Go Green!

Michigan State University (MSU), East Lansing, Mich., is known as an agriculture school, a college with a great men’s basketball team and the team’s coach, Tom Izzo. Now, the Big Ten university also wants to be known for its environmental efforts, having added a new Surplus Store & Recycling Center, which boasts numerous “green” design aspects, and a material recovery facility (MRF).

Located within the struggling economy of Michigan, the university is still making it a priority to carry out its duty to environmental stewardship by revising and expanding the traditional three Rs to reflect its environmental goals: Reduce, Reuse/Recycle, Research/Reeducate, Redesign and Rethink.

In 2005, MSU President Lou Anna Simon initiated a strategic positioning process for MSU titled “Boldness by Design.” The title reflects her aspirations for the university and challenges the campus to embark on a bold and purposeful march into the 21st century by increasing recycling, decreasing energy use and changing the outlooks and behaviors of the 46,000 faculty, staff and students.

An environmental stewardship program was started from the “Be Spartan Green” initiative, which assists the Recycling Center with the comprehensive recycling program in all 579 campus buildings. In January 2008, the MSU board of trustees authorized building the new MSU Surplus Store & Recycling facility to further environmental efforts on campus. The new facility, which opened in August 2009, is approximately 74,000 square feet. It cost $13.3 million to build and is expected to pay for itself in 15 years.

MSU did more than just focus on the end product; the university also used sustainable practices in building the new facility. To reduce the environmental impact of building on undisturbed land, the MSU Surplus Store & Recycling Center was constructed on a formerly developed site, a portion of which consisted of a previous coal ash dumping ground. To ensure a suitable building site, nearly 800 aggregate piers were buried through the unsuitable soils remaining after the site was graded to its required elevations. During the building’s construction, contractors collected more than 80 percent of the scrap materials and construction debris generated for recycling. Also, specifications called for building and construction materials to be extracted or made within 500 miles of the site.

ATTENTION TO DIVERTING

The MSU Surplus Store and the MSU Recycling Center, which used to be housed in separate buildings despite working closely together, are now under one roof. The facility includes more storage, an education center that is open to students of all ages and community members and a MRF, which sorts and bales all of MSU’s recyclables. A public drop-off area also is available to MSU students and staff.

The facility’s most prized new features are  the sorting line and baler in the MRF, which were supplied by Karl W. Schmidt & Associates Inc., Commerce City, Colo. The facility has a maximum capacity of 5,500 tons per year, allowing the university plenty of room to meet its goals to increase the material recovery volume to 3,600 tons per year by 2012. The MRF features three large tipping areas where trucks dump incoming recyclables. There are also four dock level doors for inbound and outbound materials. Two conveyors direct recyclables either up to the sorting line, where employees hand-sort materials into chutes that lead to bunkers segregated by material type or directly to the facility’s baler.

The two-ram baler creates 3,500 pounds of pressure and produces 1,300- to 2,000-pound bales.

Newspaper, white office paper, sorted office paper and most cardboard is source-separated on campus, with the help of multiple recycling bins. MSU Housing, which is home to roughly 16,000 students, comingles their recyclables, including cardboard and boxboard as well as plastics and metals to be hand-sorted at the MRF.

MSU sells some of the recyclables, such as their white office paper, sorted office paper, newspaper and cardboard, mill direct. The university uses a broker to sell its boxboard, plastics and metals.

GREEN ADDITIONS

The new building incorporates Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) elements in anticipation of achieving Silver Certification, a status awarded to various “green” building projects following third-party varification. The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) developed LEED to provide “building owners and operators a concise framework for identifying and implementing practical and measurable green building design, construction, operations and maintenance solutions,” according to the USGBC Web site.

Photovoltaic panels (192 total) are located on the roof, with a total system rating estimated at 37,257 kilowatt-hours per year at a value of $2,831 per year. The system also has a real-time display showing electricity generated; hourly, daily and monthly read-outs; and a weather station. The system is expected to provide up to 10 percent of the building’s electrical needs. A few of the parking lots lights also feature photovoltaic panels.

A rainwater harvesting system collects rooftop rainwater to replace domestic water that would have been required for toilets, urinals and the MRF’s pressure washer. The system collects and routes water to seven collection tanks that hold approximately 15,000 gallons of water. It is estimated the system will supply 73,000 gallons of water annually, providing 60 percent of the building’s water supply. Water-efficient fixtures in the bathrooms, including the toilets and urinals, reduce water consumption by 30 percent compared with standard fixtures. This system will help achieve two water efficiency credits towards MSU’s LEED certification: one for “innovative wastewater technologies” and the other “water-use reduction.”

Four rain gardens were strategically placed on the outside edges of the pavement around the building. The rain flows into the garden instead of filtering into nearby rivers and storm drains, reducing river and stream pollution. The native plants in the gardens have roots that reach deep into the soil and can handle droughts and floods, eliminating the need for an irrigation system.

To help manage storm runoff, one parking lot was paved with porous asphalt, which unlike standard asphalt is open to water. Water drains through the porous asphalt into a stone bed and then slowly infiltrates the soil, which is a natural process that cleanses water, filtering out particulates.

To provide a comfortable space that promotes productivity and the well-being of the building’s occupants, five strategically placed giant fans were installed throughout the building. They are tied into the building management system, allowing them to be set on a schedule, only turning on when necessary. The large fans move air at a low speed, which consumes less energy. They range from 8 to 12 feet in diameter and will produce a breeze that causes the air to feel 8 to 16 degrees cooler in the summer. The fans also gently drive hot air trapped in the ceilings down to the floor, resulting in reduced heating expenses during the winter months.

An energy recovery ventilator system conditions air exhausted from the restrooms, helping to cool incoming outdoor air. This reduces the cost to otherwise cool or heat the incoming air and helps eliminate ozone-depleting refrigerants in the air-conditioning systems.

In addition, the front sidewalk hides the snow-melt system—glycol-filled heat tubes under the concrete that will help keep the outside handicap walkways drier and safer during the winter by decreasing ice accumulation.

One way to keep glass out of the landfill when a higher use is not available is to mix it into concrete. The heated sidewalk, driveway approaches and curbs around the outside of the facility, which amount to 15 percent of the exterior concrete, include recycled glass particles. The conference room table and education center counters also are constructed with recycled glass from EnviroGLAS, Plano, Texas, as well as with recycled porcelain and recycled aluminum. The durable surfaces are free of volatile organic compounds (VOCs).

Inside the building, all of the paints, adhesives, carpeting and interior furnishings have low or no VOCs, in accordance with LEED standards.

Many of the above systems will help to save more than 50 percent of the building’s energy costs over the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers’ baseline. Additional features that will achieve energy savings include motion sensors to control lighting in high-traffic areas and the numerous windows which allow for the broad use of natural light.

SELLING THE SURPLUS

The MSU Surplus Store is now open and holds public sales of used products from various MSU departments every Tuesday and Friday. The store is responsible for the disposition of all university surplus property and provides managed storage services to university departments. A vast variety of items are for sale, many of which are unique or not readily available elsewhere. The typical inventory includes office and residence hall furniture, lab equipment and supplies, vehicles, computers, farm equipment, books and much more. Age or condition of the inventory is dependent on several factors; the MSU Surplus Store sells new, old and antique items, with older items ranging from seldom- to well-used.

The Surplus Store’s disposition model starts with the redeployment of property across the campus as a cost savings, followed by public sale. If an item has been determined by the store to have no value, it is donated to a charitable organization, given away for free or recycled. Sending property to the landfill is the final step in the process.

The MSU Recycling Center opened a 24/7 drop-off center, available to the students, staff and on-campus community, two months after the facility held its grand opening. The drop-off area, located adjacent to the facility, has a pull-around driveway and six large curb carts to collect all of the materials the facility currently handles, including white and sorted office paper, newspaper, plastics Nos. 1 through 7, cardboard, boxboard, clear and brown glass and tin, steel and aluminum.