I am spending part of my sabbatical at the University of British Columbia. During the first month, I was a bit confused by the several contradictory waste disposal signs on campus. There were signs that said plastic cups served at the main cafes should be put in the compost bin. At the same time wooden chopsticks went into the landfill bin. At home, there were similar issues. The city recycling was very basic:-newspaper, paper/cardboard, metal cans and certain plastic containers. All tetra packs and plastic bags were destined for the landfill or had to be taken to Encorp recycling.
Then one day while searching the UBC website in trying to find out the department responsible for waste management, I came across notices for two workshops. One on water (Feb 8th, 2011) and another on waste ( Feb 10, 2011). These events where part of the process in which the administration was trying to formulate an action plan for water and waste on campus. I registered for both and attended them. It was fun. Though the status of water (plentiful but wasted) and waste (plentiful but diverted/taken to landfill) were different from Bangalore the problems and ideas to deal with them seemed the same. A week before the workshop I received the discussion papers [ water, waste] for each of the workshops. They are both excellent reads.
At the water workshop we were separated into groups. In each group one had to select a partner and perform an interview (thankfully the questions were given on a sheet). The questionnaire had a “management consultant or HRish” feel to it, i.e. essentially espousing grandiose abstract thoughts that rarely lead to anything. I had a good interviewer from the office of sustainability. She made sure that we got to specifics and not indulge in random problem shouting on water.
Once the interviews were over, there were three speeches on water. All very short but differed in content. Vancouver has a lot of water and it rains a lot, so go figure why would anyone care about saving water. This was addressed in speech one. The second was by the water engineer at UBC who walked us through the discussion paper. The final one is what I really enjoyed. The waste-water engineer/manager who gave us a run down on the storm water system on campus, waste water treatment plant on campus and the city and nitty gritty details (I will share them below). After this, we as a group (6 on our table) were asked to present our vision in terms of water. This had to be done comparing notes, throwing out ideas and finally creating a vision statement, a poster and an action item to be worked on by the community (towards the vision). My group mates were a mason, a manager at plant operations, staff from the sustainability office and a faculty from CIRS. The discussions were pretty detailed. We came up with a vision of being “Net positive on water by 2015″. Our action item was getting traction on using waste water.
In the afternoon (after a good lunch) we were then asked to form groups where in we discussed the action item. You could choose to go into any task you want (not necessarily the one from the morning that your group suggested). I went to waste water. The engineer/manager from the morning was there, so were three others who worked on waste water on campus. There was a master’s student and a elected official, Maria Harris who represented the Electoral area A of Vancouver . The discussion was really enriching. Again like I mentioned earlier, the ideas/problems were rather the same as in Bangalore but the current status was different. It was cool to be able to talk to people who worked in these areas and were participating with the public in trying to form an action plan for the community. The workshop ended with all of us sharing specific tasks that should be carried out by the university administration. Ours was a water audit ([entry] usage and [exit] waste water) in 8 buildings. The number 8 came to us in the middle of the discussion as one of the engineers knew there was a water audit already on in campus at these 8 buildings. Based on the audit, a complete classification/plan for reuse. The final item was having a social network on which competitions to be held to highlight/complement conscious water usage.
The waste workshop was very similar. I got to talk to food services employees and those managing student housing on campus. Did not stay for the afternoon session in the Waste workshop.
Now I will outline the nitty-gritty details that I learnt at the workshop about campus/Vancouver in general with regard to water and waste. The details were either mentioned in discussions or in speeches and I have not validated all of them. If you were at the workshop then please feel free to comment on the errors and omissions.
Water Workshop–Low flow fixtures in toilet taps/flushes (in fact there are sensors at Men’s urinals in many toilets). Check out the base flow rate (stunning quantity of water, 137 litres, that is flowing through the system on a typical second) in the discussion paper and the efforts to bring it down. – Ecotrek energy and water retrofit project for existing buildings where having effect. – Ecological Planting (several storm water drains or water run-off’s have been channeled to create a little columns of individual bio-spheres. Sediment Control. Rainwater has been used for irrigation. CIRS Building-project, a self-sufficient (energy wise) and net-positive in water building nearing completion. Several Academic buildings have green roofs. –In 2009- UBC used 4.3 billion litres of water. Cost is 2.5 million dollars. Source of water is three water shed that supply to Vancouver . 2050– the city will need to find new water sources. – Bio-filtration plant: for storm water run-off. Impurities from: roads are oils/metals; sand from trucks and lab water; and finally sewer contamination. They system is on a 10 year monitoring period. The issues for any improvements are: flooding, cliff erosion, and quality. In South Campus : there is water re-circulation system in place. Where in there is collection, storage, treatment and re-pumping of rain water. At UBC:- 85% of water from the water shed for campus makes its way into the sewer system. IONA -waste water treatment plant the primary outlet for UBC waste water. Water dished out to IONA is metered and monitored for basic parameter requirements. Several lab building have in built treatment plants that ensure pre-treatment of their waste water. Cost involved is 1.3 million dollars a year. – Rainwater quantity is 5 billion litres of water. There are ”invisible water sheds” (i.e. vertical drains: need to check out technology) that have been dug on campus. Amount of impermeable surface at UBC:- 50% –Metering:- 2 main meters that monitor in-supply at UBC; all tenant houses on campus are metered and 60 core academic buildings are metered. Digital meter reads every 15 minutes and non-digital meter read once a month. –Energy and Quality offset :- Water (via gravity lands in Sasamat reservoir ) is pumped to UBC. Heating requirements at many labs and many buildings (with labs, boilers and such) have Reverse osmosis plants in place. Water quality across all amenity taps (washrooms, urinals, kitchens, water fountains) is the same. Such high quality need not be necessary for all usages at various buildings. –Steam (heat) plants consume a fair amount of (potable) water and a lot of water discharge happens here. 25% of the condensed water is reused but 75% at 180 C is sent to the sewer. Several ideas were discussed on using the temperature of water in the system. Be it at the particle accelerator at TRIUMF or temperature of waste water. This is an issue at IONA as well. |
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– Diversion of waste to : reuse, recycle and reprocess needs to be at 75%. Other places: San Francisco has a 77% diversion rate with a mandatory recycle and composting program. University of North Carolina has implemented a waste action plan that has resulted in 33% reduction at landfills. – Proposed an Encore type project for UBC. Construction waste: wood cartons where replaced with plastic wraps. A system that introduces “light” easy to use but ” hard to recycle” materials. A need to look at design chain and the Economics of waste. – University has it own in-vessel compostor that deals with all compostable waste (processing 5 tonnes of organic waste daily) dished out on campus. Several food outlets supply ” compostable” plastic cutlery [I have used them and they are kind of cool] – No one is responsible for signage at UBC. Confusing signs lead to contamination which results in materials being sent to Landfill. Returnables are not in waste audit. |
