April is Earth Month! This year, the UCSF Health Sustainability department hosted a wide variety of Earth Month Events for the UCSF community to participate in.
We kicked off the celebration by hosting a very successful electronic waste (e-waste) collection event at the Mission Bay Medical Center. When e-waste ends up in the landfill, it releases toxins into the surrounding soil and water, resulting in many negative health impacts. Twenty-one participants dropped off e-waste to be safely recycled at our collection event, which was enough to fill two truckloads!
Next, we held Earth Month Lunch and Learn events at the Parnassus, Mission Bay, and Mount Zion medical centers. Participants ate snacks, learned about how to help UCSF Health become more sustainable, and competed in a game based on the presentation. Of the nineteen total participants, nine winners went home with reusable utensil kits, recycled apple peel notebooks, and reusable food storage bags.
To finish off our Earth Month celebration, we tabled at each of the medical center's dining spaces. Those who stopped by our table got to learn about our waste reduction and food waste prevention work, and participate in a carbon emission protein ranking game for a sustainable prize. We also encouraged participants to do some “homework” by looking at their environmental impact using an ecological footprint calculator. Overall, at all three tabling events forty-seven people stopped by our tables and learned about UCSF Health sustainability initiatives.
If you missed our Earth Month events and want to get involved, you can swing by one of our future e-waste collection events, check out the UCSF Health Sustainability website, or email us at healthsustainability@ucsf.edu. You can also take a tour of our waste hauler Recology’s facilities to learn more about what happens to your waste after it gets picked up.
This year, the UCSF Health Sustainability department hosted a wide variety of Earth Month Events for the UCSF community to participate in.
