MPS IS G OING G REEN P RESENTATION

C ONTENTS  Why should we recycle organics materials and how is it done at MPS?  Why should we recycle mixed materials and how is it done at MPS?  What are the benefits of energy efficiency and how can we be energy efficient?

O RGANICS R ECYCLING

W HAT IS O RGANICS R ECYCLING ?  Recycling means turning trash into something useful.  Organics recycling is the recycling of organic material – anything that once was alive – into compost, a special kind of dirt.  Composting happens naturally and requires very little energy input.

W HY DO ORGANICS RECYCLING ? E NVIRONMENTAL B ENEFITS Organic matter can turn into compost (dirt or fertilizer), which supports plant growth. So don’t throw it out! Organic scraps … …become compost… …that is used for planting.

W HY DO ORGANICS RECYCLING ? E NVIRONMENTAL B ENEFITS  Reduces Waste Waste and what to do with it is a growing problem. We send our waste to the HERC incinerator Each year in Hennepin County we generate enough waste to fill the Metro Dome 11 times! That’s about seven pounds of trash per person, per day! Between % of our waste is compostable. All of the organics recycling programs are diverting 6-7 tons of trash to organics each month. o Our compost is being used in construction sites. Pictures from the HERC incinerator, MPR Photo/Stephanie Hemphill

W HY DO ORGANICS RECYCLING ? E DUCATIONAL B ENEFITS  Creates an educational opportunity for students.  Students can visit a composting site, to see how works  Or students can create their own compost piles as experiments to learn about the scientific process or how decomposition works.  Cultivates thoughtful attitudes among students, teachers and staff.  Fits into MN curriculum standards

W HY DO ORGANICS RECYCLING ? E CONOMIC B ENEFITS  Hauling organic matter is cheaper than hauling trash because of tax incentives and reduced processing fees.  Organic matter is currently exempt from taxes.  Reduced pick-up frequency reduces our trash hauling fee.

MPS O RGANICS R ECYCLING  MPS is working hard to make organics recycling run smoothly.  MPS negotiated a resource management contract with our waste hauler that: o Bundles waste, mixed recycling and organics hauling o Calculates monthly recycling rates by building o Builds in a performance incentive for increasing recycling and decreasing costs o MPS is one of the first Minnesota school districts to so aggressively manage this expenditure

MPS O RGANICS R ECYCLING  Last year, only Burroughs and Lake Harriet- Upper had an organics recycling program.  MPS received a grant from Hennepin County during to pay for organics recycling start- up costs, allowing more schools to participate. o This year, 21 schools are participating

MPS O RGANICS R ECYCLING  MPS provides an organics coordinator handbook, organics flyers and signs, a volunteer training presentation and the materials necessary to start the program.  MPS demonstrated how teaching about organics recycling fits MN curriculum benchmarks to make learning about organics relevant.  MPS posted curriculum resources to make learning about organics easier.  MPS also created Green Reports for each school. These give each buildings “carbon footprint”, and can be used to see how buildings match-up.

MPS O RGANICS R ECYCLING  Participating schools must commit to the program with:  An organics coordinator  A lunchroom orientation  Engaged students, and staff!

MPS ORGANICS RECYCLING  Students, teaching staff, and building engineers all play important roles in making organics recycling successful.  Building engineers need to commit to picking up the organics recycling and keeping it separate from the waste.  Staff can explain how organics recycling works, and give students opportunity to get more involved with the program.  Students make the program work! Students can help by monitoring the lunchroom stations, making signs, and thinking of other creative ideas like contests between lunchrooms

MPS O RGANICS R ECYCLING PROCEDURES At the end of each lunch period  Volunteers will supervise students as they move through the recycling stations.  Students will pour liquids into buckets and put food scraps into organics bins.

MPS O RGANICS R ECYCLING PROCEDURES Liquids Procedures:  Students will dump all liquids (from milk cartons, juice boxes, etc.) into a bucket with a strainer that will remove any solids.  Engineers will flush liquid down the drains.  This process reduces the weight of garbage and saves money when it is hauled away.

MPS O RGANICS R ECYCLING PROCEDURES Food Scraps Procedures:  Students will deposit food scraps and other compostables (napkins, wax paper, milk cartons, etc.) into the green organics barrel.  The bag is compostable (and expensive!). Please make sure it is full before disposing of it.  Students will crush milk cartons to save space in the bags. Lunch Trays Procedures:  The new paper lunch trays should be placed in the compost bin.

M IXED R ECYCLING

B EFORE R ECYCLING  Always remember REDUCING comes first.  Recycling is better than throwing away materials, but the products still were made.  Creating anything, takes energy and resources.  Energy and resources should be conserved.  Check out how products were made---How was this product mined, logged, built?

W HAT IS M IXED R ECYCLING ?  Recycling means turning trash into something useful.  Mixed recycling is the recycling of many different types of plastics, metals and paper into new products.  Allied Recycling picks up our mixed recyclables, in a single stream, no sort process. Here is a video showing how it works: bank-cycle.php

W HY DO MIXED RECYCLING ? E NVIRONMENTAL B ENEFITS  Recycling turns what could be waste into useful products.  At MPS, Allied Waste takes our mixed recycling and sends it to mills, which turn plastics back into plastic, paper back into paper, cardboard back into cardboard and aluminum back into aluminum!

W HY DO MIXED RECYCLING ? E NVIRONMENTAL B ENEFITS  Recycling almost always saves energy.  Using recycled aluminum scrap to make new aluminum cans uses 95% less energy than making aluminum cans from bauxite ore, the raw material used to make aluminum.  Recycled cans are typically back on the self in two months.  The EPA found that recycling can reduce climate change.

W HY DO MIXED RECYCLING ? E NVIRONMENTAL B ENEFITS  Recycling means manufactures do not have to mine virgin materials.  Mining can be very harmful to the environment, and a very dangerous occupation.  Mining for Gold, which is used in many electronics is particularly dangerous, and harmful because gold is mainly found in remote locations.  Extracting a single ounce of gold—the amount in a typical wedding ring—requires the removal of more than 250 tons of rock and ore, even in model gold mines Surface mining

W HY DO MIXED RECYCLING ? E NVIRONMENTAL B ENEFITS  Reduces Waste Waste and what to do with it is a growing problem. Each year in Hennepin County we generate enough waste to fill the Metro Dome 11 times! That’s about seven pounds of trash per person, per day! MPS waste is sent to the HERC incinerator Pictures from the HERC incinerator, MPR Photo/Stephanie Hemphill

W HY DO MIXED RECYCLING ? E DUCATIONAL B ENEFITS  Provides an opportunity to learn where products come from and what happens to them after we finish with them.  Provides an opportunity to think about our daily actions. How do our actions affect the earth, and how does what happens to earth affect us?  MPS also created Green Reports for each school. These give each buildings carbon footprint, and can be used to see how buildings match-up.  Fits into MN curriculum standards

MPS M IXED R ECYCLING PROCEDURES  Place blue mixed recycling bins in convenient, noticeable and busy areas. Hallways Classrooms Cafeteria  Make sure recycling bins are not too full  So people aren’t forced to use the trash instead of recycling.  Prominently display recycling signs and information.

M IXED R ECYCLING P ROCEDURES  Don’t forget your electronics can also be recycled.  Electronics contain metal, which takes tremendous amounts of energy to extract, and is often done in dangerous and polluting ways.  Recycling electronics is a way to avoid those problems, because the metal in electronics can be re-used reducing the need to mine  Cell phones, and computers and often re-fitted and given to people in need.

MPS M IXED R ECYCLING PROCEDURES  Stop and think before you put something in the trash.  Ask, “Can it be recycled?”

MPS M IXED R ECYCLING PROCEDURES  At MPS there is no sorting. All mixed recycled materials go in blue recycling bins

E NERGY E FFICIENCY

 What is Energy?  Energy is the ability to do work.  Energy heats homes, runs refrigerators, moves cars, lights streets and allows you to run.  There are different forms of energy. Renewable Energy is energy that can be made quickly, like wind energy. Non-Renewable Energy is energy that takes millions of years to be made.

E NERGY E FFICIENCY  Non-renewable energy sources are fossil fuels: coal, natural oil, and gas.  Fossil Fuels are formed from the remains of dead plants and animals in special processes that take millions of years.  Fossil Fuels represent stored energy, stored carbon, and stored toxins.

E NERGY E FFICIENCY  MPS gets its electrical energy from Xcel Energy.  Xcel Energy uses a mix of non-renewable (80%) and renewable energy (20%) sources to provide electricity.  This mix includes nuclear, gas, hydo-power and wind.  Xcel’s nuclear energy comes in part from the Prairie Island nuclear power plant  Much of Xcel’s hydro-power comes from plants in Canada.

E NERGY E FFICIENCY  MPS gets its gas from Center Point.  Most of the Center Point’s gas (85-90%) comes through pipelines from the Gulf of Mexico. The remainder of the gas comes from Canada.  Gas runs to schools through pipes.  Center Point maintains a gas meter to gauge gas usage.

E NERGY E FFICIENCY  Much of the energy MPS is using comes from fossil fuels.  Using fossil fuels releases stored carbon and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.  As the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere increases so does the temperature of the earth.  This process is known as climate change.

E NERGY E FFICIENCY  Climate change affects how we all will live.  On a warmer earth, icebergs will melt, raising sea levels.  Do you know people who live by the ocean? Will they have to move if the ocean rises?  Plants and animals have adapted to live in certain climates. If climate change happens too quickly, they may not survive.  What is your favorite animal? Do you think it will survive?

E NERGY E FFICIENCY E NVIRONMENTAL B ENEFITS  Burning fossil fuels releases toxins like sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, soot and mercury.  If we use less fuel by being energy efficient, we will create less pollution.

E NERGY E FFICIENCY E NVIRONMENTAL B ENEFITS  Using less energy means that less energy has to be made.  Making energy from non-renewable sources involves mining for coal or drilling for oil.  Mining and drilling can be very harmful to the environment. Surface mining

E NERGY E FFICIENCY E NVIRONMENTAL B ENEFITS  By using fewer fossil fuels, we can:  Stop or lessen climate change  Stop acid rain and soot production  Hennepin County is committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050  We can do this by being more EFFICIENT. This means being smart and making the best choices when using energy.

E NERGY E FFICIENCY E DUCATIONAL B ENEFITS  Thinking about energy provides an opportunity to learn where products come from and what happens to them after we finish with them. It also fits into MN curriculum standards.  Visit the EPA’s website for educational recycling and energy games:  rotectors/index.htm rotectors/index.htm  Visit the Energy Information Administration’s site for more games and curriculum: 

E NERGY E FFICIENCY E CONOMIC B ENEFITS  Being efficient with energy is good for plants, animals and you. It also saves money!  Energy costs for heating, cooling and lighting are very expensive. In most schools, energy costs more than books and supplies. Only paying salaries costs more.  MPS spends $15 million per year on energy costs.

E NERGY E FFICIENCY E CONOMIC B ENEFITS  Reducing energy use is a good way to save money.  It is possible to save money on energy without experiencing too much hardship because experts estimate that up to 25% of energy used in schools is wasted.  It is wasted through inefficiencies, like not turning off lights, old heating and cooling systems, and printing excessively.  We can fix this by being more efficient!

E NERGY E FFICIENCY W HAT MPS IS D OING ?  MPS is taking steps to be energy efficient:  Upgraded more than 141 boilers, so they use less energy to heat water  Preventive maintenance program to improve heating and cooling efficiency  Retrofit systems using more energy efficient technology while aggressively pursuing rebates to offset the costs of the upgrades

E NERGY E FFICIENCY  More Steps the district is taking...  Working to improve monitoring systems to find ways to reduce energy consumption even more.  Improving bus efficiency by retrofitting 40% of MPS-owned diesel buses with special recirculation valves to significantly reduce emissions

E NERGY E FFICIENCY H OW TO BE E NERGY EFFICIENT  Here are some simple ways you can reduce energy use.  Lighting accounts for 50% of energy costs.  Turn off lights when they are not in use.  Open the blinds during the day to use natural light.  Close the blinds at night to keep the room warm.

E NERGY E FFICIENCY H OW TO BE E NERGY EFFICIENT  Powering the monitor accounts for 50% of the energy a computer uses.  Turn your computer monitor to “off” or “sleep” when it is not in use.  Do NOT shut down any Mac Computers or Windows computers in labs. IT services performs updates on these computers after hours, and has already programmed them to automatically go to “sleep” mode.  Turn off printers, copiers and other office equipment at the end of every day.  Turn off and unplug electronics and personal appliances.

E NERGY E FFICIENCY H OW TO BE E NERGY E FFICIENT  Use MPS Green Reports to find out every building’s carbon footprint.  With this information, you can find out where energy savings can be made.

E NERGY E FFICIENCY H OW TO BE E NERGY E FFICIENT  Have fun with Green Reports!  You could: Have a contest to find out whose more efficient middle-schoolers or the elementary students?

E NERGY E FFICIENCY H OW TO B E E NERGY E FFICIENT  Water conservation is a part of energy savings and efficiency.  Save water by:  Not letting water run When washing your hands turn the water on to wet them and then turn it off while soaping.  Reporting leaks to maintenance staff immediately  Maximizing natural cover in outdoor landscaping

E NERGY E FFICIENCY H OW TO B E E NERGY E FFICIENT  Energy efficiency improves our environment and saves money.  Little steps and big steps both count.

E NERGY E FFICIENCY H OW TO B E E NERGY E FFICIENT  It’s up to you!