Lightbulb swap one of many green initiatives undertaken by student EcoReps

What’s the bright idea?
Lightbulb swap one of many green initiatives undertaken by student EcoReps

BY JENNIFER EVANS
Rice News staff

How many college students does it take to change a lightbulb? Two: One to relinquish the inefficient incandescent bulb and one to provide a free, energy-saving bulb. Or at least that’s how it goes at several of Rice’s colleges where students have been conducting a compact fluorescent lightbulb, or CFL, swap.

At Wiess College, senior Jeremy Caves has been popping into his fellow residents’ rooms all semester in an effort to convince them to make the change. The incentive? Aside from the free CFL, they become more environmentally friendly by using a bulb that burns one-quarter to one-fifth the energy.

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“Perhaps another incentive is that I’ll more easily leave the room if they take a bulb,” Caves joked.

Swapping out a bulb is perhaps the easiest environmental and Earth-friendly activity anyone can do, Caves said. In an incandescent bulb, most of the electricity is actually turned into heat, which then also heats up the room and causes people to use more air-conditioning. CFLs not only save energy directly — they simply use less energy to produce the same amount of light — but they also don’t heat up as much, saving on air-conditioning costs. Also, using less energy will help control Housing and Dining’s energy budget, which is reflected in the cost of living on campus. “The less energy we use, the less that cost will rise,” he said.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, each CFL can save an average of $30 in electricity costs over the life of the bulb and prevent more than 450 pounds of greenhouse gas emissions.

“Wiess is the only college thus far to intensively distribute the bulbs, and we have given out approximately 170 bulbs,” said Caves, who has personally given out about 130 of them. “Now that we’ve shown it can work at Wiess, I’m hoping the other colleges will also do it.”

EcoRep program
Learn more about how Rice students are working together for the environment
The swap is but one initiative of the EcoRep program, a peer-to-peer sustainability outreach project that was launched at each of the residential colleges at Rice in spring 2008 after a successful pilot phase at Martel College. Rice’s Director of Sustainability Richard Johnson employs one student EcoRep per college to encourage recycling, energy conservation and other environmentally friendly activities and improve general awareness about sustainability at the college. The EcoReps coordinate with their respective college governments to apply for ”green funds” set aside by Housing and Dining to fund sustainability-related initiatives in the colleges.

”My intention is to support students who are willing to be environmental leaders and innovators at their colleges,” Johnson said. ”The program provides a structure and a funding mechanism to support these grassroots efforts.”

Caves, the EcoRep at Wiess, said in addition to the CFL swap, he’s been educating students about how to use their thermostats, making sure each room has recycling bins, ensuring that recycling bins on each floor are well-labeled and collecting recyclables such as batteries, DVDs, CDs and printer cartridges.

Sid Richardson College EcoRep Rebecca Sagastegui said the EcoReps have focused on standardizing the recycling systems at all the colleges, including making recycling bins and recycling information more accessible.

“At Sid and Wiess, we’ve recently distributed five-gallon buckets to each room to serve as apartment recyclers for glass, aluminum and plastic,” she said. “So far it seems to be really successful. The response we’ve gotten back has been overwhelmingly positive. Hopefully this will soon be implemented in the other colleges as well.”

Sagastegui also has been conducting a CFL swap and has been going door-to-door giving out temperature cards for every suite.

At Martel College, EcoRep Rachel Carlson wanted to motivate people to bring their recyclables — aluminum, glass and plastic — to the bins in the commons, so she began offering free milkshakes to those who do. She later added to the list of milkshake-worthy items servery supplies, such as trays, plates and tumblers, which Johnson said Housing and Dining loses so many of through the semester that they end up having to buy disposable plates and cups.

“These are exactly the sorts of initiatives that I was hoping to see when I worked with the students to establish and fund the EcoRep program,” he said.

Johnson found a ready partner in Housing and Dining when the program was initially conceived. ”They have been onboard since day one. They benefit when an EcoRep takes responsibility for turning off the lights in unoccupied common areas. They benefit when an EcoRep encourages students to return trays and plates. They benefit when an EcoRep raises awareness of appropriate temperature settings in student rooms.  But more broadly, they recognize that the students benefit by having a peer at each college who is the go-to person for environmental issues and who is helping to make positive changes.” 

The students hope their efforts continue long after they’re gone.

“Through this program, we can institutionalize a huge chunk of student-driven programs, mainly recycling and energy conservation programs,” Caves said. “Even though it is still students who run the program, because Richard has direct control, it is far more likely that the EcoRep program will stick around when we all graduate.”