Earth day activities highlight airport sustainability efforts
MINNEAPOLIS-ST. PAUL – People traveling through Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport (MSP) tomorrow through Sunday can participate in expanded recycling activities, visit displays highlighting efforts to operate the airport in a sustainable manner, and take advantage of environmentally conscious deals at MSP shops and restaurants.
Electric vehicles the Metropolitan Airports Commission (MAC) uses at the airport will be on display in both terminals. Featured in Terminal 1-Lindbergh is a 2010, EVX1000 GreenTruck manufactured by Vantage Vehicle International, Inc. The $21,000 utility vehicle has a 35-horsepower motor that runs on six 12-volt batteries. The EVX1000 operates at speeds up to 25 miles per hour and can travel up to 40 miles between charges. The MAC estimates that a similarly equipped and used gas-powered vehicle would consume some 883 gallons of gasoline each year. Using the EVX1000 instead reduces carbon dioxide emissions by approximately 17,130 pounds, an amount that would take 52 mature trees to absorb.
On display in Terminal 2-Humphrey is a 2008 EXV2 utility truck manufactured by E-Ride Industries. The $22,000 electric-powered vehicle operates on nine 8-volt batteries. It travels at speeds of up to 25 miles per hour and can go up to 55 miles between charges. The MAC estimates that a similarly equipped and used gasoline-powered vehicle would consume approximately 335 gallons of gasoline each year and release some 6,500 pounds of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. It would take 20 mature trees to absorb that much carbon dioxide.
Beginning this week, convenient, blast-proof, co-mingled recycling containers for cans, bottles and paper are available in public, pre-security areas of the airport such as baggage claim, ticketing and ground transportation facilities. Recycling containers were already available to travelers on airport concourses and in other secure areas of the airport.
On Friday, April 22, travelers who bring their own travel mug can get free coffee at Caribou Coffee or enjoy free brewed coffee or tea from Starbucks. Airport news stores operated by HMS Host will offer a free recyclable tote with $10 purchase while supplies last. Body Shop customers will receive a Peel and Reveal card to determine savings of up to 100 percent off their purchase. Friday through Sunday, Surdyk’s Flights is offering a free reusable four-bottle wine bag with the purchase of any four bottles of wine.
While you’re there, check out environmentally conscious products available year round. Bluwire offers phone chargers that stop drawing power as soon as the mobile device is fully charged. The Body Shop sells Earth-friendly shower gels, hair care and skin products. Brookstone offers LED lights made from recycled aircraft aluminum. Sugar Pop’s Nahu Olin handbags are handmade from recycled materials such as candy wrappers and magazines. And Natural Element sells jewelry made from recycled goods; reusable totes; and shoes, apparel and handbags made from organic or recycled materials.
The electric vehicles on display and expanded recycling efforts are part of the MAC’s Stewards of Tomorrow’s Airport Resources (STAR) program, aimed at making MSP financially, environmentally, socially and operationally sustainable for the long term. The program focuses on energy conservation, green buildings, air quality, water quality and conservation, waste management and recycling, natural resources management, noise abatement, and prudent financial decision making.
“The goal is to incorporate our commitment to operating sustainable airports into all our decision making,” said Jeff Hamiel, executive director of the Metropolitan Airports Commission, the public corporation that owns and operates MSP International and six general aviation airports in the Twin Cities metropolitan area. “Whenever possible, we want to make choices that are sustainable in the long term environmentally, operationally, socially and financially.”
The MAC recycles many materials in addition to consumer refuse such as bottles, cans and newspapers. Other recycled materials include food and organic waste, cardboard, metal, batteries, grease, wood pallets, tires, construction materials, tree and yard waste, paint, automotive oil, antifreeze, solvents, deicing fluid, light bulbs and printer cartridges.
In 2010 alone, the MAC recycled or diverted from the waste stream more than 1,000 tons of materials, avoiding $86,000 in disposal costs. That included:
- 498 tons of consumer-generated waste: cans, bottles and paper
- 182 tons of wood from pallets
- 169 tons of baled cardboard
- 88 tons of used cooking oil or grease, which are processed into biodiesel
- 80 tons of food waste for composting
- 61 tons of scrap metal
Improvements to the airport’s Energy Management Center over the past 10 years have saved the MAC $14.4 million in utility costs and resulted in a total energy reduction of 22,042 mega watt hours per year – enough to power 1,323 Minnesota homes.
The MAC’s STAR program involves many other sustainable activities as well. For more information, visit http://www.mspairport.com/about-msp/sustainability.aspx.
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