Today, April 22, 2010, marks the 40th anniversary of Earth Day and Morningside has adopted some “green” ways to help out the environment. Today, Cartridge World of San Antonio presented Morningside with its second Environmental Leadership Award. Alvin Loewenberg, president and CEO of Morningside Ministries, accepted the award from Ray Edinger, owner of Cartridge World. This award is given annually to an organization in the community that, through Cartridge World, has made a positive impact on the environment through reducing, reusing and recycling ink and toner cartridges. Since Morningside began using remanufactured cartridges in 2007, we have recycled over 2,071 of them, keeping over 7,200 pounds of e-waste from our landfills and hundreds of pounds of greenhouse gases from being generated and sent into our atmosphere. One toner cartridge can take up to 450 years to decompose in a landfill.
Residents of The Meadows Retirement Community are doing their part as well by recycling paper and newspapers and making a concerted effort to reduce the amount of water used throughout the 148 residences. According to the San Antonio Water System web site, toilets account for 26 percent of the water used at home. If every resident at The Meadows flushed one time less each day, it would save the community 1,095 gallons of water per year, per resident. As it is, The “Green” Committee at The Meadows was able to get 35 residents to commit to saving 78 flushes per day. This will equal a water savings of 85,410 gallons of water per year.
Old incandescent light bulbs have been replaced with the new fluorescent bulbs in most apartments and many residents are getting new thermostats in their apartments that are larger and easier to read. The administration offices at Morningside Ministries are beginning to recycle white office paper, plastics, magazines, newspapers and cardboard boxes. We’re off to a good start in our conservation efforts and hope to expand them even more in the years to come!
No comments:
Post a Comment