SUSTAINALBE YouNH

It's Your University. Be Part of the Solution.

Check out our virtual energy efficient residence hall room to learn what you can do right where you live to save energy, emissions, and money. And if you need to buy new, buy ENERGY STAR® and energy efficient appliances and electronics.

Learn about the UNH ENERGY STAR® 10% Discount for Students & Parents from Best Buy® Newington, NH!

Buy local

Buy local food and products whenever you can, including from the annual Organic Garden Club Farm Stand. Doing so supports local farmers and businesses whiel ensuring that your food and goods don't have to travel hundreds of miles - and use lots of gallons of greenhouse gas polluting fossil fuels - in the process.

Download "Eat Good, Do Good" (PDF), a food guide for UNH students!

Join the UNH Slow Food organization and Organic Garden Club!

Calculate then reduce your carbon footprint

Use the NH Carbon Challenge's Carbon Estimator or the EPA Personal Emissions Calculator to estimate how much carbon dioxide is emitted through your daily activities and lifestyle. Then visit UnDo It (PDF) from Environmental Defense or from 10 Cool Climate-Saving Actions from Clean Air - Cool Planet to find ideas for how to lessen your carbon footprint.

Take the New Hampshire Carbon Challenge - a UNH and Clean Air - Cool Planet initiative to encourage New Hampshire households to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions by 10,000 pounds per year (a 12% reduction for a typical household).

Conserve water

Only wash full loads of clothes, and wash with lukewarm or cold water, not hot. Turn off the water while you brush your teeth. Take shorter showers, and turn the shower off while you scrub. (You can turn it back on to rinse.) When washing dishes by hand, use a sink full of water instead of running water. If you use a dishwasher, only run full loads and use any energy or water efficiency settings available.

Report any leaks and drips in sinks, showers, and toilets to your Hall Director or to UNH Facilities Maintenance at 862-1437.

Don't Dump Down the Drain

Don't dump anything down sewer drains or kitchen and bathroom sinks. What you dump reaches our watershed, including local rivers like College Brook and Oyster River and ultimately Great Bay!

Get involved in sustainability-related groups and efforts

Get involved in the work of groups on campus like the Ecological Advocates, Students Without Borders, the UNH Organic Garden Club, the Student Environmental Action Council, the UNH Energy Club, the Student Senate, the UNH Slow Food group, volunteer efforts of your fraternity or sorority, and various student performing arts groups. Join, pitch in, and share in the fun!

Give your cell to a soldier

Since 2004, UNH has been collecting cell phones for the program Cell Phones for Soldiers. Donate your old cell phones today! Simply look for the basket with the American flag that sits at the UNH Memorial Union Building (MUB) Information Center, which is a drop-off point for anyone wanting to donate to Cell Phones for Soldiers.

Go gourmet and loccal at the annual Local Harvest Feast!

Join us each Septmeber in a UNH dining hall for this very popular, "all you care to eat" gourmet dinner featuring local foods. Talk with local farmers and food organizations, pick up some information on buying local foods, and enjoy the delicious food! Open to the community. Payment via cash or UNH meal plan. Sponsored by UNH Dining and the UNH University Office of Sustainability.

Learn new things!

While at UNH, take a wide variety of courses - from art history to nutrition, engineering to anthropology, all subjects pertain to sustainability. Here are just a few interesting courses to consider:

ChE 410 Energy and Environment
ENE 797 Sustainable Engineering
ESCI 405 Global Environmental Change
ESCI 514 Introduction to Climate
GEOG 673 Environmental Geography
NR 444B The Real Dirt
PHP 930 Climate Change and Health
PHP 932 Disease Ecology
POLT 444 Science, Society and Politics
POLT 567 Politics of Global Resources
POLT 751/851 Comparative Environmental Politics & Policy
POLT 780/880 International Environmental Politics, Policy and Law
ZOOL 444A Introduction to Aquatic Invasive Species
UNH also has a variety of graduate programs in which you might be interested - everything from a Masters of Arts in Environmental Education to PhD programs in Natural Resources & Earth System Sciences and in Sustainable Engineering!

You can also minor in sustainable living. Contact Professor Robert Eckhert in the Dept. of Natural Resources in James Hall for more information.

Powerdown

Set the power settings on your computer to have your monitor, hard drive, and CPU sleep after a certain amount of time of non-use. And when you aren't using your computer, cell phone charger, television, or other appliances and electronics, turn them off AND unplug them. You can also plug them into a powerstrip and turn off the strip when not in use.

Download our 2007 Powerdown Flyer (PDF) and help spread the word!

Recycle

You know the drill. Don't use your blue UNH recycling bin for trash. Recycle paper, cans, plastic, and more. While UNH Facilities supplies recycling bins and recycling signs in every building on campus (they recyled over 156 tons of cardboard in 2005 alone), and though they have given information to all RA's on campus to help them educate others about recycling, they can't make students and others recycle properly. This is where YOU come in! When you can, please speak to other students about the importance of recycling, and if you see someone throwing away recyclables or putting trash in recycling bins, please speak up. Nothing beats the power of students educating other students. So please let others know about the importance of recycling.

Learn more about recycling at UNH.

Get involved in RecycleMania each spring semester!

Refill, Don't Landfill

Refill Don't Landfill

UNH Printing Services now offers a cartridge refilling service for both inkjet and laser printers - saving you up to 50% on the cost of a new cartridge and keeping the old cartridges out of the trash. Visit the MUB Copy Center located on level 2 east of the MUB or call 862-0530 to learn more.

RENU

Donate clothes, unopened food, kitchen items and more at the end of every spring semester! Learn more...

Reuse

Bring your own travel mugs places to avoid using paper cups and buying bottled water. Print on both sides of paper, or use the backside or used paper for notes and scrap. Shop at "pre-owned" clothing stories, or have clothing swap parties with friends instead of buying new. Visit Craig's List or Freecycle to find items that people are giving away for free! Shop yard sales. Buy products with minimal packaging. And be creative: find new ways to use old things!

Ride a Cat Cycle

Visit UNH University Transportation Services at the UNH Visitor's Center near A-lot, show your UNH ID, and borrow a blue Cat Cycle - for free! Then happily ride all over campus knowing that you are improving your health and our air quality. You can borrow a bike for free for up to a week at a time!

Rideshare with GoLoco

Prevent greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution by carpooling. Use GoLoco to help you find someone with whom to carpool. Plus, if you carpool you can get a carpool parking permit from Transportation Services (as long as you both have commuter permits) and then you can park in Lot C (across from the Durham Marketplace on Mill Rd).

Visit GoLoco.org or add the GoLoco application to FaceBook. Then post a trip as a driver or passenger!

Sign up for our newsletter

Our newsletter highlights how sustainability principles and practices are being integrated throughout UNH’s curriculum, operations, research, and engagement with local, regional, national, and international partners. Each issue we share interesting "Did You Know?" facts, an easy-to-do "Tip of the Month," an inspiring "Profile in Sustainability" highlighting the sustainability work of UNH faculty, staff, and students, a "Calendar of Events," and much more. From our exciting work to the great work of others, if it’s related to sustainability at UNH, you’ll hear about it from us! Visit our Contact Us page to sign up.

Stop junk mail

You can easily stop receiving catalogs, credit card offers, and other junk mail with a variety of online services! Catalog Choice is a free service that lets you opt-out of unwanted catalogs. You can opt out of pre-approved credit card and insurance offers by calling 888-567-8688 (888-5-OPT-OUT) from your home telephone; it will be checked against an address database. Or visit www.optoutprescreen.com/. You can also opt out of mailings from the Direct Marketing Association, the trade group used by 5,200 member companies to pitch their products directly to consumers. To stop receiving mailings from DMA members, go to www.the-dma.org and click on the orange box that reads “remove my name from mailing lists.” For other great ideas, read this MSNBC.com and "Today Show" story.

Take the Challenge! October 1 - November 1, 2009

Run by the UNH student group the Ecological Advocates, the UNH Student Energy Waste Watch Challenge is an energy and water use reduction competition held on the UNH Durham campus during the four weeks in the fall semester that lead up to the Thanksgiving break and UNH's powerdown educational campaign. The major goal is to engage students living on campus in activities that reduce their ecological footprints - in particular, energy use. Students compete as a residence hall or apartment complex to reduce their per capita energy and water consumption compared to their building’s average usage from the past three years. Each apartment complex and residence hall has one or more volunteer “Energy Captains” - students who take a leadership role to educate and motivate their fellow students. The three buildings that reduce their energy and water consumption the most win a a cash prize to their hall fund ($300 for first place, $200 for second, and $100 for third), bragging rights, a cool student-made trophy that moves from winning building to winning building, & peace of mind!

Learn more about the annual Student Energy Waste Watch Challenge!

Take WildCAT Transit

Leave your car at home! Instead of driving solo to campus, take WildCAT Transit to save time, hassle, money, and emissions. And - coming soon! - look for the EcoCAT signs, which mark all alternative fuel and clean technology transit and non-transit vehicles on campus. You can ride a B20 biodiesel bus and a compressed natural gas (CNG) shuttle - all in one day!

WildCAT schedule information

Talk amongst yourselves - then spread the word!

Immerse yourself in discussions with faculty, staff, other students, and local residents about sustainability. For example, participate in the UNH Discovery Program's University-wide Dialogue. The 2009 - 2010 topic is "Taking Care of Self and Community: A University Dialogue on Health." Past topics have included globalization, energy, democracy and poverty.

University-wide Dialogue information

Use compact fluorescent lights (CFL's)

While UNH has used energy efficient compact fluorescent lighting (CFL's) for several years - including in new construction and major renovation projects and as replacements for all incandescent lighting that dies out and needs to be replaced - one of the biggest issues with incandescent lamps versus CFL's is the large number of personal floor and desk lamps that students bring into the residence halls from home. UNH Facilities can dictate what types of lamps are allowed in academic/administrative buildings, but we can't dictate what type of lamps students bring into their residence hallrooms. Buy CFL's for your residence hall room or apartment - and inform other students to do the same.

CFL information for students

Use recycled paper

You can also get 100% tree-free kenaf paper at the UNH MUB Copy Center. And, of course, print double-sided.

Sustainability Quick Links