News and events

The Albury Wodonga Campus showcasing sustainable businesses and organisations at the inaugural Wodonga Sustainability Fair to be held on Sunday August 24, from 10am to 3pm. The Fair will be held in conjunction with the campus Open Day, and with support from the City of Wodonga and North East Greenhouse Alliance (NEGHA).

Office Recycling Program Report 2008

EnviroSMART has completed a report on the progress of the Office Recycling Program up until 2008. Overall the Office Recycling Program has been a success with audit results indicating a halving of recyclable waste to landfill across the Bundoora Campus.

The most successful area of the University was David Myers West Level 2, which reduced the amount of recyclables going to landfill from 80% to only 2%. There were also a number of other areas in the University such as Peribolos East, Physical Sciences 2 and Bio Sciences 2, Level 2 that also had very high levels recyclable waste reduction.

Only eight out of thirty-seven offices recorded an increase in recyclables to landfill. None of the thirty-seven offices recorded a percentage of recyclables to landfill of above 50%
Twenty-three offices recorded a percentage of recyclables to landfill of 20% or less and twelve offices recorded 10% or less
The average amount of paper and cardboard in office rubbish bins in buildings audited in December 2006 was approximately 28.53% when spot audits were conducted in October 2007 on the same buildings the figure had been cut by more than half to 12.86%
Over the same period all other categories of waste rose, most notably ‘other paper products', this rise in all categories can be attributed to EnviroSMART's focus on reduction of paper and cardboard in waste bins.
Whilst the overall volume of recyclable waste going to landfill reduced, the majority of this reduction was due to a large take up in paper and cardboard recycling. This raised the proportion of other recyclables in most general waste bins

The key to maintaining the Office Recycling Program has been the EnviroSMART representatives

EnviroSMART representative's are the catalyst for positive behaviour change and personally educate the University community on the benefits of an environmentally-sustainable workplace.

To become an EnviroSMART representative email envirosmart@latrobe.edu.au or call 9479 3929

More EnviroSMART reps needed!

Currently, EnviroSMART has 85 staff reps across the Bundoora campus, representing about two-thirds of the University. This is outstanding, but we need more! EnviroSMART hopes to have the entire campus represented by the end of 2007, so why not step up to the plate and play an important part in helping La Trobe become a more sustainable university. If you;re already a rep, who can you encourage to become a rep also? Visit Become an EnviroSMART Rep to find out more.

College EnviroSMART reps needed!

To coincide with Residential Services 2008 Green theme, EnviroSMART is extending its Green Office Program to the University's Colleges and is looking for La Trobe students living on campus to become EnviroSMART reps for their residence.

Mobile Phone Recycling

EnviroSMART has made an arrangement with Aussie Recycling Program to recycle redundant and broken phones. Collection boxes are located in the Borchart Library and in the EnviroSMART office on level 1 of Peribolos East. You can also send your old phones via internal mail to:

Melbourne Wildlife Sanctuary

La Trobe's Melbourne Wildlife Sanctuary run regular excursion and incursion experiences for school kids (and kids-at-heart!). EnviroSMART journalism work experience student Zac Matthews recently participated in a 'Hands on Habitiat' excursion with a group of prep students. Take some time to read his article Pull Apart a Poa.

The EnviroSMARTIE Award for June goes to...

Celia Anastasi-Hiho from the Division of Health Studies. Celia has worked tirelessly implementing the new 'Save it, Switch it' energy saving campaign. Celia has made sure that everyone in her area knows that saving energy is important for conserving University resources as well as combating climate change.

Borchardt Library joins others in buying recycled paper

The Borchardt Library has made the change to recycled paper. The Library made the decision in April to use recycled paper in all its printers and copiers (except the colour photocopiers) to reduce its environmental impact. The library is also making single-sided paper available for students to reuse and has not experienced any problems with recycled paper.

The Library uses as much as 12000 sheets of paper per day in just its three main printers. And printing is on the increase, up 17% in recent times.

The Library joins many other areas of the University making the switch to Evolve or Vision Pure White papers. For more information visit EnviroSMART News and Events.

Below are just some of the offices, representing over 20,000 reams of paper per annum, who have changed to or are trialling Evolve or Vision Pure White papers:

Procurements and Business Services Branch;
Faculty Office of Science, Technology and Engineering;
Secretariat;
Buildings and Grounds Division;
Finance Division;
Legal Services;
Asian Studies Program;
Human Resources;
Biochemistry Department;
Physics Department;
International Programs Office;
School of Law;
Division of Health Studies; and
Dept of Clinical Vision Sciences.

Add your office to the list by purchasing Evolve or Vision Pure White next time you order paper.

Office recycling program update

The office recycling program has been rolled out by the Buildings and Grounds Division and has been a huge success so far. In 2008 EnviroSMART are looking to smooth out any problems staff may have had and extend the program to the Colleges and the Research and Development Park. Thanks to all the EnviroSMART reps who have helped to make the transition so smooth and to the new reps who have volunteered. To the best of our knowledge, this is by far and away the biggest and swiftest office recycling program at an Australian university! Bravo!

Profile of a green office

With five EnviroSMART reps, the International Programs Office (IPO) is fiercely competing to be the greenest office on campus. EnviroSMART work experience student Zac Matthews caught up with reps Marina Eleftheriadis and Andrés Bayer Echeverri to find out what makes them so green.

When did the I.P.O become an environmentally friendly office?
Around about the same time EnviroSMART came into being. We were already doing other stuff, and when EnviroSMART formed it was an easier push. The day EnviroSMART was announced all five of us straight away put our hands up. We were really excited and couldn’t choose just two of us, so in the end it was decided we could all do it! We always had the vision, but it became more of a reality when our associate director (Meagan Durant) gave the green light.

What kind of training did you undertake to become an EnviroSMART rep?
EnviroSMART took us out to the wildlife reserve and taught us all about environmental awareness and introduced us to greening our office. Although we already knew much of it, it was thorough and really fantastic. We also had a visit from a VISY recycling rep and we did a little exercise on calculating our ecological footprint.

What things are EnviroSMART reps doing to make the IPO green?
We use only recycled paper, re-use single sided paper without confidential information on it and avoid printing as much as possible. We recycle cartridges and commingled waste. We are trying to use soft copy files and we’re even looking at carbon off-setting. We try to do lots of little things like turning off machines when they are not in use. Fair trade coffee is something we’re trying to get because more money goes to the farmers of the coffee and it helps developing countries.

Why are you keeping the office environmentally friendly?
Because everyone is well aware that this is an extremely important thing, and because we were already living like this. It also makes it that little bit more interesting to come to work, and it is a great feeling to know that we are not leaving such a large footprint on the environment like we were before. It is good to teach people how to help the environment.

What are the challenges or negatives to keeping the office green?
To keep people motivated and to get people to go that extra mile; some people get lazy! And we get a lot of questions about important things; for example, people don’t really understand about recycling and people make mistakes. But, we don’t really see negatives because the benefits are great regardless of the extra work or money.

Has there been any competition with other areas of the University?
Yes, I (Marina) have a very competitive nature unfortunately, and my friend Penny who works at Public Health is like me and has made the Public Health office green. I was always saying ‘I’m going to have a greener office than you.’ So it has become a bit of a competition!

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