REDMOND, Wash. - When school starts in the Lake Washington School District in just two weeks, students will be surrounded by all kinds of changes designed to help the district become more green. Green as in conserving energy, and also green as in all the money they expect to save from the projects.
Most of the changes involve construction projects at individual schools, but at least one will impact all 50 of the schools in the district. For decades, the Lake Washington School District has paid about $2500 a year to properly ship out and dispose of mercury-filled fluorescent light bulbs.
But now, getting rid of them is a blast thanks to a noisy new bulb eater which can safely dispose of more than 1000 fluorescent bulbs a year. They figure it will pay for itself within three years.
Jed Reynolds, who uses the device to crush and recycle the materials, explains that despite the simple using drum that makes up the bottom of the bulb crusher.
"The high tech probably lies in the filters where it takes out all of the mercury and we can just take care of it on-site," he said.
The bulb eater is just one of many conservation efforts currently underway in the district. Work crews at Juanita High School are in the process of installing a rain catcher that will use the rainfall to fill the school's toilets.
At Redmond High School, they are more than quadrupling the number of solar panels in the courtyard after finding the initial six panels not only saved the school money, but they actually earned cash for the district which sells some of the electricity back to Puget Sound Energy.
"There's a cascading value in the reason we're doing this," said Chuck Collins, the school district's Resource Conservation Manager. "Money is our number one driver, but absolutely, education, climate reasons, and also to prove that new technology, we don't mind putting our best foot forward and saying look, we want to be a part of this as well."
Hilary Polis is 2009 graduate of Redmond High School who now interns with the district's Resource Conservation Department. She says students will definitely notice and appreciate all of the changes.
"I think it's awesome," she said. "We have a lot of pride in how green our school is and we've been nationally recognized for all the stuff we do towards conservation and saving the environment."
The Lake Washington School District says since they have made conservation a priority and hired a Resource Conservation Manager, they have managed to trim about a million dollars through saved and avoided energy costs.
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