Sustainability

RecycleMania returns to Elon this month for the university’s fifth year taking part in a recycling competition involving hundreds of colleges and universities across the nation, including 19 institutions of higher learning in the state of North Carolina. New this year is an Elon campus contest where students spotted recycling at certain times of the week can win extra Phoenix cash for their efforts.

Elon University has been included in the National Wildlife Federation’s Campus Ecology 2010 campus sustainability case studies, the only database of its kind in the United States to highlight campus climate and sustainability efforts ranging from recycling and energy efficiency to alternative transportation systems and green jobs training programs.

The Elon University Board of Trustees voted Oct. 22 to designate a 56-acre undeveloped tract north of University Drive as the Elon University Forest, a dedicated land preserve and natural area. The action protects the largest remaining intact forest in the Town of Elon and safeguards thousands of species of plants, animals and other organisms.

Elon University’s fourth annual POWERless Energy Competition concluded this month with students in Danieley Center C receiving top honors for reducing their building’s power usage by almost a third of what it consumed during a baseline measurement period.

Elon's Office of Sustainability presents the GREEN TIP of the week: Look mom, no tupperware! Certain take out boxes, like the soup containers from Chinese restaurants, can be used again and again

The mayor of a Kansas town that turned itself into a “green” community following a tornado in 2007 visits Elon University this month to talk about the challenges and successes his town discovered throughout the recovery and rebuilding process.