XU Sustainability Day

On Monday, Xavier kicked off its annual Sustainability Day that continued through Tuesday. This year, Xavier marked

Sustainability Day with the traditional formal presentations, but also with opportunities over two days to explore the treatment of waste and urban water in our region.

On both Monday and Tuesday, there were three possible tours highlighting Cincinnati's waste streams.

The tours offered were: "Mill Creek: An Unsustained Resource," a van and walking tour examining the stream that conveys Xavier's sewage; "Rumpke Material Recovery Facility Tour," a walking tour of one of Rumpke's Material

Recovery Facilities in St. Bernard and "The Green Learning Station Tour" at the Civic Garden Center, a learning laboratory for catching storm water where it falls.

The "Rumpke Material Recovery Facility Tour" began

with a brief history of the company and an overview of what can and can't be recycled. In Cincinnati, the following

items are proper recycling materials: newspaper, plastic bottles #1- 7, steel food cans, aluminum cans, glass bottles and jars, paper, cereal boxes, construction paper and brown paper grocery bags. Clean pizza boxes and cardboard boxes (broken down into three-by-three feet sections) are also proper recyclables. Participants then traveled through the plant to watch as recyclables were sorted out by type by a variety of technologies. Visitors learned about singlestream sorting technology and

saw materials balled before they were sent to market.

On Monday afternoon there was a presentation on Xavier's

sustainable initiatives and a perspective on San Francisco's waste recycling, with a closing address from President, Fr. Michael Graham, S.J. In the spirit of Sustainability Day, the television screens in Bishop Edward Fenwick Place were powered down in order to conserve energy.