"I CAN DO THAT!"

The first week of August has been designated as Environmental Week at Lincoln University. A number of events have been scheduled to increase environ­mental awareness among staff and students. The theme, "I can do that!” is very appropriate. It is the same theme used for International Envi­ronmental Day. International Environmental Day occurred on June 5th, a national holiday in New Zealand, so it was not celebrated this year on campus.

Everyone has an impact on the environment. Some people have more of a negative impact than others. Widespread environmental conservation and protection will most effectively happen when everyone minimises their negative impact. To achieve this, people must incorporate environmentally friendly action into every aspect of their lives every day. Small actions done regularly make big differences if everyone does them.

The purpose of Environmental Week is to raise awareness among those who aren't particularly inclined to consider the environment in their day to day lives. It is hoped this week will encourage people to realise that their lifestyle choices have far reaching effects on the environment.

The message behind the events and activities is straightforward; take the ideas and philosophy that Environmental Week is based on and incorporate them into your life. Embrace the idea that you, as an individual, can make a difference by minimising the negative impact you have on the environment. If everyone adopts this suggestion, great strides will be made towards lessening the impact that all people make.

The page overleaf contains a schedule of the events and activities for Environmental Week. Please cut it out and post it up so you don't miss out on the activities you want to attend!

Can Recycling on Campus: What is being done?

Rumour has it that Lincoln's staff and students drink over 150,000 cans of fizzy drink every year! Currently, most of these 150,000 cans are tossed into the rubbish. A few end up in the two recycling bins at Scoffs and the main cafe. This depressing situation is soon to change. It won't be long before ALL the cans on campus will be able to be recycled, thanks to the coordinated efforts of the Environmental Policy Advisory Committee's Materials Use group, the Works Department and Student Services.

Materials Use has received funding from the Works Department and Student Services to purchase 10 blue bins. These will be placed around campus in convenient locations. All you have to do is toss your empty cans into the blue bin nearest you. For staff, the easiest thing to do is to collect them in your office and make periodic trips to the nearest bin.

To encourage people to start recycling their cans, Materials Use and LEO will be giving away spot prizes to a few lucky people seen using the large can recycling bin to be located on the sunken lawn during Environmental Week. The blue bins will start appearing on campus soon, so watch for them, and make sure your cans are going in them!

Energy Conservation: What is happening on Campus?

The 4500 people who occupy the 79,000 square metres of campus buildings use up $470,000 worth of electricity every year. The University also spends $250,000 on coal for space and water heating.

Lighting consumes three quarters of the electricity bill. To lower this figure, the university installed 1200 compact fluorescent bulbs in 1994. This replaced almost all of the old, energy hungry, incandescent lamps. Although the new bulbs cost $25 each, a 20 Watt fluorescent bulb puts out the same light as a standard 100 Watt bulb. This saved the university $8000 in the first year of use!

 But there is no need for a room to be lit if it is empty. Some lecture rooms use 30 kWh of lighting. Last year, infrared sensors were installed to automatically switch off the lights if there was no movement in the room for 15 minutes.

The Library is a big user of electricity. A mere 3500 square metres, it uses 40,000 kWh a month! The control of lighting is very poor. There are only three or four switches for all the lights and there are lots of areas that have very low usage at times. The solution may be installing ultrasonic sensors between the stacks which switch off the lights if they can't detect sound or movement.

A computerised energy management system was installed in 1973. Lincoln was the first university to buy such a system. It was a landmark in energy management because it allowed the heating of different spaces to be easily controlled. A recently updated system makes it easier to only heat occupied spaces. For example, heat is pumped into lecture theatres at Sam when the cost of electricity is lower and turned off two hours later when the rooms have reached the required 18-20 degrees Celsius.

The boiler generates two-thirds of the energy used on the campus and by carefully balancing its fuel to oxygen ratio its thermal efficiency has increased from 75 per cent to 85 percent. This has meant incredible savings in coal use. For example, 3,400 tonnes of coal used in 1973. Last year, only 2000 tonnes was used, even though the amount of building space to heat has increased by 73 percent!

Even the men's toilets have not escaped the drive to save power. Movement sensors have been fitted on to the flushing devices. If no movement is sensed, the flushing stops automatically. This saves the University 30,000 litres of water a week.

Information above is from an article that appeared in Marketing Matters. December, 1994.

(Extract from Infolinc NEWS)

The 1995 Programme: