Sustainahouse to offer environmentally-friendly lifestyle
Sustain Mizzou is looking to recruit students to live in the house.
Published Nov. 12, 2010
Sustain Mizzou is looking for diverse students who want to grow their own food, composte their trash and help educate the community.
Sustainahouse is a project created Sustain Mizzou member Claire Friedrichsen. The project is looking for a variety of students of different majors, ages, races and backgrounds, but want them to have the common goal and passion of sustainability, co-project leader Briney Bischof said. Each resident will be in charge of a house responsibility: managing waste, food and gardening, education, programs offered and sustainable projects or the budget. They will strive to conserve energy through initiatives, like installing solar panels and not using a dryer for laundry. Residents will conserve water by installing low flow shower heads and establishing a greywater system which recycles water to be used more than once.
“Our main goal is to build a community and educate people on sustainable living,” she said.
Sustain Mizzou is searching for a house to rent to four to eight MU students. They hope to find a house that is either in biking or walking distance from campus and has enough land for a garden. Monthly rent would ideally be set at $350 or less, including utilities. The possibility of housing chickens was also discussed.
“I assumed that landlords wouldn’t be OK with us having a garden or chickens, but they have been pretty open to it so far,” committee member Emma Brown said.
The three “R’s” —- reduce, reuse and recycle —- will be a consistent main objective of the house, stated the proposal.
“We are looking for people who are interested in sustainability so they would have community and people would want to live in that community,” Bischof said.
Research is not the project's sole goal. The house will also be used to teach the MU and Columbia communities about sustainability by hosting events such as house tours, workshops, potluck meals and movie screenings.
Community support and partnerships between MU clubs and Columbia businesses is another goal of the project.
Sustainahouse residents will be paying their own rent. Brown said once the project is established they might buy a house and could become affiliated with the university. This might also allow students to live in the house rent-free, providing an extra incentive toward sustainable living.
Beyond living sustainably, residents of the house will gain experience that will look good on a resume, she said.
“Hopefully, (Sustainahouse) will allow the general world to see that students are willing to interact with sustainability and are motivated to do their own research and projects,” Friedrichsen said.
Committee members said the project is still in its beginning phases but they foresee it to have a great impact on MU and Columbia in the near future.
Sustainahouse will soon be accepting resident applications. The tentative due date for them is Feb. 15.
--Jaclyn DiPasquale contributed to this report