Category: Green Weinberg

Fabric Recycling Drive

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November 2, 2010

7:52 pm

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If you have any old and used fabric that you are looking to get rid of…

The Friends of the Poor is sponsoring a Recyclable Fabric Drive.

They are accepting old, used, torn, stained, and tattered fabric items, which include: Clothings, Shoes, Boots, Outerwear, Sheets, Blankets, Pillows, Towels, Curtains, Tablecloths, Bedspreads, Back-packs, Purses, Belts, Socks, Hates, Gloves, Stuffed animals, Area rugs, etc..

The Drop off location is at:

Our Lady of Peace Parking Lot

University Ave (Marywood U. Campus)

Scranton, PA

Come by on:

Thursday November 4, from 8am to 5pm

Friday, November 5, from 8am to 5pm

Satuday, November 6, from 8am to 5pm

Sunday, November 7, from Noon to 3pm

Green Team On the Move

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October 28, 2010

10:26 am

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The Weinberg Library’s Green Team met yesterday to talk over some new ideas and projects.  Here’s a taste of what we have in store for the next few months:

  • Keep an eye out for a new water bottle filling station in our 24 hour space…
  • …where you can use your custom-designed Weinberg Memorial Library reusable water bottle.
  • Mark your calendar for Earth Week 2011.  The Library will be celebrating with our first ever environmental art show and a recycled material craft night.
  • Everyone loves the new double-sided printer in the new 24-hour space.  No guarantees, but we’re working on getting another one for the Pro Deo room.
  • Recycling should be easy… so we’ll be adding some holders by our bins to remind you to remove your bottle caps before recycling any plastic bottles.

Many thanks to all of the students, faculty, and staff who have been giving us suggestions on making the Library greener!

Save Money AND Paper

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October 25, 2010

1:54 pm

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Too often, we see students printing out page after page of PowerPoint lecture slides, with just a few words on each page.  Why not save money AND save paper by printing multiple slides per page?

The Weinberg Library Green Team will be posting these fliers (printed on reused paper, naturally) around our computer labs to remind all of our students and patrons to be conscious of how much they’re using.  If you have any trouble with mutiple-slide printing, just ask for help at the Reference Desk!

Go Green with GoodGuide

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October 22, 2010

11:04 am

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The Weinberg Memorial Library has been working hard lately to make sure that our building is as sustainable as possible.  We set up a green team, we’ve upgraded our lights with more energy-efficient bulbs, and we’re really pushing recycling.

But the Library faculty and staff have also been chatting lately about the best ways that we can go green in our personal lives.  Many of us have started carrying reusable water bottles and coffee mugs instead of using disposable cups.  Some of us have switched to buying recycled paper towels and napkins for our homes.  The more you think about going green, though, the more confusing it can get.  A lot of products these days advertise themselves as green, but which ones are really best for the environment?

Enter GoodGuide, a website created by a University of California-Berkeley professor of environmental policy that rates commonly used products on how environmentally friendly and healthy they are. GoodGuide uses a pretty intense methodology to examine each product, from its contents to the impact of its manufacturing processes.  But they also translate that information into scores that are easy for consumers to understand, and their website makes it easy to compare product types across brands.  (For example, I compared brands of contact solution – only to find out that the product I’ve been using for years got one of the worst rankings!)

GoodGuide's picks for the best and worst toothpastes

GoodGuide is a “B Corporation,” which means that it’s a for-profit company that has made a public commitment to environmentalism and social justice.  The company makes money by selling its analysis results back to manufacturers or retailers who want to use it for market research or to improve their products (see this recent Newsweek article on GoodGuide’s business strategy).  So their business depends on the accuracy of their information, which makes me feel a little more comfortable trusting their website.  I also like that if you want more information about a product, you can drill down to see how GoodGuide assigned its score and get details on how the ingredients and life cycle assessment were judged.  And of course I’m excited to try GoodGuide’s free iPhone app – you can scan barcodes of products to get environmental ratings on the go, while you’re shopping.

So take a second to search for some of your favorite brands – you might find that a greener option is just another step down the grocery aisle!

Recycling in Style

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July 6, 2010

3:28 pm

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You might have seen in one of our earlier posts that the Weinberg Memorial Library recently started a Green Team.  We’ve wasted no time getting started on making the Library a more sustainable place to study and work.

This month, the Library purchased new WedgeCycle recycling bins to encourage our patrons to separate their recyclable paper, bottles, and cans from other non-recyclable waste.  We’re hoping that the bright colors (blue for bottles & cans, green for office paper, brown for trash) and clear labeling will remind everyone to think before they toss.

You’ll find our new recycling bins on each floor of the Library.  We’ve put them in what we think are the most convenient locations for students – so if you see someone about to throw away a plastic bottle or a stack of office paper, please remind them to look for the recycling station instead of the trash can!

A Greener Weinberg Library, Coming this Fall

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June 24, 2010

11:36 am

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Earlier this week, a group of Weinberg Memorial Library staff and faculty members took a break from our regular Library work to brainstorm about what we could do to make our Library more sustainable.  We came up with a lot of great ideas, from water bottle refill stations to cutting down on paper memos.  And there are even a few things that we’ve already started doing – our Physical Plant staff uses green cleaning products to keep the Library neat and shiny, and we’ve begun a switch to more energy efficient lighting.

At the end of the meeting, we formed the first ever Weinberg Memorial Library Green Team.  Sixteen members of the Library staff and faculty volunteered to participate, and those members represent nine of the Library’s different departments: Administration, Archives, Cataloging, Circulation, Digital Services, Media, Reference, Serials & Acquisitions, and Systems.  We also hope to have a representative from Student Government join us.

Throughout the next few months, the new Green Team will be starting to implement our ideas. Check back here at Infospot @WML for the latest news, and please comment if you have any suggestions for us!

P.S. If you’re interested in what’s happening with sustainability on the University of Scranton campus, take a look at the University’s Task Force on Sustainability web site.

Earth Week at the Library End Review

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May 2, 2010

4:55 pm

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So the week of April 19th was our first celebration of Earth Week here at the library. For those of you that haven’t been keeping up, we created some displays to try to become more environmentally conscious, and hopefully inspire some of the students to waste less. Our green tactics included stickers on printers, scanners and paper towel dispensers reminding you that the paper “comes from trees.”

But everything that we did was covered in a post from the beginning of Earth Week. What I’m here to focus on is the suggestions that we got from students, which we are going to be taking into consideration as we focus more on sustainability.

Yes, one of those suggestions is that we paint the walls green.

There were some especially good suggestions that we’d like to mention.

  • Install automatic sensors in the ProDeo room after the library closes, so that we don’t waste energy if no one is in the room at night.
  • Turn off the automatic doors at night. According to the suggestion, that alone will save enough energy to light New York city for 500,000 years. I’d personally like to check the math on that one.
  • Get double sided printers.

Some of these suggestions may not come into immediate effect, but we are going to try for some. Keep and eye out for recycling bins though, we have those on every floor.

And remember, please only print what you need.  We go through a lot of paper every week.

Here's how much wasted paper the 2nd floor computer lab creates in a single week.

Earth Week in the Library

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April 19, 2010

9:51 am

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How much paper does the Library use each week? Let's just say it's not pretty.

This year marks the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, and we green-minded folk here in the Library will be celebrating all week.  Since this is our first year officially celebrating Earth Week, we thought we’d put up a few displays to encourage everyone to start thinking about how the Library could be more sustainable.  So if you visit our building this week, be sure to take a look at:

1) Our 5’3″ stack of paper in the  second floor computer lab, which represents the 45,000 sheets of paper our Library printers use up each week.

2) Our growing collection of recycled paper, showing how much paper is thrown into the recycling bin in the computer lab each week.  While we’re glad that this paper is being recycled rather than just thrown away, we hope to impress upon all of our patrons just how much paper is wasted each week. Please only print when necessary!

3) Our “These Come From Trees” reminder stickers, now on every Library printer, copier, and paper towel dispenser.

4) A display of sustainability-themed books in our fourth floor Quiet Study Room.

5) Recommendations for sustainability-related resources from our faculty and staff, on the first floor right inside the Library’s terrace entrance

6) A big sheet of paper (reused, naturally!) where you can write down your own ideas and suggestions for how the Library should go green in 2010.

Also, check back here at Infospot @ WML throughout the week for green-themed books that we’ve just recently added to our collection.

And when you’re not in the Library, be sure to participate in some of the joint University of Scranton/City of Scranton Earth Week activities, starting with tonight’s concert by alternative rock band Monty Are I and culminating on Friday with the popular Fair Trade Fair.