A dorm outfitted with composting toilets and a permaculture garden is bringing new meaning to the concept of sustainable college living.
A dorm outfitted with composting toilets and kitchen cabinets made from recycled fence-posts is bringing new meaning to the concept of living "green" at college.
The EcoDorm, home to 36 undergraduates at Warren Wilson College in Swannanoa, N.C., was designed to be sustainable from top to bottom, or in this case, from its rainwater-collection system to a permaculture garden.
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Residents – who have sworn off hair dryers and gravitate toward acoustic music – see "an integration between their actions and their values," Margo Flood, the executive director of Warren Wilson’s Environmental Leadership Center, told The New York Times Magazine.
Across the country, colleges have been looking to become more sustainable and more than 600 schools have already pledged to become carbon neutral. Nationwide, some 90 dorms are LEED certified, but EcoDorm is one of two dorms that have LEED’s platinum rating.
