasing demand for bike storage at these locations. To prevent students from chaining bikes to the railing and blocking the handicap entrance, 5 U-Racks were also installed near the northwest entrance of Albertus Hall. Furthermore, Regina Hall and RVD received a handful of wall mount racks for additional bicycle storage. A big thanks to the Physical Plant and Grounds Departments for their help with installation!