Moraine Valley Community College || Sustainability || Leading in Sustainability

Moraine Valley is proud to offer filtered, cool, water from its hydration stations across campus. Bring your own, refillable container every day and save water, gas and money!

Learn more about the impact of bring your own bottle here. It’s a short video about how bottled water is made and transported.

When you’re at the hydration station, you’ll see a counter helping track how many plastic bottles we’re diverting from the landfill. Just one more way Moraine Valley is working toward a more sustainable future for all.

Filtered and “Touch-Free” = Fresh and Clean
Bottled water can cost 1000x more than tap.
It takes 3x as much water to make an average plastic water bottle as it does to fill it.

Millions of gallons of fuel are used daily transporting bottles of water across America (the world). BYOB Every Day to Save Water, Gas and $$.

Bookstore Sells Refillable Bottles
Visit the Bookstore for cool, BPA-free, refillable bottles.
BYOB in Café Moraine and receive a discount on hot and cold drinks, too!

Hydration Station Locations
Find a station in Buildings A, B, L, D, M, F, S and T.

Don't throw away your empty Frito Lay chip bags or dried out Expo markers, Sharpie pens and Paper Mate pens/markers! Moraine Valley is part of a collection brigade through TerraCycle, a company that recycles trash into usable products. The college also collects rechargeable batteries and cellphones. Students and staff who are on campus can send or drop the items off at the college's Center for Sustainability in Building L, Room L242.

How you can incorporate recycling into your everyday activities.

Moraine Valley volunteers cultivated campus soil for a fruit and vegetable garden. The funded garden initiative through Urban Farming, a national non-profit organization, and Kraft Foods Triscuit Brand, received soil testing, plants, seeds, farming tools, irrigation materials and some UF staff supervision and maintenance to build a 20-foot-by-20-foot plot for the community-based home food farm. Moraine Valley's garden is part of the 50 supported farms/gardens across the nation, an idea that mirrors the Victory Garden movement in World War II.

The Moraine Valley Community Church has been nourishing body and spirit since 2000 through its food pantry, and Moraine Valley Community College has become a part of that giving tradition.

The Moraine Valley Community Church has been nourishing body and spirit since 2000 through its food pantry, and Moraine Valley Community College has become a part of that giving tradition.

In its third and most bountiful contribution, Moraine Valley donated vegetables and herbs from its community garden, which was planted last year on campus. In September 2011, college employees who maintain the garden harvested three grocery bags overflowing with collards, kale and Swiss chard; one bag of herbs; one bag of green and red tomatoes; and three zucchinis and brought them to the church's open pantry. Needy individuals and families can shop at the pantry for what they want or need in their homes.

"The garden volunteers from the college came to the consensus that a community garden should be for the community. In the beginning, the volunteers would take home what was ripe. When we started getting enough to feed more than one or two, we decided to find a place that serves those in need in our community," said Stephenie Presseller, Moraine Valley sustainability manager and community garden organizer.

"We called a few places, and the Moraine Valley Community Church said they'd be delighted to take our produce. They said their food pantry rarely has fresh produce to offer their members in need and that this would be a great addition. We are very happy to help our community beyond our little 20-by-20 garden oasis."

The Southwest Education Center in Tinley Park has received a platinum designation, the highest green award applicable to colleges. Integration of high-performance mechanical building systems, low-flow plumbing fixtures, natural daylight, high-efficient lighting, low-volatile organic compound; and recycled materials into the overall building design is intended to improve indoor air quality and reduce energy consumption while educating students and the community about the benefits of a high-performance, "green" building design.

Moraine Valley President Dr. Vernon O. Crawley signed a compact in 2010 pledging the college would achieve a gold rating in the Illinois Campus Sustainability Compact. The compact allows give years to accomplish this goal. To meet this goal, the college has assigned teams of peopled tasked with individual or groups of goals within the compact. Sustainability Compact

Moraine Valley has been named a 2012 Tree Campus USA by the Arbor Day Foundation, a distinction the college has received for the fourth consecutive year.

Moraine Valley is the third college/university in Illinois and first community college in the state to earn status as a Tree Campus USA.

Tree Campus USA is a national program launched in 2008, when 29 colleges were inaugurated, by the Arbor Day Foundation. The program honors colleges, universities and leaders of the campus and surrounding communities for promoting healthy urban forest management while engaging the campus community in environmental stewardship.

Moraine Valley met the five required core standards of tree care and community engagement to receive this status, which includes:

• Evidence of a campus tree-care plan
• Involvement in an Arbor Day observance
• Establishing a campus tree advisory committee
• Instituting a service-learning project to engage the student body
• Verification of dedicated annual expenditures on the campus tree-care plan

Moraine Valley students and staff formed a human 350 to bring awareness for the International Day of Climate Action. Why 350? It's the number scientists say is the safe upper limit for carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, a number some say we've already exceeded. Learn more at www.350.org. (October 2009)