Sustainability
Oakland University is dedicated to being a campus of choice and sustainability is a core part of this initiative. A key element of sustainability is recycling — we are excited to roll out the OU RECYCLES campaign. OU uses single-stream recycling, which streamlines the collection process on campus. The recycling effort at OU ensures items that enter the waste stream will eventually be used to make other products for sale and reduce the need to use additional natural resources.
Green Buildings and Sustainable Design
The Fall 2013 semester saw the opening of Oakland University's first green building project, the geothermal/solar thermal Human Health Science Building. The HHB is Oakland's first geothermal heat pump installation, and it includes an innovative desiccant cooling system powered by one of the largest solar thermal energy system in the U.S. The building uses a newer form of technology, Variable Refrigerant Flow heat pumps. These heat pumps use variable speed compressors and serve multiple refrigerant zones per unit. OU was awarded a $2.75M U.S. Department of Energy grant to help fund this innovative green building concept.
University Energy Usage and Cost
Take a look at the historical usage and cost of the west campus utilities over the past decade. About $380 is spent each year per Full Year Equivalent Student (FY2010 data). This equates to about 4% of a full time student's tuition (based on 15 credit hours for two semesters).
Heating and Cooling Policy
Policy 300 Air Conditioning and Heating explicitly states that non-OU personal electric heaters are prohibited on campus. Electric heaters cover up HVAC issues, create fire hazards and consume SIGNIFICANT amounts of electricity. However, an innovative, controlled heater will be provided in cases where your area's HVAC cannot provide the proper heating. Please contact the Work Control Center at ext 2381 to report a problem or request a heater, or submit an on-line request.
Sustaining Our Planet Earth (SOPE)
Facilities and Grounds teams, including Director of Facility Services, Douglas LaLone and Assistant Director for Residential Facilities, Kevin McDougall, partnered with Sustaining Our Planet Earth (SOPE) and OU student Mustafa Baig, to put on a Campus Clean Up event!
SOPE is a University Housing led sustainability initiative seeking to make our campus community more sustainable, educate students and staff on sustainable practices, and enact sustainable plans and change for our University.
This Campus Clean Up event allowed for litter to be picked up around our campus, near our residential spaces, and the upper fields. Both students and staff joined SOPE in an effort to take responsibility for our campus, address the concern of improper trash disposal and to leave our university just as beautiful as we found it as we close out the school year.
It was a successful and enjoyable event for all involved and Facilities looks forward to partnering on future events!
Additional Campus Sustainability Efforts:
Recycling news and information:
The Detroit Free Press published an interesting article about recycling mistakes.
America Recycles Day
November 15th
Benefits of Recycling
- Reduces the amount of waste sent to landfills and incinerators.
- Conserves natural resources such as timber, water, and minerals.
- Increases economic security by tapping a domestic source of materials.
- Prevents pollution by reducing the need to mine raw materials.
- Saves energy.
- Supports American manufacturing and conserves valuable resources.
- Creates new jobs in the recycling and manufacturing industries in the United States.
What You Can Do To Reduce Waste
Find out what you can do to make a difference in our environment every day. Whether you're at home, on the go, in the office or at school, there are many opportunities to go green by reducing, reusing, and recycling. Visit the links below:
Also, check out our Think Green Before You Shop poster for questions you can ask yourself before shopping to reduce, reuse, and recycle more.
Recycling Saves Resources and Creates Jobs
In 2016, EPA published significant findings on the economic benefits of the recycling industry with an update to the national Recycling Economic Information REI study. This study analyzes the numbers of jobs, wages, and tax revenues attributed to recycling. The study found that in a single year, recycling and reuse activities in the United States accounted for:
- 681,000 jobs.
- $37.8 billion in wages.
- $5.5 billion in tax revenues.
This equates to 1.17 jobs for every 1,000 tons of materials recycled.
The ferrous metals industry provides the largest contribution to all three categories (job, wage, and tax revenue), followed by construction and demolition, and non-ferrous metals such as aluminum.
Recycle More, Recycle Right
How often do you ask yourself what's right to put in your recycling bin? Next time you go to throw something away, get creative and think of ways to reduce waste in the first place! There are many ways to improve the recycling rate. Check out our What You Can Do to Improve the Recycling Rate fact sheet for ideas on how you can improve your recycling. Additionally, check out our poster to the right and our How Do I Recycle?: Common Recyclables webpage to learn how to recycle more and recycle right.
Check out our Frequent Questions on Recycling page for more information on ways you can contribute.
Save Energy By Recycling
Recycling everyday objects, such as paper, bottles and magazines, saves energy. The materials that you recycle are used to create the products you buy. This means less virgin material needs to be mined or harvested, processed, manufactured, and transported - all of which consumes energy. The iWARM tool is based on EPA's Waste Reduction Model (WARM) for solid waste planners and organizations. iWARM can be used to calculate how much energy organizations can save and how much greenhouse gases they can avoid by recycling versus landfilling their waste.
The Sustainability Task Force challenges every OU staff and faculty member to pick at least one sustainable Earth Day practice to try this month. If you do, we'd love to see it! Send photos of your sustainable practice to [email protected].
What is stormwater?
Stormwater is the rainfall or snowmelt that flows over our yards, streets, parking lots, and buildings and either enters the storm drain system or runs directly into a lake or stream.
What is a storm drain?
Storm drains are the openings you see along curbs and in streets and parking lots. They carry away rainwater and snowmelt and transport it through the system to nearby lakes and streams. Water and other debris that enter storm drains do not go to a treatment facility.
What is a sanitary sewer?
A sanitary sewer takes household water and waste from toilets, sinks and showers, and transports it to a wastewater treatment facility. There, the water is treated and then discharged back to a lake or stream.
How does stormwater get polluted?
As stormwater flows over our lawns and driveways, it picks up fertilizers, oil, chemicals, grass clippings, litter, pet waste, and anything else in its path. The storm drain system then transports these pollutants, now in the water, to local lakes and streams. Anything that goes into a storm drain eventually ends up in a lake or stream.
In Michigan, communities are coming together to address stormwater management on a watershed basis. In the Clinton River watershed, seven subwatershed planning groups have formed: Upper Clinton, Clinton Main, Stony/Paint, North Branch, Red Run, Clinton River East, and Lake St. Clair Direct Drainage.
Stormwater pollution has become the predominant source of water quality and habitat impairments in the Clinton River and its tributaries. Under Phase II of the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES), part of the Clean Water Act, more than 40 local and county governments and numerous other public entities across the watershed must meet federal and state standards for reducing stormwater pollution leaving their jurisdiction.
Each group has charted a course to fulfill the requirements of their stormwater permits by working together on a subwatershed basis, sharing data and information and creating joint planning documents.
Oakland University is located inside the Clinton Main subwatershed.
Additional information regarding Oakland University's Stormwater Management program can be found at the Office of Environmental Health and Safety website.
Facilities Management
411 Pioneer Drive
Rochester, MI 48309-4482
(location map)
Siraj Khan
Associate Vice President for Facilities Management
Oakland University
Rochester, Michigan 48309-4401
(248) 370-2160
