Sustainability Report Newsletter

An indoor recycling pilot program will soon begin in select buildings at the Santa Maria Camps and Lompoc Valley Center and then expand across all locations. Indoor mixed stream recycling will be collected by the college custodians and distributed to the recycling plant. Currently, only paper recycling has been collected indoors, whereas mixed stream recycling has only been collected in special bins outdoors. 

The pilot program will include Building K, Building B downstairs, and Building 1 in Lompoc. Be on the lookout for blue recycling bins to appear in your workspace as the recycling program expands campuswide.

Custodians will deposit the recycling material in workspaces to centrally located bins where the grounds crew will then transport them to the recycling center. Money from the recycling will continue to go into an account used to purchase materials that further sustainability projects on campus.

Before your blue recycling bins arrive, you can still recycle bottles, cans, cardboard, and other mixed stream materials by dropping them in the specially-marked recycling bins located outside and please continue to recycle paper items as normal!

Last year, the Sustainability Committee reported that Hancock's Santa Maria Campus would be going solar by providing carport solar panel canopies and creating more than $5.5 million dollars of electricity savings to the college while giving student and employee vehicles extra shade and protection. Like other construction projects at this time, some modifications were made to the timeline and the plan, but by the end of the year, the solar project will be well underway! 

Land is currently being surveyed and utility lines are currently being marked so that groundbreaking can take place in late October. The project will take place in a lot by lot sequence so that parking isn’t impacted too much at once. The entire project is expected to be completed within six months after groundbreaking.

The revised plan for is for the arrays to cover parking Lot 1 in front of building S, Lot 2 in front of Building C, Lot 4 on the North side of the Student Services Building, Lot 8 near the Sports Pavillion/Gymnasium, and Lot 10 in front of the Tennis courts. Decisions on where to revise the locations was based on maximizing sunlight access and eliminating the need for trees to be removed.

The college secured a grant that will allow electric vehicle charging stations, similar to the ones at the Santa Maria Campus, to be added to the Lompoc Valley Center. This will allow six vehicles to be charged at once on the Lompoc campus. The plan is to also include charging for electric bicycles (e-bikes).

Preconstruction will take place during the summer and the stations will be ready to go by the mid-fall semester.

• Charging stations will be limited to Hancock students, faculty, and staff who get a discounted rate of $.09 per hour to charge their vehicles.
• EV owners download the ChargePoint app on their smartphone which connects to their credit or debit card.
• When you hold your phone to the card reader using the ChargePoint app, it will release the port which then plugs into your vehicle.
• EV owners can charge for up to 4 hours on the charging port. The average charging time is 2-3 hours. After four hours a parking fee will be charged to your account.
• The app will text you and let you know when your car is charged and give you plenty of notice to know when you need to move your car to avoid fees and allow others access.

Allan Hancock College's regional director for Agriculture, Water, and Environmental Technology and Sustainability Committee member Holly Nolan-Chavez recently participated in a special project to inspire students, job seekers, and career changers to explore future-oriented jobs in agriculture, food, water, and the environment. The project is called 100+ Jobs to Feed People and Sustain the Planet. Visit the website and check it out!

Holly's role was to provide input and direction for the development in collaboration with SAGE (Sustainable Agriculture Education) in collaboration with California Community Colleges Regional Directors. The web application provides students with a virtual job shadowing opportunity for sustainable careers in agriculture and food production. Information is presented in a video format that features current workers and provides wage data.

The website features job stories built around short informal videos of vibrant, early-career people describing what they love about their jobs, what they do every day, their pathway to the job, and their aspirations for themselves and for making a difference. Created around the videos, over 30 compelling and diverse job stories are packaged as a digital card deck that also includes information about wages and education pathways. 

The website also includes a program finder for relevant community college programs, a list of digital job boards, and links to many work-based training opportunities and as well as general information sources about jobs data. The project welcomes feedback and suggestions for job ambassadors; please email 100jobs@sagecenter.org.

Many of Allan Hancock College's buildings on the Santa Maria Campus and Public Safety Training Complex have received LEED certification - the most widely used green building rating system in the world. Plaques with this certification can be found on the outside of the buildings which include Building A (Student Services), Building B (Administration), Building I (Childrens Center), and all of the buildings at the Public Safety Training Complex. The new Fine Arts Building will also be a LEED Gold Certified building.

To achieve LEED certification, a project earns points by adhering to prerequisites and credits that address carbon, energy, water, waste, transportation, materials, health, and indoor environmental quality. Projects go through a verification and review process by GBCI and are awarded points that correspond to a level of LEED certification.

A goal of Allan Hancock College Facilities and the Sustainability Committee is to continue the trend of making Allan Hancock College Buildings Leed certified "green buildings" creating a healthier and more sustainable learning and working environment.

Buildings G and L on the Santa Maria campus will be getting HVAC upgrades that include built-in air ionization and purification.

As quality and filtration during COVID times has become front and center, the campus has already installed many air purifications systems within the buildings. Now filtration will be a built-in part of the HVAC system for those buildings.

The CDC recommends a layered approach to reduce exposures to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. This approach includes using multiple mitigation strategies, including improvements to building ventilation indoors. The concentration of viral particles is often higher than outdoors, where even a light wind can rapidly reduce concentrations. When indoors, ventilation mitigation strategies can help reduce viral particle concentration.

Ionization is the process of using ultrasonic light to grab dirt and particles in an ionic exchange. Within the air stream, ions attach to particles where they combine, become larger and are more easily filtered from the air. This process targets particles, reduces virus and bacteria nearly completely, and removes odors.

Allan Hancock College has four EV charging stations with eight ports at the Santa Maria Campus which were installed August 2019. The college will soon have additional ports at the Lompoc Valley Center. Since these stations have been installed more than 5,896 kg of greenhouse emissions have been avoided - the equivalent to planting 155 trees and letting them grow for 10 years!  Read to find out how these charging stations work?