PLAYgreen

Goats at Rec Sports?

Proving once and for all that Rec Sports has the most diverse workforce on campus, we recently employed a small heard of voracious goats to clear 5 acres of bushes, grass, weeds and poison oak on the hillside behind the Golden Bear Rec Center, creating a clean fire break for the building. Not only do the goats work cheap -- $1,200 for the goats vs. $2,500 for human labor -- but they work green too. Instead of gas mowers, blowers, pesticides and trucks to haul off the waste, the (nearly) zero-emission goats quietly and cleanly go about their task. Learn more about the goats.
 

Electrifying Workouts!

Improving the health and wellness of employees at work is important. To that end the Department of Rec Sports offers WorkFIT -- an in-house fitness program where our certified fitness instructors come to your site and lead regular fitness classes at a time convenient for your staff.

 

Healthy people need a healthy planet, so rather than hauling our gear across campus  -- about 90 trips per month to our 15 WorkFIT sites -- we thought it made sense to do so sans gaz.  The result of this green ethic is the little yellow electric truck pictured above.  The truck has a battery life of 115 minutes and a maximum speed of 25 mph, but the coolest thing is the zero emissions that it produces.

 

Of course, an electric truck is only as clean as its energy source. This one plugs into the campus power grid. The campus receives electrical power from Pacific Gas & Electric Company (PG&E), and according to PG&E, the company delivers some of the nation’s cleanest electric power: non-emitting nuclear generation (23 percent), large hydroelectric facilities (13 percent) and renewable resources (12 percent) such as wind, geothermal, biomass and small hydro. The remaining portion comes from natural gas (47 percent), coal (4 percent), and other fossil-based resources (1 percent). 

 

And you thought only the workouts were electrifying!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Turn Your Old Shoes Into New Sport Surfaces

 

 

Did you know that your old sport shoes that you no longer use can help kids and fellow athletes? The Bear Student Athlete Advisory Council (Bear SAAC) is currently running a used shoe drive and needs your help! Bring in all your old sports shoes (running, tennis, basketball, etc.) and place them in the collection bins located in the RSF atrium near the Coke machine.

 

Shoes to Surfaces

 

Bear SAAC will collect these shoes and donate them to a variety of charities, including the Nike Grind program, which grinds the shoes up and uses them to make playing surfaces --- playgrounds, basketball and tennis courts, and even soccer and football fields -- all across the world. Nike started its Reuse-A-Shoe program in 1990 and has already collected more than 21 million pairs of shoes!  According to Nike, 300 sport and playground surfaces have been created from recycled shoes provided by the Nike Grind program.

 

Why Do It?

 

By turning old athletic shoes into new places to play, the need for new materials, like virgin rubber used to build courts, tracks, fields, and playgrounds decreases. Scraps can become new places to play – instead of landfill waste.  Now that's playing green!

 

How many shoes does it take? 

 

Playground: 2,500

Outdoor Basketball Court: 2,500

Soccer/Football Field: 50,000

Running Track: 75,000

 

RSF Installs Hydration Stations

To encourage use of reuseable water bottles, Rec Sports has installed two new Hydration Stations in the RSF. The stations dispense chilled and filtered water at .8 gallons per minute -- twice as fast as the flow from a standard water fountain. And it's a clean system too: the water flow is activated by an electric sensor that allows for touch-free hygenic operation -- no more worries about picking up germs from a sweaty water fountain lever. The Berkeleyan reports that in 2005-06, some 850,000 plastic water bottles were sold on campus, contributing to the 1.5 million tons of plastic that go into producing plastic bottles in the US each year. We hope the new stations will put a dent in that number -- and keep you hydrated. Read the Berkeleyan article.

RSF Gets Low Flow Shower Heads

 

 

You just finished your workout and hit the RSF locker room showers for a quick rinse off.  Notice anything different?  We're part way through the installation of 70 new low flow shower heads. Your showers are now using 1/3 less water, yet maintain the feel of a high water flow shower.  In fact, our research indicates that these heads produce a much improved showering experience. Think gentle rain. Not only is this saving water, but also energy, as we need to warm up less water to soothe those achy post workout muscles. 

 

We have heard members make comments like “These have a really nice spray,” and "no way can this be a low flow, it feels so strong.”  Check it out after your next workout and let us know what you think.

Rec Sports Cleans Up Well!

 

 

 

 

On Saturday, September 20, a group of 170 Cal Rec Sports volunteers gathered at the Berkeley Marina to take part in the International Coastal Cleanup Day -- an event that takes place one day a year across the globe.  The goal is to collect as much garbage and recycling as possible between 9AM and Noon. Last year, 378,000 volunteers from 76 countries and 45 states cleared six million pounds of trash from oceans and waterways around the world. 

 

This year’s world numbers aren’t in yet, but the Rec Sports crew collected a whopping 480 pounds of garbage and 270 pounds of recycling! What’s more, our group received the additional honor of fielding the biggest volunteer group at the Berkeley Marina!  Data collected at the clean-up is now being sent to Washington DC and will be compiled for research to support further legislation to preserve and protect our oceans and waterways.  Photos of the clean-up effort are now available on the Rec Sports website.

Caltopia Live Album: A Green Solution

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, every month in the United States around 100,000 pounds of CDs become outdated, useless or unwanted.  This creates an environmental problem because CDs are generally made from materials including polycarbonate plastic, petroleum-based lacquer and paints, with the jewel cases typically containing, polyvinyl chloride (PVC).  That makes recycling difficult and depositing in landfills hazardous because the materials can end up contaminating soil and water. The EPA estimates that less than one percent of post-consumer PVC is recovered or reprocessed.  This means the remaining 99% either ends up in landfills or is incinerated!

In an effort to avoid creating more waste, we took another route for our Caltopia Live Album --  a compilation of 14 tracks from Bay Area artists. Rather than producing 20,000 CDs and cases, the album is only available via online download. If you think that sounds good, you should hear the album. Click here to visit the Caltopia Live Album webpage, complete with a link to download the entire album.

What You Can Do

If you have any CD’s or DVD’s that you are no longer using or are ready for the trash, check out this website http://recycleyourdiscs.com and learn how you can recycle your old discs for free!

Rec Sports Featured in National Magazine

This month, Cal Rec Sports has been featured in two articles in the magazine Athletic Business. The first article, "Roof Positive: Park Below, Play Above," describes the green benefits of the new synthetic turf Underhill Field.

The second article, "Environmental Education," features the Rec Sports PlayGreen initiative, a program where we share with our users what we've done to reduce our ecological footprint -- such as switching to energy efficient light bulbs and eliminating the overnight custodial shift to reduce energy use -- and provide tips to our 26,000 members concerning methods they can employ to "play green."

Read the article. (PDF Download).

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.

RSF Lights: Brighter, Greener

Have you noticed that the lights in the RSF Field House are quite a bit brighter? We’re part way through a full scale upgrade of our lighting systems that will reduce energy use, lower maintenance costs and provide better quality lighting in the gyms. Throughout the RSF, existing light fixtures will be replaced with high efficiency, high output fluorescent lamps and transformers, which will be equipped with occupancy sensors so that lights will automatically switch off when an area has been unoccupied for 20 minutes.

Why are we doing it? There are a lot of reasons; the biggest is the fact that increasing energy efficiency by installing new lighting equipment is one of the quickest and least expensive ways to reduce electrical demand. Once the project is complete – in June of 2008 – the reduction in energy use will be equivalent to removing 132,000 pounds of CO2 per year from the air. Another way to look at it: the avoided energy use is like switching off 760 100-watt light bulbs.

This change also makes good business sense. The energy savings are 252,000 kW-hours of electricity per year, for an estimated cost saving of $25,000. The total cost for the RSF Lighting Improvement Project is estimated to be $114,000, but 80% of that amount will be paid through a grant from PG&E. Thus, the RSF’s net cost is $23,000. So based on the energy savings, plus the PG&E grant, the project will pay for itself in less than one year.

The effect of the project is visible right now in the Field House. New fixtures have been installed and the light levels have dramatically increased. By June 2008, lighting will be improved throughout the RSF. Users will be able to see well even as RSF reduces both its costs and its contribution to global warming.

Now, when you’re working out at the RSF, your surroundings will be not only brighter, but greener.