The fourth-annual Waste Watch Challenge has begun. The yearly competition will award $300 to the residence hall that lowers their energy consumption the most over the two-month test.
Starting this past Wednesday, the challenge will run until the first day in December.
"Aside from having a longer time period in which students can conserve, every year we get more and more students interested," said UNH Office of Sustainability Associate Director Sara Cleaves. "The energy savings in terms of Kilowatt hours and dollars and also Carbon emission prevented keep growing. I anticipate this is going to be the biggest one yet. The students are very excited."
The stats for each residence hall will be measured in British Thermal Units (BTUs) due to the differing size and age of each building, as well as the variety of energy types that each building is powered on.
Water measurements are also taken, the goal being for each building to have a negative score at the conclusion of the challenge in December. The residence hall that conserves the most resources will be awarded $300 towards their hall council budget, with second and third place winning $200 and $100, respectively.
The challenge began in the fall of 2006 and was started in part by former graduate student and New Hampshire native Chris Skoglund.
"Chris brought the idea to [the Energy Task Force] because he had heard about a number of other campuses that were doing some sort of competition related to sustainability and he wanted to try it out here," said Cleaves.
"I was really excited when I saw recently that the amount of time had been extended to two months," said Skoglund. "I think given the amount of savings that we see during that one month period it's really great that there doing it for that long, because they'll not only save more energy but they'll also be more time for students that are taking part in the challenge to make the behaviors that they're engaging in a part of their lives."
Now an energy and transportation analyst for the N.H. Department of Environmental Services, Skoglund was instrumental in helping to start the challenge. He worked in COLSA at the time in getting his master's in natural resources, and also served as a graduate student representative to the Energy Task Force.
"He always talked about how empowered he was to be able to sit at this table, with people like the chief sustainability officer, different people on staff at the university and have the same right to engage in dialogue and talk about the big idea that he had," said senior Becca Romanoski.
Each residence hall, including the Gables, is represented by an energy captain, who oversees the effort put in by residents in their building in addition to spreading awareness throughout the community.
The many offices that contribute to the Energy Waste Watch Challenge include the Ecological Advocates, the UNH Energy Task Force, UNH Energy Office, UNH Office of Sustainability, UNH Residential Life, and UNH Housing.
Planning for the Energy Waste Watch Challenge goes back to late 2005, as Skoglund worked with the many offices on campus that contributed to the success of the project.
In the challenge's initial year, Hubbard Hall came in first place, reducing over a fourth of it's overall energy and water usage, while over half the students in its residence hall filled out the survey that accompanied participating scores.
The students who were energy captains the first year of the challenge formed their own student group called the Ecological Advocates, a now recognized student organization.
"They decided what they wanted to do was they would just do the challenge around the same time every year once every year, and then they would tackle a different issue or campaign next semester," said Cleaves.
Romanoski became an energy captain as a sophomore, now a founding member of Ecological Advocates.
"It was kind of like testing things out, 'cause it was the first time that it had happened and we had a lot of ideas," said Romanoski. "We just didn't know which ones were going to work.
"When we started meeting we decided that we wanted to be group that did more than just the energy challenge. We started to be an environmental group that, instead of focusing on policy or establishment change, started focusing more on creating motivation for individual change."
Engelhart came in first the following spring, reducing its water usage by 15.8 percent in the four-week duration of the competition. Sawyer came in first in energy usage with 17 percent less than the previous challenge. Additionally, over 3/4 of Engelhart participated in the survey, which put them over the top in scoring.
Last fall's challenge saw the biggest participation yet, with Hunter Hall coming in first reducing its energy usage by 27 percent and its water usage by 45 percent. With the amount of energy conserved, the savings worked out to $45,000 in savings, or 272 barrels of oil - the equivalent of not driving 25 passenger cars for an entire year, according to the challenge's website.
"The trend seems to be that the smaller dorms do better, and think that's jut because a major challenge is communication, and communication is always harder when you have a bigger group of people," said Romanoski. "Sustainability is super important to me," said sophomore Laura Joseph, an active member of Ecological Advocates and Devine energy captain. "I think that our environment needs a lot of help and the energy challenge is a great way to bring awareness to students and my hope is that it carries beyond the challenge."
"In terms of it being longer this year, I think that's a great decision for the challenge because it gives us a longer chance to really show a difference," said McLaughlin Hall Director Tiffany Rowin. "I think we'll do great. The students seem really excited and anything that's competitive really gets them going.
Be the first to comment on this article!