ONNION

What’s the real deal with
Black Friday sales?
Page 2

ABE

‘Tis the season for art exhibitions,
local & downtown locations.
6

SPORTS

XC season ending, but
we’re sending 2 runners to
nationals!

Student newspaper of Illinois Institute of Technology since 1928

Zero-waste Sustainability Forum wows

By Brock Auerbach-Lynn
TECHNEWS WRITER

Illinois Institute of Technology’s
(IIT) Office of Campus Energy & Sustainabili
ity hosted November’s Sustainability Forum
last Friday on “Achieving ZeroiWaste’I Build,
ing off the success of October’s Forum on
Building Energy Efficiency the OCES was able
to bring together an engaging and informai
tive group of speakers to discuss the successes,
failures and opportunities in zeroiwaste from
multiple angles

First to speak was Blake Davis, Adi
junct Professor at IIT and board member at the
innovative zeroiwaste facility known as The
Plant The Plant has recently installed a $2 mil,
lion anaerobic digester that nearly completes
the closed loop recycling of material within
the building Everything including spent beer
hops, waste heat, C02, fish feces and plant def
bris is able to be recycled internally The Plant
will even be able to generate its own energy
and should create more than it needs, making
it a net exporter to the gridl

Prof Davis then introduced John
Dunsing, Environmental Sustainability Man,
ager for JeweliOscot Mrt Dunsing has overseen
the development of an innovative program to
make JeweliOsco stores zeroiwaste This has
been a work in progress with a triple focus: imi
proving the traditional recycling program, de
veloping a food scrap diversion program, and
working with suppliers to reduce waste/use ref
usable material John started with a small food
scrap diversion pilot project in Bloomington7
Normal, IL where 3 stores were able to divert
their food scraps (after donating everything
that was safe) to alocal farmt

There were some false starts with

expanding this to
other stores due
to cost issues us,
ing a traditional
recycling modelt
JeweliOsco has
since been able to
ramp this up to
around 130 of 179
stores nationwide *1.
by working with ‘
waste haulers and
setting up routes
for collection that
take advantage

of high pickiup
density to achieve
costiefi’ectivenesst
Of stores that have
achieved Zero,
Waste (at least
90% diversion of
waste) 7 of which
JeweliOsco has
three levels 7 many
have been able to
go from generate
ing 2,000 pounds
of waste per day to
about 40 poundsl
This is an incredi
ible change and
one that has per,
meated down to
every member of
the JeweliOsco teamt
Next time you’re in
one of their stores, ask any employee about
zeroiwastel John is confident they’ll be able to
tell you all about it

WW3:

 

Hf," "

‘ l

 

Photos by Christina Noonan

Drt Raj Rajaram, Senior Consultant
with GZA GeoEnvironmental Inc and a waste
management expert with over 35 years’ experi7
ence in the field was the last speaker Dr Rajai

TUESDAY
NOVEMBER
20, 2012

Volume 174 I Issue 11

technewsiit.com

OPINION 2

CAMPUS 3-4
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SPORTS 1

ram, an IIT Alumnus, has substantial ex,
perience working on zeroiwaste projects
in India where waste management is far
more local and advanced than in the US
Thanks in at least a small part to national
legislation making it illegal to dispose of
organic waste in landfills, India has de
veloped an effective, sophisticated and
low tech means of handling their organic
waste Many places have bike riders with
baskets who go around and collect organic
and traditional waste from houses; some,
times several times a day, and take the or,
ganics to a local compost facility Liquid
waste is also a gold mine according to Dr
Rajaramt Wastewater has very highly de
sired levels of nutrients (such as nitrogen
and phosphorus) that we currently devote
huge amounts of money to remove Clean,
ing water for nonipotable uses such as for
farm fertilizer is already done successfully
in many locations and could be done in
the US with some rule changes Other
successful local efforts towards achieving
zeroiwaste, which Dr Rajaram would like
to see in the US, include technology that
allows for home composting of organic
waste under the sink where the biogas is
recovered for energy generation and the
compost used for soil fertilization
The common message across the
Forum was that there is paradigms shift in
progress around waste, with a new domi7
nant view emerging that sees it as a rev,
enue source, not a cost The rate at which
we see adoption of innovative zeroiwaste
technologies and policies is only limited by
our desire, says Dr Rajaramt They are already
out there and working well for other parts of
the world, why not Chicago and the UtStl

Presidential Lecture Series brings
world-renowned economist to campus

By Utsav Gandhi
CAMPUS EDITOR

Very rarely do undergraduate stu7
dents get the chance to listen to and network
directly with some of the most accomplished
minds in academia, government or the private
sector; those who have chalked out the very
careers us as students are working hard to,
wards

IIT does an understatedly incredible
job in bringing these big minds to campus on
a regular basis; whether it is for the Benjamin
Franklin Project, the Darsh Wasan Lecture,
the Kilpatrick Lecture or the Karl Menger se
ries; among other annual departmental tradii
tions The inaugural Drt Irwin Stelzer, senior
fellow and director of Hudson Institute’s Eco,
nomic Policy Studies Group, kicked off Presii
dential Lecture Series on Friday, October 19,
2012 A political columnist for various inter,
national economic periodicals, Drt Stelzer has
held various teaching positions at the world’s
foremost universities like NYU, Cornell, Ox,
ford, MIT and Harvard (where he served as

the Director of the Energy and Environmental
Policy Center) In his talk, Drt Stelzer laid out
the basis for an energy/environmental policy
that aimed at bridging the gap between equii
table development of energy sources and susi
tainable growth of the economy

Dr Stelzer started by laying out his
foremost opinion 7 in a politically conflicting
world, “risk management requires reversible
approaches and the feedback loop: Every p07
litical decision comes with its own set of as,
sumptions, stakeholders, uncertainties, and
a misplaced sense of confidence in knowing
everything (“policy paralysis") and remedies,
which in some case might worsen the situa7
tion than the problem itself While some call
fossil fuels a disaster, the bird lobby says wind
kills aerial life, power companies are gobbling
up water in the name of hydroelectricity and
fracking is irresponsible There is both the
“drill baby drill" crowd and the treeihugging
hippy that doesn’t really contribute The clii
mate change debate sees both the believer 7
who might be wrong; and the nonibeliever
7 who has less faith in the scientific model
In such a scenario, how does the government
take sound decisions? How does it correct de

fects in one part of the system without negai
tively affecting other parts?

Well, for one thing 7 the distinction
between fact and opinion has to be made clear
“Governments are made of laws, not of men,"
is what Dr Stelzer had to say But all regulators
are biased; and maybe that’s why, in today’s
increasingly pluralized world, all their voices
matter Since investments in energy are costly
to reverse, they need to be made keeping the
long run in mind He spoke about the impor7
tance of dealing with taxes wisely: govern,
ments need to more stringently tax the pollute
ant; and he also advocated to internationally
allow developing countries to work around
this regulation as much as possible

He addressed the complicated ques7
tion of how he recommends the government
can hand out subsidies to competing energy
sectorst Like the case of Britain’s public transit
system, he recommends that venture capital,
ists take the product and actively bid for it

Those motivated strongly enough
must be willing to pay at least some price for
it This will significantly level the playing field
and give a clear indication where the alterna7
tive energy movement is headed The US Navy

was recently under fire for using $27/gallon
fuel made from algae oil and chicken fat; “in
the interests of national security’l Obviously,
there are tradeoffs to everything; and Dr Steli
zer overwhelmingly recommended placing a
common sense approach built around prin7
ciples over an ideologyidominated methodoli
ogy; especially in times of economic crisis

When decisions such as the Key,
stone pipeline rest upon the President, the
smart thing isn’t to close it down completely,
despite the environmental hue and cry “If
we don’t swoop in for such opportunities,
someone else will" upon He concluded that
economic growth and environmental impact
minimization is a delicate balance, though not
impossible to achieve

The next Presidential Lecture, also
on the current theme of environmental susi
tainability, will be held on Tuesday, January
15 2013; and the last one at the end of the
spring semester; making it a total of three leci
tures per academic year Students are highly
encouraged to come for the opportunity to
hear about what the country’s most celebrated
voices have to say about the foremost chal
lenges facing our generation