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Caltopia VI is greener than ever!

Caltopia VI, recognized as the largest experiential College Lifestyle Festival in the nation, will be held on Sunday, August 24 and Monday, August 25, 2008 at the award-winning Recreational Sports Facility right here on campus! This year Caltopia is greener than ever, and we want to share our plan with you! Check out the 10 ways we plan on greening the event and let us know what you think!

Zero Waste: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

1. Reduce - Cal Rec Sports will offer paperless promotional methods to all exhibitors and sponsors via our partners, Kadoink and CampusMint.

2. Reuse - We're going paperless wherever possible, but when we can't go paperless, we are making efforts to use recycled paper and soy-based ink.

3. Recycle - Caltopia will be outfitted with a minimum of 14 recycling stations, including trash, compost, and recycling bins, throughout the event. Signage will be strategically placed near each recycling station and throughout the facility.

Sustainable Transportation

4. No Idling Rule - During load-in/out, trucks and cars will have designated parking at specified times to avoid idling and promote cleaner air.

5. Public Transportation - The link to 511.org's Trip Planner will be provided on the event website, for attendees to find the best method of public transportation to get them to the event.

Good Eats at Caltopia - The natural, organic and sustainable way!

6. Compost - All sampling stations and restaurants are encouraged to use compostable materials to distribute their product whenever possible. Compost bins will be easily accessible both for participating restaurants and attendees.

7. Biodegradable - All utensils, containers and napkins for Caltopia's Chow Down and Restaurant Row will be biodegradable.

8. Styrofoam Free - Caltopia will be a Styrofoam Free event!

Reducing Caltopia's Climate Footprint

9. Travel Climate Neutral - Cal Rec Sports encourages attendees traveling from out of town to offset their carbon emissions by purchasing Cool Tags which can offset about 300 miles of travel.

10. Support the locals - In order to support the Buy Local Berkeley campaign, we are inviting locally owned and operated businesses to be a part of Caltopia!

Big Businesses Ranked on Greenness

Part of working out and staying healthy includes buying proper athletic apparel and nutritious foods. As a consumer of athletic apparel, food and other healthy lifestyle products, do you ever wonder how green the companies you purchase from are? Well, now it's easy to find out!

Check out Climate Counts, a new ranking of eco-friendly practices in big biz. In its second annual scorecard, nonprofit Climate Counts ranked 56 companies on their measurement, reduction, and disclosure of greenhouse gases. Eighty-four percent of the companies scored higher this year than they did in 2007, but the average score was still only 40 out of a possible 100. Climate Counts distributes pocket-sized versions of its scorecard in hopes that consumers will consider the rankings when wielding purchasing power.

Want to see how the companies you purchase from rate? Visit Climate Counts.

Source: Grist.org and Climate Counts, viewed on 5/8/08

Stay Green While You Travel

These days, we try to do it all: excel at school or jobs, workout, spend time with friends and family, all while trying to stay healthy. A great way to de-stress and escape from our hectic lives is to take a vacation. So, pick a destination where you can take your recreation out doors and get some relaxation in too. While you're at it, why not find accommodations that match up with the green ideals that you live by at home? Happily, there are an increasing number of resources available to help you stay green wherever you travel.

What makes a green hotel? A good green hotel will mix many green methods. In the bathroom, for example, they can use amenities like low-flow showerheads, give you the option to not wash your towel every day, offer eco-friendly shampoos and soaps, and clean it with green cleaners every day. They can serve local and organic food in the restaurant downstairs, use furniture that doesn't contain PBDEs and other icky chemicals, and put motion sensors on the lights so the lights don't get left on all day when they don't have to be.

Want to find a green hotel? Check out the following resources:

Green Hotels Association
Green Hotel Reviews
Environmentally Friendly Hotels

Source: Planet Green, viewed May 11, 2008

The Eat Well Guide

We know its important to stay healthy no matter where you are, be it on a business trip or in your own home town. When you're away for the weekend, you can take your workout outdoors and hit a local trail or gym, but what about finding healthy food choices? Now, you can plan ahead and find wholesome, fresh and sustainable food before you leave town.

The Eat Well Guide is a handy online database of small-scale farms, restaurants, and other green food outlets throughout the U.S. Enter in your zip code and voilà, a long list of options in your area or wherever you may be headed. The site also has Water-Conscious ratings, so you can find out which neighborhood restaurants are saying no to bottled water.

To find local or nationwide options for local, sustainable and organic food, check out the Eat Well Guide.

Underhill Field: Not Grass, But Still Green

The new Underhill Field opened last month, and while the grass is not real -- the field is a state of the art synthetic turf called Sprinturf -- it is still very much a green product. All the rubber pellets in the field (that's the stuff that makes the field play like grass) are made from recycled truck and car tires, and the drain mat that the field is on top of, called DBS Dynamic Base System, is all made from recycled rubber as well.

Here are a few other green worthy facts from the project:

- Concrete from the demolition of the surface lot was recycled.
- Soil excavated for the project was used in other projects in the East Bay, including construction of a playing field in west Berkeley.
- Using an artificial field surface eliminates herbicide use and reduces water use (water is occasionally used to wash the field).

To learn more about Underhill, including open rec hours, please visit the Underhill web page on the Rec Sports web site.

Golden Gate Fields

All work and no play can make for a dull week. You can fit some fun into your life by incorporating a great fitness routine or joining a sports team. And although it's great to be a player on the field, sometimes it's nice to take a seat in the stands instead. When the urge arises, head over to Golden Gate fields to be a spectator of some amazing, and recently "greened" races.

At Golden Gate Fields, they are reducing, reusing and recycling! They have reduced their monthly water use for maintaining the track by 85% and replaced their lighting with fluorescent lamps to boost their energy efficiency by an estimated 30%! They have also identified reuse options for their soil and electronics and increased beverage container recycling by 40%.

Head over to their tracks and check it out! Golden Gate Fields.

Earth Week at UC Berkeley

UC Berkeley's student group, Steam (The ASUC Sustainability Team) hosts the campus wide Earthweek celebrations throughout the week of April 21 - 25. With participation from over 40 on-campus organizations and 30 off-campus organizations, Earthweek is a whirlwind of guest lectures, panel discussions, film showings, art shows, outdoor performances and Sproul tabling all geared toward educating Cal about environmental and sustainability issues.

It's not too late to get involved! Check out the schedule of events here.

Sustainable Eats at your next event

As athletes, health gurus and avid workout fanatics, it can be hard to keep your social life in line with your health and fitness. Don't fret, we've found a few ways to make your next event a little bit healthier, for you and the environment.

#1 Promote buying local by serving locally purchased or grown fruits and vegetables. For a large event, hire a local caterer that supports local farmers and food. For small events, buy your food at a local Farmer's Market.

#2 Use compostable and biodegradable utensils, plates, napkins and to go containers. Try Treecycle or Excellent Packaging for eco-friendly products.

#3 Offer healthy options for the main course such as certified organic and sustainably raised poultry, fish, or seafood that are roasted, baked, broiled, or grilled instead of fried.

Take Cal Recreational Sports for example. On Wednesday, April 30th we're hosting the Fourth Annual Taste and Sounds of Berkeley, a fantastic event opportunity for Berkeley restaurants and caterers to promote their services, and adding an eco-friendly twist. At the event, we're promoting local restaurants (less distance to travel), making all of our materials, menus and promotions available online instead of in print and we're handing out compostable to go containers to all of our attendees to reduce waste and allow them to share the delicious samples.

Refueling post workout with the "food of the future"

After working out, it's important to refuel your body, preferably within an hour after a workout. This period is when the muscles absorb the most nutrients and when glycogen, an energy reserve in your muscles, is replaced most efficiently. The actual composition of the post-workout meal is a matter of some debate; for optimal glycogen replacement, most people recommend carbohydrates, but a certain amount of protein is needed for muscle repair and growth.

Sources of carbohydrates include wheat, rice and potatoes, but with the cost of wheat and rice bursting through the roof, all eyes are turning to the humble spud as a nutritious staple that could cheaply feed a world increasingly ravaged by hunger.

The potato has plenty going for it, the land and water use efficiency is superior, it matures in as little as 50 days, and can yield between two and four times more food per hectare than wheat or rice. A great source of complex carbohydrates, potatoes only have 5 percent of the fat content of wheat—that is, if you don't smother yours in butter. Potatoes also have one-fourth of the calories of bread, and when boiled, have more protein and corn and nearly twice the calcium. Plus, they contain vitamin C, iron, potassium, and zinc.

As we move toward a reality where there simply isn't enough food to feed the world, many prominent voices—including the United Nations, which declared 2008 the "Year of the Potato"—are saying that the potato is part of the solution.

Find out more here.

Fifth Annual UC Berkeley Sustainability Summit

Sustainability is the ability to meet the needs of the present while living within the carrying capacity of supporting ecosystems without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

This year's Annual UC Berkeley Sustainability Summit is larger than ever before. It will be held on Monday, April 21st located in Pauley Ballroom from 8am-1:30pm. This year's summit will recognize staff, faculty, and students addressing sustainability issues on campus and provide information at breakout sessions about various related issues and personal choices we can make as individuals and a campus community to help reduce our environmental footprint.

Be sure to stop by MLK to be a part of this campus wide event. For more info click here.

Source: Sustainability at the University of California, Berkeley, viewed April 20