The Biosustainability Workgroup
Who are we
- Resource over consumption—especially by the US—is a major
contributing factor to environment degradation worldwide. As scientists
and biologists we have the knowledge and the responsibility to act and to
set an example for the rest of the University and the community. We are a
group of students, staff, and faculty who are interested in finding
potential solutions to this problem and ways to increase
sustainability.
- All members of the Department of Biology are welcome and encouraged to
participate. Volunteers are needed for all posts in this workgroup
including coordinators, mailing list maintainer, and webmaster. The
coordinators will be rotated on a quarterly or bi-quarterly basis.
What do we do
- examine the ecological footprint of our department, identify factors
that have major impacts and design strategies to minimize such impact
- serve as liaison with other groups at the UW that have similar
interests
- raise the awareness on "reduce, reuse and recycle" habits and research
ways to widen the scope of such activities
Recent announcements
Previous ones ...
- Thanks to Dr. Nicotri, recycling is now part of official Biology
Department field trip policy. Read Evan's "update" in the Resources section.
- The Biosustainability group invites all its members, the Department of
Biology, and all interested in UW to a Brown bag lunch seminar series on
selected Mondays at noon. Invited speakers will offer informative talks
and share their experiences and challenges in their efforts to achieve
sustainability and reduce human ecological footprint.
- Summary and listing of past seminars can be found in the Activities section. There is an update on Evan's biodiesel
presentation.
- We want to thank everyone for participating in the efforts to minimize
waste generated in Departmental events. Thanks to all of you who happily
carried plates, mugs, and utensils, and used the labeled containers for
different type of waste and recyclables at the recent Biology Spring BBQ
"pig-roast feast". We only filled 2 of the 4 containers with "true
garbage", only one container with recyclable items, and a few containers
of composables went to the compost pile of the UW urban farmers.
- Troy Coleman of Howling Beagle
Design is the winner of the mug logo design contest.