A conference session on green practice in educational theater. With: Paul Bruner, James B McKernen, and Ellen E Jones.
In many ways our scene shops have been green for decades because of budget reasons but we can do better.
Consider ways to use MDF, OSB, and other composite sheet material. These composite materials use 95% of the tree! Consider the life cycle assessment of the material. That's the impact of the material from creation to disposal. Nearly all wood substitutes create greater CO2 emissions than wood.
Determine what you can control. Housekeeping is one of the best starting points. If you can't find and store it you can't reuse it.
Use, store, and dispose of hazardous waste properly. Most schools have a specific disposal protocol. Find out what it is and follow it.
Analyze the chemicals in your costume shop. Get rid of all the chemicals you can. Consider green alternatives.
Contact your local public utility for help analyzing your electric consumption. Their job is to help. There are often grants and matching funds available for energy efficient projects. There are often rebates available from the public utility as well.
Consider the effect of us all replacing all our house light cans with LED pars. This is something most theaters can do right now.
Cardboard. Rosco makes a treatment that will make it flame retardant. Cardboard doesn't look good on large pieces as it doesn't take paint well. But it can be used effectively for smaller pieces, returns and masking, and smaller flown pieces.
York University (Toronto) will soon have a MFA Sustainable Design degree. Their website includes lots of interesting information:
www.yorku.ca/tags.
In many ways our scene shops have been green for decades because of budget reasons but we can do better.
Consider ways to use MDF, OSB, and other composite sheet material. These composite materials use 95% of the tree! Consider the life cycle assessment of the material. That's the impact of the material from creation to disposal. Nearly all wood substitutes create greater CO2 emissions than wood.
Determine what you can control. Housekeeping is one of the best starting points. If you can't find and store it you can't reuse it.
Use, store, and dispose of hazardous waste properly. Most schools have a specific disposal protocol. Find out what it is and follow it.
Analyze the chemicals in your costume shop. Get rid of all the chemicals you can. Consider green alternatives.
Contact your local public utility for help analyzing your electric consumption. Their job is to help. There are often grants and matching funds available for energy efficient projects. There are often rebates available from the public utility as well.
Consider the effect of us all replacing all our house light cans with LED pars. This is something most theaters can do right now.
Cardboard. Rosco makes a treatment that will make it flame retardant. Cardboard doesn't look good on large pieces as it doesn't take paint well. But it can be used effectively for smaller pieces, returns and masking, and smaller flown pieces.
York University (Toronto) will soon have a MFA Sustainable Design degree. Their website includes lots of interesting information:
www.yorku.ca/tags.
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