VCU Celebrates First Sustainability Day

By Dawn Lyons

The Virginia Commonwealth University community today celebrated green initiatives on campus during the first VCU Campus Sustainability Day – an event involving students, faculty and staff taking action against waste and exchanging ideas toward a more sustainable environment.

More than 30 vendors and exhibitors promoting green initiatives and highlighting environmental efforts filled the University Student Commons Plaza.  

“We had a great turnout today,” said Jordan Starbuck, sustainability coordinator at VCU. “This is the first time we had something like this on our campus.” According to Starbuck, the activities had been in planning for over a month.

During the event, students were able to sample free food while crowds gathered for Segway tours. Among the exhibitors present, Clark Lovelady and Tim Adkins of Backyard Farmer, a sustainable agriculture and landscaping company, demonstrated how they take food waste from a local market and process it into compost for future fertilization use.

“This event signifies that VCU is moving toward a positive direction,” said VCU student Vinita Phonseya. “It’s also a sign that students are on board with sustainability.”

Other highlights included composting demonstrations; free organic and locally grown food served with100 percent biodegradable plates, napkins and utensils; and the presence of Green Unity 4 VCU – a student environmental group, which provided seed bombs for fall planting. In addition, computers and other electronic devices were collected for recycling.

VCU has been taking steps to limit its footprint in environmental waste. Facilities management now uses two Vantage Electric TruckAll trucks, which reduce gas house emissions by 99 percent compared to diesel-powered trucks. A new rain garden also is being developed for a storm water management system.

In addition, 15 trash collectors called "Big Bellies" recently were added on the Monroe Park and MCV Campuses. Completely self-powered, Big Bellies compact garbage using solar energy, allowing the bins to hold up to five times the amount of waste than that of a regular trash bin.

“VCU is on the forefront of sustainability,” said Starbuck. “Everyone needs to make better decisions and how we go about our daily lives. VCU is just trying to help empower those decisions.”