Barry’s Ecological Sustainability Team (BEST) is excited to announce a new Eco-Tip program to bring attention to environmental issues of our day and to let members of Barry University know how they can help reduce the human impact on our ecological community. Each Eco-Tip theme will showcase consequences of human behaviors on the Earth as well as what Barry University is doing to help us live more symbiotically with our natural environment. Together we can become more sustainable and preserve and protect the Earth for all, especially future generations and other members of our natural community who cannot speak for themselves. The inaugural theme for our Eco-Tips is waste reduction through proper planning, reuse of materials, and recycling. Over the next several weeks we will post a new Eco-Tip each week supporting this theme. Each tip will give ideas about what you can do to help.
The tips will appear on BUCWIS and Barry University's homepage. You may subscribe to receive the Eco-Tip of the week in your inbox. Alternatively, an Eco-Tip button on BUCWIS and Student Web, will link you to any Eco-Tips you may have missed.
Did You Know:
- One recycled aluminum can saves enough energy to power a television or computer for 3 hours.
- A six-pack of recycled aluminum cans saves enough energy to drive a car 5 miles.
- Recycling one glass bottle saves enough energy to light a 100-watt light bulb for 4 hours.
Many Barry facilities have implemented single stream recycling and the BEST Recycling Subcommittee has been active throughout the year in dispersing recycling bins and posters throughout multiple Barry campuses. This heightened ability to recycle and additional information about our recycling program should help all members of the Barry community know how we can support single stream recycling efforts. The single most important "do's and don't's" for recycling are:
Do recycle paper, cardboard, and empty glass and plastic bottles and aluminum cans.
Do Not put food or fluids in the recycling bins—food or liquids such as a half cup of coffee or a partially full plastic water bottle can ruin an entire bin of recycled materials.
Click here for what's "in" in the Barry Recycles Program.
There are numerous reasons to recycle:
1. Economic Benefits of Recycling In Florida Include:
- An estimated 32,000 Floridians are employed in recycling
- An estimated 51 percent are employed within private sector; 49 percent in "local" collection/processing
- Annual wage full-time recycling employee = $28,000
- Industry investment in Florida since 1988 = over $2.7 Billion
- An estimated $60 million in tax revenue flows into the state as a direct result of the recycling industry
2. Environmental Benefits of Recycling In Florida Include:
- Less waste buried in landfills, therefore water resources are better protected
- Less Methane gas emissions
- No new landfills constructed
- Less air pollution from burning or incinerating waste
- Saves Natural Resources (raw materials) such as trees, water, sand and oil
- Saves extraction and transportation of raw materials energy
- By recycling one ton of paper, we save 17 trees, 6,953 gallons of water, 463 gallons of oil, 3.06 cubic yards of landfill space and 4,077 kilowatt hours of energy.
3. Waste Reduction Benefits of Barry’s Recycling Program:
- Through Grant funds from Coca Cola, B.E.S.T. deployed recycling bins to augment existing bins. The goal is to have “trash can parity” so that it is just as easy to recycle as throw something away—this result is achieved when every trash can has a recycling bin next to it. Since deploying the new bins, recycling on the Miami Shores Campus has increased from 4 tons per month to 7 tons per month.
- Past grant money from the Florida Bar Association (Environmental and Land Use Law Section) augmented facilities funding at the law school to attain similar trash can parity on the law campus. Although Orange County does not weigh the recyclables collected, One-Two dumpsters per week are filled with recycled materials at the law school, diverting over 400 cubic yards of materials from the Orange County landfill every year.
The Eco-Tip of this week: "Bring your own reusable bottle wherever you go" offers a measure you can use to reduce your ecological footprint.