The med center hosted several successful events to promote sustainability throughout April to celebrate Earth Month.
The annual personal document shredding and electronic recycling event on April 18-19 diverted from the landfill:
- 5,109 pounds of electronic waste
- 2,402 pounds of personal documents
- 261 pounds of alkaline batteries, equal to approximately 4,000 batteries
- 140 pounds of assorted media such as VHS tapes, DVDs, CDs and floppy disks
- 17 pounds of rechargeable/button batteries
The med center community donated:
- $612 and 200 cans of food to the Maverick Food Pantry
- 43 pairs of eyeglasses to the Truhlsen Eye Institute
- 24 pounds of pop tabs to Omaha’s Ronald McDonald House
Throughout April, the UNMC Office of Sustainability hosted the EcoChallenge, an online platform that encourages participants to weave sustainable actions into their daily lives. Participants consumed 52 meatless or vegan meals, spent 3,703 minutes outdoors and saved 37 gallons of water. The Office of Sustainability is continuing the challenge with a focus on biking through June 5. Sign up to log biking miles here.
The Office of Sustainability also hosted multiple cleanups around campus to collect litter. Teams collected a total of 2.3 pounds of Hefty orange bag materials, 3.5 pounds of recycling and 11.7 pounds of landfill waste.
At the Arbor Day tree-planting event, students and staff planted a tree and heard about trees in Nebraska from Graham Herbst, community forestry specialist for eastern Nebraska with the Nebraska Forest Service. The med center now has a new scarlet oak named “Treeth Urban,” located in the green space west of the Harold M. and Beverly Maurer Center for Public Health.