Welcome to a Sustainable Eckerd

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Want to actively participate in environmental awareness on campus? Check out the Eckerd College Recycling Program! Recycling takes place Monday through Friday in two shifts per day. The 1:00-3:00pm shift covers the Academic Side and the 3:00-5:00pm shift covers the Residential Side. The program is always interested in expanding the team with enthusiastic individuals. If interested please contact Evan Bollier or stop by the Gamma Lounge at either shift's start time.

Don't have a car on campus? Don't worry! Eckerd College is proud to announce the new U-Haul Car Share program. For a nominal cost, members of the Eckerd community may rent out a Toyota Prius hybrid car at a flexible or flat rate. Two cars will be on campus for rent at all times, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. All reservations are made online and members will be given a unique pin code to access vehicles. Gas and insurance are also included in rental price! Want to learn more? Click here.

Just ten minutes from campus, Lakewood Elementary School hosts one of Eckerd College's most unusual classrooms. The Edible Peace Patch Garden is a cooperative effort between Eckerd College Environmental Studies and Lakewood Elementary School to develop and implement a standards-based elementary science curriculum in an organic garden that was built by Eckerd College students in January 2009. More than 100 Eckerd College students have had an opportunity to work in the Lakewood schoolyard garden and teach Lakewood students about organic food and science concepts. In January of 2012, a second Edible Peace Patch Garden was constructed at Sanderlin Elementary School.

Meet our Sustainability Fellow for the 2012-13 academic year, Evan Bollier. Evan graduated from Eckerd College, May of 2011 with a B.A. in Environmental Studies with minors in Economics and Chinese. As an undergraduate he conducted Eckerd's Greenhouse Gas Inventory for two fiscal years for his Ford Scholar research project. He also sat on several committees to advise and implement sustainable initiatives on campus. Check out the Office of Sustainability link for more information and proposed projects for the upcoming year.

Sign up for the Eco-Clamshell program at the Main Cafeteria. Its simple, to buy an Eco-Clamshell just write your student I.D. number on the sign up sheet to charge your student account $5.00. Once you're done eating and want a clean clamshell, bring it back to the OZZI machine at the Main Cafeteria in exchange for an OZZI token. Either exchange the token for a clean clamshell at the main register, or hold onto it until the next time you would like to eat out. For more information, please see Evan Bollier in the Gamma Office of Sustainability to purchase yours today!

From the very beginning, Eckerd College has enjoyed a symbiotic relationship with its surrounding environment. The college's surroundings function as a kind of living, breathing classroom, which both provides a subject of study and in so doing promotes its own conservation and gives practical lessons for sustainable practices elsewhere. It is no surprise then that from its inception, the college has had a commitment to educate students about the environment and ecologically thoughtful practices. Our innovative Environmental Studies major was cited by Florida Leader as the state's "best new undergraduate major."

Our commitment to the environment has led us to develop positive environmental landscape practices such as using native plants where appropriate; using natural, permeable surfaces for parking and pedestrian paths; and drawing on ponds and wetlands as natural filters to clean water run-off. We even have a Yellow Bike program, which was designed to increase bicycle use on campus and decrease automobile traffic. In fact, the Yellow Bikes program has earned Eckerd College special Campus Ecology Recognition by the National Wildlife Federation®, the nation's leading conservation education and advocacy group.

These are just some of the features that combine to create a drive toward sustainability on campus. Many more aspects of this drive are featured on this site, so explore and learn more about Eckerd's commitment to both minimizing its operational footprint and maximizing environmental awareness and green practices.