Sinclair360

Sinclair recently received nearly $41,000 from two grants for a “Green Our Scene” recycling campaign.“Sinclair has the capacity, willingness and ingenuity to become the greenest community college in the nation,” stated Allison Rhea, one of the coordinators of Sinclair’s Green Our Scene celebration.

From French fries to lawn care

The first grant, $26,000 from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, allows the college to expand its recycling program. It includes a component to convert waste food oil from Aramark, the college’s food-services operator, into biodiesel fuel processed by Sinclair’s Energy Education Center laboratory. In the initial stages, grounds crews are utilizing an 80 percent diesel-20 percent biodiesel mix in tractors and riding lawn mowers.

“The biodiesel is being used in campus tractors for lawn care and snowplowing. Two tractors have already been converted to use biodiesel,” stated Robert “Woody” Woodruff, Sinclair’s newly named director of facilities management. “All of the necessary test equipment for certifying the biodiesel has been received in the Energy Education Center laboratory. The first batches of biodiesel have been produced and are now in use.”

Woodruff, a retired Marine captain, has become one of the college’s leading boosters of greening efforts. “Our number-one goal has been to keep things out of the waste stream,” he said. “Our grandchildren will be mining the landfills to get back what we, as a society, are throwing away today. And I don’t like that.”

That is one reason that Woodruff was so intrigued by the efforts of Lane Community College in Oregon. Like Sinclair, Lane is a board-member college of the League for Innovation in the Community College. Although Lane is located in a traditionally greener environment than Ohio, Woodruff knew that many of Lane’s recycling efforts could work right here in southwestern Ohio.

Have you comingled today?

A second grant, $14,000 from the Montgomery County Solid Waste District, is allowing the college to significantly expand its recycling program in other highly visible ways. With the grant, the college is making a significant reduction in the amount of waste going into the Montgomery County landfill.

“We have received and put in place 11 indoor and 7 outdoor combination trash-recycling containers,” stated Woodruff. “These containers were purchased with grant monies from the Montgomery County Solid Waste District and matching funds from Sinclair.”

Sinclair’s custodial contractor, L&M, is servicing the trash side of the indoor containers; facilities management services the recycling side. All exterior containers – both trash and recycling sides – continue to be serviced by grounds.

Several other ongoing initiatives have been made possible by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources grant.

They include:

• Purchase of a waste audit being conducted by Resource Development Associates of Beavercreek.
• Purchase of a cardboard compactor, recently installed at the Building 6 loading dock. This allows for the resale of cardboard waste.
• Purchase of U-Trac-It® software and training, to track sustainable waste reduction. U-Trac-It software features a barcode technology that facilitates a comprehensive data-collection and -reporting system. It will allow the college to better inventory recycling and maintenance efforts.

Blowing in the wind

Not all of the college’s green efforts are visible at ground level. Recently a new wind turbine was installed by facilities management on the roof of Building 11. It has a capacity of one kilowatt at a wind speed of 25 mph and is supplying electricity to the Energy Education Center laboratory, located on the first floor of that building. The direct current from the turbine is stored in batteries. An inverter then converts the direct current (DC) from the batteries to 60-cycle, 110-volt alternate current (AC), for use in the laboratory.

“When the technology is fully operational, our students will gain a hands-on understanding of a working wind-turbine system and be able to monitor the wind speed versus the power output using software to estimate the turbine’s output on an hourly and annual basis for a typical meteorological year,” stated Bob Gilbert, who heads the Energy Education Center laboratory. “By plotting the turbine output against average residential hourly use, the students will be able to estimate net metering and simple payback.”

Gilbert went on to say that while the turbine will not produce electricity of a quantity to be noticed at the Sinclair campus electric meter, it will “provide Sinclair students with a tremendous educational tool.”

Walking the walk

Another new college recycling effort is literally underfoot. Now all used carpeting is going to a recycling facility. “Just recently a carpet-replacement project in four college buildings generated 24,000 pounds of waste. The college successfully diverted that waste from entering the Montgomery County Solid Waste District system,” Woodruff proudly stated.

Carpeting is not the only construction debris being recycled. Now other debris – including drywall, lumber and glass – is also recycled.

“Through our recycling efforts, we can reduce Sinclair’s footprint in area landfills; and the recycling can pay for itself,” Woodruff emphasized. “The great part of it is that this is a collaborative effort among faculty, staff and students. But we would not be able to do any of this if we did not have the support of our executive leadership.”

By Gary Honnert

Gary Honnert is marketing communications manager of Workforce Development & Corporate Services. He has more than 35 years’ experience in broadcasting, public relations and nonprofit community relations.