Sustainable Living Center ‘goes green’

Infographic by Ali Neshati

“Going green” is a term used to describe eco-friendly products. For Bill Hanlon, an instructor in the Construction Technology program and director of the Sustainable Living Center at Flint Hills Technical College, it’s a way of life.

“I’ve had people say, ‘what difference does it make if I do anything? It’s not going to matter.’ Well, I don’t want to be like the rest of the lemmings and run off of a cliff,” Hanlon said.

According to the Flint Hills Technical College Sustainable Living Center web page, their mission is “to help the community and region address environmental and energy concerns through training, workshops, classes and conferences.”

Hanlon offers four different classes. One is entitled “Home Winterization for Comfort and Energy Savings” which offers tips on saving money and going green during the winter for $29. A second is called “Building Technology for the Energy Efficient Home” and is a one-day class that covers all the basics of building green and includes a book for $94. A third class covers green remodeling on homes and is approximately $34. The fourth is a two-night class for $48 called, “Building a window solar collector” in which students build 3 solar window heaters.

The solar window heaters are placed against a window so that light may be drawn inside to heat up a black metal plate. One slit in the heater allows warm air to be moved into the room and another slit lets in cold air to move the warmer air.

Hanlon has also built the first home in Kansas to receive a five-star plus rating in energy efficiency and the house cost $175,000. But what makes it cheaper is that the house costs $166 in heating and $78 in cooling for an entire year, as opposed to comparable costs for heating and cooling for other homes per month.

Hanlon is also a consultant in Greensburg, soon to be the most eco-friendly town in the U.S. and is one of the founders of the Emporia Farmer’s Market. He is also the founder of FHTC’s Environmental Club and a plan is underway to combine the organization with Emporia State’s Environmental Club.

Currently, however, much of Hanlon’s attention goes to his Sustainable Living Center, which has four focal points: green building and energy efficiency, recycling, alternative energy systems, and local food production.

“We’ve had a bankrupt food system in this country for at least 30 years and nobody has stopped it, it just keeps going on,” Hanlon said. “I think one of the sustainability questions is how do we produce much more food locally?”

For Hanlon, a large issue is the cost of other materials used in the transportation of the food.

“When you think about it, why does the lettuce I have today on my sandwich have to come from the San Joaquin Valley?” Hanlon said. “The minimum distance on most food you buy is 1,500 miles. Now, if you get to looking at the environmental impact of that, how many BTU’s (British Thermal Units, a basic measure of thermal energy) are in that slice of lettuce on my sandwich? How many pounds of carbon went into getting that all the way from growing it, to processing it, to shipping it halfway across the country?”

Hanlon suggests that we should make our radius in which we gather produce and other food smaller.

“I had a friend who was a trucker… and he hauled beef,” Hanlon said. “He hauled a load out here and he took it to Texas. He picked up a load in Texas and took it to California. Then he went down the road and picked up a load of beef in California and took it to Boston. He picked up a load of beef outside of Boston and took it back to Wichita. In Wichita he picked up beef and took it to an all Texas beef company.”

The real source of the issue, however, is not hunger for food, but hunger for money, Hanlon said.

“Because of the way our system is, people don’t buy locally,” Hanlon said. “If they can get it for four cents cheaper by the pound by the time they ship it from California, they’re not going to get it from 30 miles down the road.”

Another project Hanlon has been working on is creating a community garden next to FHTC on the east side of the building. Hanlon hopes to have it finished next year. The garden would allow townspeople to buy plots of land to garden.

“There would probably be a lot of people interested if we offered it,” Hanlon said.

Hanlon is also interested in a system called “cradle to cradle,” that he attributes to William McDonough. “Cradle to cradle” is a recycling system that is based off of creating things which, after being used, can be recycled directly back into the item it once was or a similar item.

An example Hanlon used was a window. If a window is built that can be taken out of a house before a house is demolished, that window can be reused in another house. Natural items may degenerate, but petroleum-based chemicals do not. Old rubber from shoes could be used in new tires or asphalt.

“The idea is that nothing gets out of the circle,” Hanlon said.

While Hanlon works to solve issues facing our world, he has a problem of his own with attendance. According to Hanlon, marketing is the hardest part of working for the Center.

“I had a winterization class this Tuesday and Wednesday,” Hanlon said. “I put out some flyers, it was on the radio, Talk of the Town, put it into the community calendar for a couple of weeks, then I had an e-mail list, so I sent e-mails out and I got zero people.”

However, Hanlon is confident that people will realize the community is the best place to start going green.

“If we are going to address this and use it effectively, we’ve got to go back to the community,” Hanlon said. “We have to redevelop our communities to be more ecologically functional.”

For more information, visit http://www.fhtc.edu/Programs-and Majors/SustainableLivingCenter.aspx.