Sustainability at Colorado State -- A Tennessean's Perspective

Colorado State University 

I applied to graduate school at Colorado State University and visited campus over spring break. I was so impressed with sustainability initiatives on campus and wanted to share what I saw with our class. 

I also included a few links that Marite Perez, our guest speaker on March 26, suggested we check out. I met with her briefly after class. She graduated with her MBA from CSU, focusing on Global Social and Sustainable Enterprise. Here's the link to her program: MBA Sustainability CSU

CSU utilizes alternative energy, graywater reuse, single-stream recycling, and public transportation, just to name a few! I divided my pictures in to categories: buildings, waste, transit, and graywater recycling. 

Feel free to comment and share your feedback! Let me know if you'd like any additional information, or if you have any ideas about how we can help make UT more sustainable. 

I am a senior in biosystems engineering at UT, and applied to the Civil and Environmental Engineering Program at CSU.

CSU was ranked #1 in the STARS rating system, and was the first university in the world to reach Platinum status. STARS is the same environmental rating system UT uses. Read more about CSU and STARS: http://green.colostate.edu/

Waste 

Nearly every restaurant on campus had a separate bin for trash, recycling, compost, and liquid waste.  Marite also taught us about composting in our own homes. She made it sound so simple and easy!

Separate bins for landfill waste and single-stream recycling. 

Every trash can on campus has single-stream recycling. No need to sort your waste, and no excuse not to recycle! 

Buildings

Who needs paper towels when you have Dyson hand dryers in every bathroom?

Water bottle refill station -- we have these at UT too! I accidentally forgot to bring my refillable coffee mug :/ 

CSU has a ton of green space throughout campus -- promotes people to enjoy the great outdoors! 

Solar panels power the Engineering Building -- there were probably more panels throughout campus, but these were the only ones I saw. Martie's husband works for TVA, wasn't sure exactly how much CSU supports clean energy initiatives.

Transit

Wide bike lanes like this one are all throughout campus and Fort Collins. Notice the Ram riding the bicycle! 

The CSU Rams -- and of course it's a Ram riding a bicycle to mark all of the bike lanes! 

Plenty of bike parking -- and even permeable pavement!! Permeable pavement helps capture, retain, and treat stormwater.

Bike parking is available nearly everywhere.

Efficient skateboard parking! I thought that was really cool. 

Gray Water Reuse System 

This was one of my favorite things about CSU! In their newest residence hall, they collect the water from the showers and sinks of the first floor and use that water for flushing toilets. I got a tour of the system from an engineering graduate student and I'll explain the basics of the process. 

These are 2 equalization tanks, which help regulate the system when supply and demand fluctuate. The raw gray water is fed in to these tanks first, and then it's treated. The tanks have a total capacity of about 550 gallons. The system is continuously monitored and can be switched over to city water at any point.   

This is the main part of the treatment system.. First, the water flows through filter media, which is housed in the pipes you see hanging on the wall. 

Then, chlorine (in the form of bleach, NaOCl) is injected in to the system. The water remains in the small tank on the left for a few hours to achieve the retention time required for chlorine disinfection.  

This is a picture of the finished gray water. It's always dyed blue so that people are aware that the water is recycled and not drinkable. Doesn't look so bad right? 

I applied to the civil and environmental engineering program at CSU, and this was definitely a highlight of my visit. If you'd like information about the gray water reuse system, check out this article: Fifty Shades of Gray Water 

This is just another awesome picture of Colorado State. There are open fields and a large pond in the center of campus. The Rocky Mountains are just to the west of campus. 

August 18 - Madisonville, TN

Safely back at home in TN!  Mom and Dad picked me up from the airport last night and we ate at Cracker Barrel, good American food!  I really enjoyed the free refills, honey mustard, and ice.

I had fun the last day in Leuven.  Andrew, Walter, and I went on a nice bike ride.  We got kind of lost, but eventually found the natural drinking water spring and the military cemetery.  That night, we went to eat at Nachtuil, the Belgian food place.  We all went through our greatest memories/funniest moment, and it was just the most perfect ending to a perfect trip.  We went out dancing that night, even though we weren't really planning to since we had to get up early.  Oh well, last night in Leuven!  I got up early Friday to say goodbye to everyone and check out of our dorm room.  Sean, Andrew, and I went to the airport at 8am.  Dorina came along, mainly to say goodbye to Sean...  We ran in to Mark Molar, Posey, Mark Clark, Rob, and Alex at the airport, so that was funny/good to see them.  I had an uneventful flight home.

It felt good to sleep in my own bed last night and take a shower in a spacious bathroom.  I've eaten a BLT and PB&J sandwich today, classic American food!  I am planning to move to Charlotte on Thursday and I start my internship Monday morning. 

July 16- Final day in Leuven

Yesterday were final exams.  I really felt prepared for them, but I was so not prepared enough...  eeek.  Dr. Munster's test was really tricky, even though it was all multiple choice.  I made a few stupid calculation mistakes, and I just felt horrible leaving the exam.  Luckily, he sent us our grades that afternoon and  I didn't do terrible on the final.  And I made an A in the class.  We haven't gotten our scores back for Dr. Engler's exam yet.  Unfortunately, the multiple choice section on that exam was also very tricky.  I feel okay about it though and my other grades are good.

Last night, we had our last group dinner at La Cucaracha, "the best Mexican food in town."  I created a facebook poll and that's where people wanted to go so I made the reservation.  Dr. Munster and Mia were supposed to come, but I guess they couldn't find the restaurant.  Our food and margaritas were delicious, but it was sooo hot in there.  Nobody has air conditioning in Belgium and it was about 85 yesterday!  AC is one thing I'm looking forward to in the US.      

We came back to the house after dinner then went dancing later that night.  A lot of places were closed because it was a Belgiun national holiday.  Towards the end of the night, we went to the bar right outside our house and played Foosball and pool.  Mark and I played the piano there.  It was way our of tune, and we could only remember about 5 good songs, but we actually sounded surprisingly good.

Today I'm cleaning up my room, taking my bike back to Velo, and packing.  My flight leaves Brussels at noon tomorrow and I'll be in Knoxville at 6 pm.  I just can't believe I'm leaving tomorrow!  I have made so many amazing friends this trip and I am going to miss them soooo much. 

August 13-Last weekend in Belgium :(

I've had a really fun weekend.  Saturday, a big group of us spent the day in Brussels.  It was kind of difficult to wait on everyone to get ready and we stayed out really late the night before, so we didn't leave Leuven until about 12:30.  We got off at the Central Station and walked towards the Mannequin Pis.  Very anti-climactic, but it's just something you have to see while in Brussels.

We ate lunch at ChiChis, a Tex-Mex restaurant.  We sat outside and there was a crazy bachelor party at a table next to us.  Mark ordered 2 XXL margaritas.  Mindy and Ashley met up with us there.  We didn't really know how to get to the scuba place, Nemo 33.  It was about 4 miles from the city center.  I looked up directions but my directions were walking directions from Midi Station, our original plan but not very helpful from where we were.  We knew the general area of the center and decided to buy an all day bus/tram/metro pass.  It took us about 3 hours walking and on trains, metros, and buses to finally get to the scuba center.

At first, we thought we wouldn't be able to scuba without being certified.  (Alex is certified and Mark was able to use his military ID)  The rest of us could have signed up for a lesson, but we didn't book in advance.  Luckily, we made friends with the receptionist and she asked the scuba instructors if they could stay one additional hour and give our group a private lesson.  Exciting!  Our lesson started at 6pm, so we were waiting in the bar area of Nemo 33 for a while.  We napped and watched the Mexican soccer team win Olympic gold.

Scuba diving was awesome!  Our instructors would only allow non-certified divers to go down to about 15 feet, but that was plenty deep for me.  We could see Alex and Mark in the tunnels below us.  The pool is 130 feet deep, but you have to be really experienced to go down that far.  We had fun swimming around and Andrew and Rene took lots of pictures with their underwater cameras.

We left the scuba center around 7:30 and took the buses and trams and trains to Mark and Alex's hotel.  They stayed at a super nice Hilton-owned hotel in the business district.  They welcomed everyone to spend the night, but we all wanted to get back to Leuven that night.

We ate dinner together at an Italian place near the train station.  We left Brussels at 12:10 and we were back at the dorms by 1.  Because of Market Rock, we had to take different roads home.  Andrew and I went out when we got back to check out the concert, and we heard the last song of the night.  We were so exhausted so we just went back to the dorms and went to sleep.

Yesterday, Cherish and I went to Amsterdam.  We bought a hop-on, hop-off bus pass, which worked out so well.  We stopped at a diamond factory (Amsterdam is known as the City of Diamonds) and learned how diamonds were cut.  We got to see a 55,000 euro diamond up close.  The tour was free with our bus pass.  Sales gimmick, but it was actually super awesome.  We booked it over to the Van Gogh museum, and then went to our appointment at Anne Frank at 3:15.  So glad we bought tickets beforehand and didn't have to wait in line!  One of my favorite museums ever.  We had dinner at a little steakhouse, and they charged me for salad dressing, BBQ sauce, and ketchup....  cost half as much as my meal!

 We left Amsterdam around 6:30 and we were back in Leuven by 10:15.  People hadn't left for Market Rock yet, so I jumped in the shower and got ready really fast.  We went to the main stage for a while and then went to 2 other clubs in Leuven.  Great way to spend our last Sunday night in Leuven!

Today I'm studying and finishing up my field trip report.  I planned to sleep late, but the workers fixing our sewage line arrived around 6:30 am and started their jackhammers!  Hopefully it will be fixed soon.   

August 11: Recap of week!

I really should have been writing blogs this past week.  It has been such a great week!  I can't believe I go home on Friday.  Let's see...

Classes were kind of uneventful this week.  Our homework assignments were fairly easy and we were able to finish all of them before 5:00.  We have both finals next Wednesday so I am planning to prepare for those this weekend, although I haven't actually started studying yet...

Our field trip Thursday was great!  We stayed around Leuven so we rode our bikes everywhere.  First we toured Aquafin, the wastewater treatment facility for Flanders.  I love going to all the WWTP and learning how each process varies and comparing them.  We ate lunch at a really good little restaurant and I ate moussaka!  After lunch, we toured Eco-Werf, the composting center where all of Leuven's organic waste is sent.  (Every citizen here is required to recycle everything, including kitchen waste.)  Kind of smelly, but nonetheless interesting.  After that, we toured the Stella Artois brewery!  Our tour wasn't that informative, but the facility was huge and the gift shop was nice.  They had a nice bar area where we were able to try Stella and the other brews.  I didn't realize Stella was owned by Anheuser Busch.  Other beers were distilled at the same facility.

Yesterday, the main sewage line in our dorm busted!  Apparently raw sewage was leaking in to our garden!  We had no water from about 8-4.  We still don't have water in half of the house, but I can manage.  Our room sink is on the half that works, but we have to use the showers downstairs.

Last night was our big cookout.  We went grocery shopping about 1 mile away and had to carry food for 20 people back in our backpacks, including 2 cases of beer and a 10 kg bag of charcoal.  We kind of had a difficult time agreeing on what type of food to buy, but it ended up working out fine.  We bought about 40 loaves of bread, 80 Euro of meat, etc.  Dr. Engler and his family, Dr. Munster, and many international students came to the BBQ.  We played bocciball afterwards and I won a few times!

After the cookout, we went to MarktRok, a giant music festival in Leuven.  They've been advertising it for months.  Huge stages were set up in the Oude Market.  We didn't like the live techno music that much, but we found this DJ playing classic 90's music.  We stayed there and danced for a long time.  Then, we went to the Basement, another dance place.  Overall, a great way to spend our last Friday night in Belgium! 

Today I'm going to Brussels with a large group.  We're going to try to go scuba diving in the world's deepest pool.  I think you have to be scuba certified, but we'll see.  Two guys going are certified, so if I can't swim, it will be fun watching them.  We're just making a day trip, and hopefully I'll be back for more Market Rock tonight!  

August 6-From Grindelwald, Switzerland to Leuven

             We had such an amazing weekend in the Swiss Alps.  Saturday night, we taught Andrew how to play Texas Hold ‘Em and a few other card games, which was really fun.  Yesterday, we took a gondola up to First, a hiking area high in the Alps.  I think we were at about 7500 feet.  It was raining when we left Grindelwald, but the weather cleared up nicely.  Surprisingly, we’ve had warm weather the whole trip – about 80 degrees F during the day and about 50 at night.   We had lunch at the only restaurant on First, overlooking the gorgeous, snow-capped mountains.  I can’t even describe the absolute splendor of the area and pictures don’t do it justice.            

Sean and Andrew wanted to do some intense hiking, and Rob, Ashley, and I wanted to do easy hiking.  The ride to the top of First made Rob kind of queasy, but he felt better after lunch.  Even though I bought 6 pairs of shoes to Europe, I only brought my Sperry’s (boat shoes) on this trip!  I didn’t think we’d be doing hiking.  Luckily, on First, there is a LOWA testing facility.  LOWA is an outdoor apparel brand.  I was able to check out hiking boots and try them out for the day with absolutely no cost or obligation.   I really loved my boots and I think I might invest in some when I get back to the US.  (I kind of consider myself an avid hiker now, haha.)  Ashley, Rob, and I hiked about 2 hours to Lake Bachalpsee, “alpine gem” that we read about in our guidebooks.  There were cows, goats, badgers on the path.  The paths were super nice and extremely well traveled, almost like a road, although it was steep in some parts. 

We stayed at First until about 5 pm.  It looked like it was about to rain and we were getting hungry.  Sean and Andrew went hiking on their own and didn’t go down with us.  We stopped at cool playground with a trampoline on the way down to Grindelwald, then stopped at some of the shops in Grindelwald before going back to the chalet.  I was hoping to buy some cool souvenirs, but everything was super extremely expensive.  The average t-shirt cost 30 CHF (about 30 USD) and chocolate bars are about 10 CHF.  There are many watch and jewelry stores, but the watches cost about 10,000 CHF.  I think we were the only people in Grindelwald under the age of 50 for a reason!  There were a ton of Asians, so almost everything had a Japanese/Chinese translation.  We really liked shopping in the Montbell outdoor store, which is the only one in Europe.

Last night, Rob made us a delicious and traditional Swiss meal of brat, peppers, and schpatzel (puffy, egg-like noodles).  So delicious.  We then made a pot of coffee and did homework the rest of the night.  I finished my design project, yay! 

Our train from Grindelwald left and 10:00 this morning and now we are somewhere in Germany, heading towards Frankfurt.  I’ve written almost all of my field trip report this weekend and on the train, so now I just have to perfect it.  We are supposed to get back around 9:30 tonight.  I can’t believe we only have one more long weekend left! 

August 5- Swiss Chalet

We spent one night in Interlaken then came up to Grindelwald yesterday afternoon.  It was a beautiful train ride up to Grindelwald.  I have never seen such beautiful, snowcapped mountains and landscape.  Pictures posted soon...  We booked a Swiss chalet in Grindelwald (Chalet Tuftbach) using booking.com, but when we asked for directions at the tourist information center, they had never heard of it!....  Thankfuly, Grindelwald is only one street and we knew the general area and address of our hotel, so we just started walking.  We came to the correct address, and it is a beautiful little chalet.  We met the owner who lives downstairs and he welcomed us upstairs to our apartment.  We are loving our Swiss chalet!!  We have a fully equipped kitchen, 3 large bedrooms, a nice living room, and a balcony.  It's such a nice change from the cramped dorm rooms and public bathrooms we're used to.  Plus we have an awesome view of the mountains and we sit out there and drink coffee, wine, and do homework. 

Food (and everything else) is super expensive here, so we decided to go to the grocery store and get things for breakfast/dinner.  Plus, Rob loves to cook so it's just more fun.  We made authentic Swiss cheese fondue and spaghetti for dinner last night, then played cards/wrote papers/ did homework last night.  Today we're going up to First, another area in Grindelwald .  Andrew and Sean are wanting to hike.  I might hang glide and/or zipline down the mountain...  It will depend on the weather and what everyone else wants to do.