Columns:: University receives governor’s award for pollution prevention

since 12/15/98

Columns::September 30, 2002

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Campus News

University receives governor’s award for pollution prevention

By Chuck Toney
ctoney@uga.edu

For the second time in three years, the university has been recognized as having one of the best pollution-prevention programs in

Ken Scott

the state. The 2002 Governor’s Pollution Prevention Awards were presented recently at Georgia State University. UGA also won the award in 2000.
UGA was recognized for five programs that have effectively reduced or eliminated existing or potential pollutants:
• Georgia Clean Days. Organized by the Cooperative Extension Service, this program has collected and properly disposed of one million pounds of unusable pesticides from across the state since 1994, with almost 300,000 pounds collected in fiscal year 2002.
• Bioconversion Research Center. Established in 1995, the Bioconversion Center and Research Program makes compost out of organic waste materials, such as leaves, limbs and plants, instead of sending them to a landfill. Runoff from the composting site is collected and used in a land-application system that nourishes plant life and prevents nutrients from collecting in local bodies of water. The compost is used in campus landscaping. In fiscal year 2002, 4,500 cubic yards of organic material were kept out of landfills and 1.6 million gallons of leachate were treated through the land-application system.
• Training for Waste Minimization. More than 750 university employees and 60 principal investigators completed a course on waste minimization in laboratories.
• Biofuel Industrial Steam Project. Engineering Outreach Services retrofitted a campus boiler to burn biofuels, such as byproduct oils from food processing and restaurants. The boiler successfully powered the main campus for three weeks in early 2002.
• Educational Cooperative Exchange Program. The Environmental Safety Division established a program to distribute excess or unused laboratory chemicals to local high schools. Over 100 containers of chemicals were delivered to high schools in the Athens area, providing financial assistance to the schools and reducing the need to dispose of the chemicals through hazardous waste procedures.
“What’s really important is the wide range of people and departments involved in this effort,” says Ken Scott, director of the Environmental Safety Division. “Of the five programs we submitted as part of our application, only two of them are operated out of this office. The others were developed and are operated by people who saw a need and came up with a solution.”
“There’s a great diversity of effort at UGA in approaching this issue,” says Greg Bell, a hazardous materials officer at ESD, “but there’s a sense of unity, too, about reducing pollution.”
The Governor’s Pollution Prevention Award is administered by the Pollution Prevention Assistance Division of the Department of Natural Resources. Awards are presented to public and private organizations in seven categories. Other winners this year were Advantis Technologies, Georgia Power Company, Siemens Energy and Automation Corporation, the Georgia Department of Corrections, Wellstar Waste System and Southface Energy Institute.

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