May 6, 2008 8:00 AM

Seeing Green

While cleaning up after one of the Center for the Study of Women's weekly events, staffers April de Stefano and Jessie Babiarz got to talking about the overflowing garbage bags they tossed out after every gathering — plastic sacks bulging with water bottles, paper napkins and other little-used disposable items.

"We saw that there were simple changes we could make," said de Stefano, the center's assistant director. "Instead of individual water bottles, we could have large containers for everyone to pour a glass from, and compostable plates and cups."

So with a series of small steps over the past year, de Stefano and Babiarz have managed to turn the center's home in the Public Affairs Building into perhaps one of the greenest offices on campus, according to a top advocate for campus sustainability.

"They basically seem to have done pretty much everything you can do in an office setting," said Cully Nordby, chair of the UCLA Sustainability Committee. "We'd like to make it a set of best practices."

All the cups, plates, utensils and even the garbage bags used by the center are now biodegradable "plastic" made of vegetable starch. One of the center's two printers is devoted to printing informal documents — on the back of scrap paper that used to go straight into wastebaskets. The printer for important documents uses 100% recycled paper, and, of course, the center's staff prints double-sided.

Employees shut off their computers at the end of the day — and then take the extra step of shutting off their power strips to halt the power drain of plugged-in dormant computers. There are recycling bins everywhere, one-use water bottles are all but banned, and even the office microwave is energy-efficient.

"I was surprised how easy it was," said center Director Kathleen McHugh. "As the director, I have to pay attention to the costs, and it was all very feasible."

Other offices on campus could duplicate their efforts, said Babiarz, an administrative specialist whose office is literally painted green. "People are scared of making changes to become more green because they don't know where to start. But you can start small."

There have been a few glitches along the way. During a recent renovation, motion-sensor lighting was installed as part of a campuswide energy-saving initiative. "The irony was that the lights were so sensitive, they were turning on all the time," de Stefano said. After a series of adjustments, Babiarz now sometimes finds herself in the dark. "If I don't move for five minutes, I have to wave my arms to turn it back on," she said. "But it's nice, because if I leave for 10 minutes, it's still conserving."

The motion sensors will go into at least 25 more buildings as Facilities Management pushes forward on campuswide initiatives, said Jack Powazek, associate vice chancellor for general services. And a four-year modernization of heating and air-conditioning systems campuswide will save $4 million annually — and cut UCLA's carbon footprint 7%, Powazek said. A mixed-paper recycling program is also expanding — and has already been implemented at the Center for the Study of Women.

"I'm sure there are other departments that are doing some or most of these things," he said, "but it would be great if more departments did."

Read more about the campus' green efforts at www.sustain.ucla.edu.

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