Life at Knox College's Eco House revolves around environmental ethics
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CLARE HOWARD/JOURNAL STAR
Knox College junior Fayne Lawson rinses an eco-clamshell, the environmental alternative Knox adopted to cut down on Styrofoam for carryout food. Knox College, Bradley University and Eureka College have eliminated trays in food service to reduce water and energy required for washing. With the elimination of trays, students tend to take only the food they plan to eat, minimizing wasted food.
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By CLARE HOWARD
of the Journal Star
Posted May 02, 2009 @ 09:51 PM
Last update May 02, 2009 @ 09:56 PM
GALESBURG —
Residents at Eco House on the Knox College campus dabbled briefly in vermiculture, a worm farming technique for composting organic kitchen scraps.
That project gave way to conventional composting outside the back door.
There are no commercial household cleaning products at Eco House. Instead, students clean with white vinegar, baking soda and lemon juice. There are no rigid rules, but resident Fayne Lawson encourages moderation in flushing the toilet based on content.
Life at Eco House evolves around an environmental ethic that's becoming a guiding force at schools throughout the Midwest and across the country. Students at Knox College, Bradley University and Eureka College are taking their environmental ethic to school administrators and advocating for more sustainable green practices.
No sign proclaims the mission of Eco House, but outside indicators include two rain barrels to retrieve water runoff from the roof, remnants from last summer's organic vegetable garden and a compost bin by the kitchen door. The porch is draped with frayed Tibetan prayer flags and bicycles.
A bike shed near Eco House will soon stock 40 bicycles available for rent by Knox students who need to leave campus but could ride a bike just as easily as drive a car.
Inside Eco House, there is a refrigerator stocked with garbanzo bean burgers, free trade coffee, soy milk, organic vegetables, noodles and rice. Eco-friendly clamshell containers for carryout food are stacked near the sink. Philosophical discussions among residents often compare the ecological impact of a meat-based diet with a vegetarian diet.
The closets and cabinets at Eco House are stocked with recycled, secondhand clothing, cooking utensils and dishes. There are no plastic shopping bags and very little plastic anything. Personal cleaning products range from Tom's of Maine all natural toothpaste and Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps to deodorant salt crystals and Preserve Razors made with recycled plastic. Even the toothpicks come from sustainable trees.
Lawson, the only male living at Eco House, said residents conserve water if they follow his flushing protocol and if they take 'military showers.'
'I have the most hair of anyone in the house,' he said. 'The military shower is a rinse, turn off the water, wash and then final rinse.'
Lawson typically wears secondhand clothing and work boots made with recycled soles. He's concerned about advertising campaigns that try to encourage consumerism by citing green corporate practices.
Residents Elyse Callahan and Ariel Krietzman both plan to work on organic farms in Cameroon, Africa, this summer.
'We don't have a lot of rules in this house. We have a lot of discussions. If you live here, you want to be aware of your carbon footprint and try to cut back,' said Callahan, who is involved with Free Store, a campuswide recycling effort for good used clothing, dishes, shoes, televisions, stereos and other items students tend to toss in dumpsters at the end of the school year.
Knox College president Roger Taylor said, 'Students are more interested in sustainability than people my age.'
Taylor convened the President's Task Force on Sustainability in 2007 with students, faculty and staff. There was some skepticism that students would make the 8 a.m. meetings, but the skeptics were proven wrong.
'Students diligently showed up for these meetings, and we drafted a sustainability handbook,' Taylor said.
The handbook is posted on the college Web site at www.knox.edu.
Taylor, who hopes sustainability will be one of the benchmarks of his tenure at Knox, made the personal transformation from a cerebral understanding of environmental degradation into a visceral understanding in spring 2006 on a walk in the country with his wife, Anne.
Frogs around their farmhouse where Taylor had grown up were silent. They had disappeared from the ecosystem.
'I think human beings are degrading the Earth out of proportion to what is reasonable,' Taylor said.
Some of the initiatives coming out of the sustainability work at Knox include researching the viability of a wind farm on property the college owns in Iowa.
'Power generated there would be used to offset our electric bill here,' Taylor said.
To eliminate Styrofoam waste, Knox supplies green eco clamshell food containers for each student. The clamshells are used for carryout food and then returned to the cafeteria for washing.
The cafeteria eliminated trays in the dining hall, a move that saves water and energy used to wash and sanitize food trays.
Other colleges and universities also are creating greener campuses.
Bradley University also eliminated trays. At Bradley, students advocated for the installation of stickers on light switches throughout the campus reminding people to turn off the lights when rooms are not in use.
Ron Doerzaph, facilities management director, and LeRoy Neilson, utilities supervisor, said building upgrades and new construction are planned with energy conservation in mind.
One fraternity house, Sigma Chi, installed a geothermal heating and cooling system.
'Students are really out there. They see things. You can see the level of interest and excitement they have,' Doerzaph said. 'Students motivated us to switch to CFLs. They are proactive on these issues.'
Compact florescent lights are being installed throughout campus. Other energy efficiencies include a new steam distribution system, new boiler system, digital control for heat and cooling, hot water on demand and experiments with low-flow plumbing fixtures.
The department is researching chilled beams, a technology that creates thermal mass for cooling rather than the less efficient system of cooling air. Chilled beams have been used in Europe for 35 years, Neilson said.
Bradley student Leah Moran, 21, started the Green Electronics Campaign on campus last year. The club is sponsoring a second electronics drop off event for students and faculty this spring to keep discarded electronics out of landfills.
'The U.S. generates 20 to 50 million tons of e-waste each year, and 80 percent of that is exported to Asia and dumped,' she said. 'It's really unfair to take our electronics waste and dump it in countries where toxins leach into ground water and cause illnesses. This is a really big issue, and it's being ignored.'
At Eureka College, Marc Pasteris, vice president of finance and facilities, said, 'When we look at projects on the campus and our responsibility to society and the environment, students educate us as much as we them. They are proactive.'
Besides installing more efficient heating and cooling, the school has tried to capitalize on natural lighting and efficient CFLs in campus buildings. No salt is used for street and sidewalk de-icing. A campus recycling program will start this summer.
Back at Eco House, students talked about their brief experiment with a snow sled renting program.
'If you look at the small things that can be done, those small things can become big,' Callahan said. 'Consumerism is constantly pushed into our lives, but we want to look at social justice issues and be aware of alternatives to just more and more consumerism.'"
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