SUSTAINABLE FSU
October/November Newsletter
IN THIS ISSUE: Featured Program: FSU’s Repurposing of Campus Furniture
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Green Space: The Reuse Cabinet
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Nole in Action: Tim Trefzer
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Featured Program: 3Rs of Sustainability: FSU’s Repurposing of Campus Furniture If you’re reading this while in your residence hall room, or if you’re lounging on campus furniture of any kind, there’s a good chance it’s been repurposed, or will be someday. Florida State University has made it common practice to reduce our footprint by repurposing campus goods and furniture for decades, but this past year’s efforts were one for the books. In recent months, our campus has been undergoing major changes as demolition and construction projects give the campus aesthetic a major facelift. As buildings such as the historic Alumni Village and the old Dorman and Deviney halls come down to make way for new construction, FSU has been tasked with an unprecedented challenge of giving massive amounts of university furniture from these buildings a new life around campus and in our community. The demolition of the 60 year old Alumni Village housing development began in 2014, and posed a major opportunity for the repurposing of the contents of 750 fully furnished units. This event brought together University Housing, the Office of Sustainability, and Solid Waste & Recycling, who worked together to save old furniture and put it to use elsewhere. Most of this furniture was able to be repurposed and donated to local charitable organizations. In total, more than 125 tons were diverted from the landfill. Similar efforts have been put into practice with the recently demolished Dorman and Deviney halls. Everything from mini fridges and mattresses to desk chairs have been swapped out into rooms in new residence halls and put into storage to be used as needed. As our campus continues to be redesigned and improved for the future, efforts are being made daily to put the 3 Rs of sustainability—reducing, reusing, and recycling—into practice. These efforts ensure that as we enjoy the updated look of our campus, we can feel good about the fact that FSU is doing its part to divert waste from landfills and minimize our impact on the earth.
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Green Space: The Reuse Cabinet
Reuse Cabinet, Photo credits: Emmy Schnieder-Green
For the more than 600 active Recognized Student Organizations on our campus, event planning just got a whole lot greener. Recognized Student Organizations, or RSOs, help students find their niche on campus, get involved with a cause, and make a different on and around campus. For the existing organizations and the new ones being formed each year, event planning has always been a core component of running a successful group, but between buying new supplies, and the inevitable wasting of unused ones, event planning isn’t always the most green friendly activity—for your wallet or the planet. About a year ago, FSU Sustainability Fellows Jamie McMillan, Roberto Lantigua, and Melissa Thomas, made it their goal to help alleviate this problem by giving student organizations a way to donate and reuse RSO items while cutting down on unnecessary waste.
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“We really just wanted people to have a place where they could donate a partially used item or retrieve an item for RSO use,” explains sustainability fellow Jamie McMillan. She says they began the process by researching similar systems at other universities. Once they had a clear vision of what this would look like on our campus, they held meetings with board members of the Oglesby Union Operations and Administration team and FSU Student Activities to implement their vision. The reuse cabinet became a reality the fall of this year and is a fully functioning example of how a student-born idea can go from an idea to a tangible sustainable action on campus. The cabinet, located on the third floor of the Oglesby Union in the Student Activities Center near the mailboxes and computers, offers supplies like colored poster board, manila folders, foam lettering, sticky notes, and more. Student organizations can check out supplies by showing their current FSU ID to the desk attendance, checking out the key, and logging what items they’ve taken. Those using the cabinet are asked to return any unused supplies back to the cabinet for future groups to check out. Jamie and the rest of the Sustainability Fellows involved in the project have the vision that the cabinet will help to make a difference by encouraging Noles to be more conscious of the waste they create, and will give them the tools to begin to improve their sustainability actions. She, summarizes the goal of the project, explaining, “We really hope organizations will think about how simple things can make a big difference.”
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Nole in Action: Tim Trefzer For Tim Trefzer, Sustainability Manager at the Georgia World Congress Center Authority, his city of Atlanta has an important role to play as a leader of sustainability in the Southeast. Trefzer, who graduated from Florida State University in 2008, oversees all sustainability aspects of the Congress Center Authority, which comprises a nearly 4 million square foot convention center in the heart of downtown Atlanta as well as the iconic Georgia Dome stadium and Centennial Park. We caught up with Trefzer to hear his thoughts on what sustainability looks like in his field, and to get a glimpse about some upcoming projects he’s involved with, such as the under-construction Atlanta Falcons stadium, which will be one of the greenest stadiums on the planet when completed in spring of 2017. How did your time at FSU influence where you are today? I always assumed I’d be going into some sort of real estate function, prior to finding the Residential Science and Housing program at FSU that I ended up graduating from (the program no longer exists—Trefzer’s class of 2008 was the last to graduate). I’d always been environmentally aware and passionate about sustainability, so when I realized I could combine the two I ran with it. While I was in Tallahassee I did an internship with Mad Dog Design and Construction doing LEED work with them and I just loved it. I directly attribute my time at FSU to me being involved in sustainability. So how did you arrive at the position you’re in now? I moved to Atlanta after graduating and did LEED consulting work for a few years, learning a lot about how buildings operate and how to incorporate sustainability. I wanted to expand my horizons and do something with a more holistic focus on sustainability, and now I’m fortunate to have a job that I really care about and where I have the opportunity to see a difference happening.
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Could you describe what your typical day-to-day looks like? My role has become much more community and outward facing. We’re developing a program where I’d be the point person for the community to help us be better neighbors, because of our impact on the city and our immediate surroundings. We want to minimize those and become a center point in the city where people can come to and know we’re there for a good cause, not solely to bring in tourists. What are some other specific projects you’re working on? LEED (Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design) certification will always be a project of mine for the Congress Center. The Congress Center is the largest convention center in the world to be LEED certified. I work closely with the Falcons at the Georgia Dome to work sustainability into the game day experience, so we’re doing some unique things this seasons like partnering with a recycling sponsor. We’ve got green teams going out into the parking lots incentivizing recycling, and our staff wears “rise up and recycling” buttons at the games. There’s such a great opportunity to create a cultural change within Atlanta through football. How have you seen the focus on sustainability evolve in recent years, specifically here in the South? When I started at this position, I had one of maybe three sustainability convention center positions in the country. Now I know of more than 20 throughout North America. Convention centers have made this a priority. Same goes with the sports industry. The Green Sports Alliance launched in 2011. Initially it included six teams—today it’s got over 300 teams and is wildly popular. People recognize that sports have the opportunity to influence a lot of people. Both of those industries have really embraced sustainability and I don’t think they’ll let go of it any time soon. What does sustainability mean to you? I think sustainability is all about efficiency and not using more than you need to and not being wasteful. I’ve seen a lot of change. It leaves me optimistic that we can continue that trend.
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Produced by:
Editor: Emmy Schneider-Green Design: Thy Le
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