Brian Mullin
December 12th, 2004
Environmental Ethics
PURCHASING
There are many necessary changes that need to occur on all college campuses across the campus when it comes to purchasing. The main goal of environmentally ethical purchasing is to ensure that environmental procedures are used in the products that are sold and used in the building and maintenance of college campuses. There were three major fundamental problems that I ran into throughout the course of my research aside from the many problems I found on campus.
The first problem I found was the lack of response I got from the staff on campus that I was told would be able to give me some of the data I would need to be truly successful. I tried on a number of occasions to reach Wayne Hermes and was only able to reach his voice mail. I left him a couple of messages with no response. I also tried to get a hold of Paul Mares and wasn’t able to even reach his voice mail so I went to try and find him in his office unsuccessfully. In all honesty I only started trying to get in touch with Mr. Mares until a week ago and it might have been better if I had tried to find him sooner.
The second fundamental problem that I had was that the issue of purchasing overlaps with many other issues on campus. A specific example of this cross over of topics would be the problem of computers not being electrically efficient. This in many ways is a problem that has to do with purchasing because it is true that some computers are designed to be more efficient than others. Although this affects purchasing this is more of an electricity issue than anything else. I found that this crossover happened many times throughout the project, which made it hard for me to figure out exactly what problems really applied to the issue of purchasing.
The third problem is one that I have had in the past when working in groups and that is that my group was not very good at communicating and sharing the work load evenly between all of the group members. I honestly don’t even know what kind of research the other members of my group have done.
The main problems I found on the topic of purchasing are some more major than others. The most major problem is that the people in charge of purchasing are not concerned with the environmental impact of their decisions but rather how they could save money. Their needs to be an actual paid position for someone on campus who will monitor not only purchasing decisions but also other areas of environmental importance around campus. This person could offer ideas about more environmentally stable products as well as purchasing decisions that could be costly at the moment but could save the school money down the line. An example of this is solar power. Although solar power is expensive to install, years down the line it could end up making money, especially with as much sunlight Fort Lewis annually receives.
One of the other problems I found was that copy machines waste a great deal of paper through human error. Some solutions would be to get more duplexing machines so that you would always have to copy on both sides of a page. Also the process of ordering more paper or anything else on campus for that matter requires paper. Campuses should work with the companies they order supplies with to order online or using paperless ordering systems of some kind. Another thing that needs to happen is the use of recycled paper. I think that when a teacher hands back a paper to a student, the student should look at the paper, get the grade and then hand it back to the teacher for proper disposal in a recycling bin. It would probably amaze some teachers but I myself have no use for a paper when it is handed back to me and often times it ends up crumpled in a ball at the bottom of my book bag.
On the topic of recycling the bookstore should offer more recycled products ranging from more used books to recycled paper and any other kind of materials they could find that would fall into this category. This would ensure that the campus is not supporting the over consumption of paper and other goods.
Purchasing departments need to also consider the products that are used in the dorms and their efficiency. Laundry machines and microwaves use up a great deal of electricity and water. Unfortunately I could not come up with an alternative to the laundry machines that we are currently using and using less of them would only frustrate the dorm tenants. I can remember getting angry about how there wasn’t enough washers at times when I needed to do my laundry. However I do think that there is something that we could do about the microwaves. I personally don’t believe that every room needs a microwave. If each floor in the dorms had one microwave it could decrease the amount of electricity consumed.
Some of my other ideas was using less hazardous materials in chemistry labs and art projects. I’m sure that there is some alternative to some of these products that could teach the student what they need to learn without harming the environment. Another idea would be to use reuse their batteries that are used in all sorts of household products. Currently in the United States there is an estimated two billion household batteries sold each year creating 83,500 tons of discarded batteries each year. The bookstore should encourage students to by rechargeable batteries and the dorms should consider buying the chargers so that the students could recharge there batteries. These batteries last four times longer and can be recharged one-thousand times and cost $12.75 at any local Wal-Mart. The chargers cost around twenty dollars and would save the consumer a great deal of money down the line as well as the trash dumps that are filling up with corroding batteries.
The last idea I came up with was trying to find alternatives to chlorine in pools and other cleaning supplies. Chlorine is an extremely toxic and harmful chemical that should not be used nearly as much as it is. Exposure to chlorine is known to cause higher incidences of asthma, lung damage, stillbirths, miscarriages and bladder cancer, according to credible research conducted in the U.S., Canada, Norway, Australia and Belgium. An alternative to Chlorine is a substance called Ozone. Ozone is made from Oxygen or O2, which is converted through electricity to Ozone or O3. Ozone is a much more powerful oxidant than chlorine. The only problem with Ozone pools is the initial amount of capital it takes to build a chemical free pool. However, down the line it becomes more affordable because their isn’t as much corrosive damage to the pool creating less repair costs.
The biggest overall problem with environmental purchasing is that the capital is extremely expensive. The individuals in charge of campus purchasing see only this when the go to make an investment. It doesn’t matter how much it could save in the future or the effect it would have on the environment because bottom line, the money isn’t their. All of my ideas require money in a time when our government is not interested in giving sufficient financial backing to higher education especially at a school like Fort Lewis. Another thing that would be smart to look into would be the laws and regulations surrounding many of my ideas.
I do believe that someday the men and woman in charge of our college spending will realize the importance of ecology and our delicate relationship with the environment but I fear that it won’t happen until its to late. Purchasing is an obscure topic with many different intertwining concerns due to the over consumption of our natural resources on college campuses. In order for the student body to make a difference there needs to be an added amount of concern on the part of the students.
Rescources:
http://swimming.about.com/od/allergyandasthma/a/cl_pool_problem_3.htm
www.greenbatteries.com