Environmentally Conscious in the Library Learning Commons

Throughout the new Library Learning Commons, you'll see numerous recycling stations...

photo by Tracy Holtman

...with slots for trash/garbage, recyclable bottles & cans, and recyclable paper:

photo by Tracy Holtman, modified by Amanda Pape

In the areas with printers, there are new cabinets with slots cut in the top for recycling paper:

photo by Amanda Pape

We also have new water fountains in the lobby area across from the restrooms:

photo by Tracy Holtman

One of the fountains has a place to refill your travel cups and water bottles, activated by a sensor.  It also measures the number of plastic bottles being saved from the landfill.  The new Library Learning Commons has only been open two weeks, and already the count is at 258!

photo by Tracy Holtman, modified by Amanda Pape

Earth Day - April 22nd!

Do you care about the environment?  Do you actively try to save the planet?  The Environmental Protection Agency offers many ways you can commit to protect the environment this Earth Day:

• Pick five activities to save the environment.
• Participate in the Environment in a Day photo project or Six Words for the Planet contest.
• Find Earth Day events and activities across the country.

Come by the library to see displays about how the Tarleton recycling program is helping to reduce waste and save the planet!  

You can see all the toner cartridges used in library printers - just since January!  

Earth day is important reminder to think about the environment and our planet and how we need to protect it. 

Top Ten Tuesday: 10 Easy Ways to Conserve H2O

With the current drought conditions in Texas and most other southern states, conserving water has become an urgent need, and it's a need that each of us can take steps to address.

For starters, check out the eBay Green Team's 10 easy water-saving tips that can “significantly cut back on the 80 gallons of H2O that the average American uses every day.”

1. Slow the flow
2. Flush smarter
3. Put less down the drain
4. Turn it off
5. Fill ‘er up!
6. Think ahead
7. Check for leaks
8. Raise your glass
9. Catch what you can
10. Grow it out

Information about the eBay Green Team.

Top Ten Reasons to Go Green

With Earth day just around the corner, and spring season upon us many start to think of ways to go green. There are many reasons for going green conserving resources, clean air, and clean water to name just a few.


Click on the link to visit livestrong.com and see what their 10 reasons are for going green.


http://www.livestrong.com/article/156841-top-10-reasons-why-we-should-go-green/

Top Ten Tuesday: "To Go Green, or Not to Go Green" Week

Ten things you can do during Tarleton's "To Go Green, or Not to Go Green" Week, sponsored by the Communication Studies Department, April 26-30, 2010:

1. Check out the website: http://tinyurl.com/TARLETONGREENWEEK

2-5. View the four entries for this year's speech competition - http://tinyurl.com/GOGREENVIDEOS

6. View the 27 PostSecret cards on the TarletonGreenWeek webpage OR in the Dick Smith Library outer lobby display case (near the coffee bar).

7-9. Go to this Google Doc survey and vote:

• Which of the four speakers you feel was the BEST speaker for the "To Go Green, or to Not Go Green" speech contest
• Which PostSecret card is the MOST CREATIVE
• Which PostSecret card has the MOST IMPACT

10. Follow the Twitter account @TarletonSpeech (http://www.twitter.com/TarletonSpeech) to participate in daily discussions (and contests) focused on the green movement.

Live Green, Breathe Purple!

Learn More, Get Involved, Take Action -- Useful Top Tens

It's Top Ten Tuesday, plus April is Keep America Beautiful month, Thursday is Earth Day, and April 30th is Arbor Day. What a great time to check out ways to reduce, reuse, and recycle, as well as embrace going green.

10 Top Tens: Ideas, Tips, Resources, and News

• Emerging Environmental Technologies – from LiveScience
• Endangered Species – from World Wildlife Fund for Nature
• Environmental Films – from Karl Burkart at Mother Nature Network
• Green Jobs – from InventorSpot
• Green Trends – from Government Technology Magazine
• Green Twitterers to Check Out – from Yuka Yoneda
• Reasons to Recycle – from the National Recycling Coalition
• Ways to be Green – from Yahoo! Green
• Ways to be Greener Through Better Networking – from Mark Leary at Cisco Systems
• Ways to Save the Planet – from HowStuffWorks

Live Green, Breathe Purple -- Check it Out

Thinking and Living Green!

Earth Day is April 22 & Arbor Day is April 24!

What a great time to consider what we can all do to "live a little greener," which is something many of us long to do. However, it's often hard to find out how to go about doing that.

To meet this information need, Discovery Channel offers Planet Green -- "a global initiative including a television network, interactive tools and 'how-to' resources."

This site offers "solutions-oriented tips and information" we all can use to live greener. Features include "fan sites, articles about how to go green, forums where users can interact," advice from experts, and articles from Discovery Channel's eco-savvy writers. "Passionate, positive, and always practical, Planet Green is bursting with smart tips and inspiring advice."

Discovery Channel also offers a sister site, TreeHugger, which posts "the latest in green news, opinions, interviews, and trends," as well as "the cutting-edge scoop on green architecture, design, gadgets, technology, fashion, health, politics, science, and more."

Check these sites out & go green!

The Quest for Sustainable Balance

"One can only call that youth healthful which refuses to be reconciled to old ways and which, foolishly or shrewdly, combats the old. This is nature’s charge and all progress hinges upon it."

The truth in Anton Chekhov's words is played out daily by young people world-wide as they take action individually, in groups, and with communities to help restore balance in nature.

This committment to action is easy to spot in the submissions to the 2008 P3 Award Competition, which "is a national student design contest administered by EPA's National Center for Environmental Research." This competition fosters "projects to benefit people, promote prosperity, and protect the planet (P3)."

Student project titles for 2008 include

• A Novel Reactor Design for Efficient Production of Biodiesel from High Free-Fatty-Acid Oils
• Catching the Wind: A Low Cost Method for Wind Power Site Assessment
• Electrochemical Arsenic Remediation in Rural Bangladesh
• Production of Natural Plastics in Wastewater Treatment
• The Boone Bicycle Initiative: A Community Based Project to Promote Bicycles as an Alternative Mode of Transportation

Want to learn more? Just go to P3: People, Prosperity and the Planet Student Design Competition for Sustainability and you can.

Who knows, maybe Tarleton students could be the next winners. Think Green!

Living Green

Continuing the Earth Day theme, here are some books that will help you understand WHY it is so important to change our ways. Kermit the Frog has told us that it's not easy being green. These books inform us that it will be much worse if we choose NOT to be 'green'.

Porritt. Capitalism as if the world matters (HC79.E5 P667 2007 in the Dick Smith Library) and
Sachs. Common Wealth: Economics for a crowded planet.

Our real enemy is not a political one, but ourselves, because we ignore the perils of climate change. You may have heard of an ancient Pogo cartoon 'We have Met the Enemy and He Is Us'. We may have a little time to change the direction our world has taken. Check out what cities are doing:
Dallas
Chicago

AND, how 'bout them libraries? Green Libraries

As you become involved in building projects--your home, your place of employment, etc., think about your environmental footprint.

Paper or Plastic?

Battle of the Bags offers an interesting, interactive exploration of the impact bagging choices have on the environment.

The slides and video/audio clips give information about the environmental impact (production, recycling, and disposal) of bagging choices, state laws, and the impact of consumers' choices.

Paper or plastic? The answer is more complex than it sounds. Check it out!