Food
The COA kitchen offers a range of food items to meet a variety of diet preferences and special needs. When available the kitchen strives to use local, organic food products. The college's Beech Hill Farm provides a wide range of organically-raised seasonal vegetables for our salad bar and side dishes. Other food items come from Maine co-ops and other organic and local sources. Food "waste" from the kitchen is composted in the college's community garden and at Beech Hill Farm.
Meats: 70% free-range, locally raised when available
Coffee: organic and fair trade only
Dairy: hormone-free
Eggs: cage-, hormone- and antibiotic-free
Beans, grains and vegetable protein: organic when available
Landscaping
Since it's founding, COA has used mostly native species and some long-naturalized plants for its landscaping to minimize maintenance requirements. No landscape waste goes off-campus. Campus walks are surfaced with chipped wood from brush cleared from campus.
Office Supplies
Our environmentally- and socially-responsible purchasing policies include:
Paper: 100% post-consumer recycled paper for publications, photocopies and printing.
Printer Ink Cartridge Recycling on campus; with training given to local schools to recycle as well
Office Supplies: purchased through a source focused on recycling & offering products with environmental certifications
Composting and Recycling
Most kitchen "waste" composted for use in the COA community gardens
Cafeteria wastes, including napkins, composted at the college's organic Beech Hill Farm to enrich the soil.
Biodegradable plates and cups used at college events are also composted at the farm.
Dorm food "wastes" naturally digested in Green ConesTM.
All other paper: recycled through more than three dozen collection stations around the campus.
Additional paper recycled for use by Conners-Emerson, a local elementary school
Various containers: recycled or reused.
Cleaning Chemicals
Using environmentally-friendly products for years.
Wood Procurement
Seeking products made from wood grown in sustainably-managed forests, including new floor for George B. Dorr Museum of Natural History; no use of materials that off-gas chemicals or are cut from old-growth forests.
Lighting
Since 1984, using top-of-the-line, energy-efficient lighting, with several college buildings not using artificial lights during daylight hours.
Pioneered the use of light shelves that bounce light from windows to ceiling to light a room's interior in the library stacks.
Heating
Pursuing energy conservation measures in existing buildings to reduce fossil fuel use and greenhouse gas emissions.
New buildings are designed for cutting-edge energy efficiency.
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