University of Georgia
ER-2: Student Sustainability Outreach Campaign

"Green Cup": An energy, water, and waste reduction competition between the Hill Community Residence Halls, sponsored by the the UGA Parents and Families Foundation, UGA Office of Sustainability, UGA Housing, and the EcoFocus Film Festival. Residence halls receive points once per week for four weeks. These points reflect energy and water use as well as waste production compared to the three prior years’ totals during the same time period and for the same residence hall. Points were assigned based on 1) most electricity saved, 2) least water used, 3) lowest recyclable content in waste percent 4) largest weight of recycled content and 5) most participation in contest events including the kickoff party, an ice cream pool party with eco-trivia, an outdoor film, and a final celebration. "Take Back the Tap": A subsidiary of UGA’s Go Green Alliance, "Take Back the Tap" is a student-run campaign focused on increasing consumer awareness of the consequences associated with disposable bottled water and changing the habits. "Every Watt Counts": A campaign started in 2011 to encourage responsible energy use on the UGA campus. Signage around buildings and outreach campaigns help remind students to turn off lights, monitors, and other sources of electricity use while not in use and to unplug electrical appliances while not in use. "Every Drop Counts": In 2007, UGA launched the “Every Drop Counts!” educational campaign to encourage the campus community to reduce its water use. This campaign was extremely effective in reducing water use through educational messages, signs and other outreach. "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 each spring, colleges across the United States and Canada report the amount of recycling and trash collected each week and are in turn ranked in various categories based on who recycles the most on a per capita basis, as well as which schools have the best recycling rate as a percentage of total waste and which schools generate the least amount of combined trash and recycling. With each week’s updated ranking, participating schools follow their performance against other colleges and use the results to rally their campus to reduce and recycle more.

Green Cup: In 2010, Hill Hall was the winner, conserving 5.2% of its electricity compared to three prior years’ usages, using only 28.91 gallons of water per student per day, and including only 26.43% recyclable content in their average waste. In 2011, the Green Cup went to Hill Hall who saw a 19% reduction in energy use, 29 gallons of water per student per day, and only 14% of the items in their waste stream that could have been recycled. In 2012, Lipscomb Hall saved the most electricity (13.26%), Mell Hall saved the most water (average 27.47 gallons used per student), and Hill participated the most (159 sign-ins at Green Cup events). Lipscomb also won the recycling competition, (.28 pounds of recycling per student). However, in the end, Mell Hall won with the greatest amount of points overall. Every Drop Counts: UGA has maintained a nearly 30% reduction in water use since 2007. Operational upgrades and behavioral modification programs have contributed to a culture of water conservation on campus. Fifteen cisterns on campus collect and store over 530,000 gallons of rain and condensate for reuse in campus bulidings and landscapes, including a gray water reuse system installed in the new LEED-certified residence hall Building 1516. Over fifty rain gardens have been installed to improve storm water and watershed health at UGA. Recyclemania: • Week 1: Feb 25 – Mar 1 – PSYCHOLOGY v. JOURNALISM • Week 2: Mar 4 – 8 – CHEMISTRY v. BIO SCEINCE • Week 3: Mar 18 – 22 – PLANT SCIENCE v. ADERHOLD • Week 4: Mar 25 – 29 – ART v. MUSIC Total Collected (lbs) Psychology 798 Journalism 3395.3 Chemistry 2057.7 Bio Science 2012.5 Plant Science 1305.4 Aderhold 1596.5 Art 1.2 Music 288 TOTAL 11454.6 TOTAL PERCENTAGE 2013 24% (increase from 2012 from 21.77%) Therefore, the Building Competition helped increase our total percent recycled by ~2%. RECYCLEMANIA CUMULATIVE GHG REDUCTIONS 536 Metric Tons of CO2 Equivalent, or 105 cars off the road, or the energy consumption of 46 households. (numbers derived from the US EPA’s Waste Reduction Model (WARM)