[Post author: Lauren Murphy]
Last week, the award winners for the Federal Green Challenge were announced by the US EPA for all 10 regions. Over 400 organizations took action to reduce their environmental impact, through various target areas, including waste, electronics, purchasing, water, energy and transportation. The Federal Green Challenge chooses winners from each region of the United States, encouraging facilities to lead by example.
In Region 5, Lovell Federal Healthcare Center was chosen as a winner of the 2015 Federal Green Challenge for the education and outreach efforts that were used to reduce energy use and greenhouse gas emissions. Additionally, Argonne National Laboratory received the award for the waste, electronics, and transportation categories for increasing the amount of materials composted, increasing the number of computers with enabled power management, and reducing the number of vehicles used with internal combustion engines. The winners for the other regions can be found here. From all of the applicants combined, over $24 million of taxpayer dollars were saved from diverting over 390,000 tons of solid waste from landfills, saving about 80 million gallons of water, recycling 450 tons of electronic waste, and reducing the amount of paper used by 15,000 pounds.