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A Dorm for Green Living
on September 28, 2009
The wood siding was harvested from campus trees that suffered from pine beetle infestation. The kitchen cabinets were made from recycled fence posts. Rainwater gets collected and pumped back into the house to flush the low-flow toilets. There are two composting toilets on the second floor where students shovel in wood chips after they use them.
This is the EcoDorm, which houses 36 undergraduates at Warren Wilson College in Swannanoa, N.C., and it consumes nearly two-thirds less electricity than would a conventional building of the same size, The New York Times reports.
First proposed by two Warren Wilson students 10 years ago, the EcoDorm stands at the forefront of the sustainability movement in education. More than 600 U.S. colleges and universities have pledged to become carbon neutral. Ninety dorms are now LEED certified, the most widely accepted national standard for green design. The EcoDorm is one of only two student residences that have LEED’s highest rating: platinum.
EcoDorm residents understand that green living is not only about where you live, but also how you live: They pledge not to use hair dryers, and they plant and harvest Jerusalem artichokes, figs and other fruits and vegetables in the garden. And their music is acoustic.
“The same people who are interested in living in a building with solar panels and composting toilets like to play banjo,” said Emmet Fisher, a junior.
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