Gundersen Lutheran’s commitment to being a community leader in environmental awareness has been very successful. According to Ryan Ray, supervisor, Environmental Services, after one year of recycling paper, the La Crosse campus should see 200 tons of paper recycled and rebates of almost $6,000.

"Our recycling program has also reduced our solid waste by up to one-third with a savings of approximately $13,000 for the first year, and we eliminated the need for a confidential services vendor, which saved us $22,000," explained Ray.

The Support Services Building in Onalaska began participating in the program in October 2005. "By bringing the Onalaska campus on board, we should be able to recycle an additional 20 tons of paper and net a rebate of $1,500 a year. This also eliminates the need for the confidential vendor saving us $11,000 per year," Ray said.

"This is going well. With each campus being relatively close we have staff that work at one time or another at each site," said Ray.

Gundersen Lutheran also recently hired an environmental coordinator, Nick Nichols. He is responsible for coordinating the overall recycling program at Gundersen Lutheran; looking at how they can educate the community about recycling; letting the community know what they are doing to conserve energy as an organization plan; implementing other programs for energy conservation and assisting in better management and reduction of hazardous waste.

"The environmental coordinator will be able to assist us in finding more ways to save money through our recycling and waste reduction programs and help us with our mission of being a responsible community citizen," explained Jason Showen, Safety Services.