University of Maine at Machias Green Council president Ryan Martin recently signed up his fledgling club for a project called RecycleMania as a way to build awareness.

Martin said even he was surprised when UMM beat out four other Maine colleges in the 10-week program in which campuses compete in recycling projects.

“We honestly had no hopes of winning,” he said. “Our main goal was to get people thinking about what they throw away and to get an idea of how our recycling system on campus worked and where it might need to be improved.”

The enthusiasm at UMM is indicative of efforts that are going on at colleges and universities across the state as each strives to be the most “green.” Whether it’s simple measures such as recycling and reducing energy consumption or more complex efforts such as ecofriendly architecture, the race is on for the next best thing.

In the next couple of weeks, attention will shift to graduation ceremonies, with many campuses having made pledges to conduct zero-waste commencements.

The great part about the friendly competition, of course, is that there are no losers.

“Everybody gets to share the limelight for a little while. Then it shifts to someplace else when something new happens, but everybody wins because of the awareness that’s created,” said Steve Katona, former president of College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor and now an environmental consultant.

In truth, environmentally sustainable efforts have been under way at Maine’s colleges and universities for years. Katona led COA, a small, private school, in a number of sustainability initiatives during his tenure from 1993 to 2006.

Mitchell Thomashow, president of Unity College, another small, private institution, said so many small things have happened over the last few years that it’s hard to keep track.

“Everyone – students, staff, faulty – has the message,” he said this week. “With any event, not just commencement, we always think of sustainability and how we can reduce waste or energy consumption.”

It’s not just well-funded private colleges that are making changes. The state’s university system is committed to implementing changes to make campuses more environmentally conscious.

“Within the last five or six years, everybody started to realize that it was really important and that we had to do this,” said Theo Kalikow, president of the University of Maine at Farmington since 1994. “We can’t afford not to.”

Simple to complex

Martin said his group, which formed last semester, focuses on the three R’s: reduce, reuse and recycle.

“Our primary goals are to educate our campus and community and modify school operations on campus to be more ecofriendly,” he said.

RecycleMania, the kickoff event for the group, was a great learning process, Martin said, and by the time the competition ended, UMM had recycled more than 24,000 pounds.

“What made this competition so exciting was the cooperation from campus departments across the board to make this happen,” he said.

The “Think global, act local,” philosophy is catching on at UMM, but the idea of starting with small, attainable goals is common on campuses.

COA long has been considered one of the leading environmental colleges in the country. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that all of its students major in ecology, but Katona said the awareness COA students had about their own habits – taking shorter showers, composting food waste or turning off lights – goes a long way.

“It’s all common sense, really,” he said.

Gordon Nelson, director of auxiliary services and property management at the University of Maine in Orono, agreed it’s the simplest changes that have made the biggest impact.

“One of the best things we did from a dining perspective was start a compost program,” he said.

It started as pre-consumer food but now includes post-consumer food as well. Since September 2007, UM composted 140,000 pounds of food waste, which has saved 20,000 gallons of hot water that would have been used to run the waste through the sink’s disposal.

UM also has installed light timers and individual thermostats in dorm rooms to reduce heating costs that used to go out the windows.

As simpler green efforts catch on, campuses can move to more substantive policy changes, such as thinking green when it comes to constructing new buildings. Katona said all new construction is heading that way anyway. Many buildings are judged by Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design standards, a certification process for projects that meet the highest green building and performance measures.

COA has two duplex-style residence buildings opening in the fall that feature extensive sustainability and energy-reduction efforts. UMF has two green buildings on campus that have been a wonderful teaching tool and a cost-saver, according to Kalikow.

Another slightly more complex issue is reducing a school’s carbon footprint, which is a way to quantify the impact human activities have on the environment in terms of the amount of greenhouse gases produced.

Focusing on reducing greenhouse gas emissions opens up alternative energy possibilities, such as wind and solar power, and there is friendly competition in that arena as well. Colby College in Waterville recently was honored by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for purchasing the most green power among 40 schools competing in the EPA’s green power challenge.

Top down or bottom up?

This time of year, graduations are an easy way to show off sustainability efforts. Unity College’s commencement on Saturday, the largest in the school’s 43-year history, also is being billed as the greenest.

Thomashow said among the things planned are: using soy ink and recycled paper for all programs; purchasing local and organic vegetables, breads and meats; renting flatware and glasses to reduce waste created by disposable items; and composting any food waste.

Finally, 100 percent of electrical power at the commencement ceremony will come from Maine-based renewable resources.

The changes that are under way at Maine’s colleges and universities are simple, but they also reveal an important shift in attitude.

“Maine is really doing increasingly well in green efforts, I think in part because there has been a lot of vision at the leadership level that trickles down,” Katona said.

For her part, UMF president Kalikow drives a Toyota Prius hybrid. It’s her third lease since 2000.

“It’s a small thing maybe, but it projects a nice message from the president,” she said. “I can’t tell you how many people I’ve inspired to get them.”

Kalikow said many of the efforts at UMF and elsewhere involve common sense and initiating actions that should have been done a long time ago, such as composting.

“The good thing now is that we have people’s attention,” she said.

“So far we’ve sort of been picking the low-hanging fruit, but eventually we’ll have bigger decisions to make,” said Drew Barton, a biology professor at UMF who heads many green efforts there. “It’s really amazing to see how far campuses have come.”

Cross-campus coalitions, in the state and nationwide, also contribute to the friendly competition, and Maine’s colleges and universities are typically well-represented. RecycleMania is a good example.

“Leadership is important, but a lot of pressure for sustainable improvement has come from students. It has sort of bubbled up to faculty and then, hopefully, it finds its way to friendly administrators,” Katona said.

On some campuses, graduating seniors have made “green living” pledges, in which they agree to take some of the environmental practices into their everyday lives.

Katona said that despite the good things going on at Maine schools around sustainability, little has been publicized.

“I did a study three years ago of U.S. schools randomly on how far had the idea of sustainability penetrated into their campuses,” he said. “Often, I had a hard time finding stuff. A lot of these efforts are hidden, and they shouldn’t be.”