Ways to Conserve
At Penn State
At Penn State
- Switch to Compact Fluorescent Bulbs
They emit the same amount of light, last years longer and consume less electricity when compared to incandescent bulbs. Making this switch could reduce your carbon footprint by 212 pounds each year. - Get Climbing, Take The Stairs!
Each trip on an elevator uses only uses a small amount of energy. But considering the number of students, staff and faculty that take the elevator multiple times per day, it adds up. This could reduce your carbon footprint by about 350 pounds each year. Not to mention, climbing stairs is good for your health! - Un-plug Chargers When Charge Is Complete
Chargers still use energy, even when they aren’t charging anything. It's a small amount but, when plugged in 24/7 and considering most PSU students have a cell phone, it adds up. This could reduce your carbon footprint by 4 pounds each year. - Host a Green Meeting
Large meetings can have a dramatic impact on the environment. Plan your meeting with the goal of reducing waste, using local resources, reducing transportation, and conserving energy. - Do Laundry Responsibly—cold water, full loads only, line dry
Washing only a few shirts in the laundry is a big waste of water since full cycle uses 60 gallons! Be sure to do full loads only, and in cold water since this could reduce your carbon footprint by 645 pounds each year! You can additionally reduce your footprint by line drying your clothes. One t-shirt alone can contribute 9 pounds of carbon when it is constantly spun dry. - Use Public Transportation
With a University as big as Penn State, miles driven and gallons of gas consumed by commuters really add up. If one in every five commuters joined a carpool it would be a 20% reduction or a savings of 5,286 tons of carbon emissions! - Printing Duplex
The average individual uses 12 pounds of printer/copier paper a year. This creates 26 pounds of CO2 per person per year. Using both sides of the paper could almost cut your carbon footprint in half. - Don’t Idle Your Car
An idling car releases two times the amount of fumes that a car in motion does. And with the current high gas prices, you wouldn’t want to waste the 26 gallons of gas every year anyway. This could reduce your carbon footprint by 524 pounds each year. - Reduce Your Shower Time
If every student who lives on campus at University Park reduced his or her shower by just five minutes, we would save 100,000 gallons of water each school year. That’s enough to fill five swimming pools and lower PSU’s carbon footprint by 18,980 pounds every year. - Turn Off the Tap While Brushing Your Teeth:
You’ll save a gallon every time you brush, which is about 730 gallons saved each year! - Buy Local
Not all our fruit needs to come from California or Chile, most produce you buy is grown by your local farmer. Buying locally stimulates your local economy and you support the farmers in your area. Not to mention, buy locally could reduce your carbon footprint about 200 pounds per purchase. - Get a Re-usable Water Bottle
It takes 1 gallon of oil to produce 10 gallons of bottled water. Also, federal standards are stricter on tap water than on bottled. Getting a re-usable water bottle could reduce your carbon footprint by 20 pounds for every 10 gallons of bottled water you do not consume. - Recycle
The average residence hall student generates about 375 pounds of trash and 69 pounds of recyclables each year. Be sure to achieve your 69 pounds and help Penn State save 11,000,000 pounds of CO2 again this year! (Saved 11,349,122 lb CO2 in 2007)
