Page 28 - Priorities #49 2011-April/May

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The Green Page
A letter from the Priory Sustainability Coordinator
Dear Priory Community,
Greetings and a warm welcome to Spring! This school year has witnessed some changes and improvements to the sustainability of Priory operations. My focus this year is on energy efficiency and diversion from landfill. Here are some updates on the school’s progress at this point in time.
Working with helpful representatives from PG&E, the school has hosted auditors, consultants, and installers from third party ‘turn-key’ contractors to assess the efficiency of school energy use. Together, we have identified opportunities for some significant savings of power and money for the school. Repre- sentatives from Matrix Energy Services, San Mateo Energy Watch, and Eco Act have recommended major changes for campus lighting. Within the next month, these companies will be installing or retrofitting nearly 2000 new fixtures around the campus. These changes will be affected at no cost to the school, as part of PG&E’s efforts to assist and subsidize clients with improvements to their energy use.
Additionally, these consultants have helped us to validate the efficient operation of all kinds of appli- ances around campus facilities – from the compressors on our vending machines, to the kitchen’s ventilation system, and from the heating and air conditioning units that make our buildings comfortable, to the pump which is at the core of the pool’s heating and filtration system. As time goes on, we are continually re- evaluating priorities, to maximize the return on investment for any of the low-cost measures that the energy utilities subsidize.
In material efficiency news, the school has also restructured its contract with our waste manager, Gre- enwaste. Working with our account manager, we were able to re-design the shape and flow of our recycling system to improve opportunities for students, teachers, and staff to divert as much material as possible from landfill, and save the school money in the process. The fundamental logic here is, the more recyclables that we get out of our trash bins, the less we pay and the less negatively affect the environment. As another diversion-from-landfill initiative, our intention here is to get food waste out of the trash and into an on- site composting system. Soon, we will be rolling out a new composting program to collect student plate waste. Students are helping with the promotion and implementation of this project, which we hope will tell a good story about our community’s collaborative efforts to close the loop on the disposal of organic