Cypress College staff is keeping the campus clean for the students and for the good of going green.
When students notice a bathroom looking unclean or a trashcan overflowing, chances are it just hasn’t been tended to yet. The truth is, the maintenance team on campus is doing a lot to make it a more beautiful place for students, and even throwing in some very green changes. Albert V. Miranda, Director Physical Plant/Facilities was able to shed some light on the efforts being made to keep the campus clean.
First off the the maintenance staff is made up of a large team. There are on average; one mechanic, two carpenter’s who do anything from fix a roof to a squeaky door, one locksmith, two journeymen who maintain the pool, ten groundskeepers, one irrigation specialist and about a dozen other staff that help keep the campus looking its best. At night in fact, about a crew of 20 come in and meticulously clean the campus so well when students and staff return in the morning, everything looks brand new again.
This work however only seems to be noticed when a student sees a messy bathroom, like Miranda has said, “When it’s done right, it goes unnoticed, there’s only a complaint when something is different”. That being said Miranda encourages students and staff to inform the maintenance crew of a mess so that they can come and clean it up.
As far as the bathrooms go, many students can participate in helping to keep them looking clean. In fact signs posted by staff in the newly remodeled Humanities bathrooms read, “Help keep this restroom looking nice, clean up after yourselves.”
Mostly all of the bathrooms on campus have switched to paperless hand dryers, saving over 30,000 pounds in paper waste for the campus. Miranda is actually looking at new Dyson hand dryers right now that are apart of the sinks so that when students are finished washing their hands instead of dripping all the way to the the dryer, they can simply raise their hands above them to dry, cutting back on all the water on the floor. Miranda has sent this idea to the College president and is hopeful for the request to be processed.
Psychology major Daniel Rizk, 24, has taken notice of the hard work going into the campus. “I always see someone cleaning something, whether it’s a gardener planting something new, or something painting the building. I have always thought our campus just looks really nice.”
Other things that may go unnoticed is all of the recycling done on campus. Most of students might walk past the big campus directories every day, but would never know they are actually made from old bathroom partitions. “Anything we don’t use, we save it,” says Miranda. Waste management also recycles 80% of the trash on campus.
Child Education major Samantha Sanchez, 21, thinks the recycling on campus is huge, “I did not know that Cypress recycled so much. That makes me pretty happy because it’s important to be responsible, and it helps the planet”.
Cypress College is constantly improving the look of it’s campus and the innovative ways to keep it clean. With a little help from the staff and it’s students it will only get more and green.
