2. Ellen E Jones, Assistant Professor, Bemidji
State University
Paul Brunner, Technical Director, Indiana
University Theatre & Drama
James McKernan, Department of Theatre,
York University
3. But First….
A Quick Introduction to Global
Warming
Natural Resources Defense Council
and used with permission
4.
5.
6.
7.
8. Climate
Change:
it’s really
getting hotter
- IPCC, 2007,
www.worldclimate.com,
“The Cost of Climate Change,”
NRDC, May 2008
9. “Arctic ice could disappear almost completely in the latter part of the century”
- IPCC, AR4
10. - “State of the Paper Industry,” Environmental Paper Network, 2007
September 16, 2004
11. #1 industrial consumer of fresh water on the
planet
#1 discharger of water pollutants
#3 industrial generator of greenhouse gases
Almost 50% of all industrial logging
worldwide is caused by the paper industry
…just to make paper
Is That a Good Enough Reason to:
Print Double Sided?
Recycle your Paper Waste?
Buy Paper w/ Recycled Content?
…Small Efforts…Big Results…
12. The fierce urgency of now
•If present trends continue, the total cost of global warming will be
as high as 3.6% of gross domestic product (GDP).
•Four global warming impacts alone —
•hurricane damage
•real estate losses
•energy costs
•water costs
—will come with a price tag of 1.8% of U.S. GDP, or almost
$1.9 trillion annually (in today’s dollars) by 2100.
That’s why we must act immediately to reduce global warming
emissions 80 percent by 2050 and take ourselves off the
business-as-usual path.
- “The Cost of Climate Change,” NRDC, May 2008
14. What is greening?
- examining business operations and
supply chain to identify environmental
liabilities and opportunities
- a journey
- enhancing efficiency
What isn’t greening?
- not just about carbon footprint
- not a checklist
- not about breaking the bank
19. ALUMINUM MANUFACTURING
Recycled
Aluminum uses
93% less energy
than virgin
19
Source: NRDC 2006
20. • Reduce environmental liabilities
• Potential to save money by increasing efficiencies
• Enhance brand reputation
• Improve public relations; meet expectations of
customers and clients
• Boost employee morale by involving them in a
positive social and environmental effort
• Receive recognition from all stakeholders,
including customers, shareholders, employees,
and the media, for being at the forefront of social
and environmental change
• A major opportunity to do well by doing good
21. Intro to Sustainability:
A Primer for the Newly Interested
Thanks to Bob Usdin of Showman Fabricators, the
Broadway Green Alliance, Barbizon, and everyone
connected with LDI for making the Green Day track a
reality.
We presented a session last as part of Green Day 2010:
Green at the University: Teaching Green by Being
Green.
Ellen and Paul wrote and article that appeared in the
Spring 2011 edition of Theatre Design and Technology
(TD&T).
LDI Green Day 2011 – Intro to Sustainability
22. Intro to Sustainability:
A Primer for the Newly Interested
TD&T published Paul’s technical article in the fall of
2009 that discusses Wood Composites and their
mechanical properties as they apply to stage scenery.
Goal for Today
to provide some tools and ideas to help you create a
sustainability initiative that works for you and your
organization!
LDI Green Day 2011 – Intro to Sustainability
23. The Usual Suspects
Paul Brunner – Technical Director & Head of Theatre
Technology at Indiana University- Bloomington.
Ellen E. Jones- Lighting & Scenic Designer & Scenic
Artist. Assistant Professor & Head of Design at
Bemidji State University until May 2012 when the
theatre department is eliminated as part of
retrenchment.
James McKernan- Chair Sustainability Commission
CITT, Assistant Professor of Theatre Production at
York University, Toronto.
LDI Green Day 2011 – Intro to Sustainability
24. The Disclaimer
These are our opinions based on our experiences.
Please, evaluate ideas and products on your own, to make
final decisions that meet the needs of your organization
without exceeding the available resources.
Do not use any product without reading all the instructions
for use, handling, storage, and personal protection.
Make sure you understand how to use and meet any safety
requirements (like FR application, dust collection, and
ventilation requirements) when using new materials.
LDI Green Day 2011 – Intro to Sustainability
25. How Big Are Your Feet?
No one wants to waste energy and mindlessly
release toxins into the environment or produce so
much garbage he or she needs a personal landfill.
You can reduce your footprint on the environment
without saving all your trash and weighing it or
banning toilet paper from the restroom.
The first step in sustainability is to examine your
personal or organizational impact on the
environment.
LDI Green Day 2011 – Intro to Sustainability
26. Getting Started
Do not overreach with your first Green initiatives.
Create a Mission Statement for your organization
Start small and simple.
Making better choices in everyday materials and products
What works for you is the best program.
LDI Green Day 2011 – Intro to Sustainability
27. Getting Started
Develop a “Green” Culture:
Determine what you can control. In some cases you can make
changes, in other areas you may only be able to make
suggestions. Change can make people nervous and inflexible.
Seek allies within the production company or department and
decide on reasonable goals.
Reach out to other areas including the Safety Officer, Facilities
Management, Craft Services, Administrative Support Staff and
the Custodial Staff for ideas.
LDI Green Day 2011 – Intro to Sustainability
28. A New Reference Library
Start reading books that look at ecological, safety, and industrial
hygiene concerns. Protect people and the environment.
LDI Green Day 2011 – Intro to Sustainability
30. “Back to Theatre Basics”
Stock Scenery Principals
Theatre IS a sustainable model.
Modular construction (4ft multiples)
Strike process & material reuse
Theatre has reused scenic elements for decades.
Stock platforms and other scenic elements represent
a wonderful Sustainable model.
Of course, strive to continuously improve these
traditional theatre methods with materials &
fasteners.
LDI Green Day 2011 – Intro to Sustainability
32. Assess the Operation
Walk through your shops, stage, offices, and lobby
and really look at the operations. It doesn’t take
long to not see the work environment.
- Are all areas clean and organized?
- Are garbage cans full of items that could be easily recycled?
- Are there shelves of chemical solvents and cleaners, spray
adhesives, and spray paint?
- Are dozens of indicator lights winking at you in the dark after
everyone else has gone home?
- Are desks and tables covered with stacks of paper? Could any of
that communication be handled using digital copies instead?
- Are materials easy to reuse or is storage filled to overflowing so
no one can find anything?
LDI Green Day 2011 – Intro to Sustainability
33. Intersection of Safety and Sustainability
This tour is a great time to assess some aspects of
the safety of your facility as well.
- Are MSDS books conspicuous and easy to find so workers can
determine any dangers from products?
- Is everything so crowded that your shops do not meet the physical
requirements for NFPA codes or fire load capacity for the
facility?
- Are all areas adequately lit, but not over lit so energy is wasted
when no one is using the space?
- Sniff the air. Do you smell chemical fumes or solvents? Sneeze
from the fabric or saw dust?
LDI Green Day 2011 – Intro to Sustainability
34. Remember the Basics
Move away from paper forms- use cloud computing
and fill-able forms that all can share.
Print on both sides , don’t use colored paper. Make a
sign for duplex on and off.
Use re-useable cutlery in the staff cafeteria.
Use daylight as much as possible.
LDI Green Day 2011 – Intro to Sustainability
35. Not for the Faint of Heart
Everyone knows to recycle programs. Some theatres
have gone to a video program in the lobby.
Can the call board be replaced with a paper free dry
erase board?
Dishwasher in the prop kitchen? Buy mugs to sell
coffee for concessions, not paper cups. Or sell soda in
bottles and refillable stainless steel bottles for the water
fountain.
Sell only fruit with peels at intermission-no packaged
goodies.
LDI Green Day 2011 – Intro to Sustainability
36. The Not So Scary Ideas…
Only print one full set of drawings and use individual
plates as needed. Use old drawings as packing material.
Use an internet drop box or a communication shell for
documents that several people need to edit or read only.
How about blogs for the design process?
Do one poster for the season and one lobby display of
the entire company.
Buy LED flashlights and headlights to save on
batteries.
Use re-chargeable batteries
LDI Green Day 2011 – Intro to Sustainability
37. Stage Scenery Ideas
Getting the most out of materials
- One approach to reduce lumber waste due to math errors,
buy 1x10 or 1x12 and rip it in-house for flats. Rip to 3”
instead of 1x3’s real width to avoid fraction errors and
resulting waste.**
- Flat Frame Carriages (or Gates)
- Instead of building solid-carriage step units that cannot be adjusted, use
frame carriages that can be made into curved or straight runs. These can
also be stored flat and made up with any number of steps.
- Build to deconstruct. Glue is good, but build large units so
they can be taken apart and elements reused again.
LDI Green Day 2011 – Intro to Sustainability
38. Frame Carriage Step Units
From Bill Raoul’s Stock Scenery
Construction Handbook.
LDI Green Day 2011 – Intro to Sustainability
39. Flexible Steps for Reuse
Based on “Flex-Pitch
Escape Stairs”, by Kevin
Hines, Tech Brief
Collection, vol. 2
Steel framed treads bolt to
side stringers.
The stair unit pivots to
adjust the height from
roughly 6ft to 8ft platform
height. The treads remain
parallel with the floor.
LDI Green Day 2011 – Intro to Sustainability
40. Do you have a scenery rental option near you?
If not try:
www.readysetrecycle.com
LDI Green Day 2011 – Intro to Sustainability
41. Stage Scenery Ideas
If you need to use steel, bolt it together, don’t weld it,
as much as possible. Or use Kee Clamp.
Build to maximize yield; make 8’ flats, not 7’.
Re-skin old frames.
Recycle all materials when done. Many metal scrap
yards give you cash for your metal.
If you can’t recycle your wood, burn the solid timber
off-cuts as fuel.
LDI Green Day 2011 – Intro to Sustainability
42. More Examples of Stock Scenery and re-use
The 30’ long beams for Crucible
were build to come apart in 8’
sections. They became vertical
timbers in Man of La Mancha (base
coat paint only) and the next
season became an architectural
soffit with a painted border in The
Butcher Of Baraboo.
LDI Green Day 2011 – Intro to Sustainability
43. Stage Scenery & Recycling
Recycling Wood is becoming more and more common.
Contact local & regional construction waste companies
and ask for alternatives to landfill disposal.
It is often possible for wood waste to be processed into
decorative mulch (painted), or be sold to Municipal
Incinerators for energy.
Local Habitat for Humanity may have use for wood
LDI Green Day 2011 – Intro to Sustainability
44. Build using Cardboard Scenery Techniques
A great cardboard scenery resource is on-line:
http://cortecscenery.com/
LDI Green Day 2011 – Intro to Sustainability
45. Check all the Materials & Products!
Some putty mixes include naturally occurring arsenic-
not good for you or the water table.
Check the toxic qualities of the pigments you use dry
pigments or liquid dyes.
Just because the label says it is considered carcinogenic
in CA, does not mean you are safe everywhere else.
Most kinds of bronzing powders are considered
Hazards Materials for shipping. Are you sure a water-
based metallic paint won’t do for this project?
LDI Green Day 2011 – Intro to Sustainability
46. Ideas for Glues and Adhesives
PVA Glues (old fashion White and Yellow Glue)
Polyvinyl acetate
Water-based & non-toxic
The difference between White and Yellow Glue is…
1) Color
2) Viscosity
3) the list ends here
Alternative to “Liquid Nails”
PolySeamSeal “All Purpose”
Low odor, non-toxic, water-based adhesive caulk (mastic)
LDI Green Day 2011 – Intro to Sustainability
47. Scenery-The Paint Area
Read the MSDS sheets and eliminate any product that
you do not have appropriate PPEs to use.
Save scrap paint in 5 gallon buckets for back and base
painting on the next show.
Eliminate any product that requires a solvent other than
water and soap or uses propellants.
Remember natural doesn’t mean harmless- anthrax is
natural. Orange oil and other natural cleaners can be
just as harmful as chemical cleaners.
LDI Green Day 2011 – Intro to Sustainability
48. Is it Clean Yet?
Adopt a less wasteful brush cleaning technique:
Coming back to roller on more of that color? Wrap the rollers
in plastic and only clean when you are finished. Use a spin out
for that cleaning session.
Use one bucket of water for the first agitation of all brushes.
Go to a second bucket of clean water with a little soap. Rinse
again in clean water in a bucket. Reshape and hang to dry.
Never wash brushes under continuously running water.
Teach everyone how you want the brushes cleaned.
http://www.yorku.ca/tags/Theatre_Artisan_Green_Skills/
Paint_Conservation.html
LDI Green Day 2011 – Intro to Sustainability
49. One Paint Cleaning Method
For more information go to: www.yorku.ca/tags
LDI Green Day 2011 – Intro to Sustainability
50. Props
How organized is your storage? Half of the problem
with re-using items is finding them.
The other half is storage enough to keep them.
Do you have a reciprocal rental/loan agreement with
other theatres/schools near you?
Perhaps you can digitize your inventory to save the
travel time and carbon.
Offer them to community groups or schools if you
can’t keep them. Pay it forward.
LDI Green Day 2011 – Intro to Sustainability
51. Stage & Facility Lighting
Count the watts
- What lamps are in your stage fixtures? Could some units be
lamped down even if it means keeping different wattages of the
same type lamps in stock?
- Are rehearsals run under a full stage wash? Can you find an
alternative that uses fewer units?
- Turn off scenic lighting and switch to house lights when possible
during tech. They use less electricity.
- Put a cap on maximum wattage in the grid.
- Don’t know how much electricity you are using: measure it. Put a
meter in before the dimmers and track it. Or count the watts.
LDI Green Day 2011 – Intro to Sustainability
52. Stage & Facility Lighting
Can occupancy sensors be added to rooms so lights are
only turned on when the space is in use?
Use Sine Wave Dimmers
Get the most out of conventional tungsten lights. They
are not evil, nor are they going away in the near future.
Clean them and use modern versions.
Got a ghost light?
- Good - put a compact fluorescent in it
- Better – get an S-14 LED lamp from Earth LED. These LED
lamps also fit in most courtesy step units.
Are computers on switched power strips? *
LDI Green Day 2011 – Intro to Sustainability
53. Don’t Forget Architectural and Task Lighting
How many lobby, display, and house lighting units
are in the space?
- Switched units can take compact fluorescents or LED screw base
lamps.
- Even certain fluorescent fixtures can be replaced with other more
efficient fluorescent units.
- Earth LED makes a direct replacement, dimmable LED PAR with
a screw base that really works. With our analog dimmers the
dimmer curve on the board had to be rewritten. Once a digital
command module was added to the racks, they dimmed using a
standard profile.
LDI Green Day 2011 – Intro to Sustainability
54. Get a Little Help From Your Friends
Ask the local electricity provider to do an energy audit of your
facility.
Check for rebates on energy saving upgrades.
Look for state grants earmarked to improve sustainability-
Bemidji State University got a huge grant from the MN State
Pollution Control Agency.
Look for arts related and regional grants that can be used for
operating costs or educational programming. You may be able to
use that money to make upgrades and then showcase them to the
public.
LDI Green Day 2011 – Intro to Sustainability
55. Take It For A Test Drive
Research is usually an expectation for faculty members.
Will a company partner with you by loaning LED
equipment for a show or season that allows you to
make a scientific study? Note- if you do this, actually
publish the article.
All products are beta tested in the field. Can your
college or university test equipment for a company?
Have funding for capital expenditures? Contact dealers
and vendors for recommendations and ask if you can
have a loaner for a show before buying.
LDI Green Day 2011 – Intro to Sustainability
56. Costume & Wardrobe Ideas
Eliminate the
Chemicals!
Detergents are a relatively new
invention. Switch from detergents
and scented fabric softeners (note:
chemical fragrances are one of the
least regulated items on the
consumer market). Wash laundry
with soap nuts. Supplement with
vinegar or baking soda and
hydrogen peroxide as bleach if
needed. These same products can
be used to clean actor’s stations as
well.
LDI Green Day 2011 – Intro to Sustainability
57. Costume & Wardrobe Ideas
Explore natural dyes as an alternative to chemical dyes. They
will not always be what you are looking for but for the less
saturated operations they work amazingly well.
Choose natural Fabrics when possible, and avoid fabrics that
require dry-cleaning.
Use thrift stores and more rental companies.*
Alternative to chemicals: Instead of bleach use: vinegar, lemon
juice, hydrogen peroxide, oxygen, borax, washing soda, sodium
hydrosulfite (salt & water). *
LDI Green Day 2011 – Intro to Sustainability
58. Costume & Wardrobe Ideas
Try to stay away from hair dye.
Research all of the make-up you are using. Look at The
Environmental Working Group/cosmetics as a
resource.
Use pump hairsprays.
If you cannot get soap nuts at least use environmentally
responsible detergent.
Washing Machines & Dryers – Don’t skimp!
High Quality front-loading machines & dryers will last longer
and are most often higher efficiency
LDI Green Day 2011 – Intro to Sustainability
59. This is all just common sense….
A common theme in these slides of ideas is “try”. Do
something, try something. Take the first step!
Many of these initiatives we already do because they are
cheaper or are quicker or just smarter….
That is the point, all we are suggesting is you choose to
save money, work smarter and quicker!
LDI Green Day 2011 – Intro to Sustainability
