MPS is Going Green Presentation

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MPS is Going Green Presentation
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Contents

• 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?

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Organics Recycling
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What is Organics Recycling?

• 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.

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Why do organics recycling?Environmental Benefits

• Organic matter can turn into compost (dirt or
  fertilizer), which supports plant growth.
• So dont throw it out!

Organic scraps
become compost
that is used for planting.
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Why do organics recycling?Environmental Benefits

• 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!
• Thats about seven pounds of trash per person,
  per day!
• Between 11- 25 of our waste is compostable.
• All of the organics recycling programs are
  diverting 6-7 tons of trash to organics each
  month.
• Our compost is being used in construction sites.
  

Pictures from the HERC incinerator, MPR
Photo/Stephanie Hemphill
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Why do organics recycling?Educational Benefits

• 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

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Why do organics recycling?Economic Benefits

• 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.

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MPS Organics Recycling

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

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MPS Organics Recycling

• Last year, only Burroughs and Lake Harriet- Upper
  had an organics recycling program.
• MPS received a grant from Hennepin County during
  2008-09 to pay for organics recycling start-up
  costs, allowing more schools to participate.
• This year, 21 schools are participating

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MPS Organics Recycling

• 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.

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MPS Organics Recycling

• Participating schools must commit to the program
  with
• An organics coordinator
• A lunchroom orientation
• Engaged students, and staff!

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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

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MPS Organics RecyclingPROCEDURES

• 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.

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MPS Organics RecyclingPROCEDURES

• 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.

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MPS Organics RecyclingPROCEDURES

• 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.

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Mixed Recycling
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Before Recycling

• 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?

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What is Mixed Recycling?

• 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 http//www.alliedwaste
  twincities.com/recycle-bank-cycle.php

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Why do mixed recycling?Environmental Benefits

• 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!

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Why do mixed recycling?Environmental Benefits

• 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.

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Why do mixed recycling?Environmental Benefits

• 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 goldthe amount in a
  typical wedding ringrequires the removal of more
  than 250 tons of rock and ore, even in model gold
  mines

Surface mining
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Why do mixed recycling?Environmental Benefits

• 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!
• Thats 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
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Why do mixed recycling? Educational Benefits

• 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

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MPS Mixed RecyclingPROCEDURES

• Place blue mixed recycling bins in convenient,
  noticeable and busy areas.
• Hallways
• Classrooms
• Cafeteria
• Make sure recycling bins are not too full
  
• So people arent forced to use the trash instead
  of recycling.
• Prominently display recycling signs and
  information.

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Mixed Recycling Procedures

• Dont 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.

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MPS Mixed RecyclingPROCEDURES

• Stop and think before you put something in the
  trash.
• Ask, Can it be recycled?

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MPS Mixed RecyclingPROCEDURES

• At MPS there is no sorting. All mixed recycled
  materials go in blue recycling bins

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Energy Efficiency
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Energy Efficiency

• 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.

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Energy Efficiency

• 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.

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Energy Efficiency

• 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.
• Xcels nuclear energy comes in part from the
  Prairie Island nuclear power plant
• Much of Xcels hydro-power comes from plants in
  Canada.

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Energy Efficiency

• MPS gets its gas from Center Point.
• Most of the Center Points 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.

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Energy Efficiency

• 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.

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Energy Efficiency

• 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?

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Energy EfficiencyEnvironmental Benefits

• 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.

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Energy EfficiencyEnvironmental Benefits

• 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
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Energy EfficiencyEnvironmental Benefits

• 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.

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Energy EfficiencyEducational Benefits

• 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 EPAs website for educational recycling
  and energy games
• http//www.epa.gov/osw/education/kids/planetprotec
  tors/index.htm
• Visit the Energy Information Administrations
  site for more games and curriculum
• http//tonto.eia.doe.gov/kids/energy.cfm?page6

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Energy EfficiencyEconomic Benefits

• 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.

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Energy EfficiencyEconomic Benefits

• 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!

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Energy EfficiencyWhat MPS is Doing?

• 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

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Energy Efficiency

• 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

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Energy EfficiencyHow to be Energy 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.

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Energy EfficiencyHow to be Energy 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.

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Energy EfficiencyHow to be Energy Efficient

• Use MPS Green Reports to find out every
  buildings carbon footprint.
• With this information, you can find out where
  energy savings can be made.

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Energy EfficiencyHow to be Energy Efficient

• Have fun with Green Reports!
• You could Have a contest to find out whose more
  efficient middle-schoolers or the elementary
  students?

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Energy EfficiencyHow to Be Energy Efficient

• 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

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Energy EfficiencyHow to Be Energy Efficient

• Energy efficiency improves our environment and
  saves money.
• Little steps and big steps both count.

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Energy EfficiencyHow to Be Energy Efficient

• Its up to you!