Environmental sustainability is not a trend at the University of Arizona: It is a longstanding practice.

The UA's Ice Plant facilities is estimated to save the University anywhere from $20,000 to $30,000 a month in energy costs.

Decades of innovation and dollar-watching across the 355-acre main campus have helped minimize the UA’s environmental and fiscal footprints. In 1957 — when Elvis Presley was singing “All Shook Up” and “Gunsmoke” was at its peak of popularity — Charles Abbot, a pioneer in the field of solar energy, set up the first solar pilot project on campus – a solar-powered steam boiler.

Today, dozens of buildings across campus are models of sustainability and the UA offers more than 160 sustainability-relevant courses across 27 departments in 10 colleges, spanning a wide array of disciplines. Faculty and students are working on sustainability research in nearly 40 centers, institutes, field sites, labs and other research facilities. UA Facilities Management enables campus to be that model of sustainability by embracing everyday sustainable practices.

Reclaimed water keeps the campus green

“We took the entire campus to reclaimed water for all our turf about three years ago,” said Chris Kopach, associate director of Facilities Management, in a Nov. 9, 2009, UA News story.1. “We did a computerized irrigation system of all our turf areas – the football field, the baseball fields, the University Mall – and then we tied that in to all the reclaimed water.”

• Enzyme-based cubes allow urinals to be flushed just once a day.

Recycle, reuse, renew

• Cardboard, white paper, aluminum cans and plastics are all recycled.
• The UA placed fourth in 2009 among the nation's largest universities in the nationwide competition known as Recyclemania, a partnership with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s WasteWise program.
• The custodial crew uses mops that are made out of pop bottles and have handles made out of bamboo.
• The University has installed six solar-powered trash compactors.
• Much of the University Motor Pool runs on E-85 fuel – 85 percent ethanol, derived from corn – that burns cleaner than gasoline.

Powering energy savings

Perhaps the most significant sustainability strides and cost savings are in the UA programs to save energy and to power, light, heat and cool the 13 million square feet of building space on the main campus and the Arizona Health Sciences Center. UA’s electric bill is about $1 million a month.

The UA can generate a third of its own energy. In 2002, Facilities Management installed two gas-turbine generators, which produce 12 megawatts of electricity. It collects the waste heat created and turns it into a combined 56,000 pounds of steam.

The steam feeds kitchen and other equipment, such as autoclaves and sterilizers. “In the summertime, we do not turn on a boiler. We’re basically just running off of our waste heat, which is very efficient,” Marianne Deutsch, senior staff technician for utilities, said in the UA News story.

Cooling is a bigger challenge in Arizona, as anyone on campus in mid-July will attest. The UA does things the old-fashioned way — with ice. It can produce 29,000 tons of chilled water to cool its buildings at a highly efficient rating of 0.683 kilowatts per ton, Deutsch said. "A normal air conditioner at your house generates it for about 1.5 kw per ton, so we do a little bit less than half," she said. "Pretty efficient system."

The bulk of the ice-making occurs at the Central Refrigeration Building, where 156 eight-foot-tall tanks that look like giant ice buckets are arranged in two tiers. Another 49 tanks were added last year to the main campus Central Heating and Refrigeration Plant. Plastic tubing carrying a 25-percent glycol mix freezes the plain tap water solid inside – ice rinks in a can.

The freezing is done at night, when it’s cooler and the process is more efficient. In the heat of the next day, when everyone else is cranking up the air-conditioning, the ice chills water and cools buildings. Innovations like the ice plant have helped Facilities Management hold its costs down even as the University was adding about a million square feet of building space.

The long-term sustainability efforts were acknowledged by the National Wildlife Federation’s Campus Ecology program two years ago when UA was identified as one of six of more than 1,000 U.S. universities and colleges that had exemplary, campus-wide sustainability programs.

Being green or environmentally conscious for some institutions is a fashionable trend that will be passé as quickly as Elvis’s hips gyrated. For the University, the commitment to sustainability and to fiscal prudence are not fads, but are intrinsic to everyday life on campus.