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Sustainable Design Awards Granted to Four New York College Teams

Release Date: 10/14/2009
Contact Information: Sophia Kelley (212) 637-3670, kelley.jessicasophia@epa.gov

(New York, N.Y.) Is sustainable year-round food production possible in cold climates? Could a new kind of cooking stove in Haiti help decrease the amount of fuel needed, carbon dioxide emissions and deforestation? These are some of the questions four New York college teams are investigating this school year thanks to EPA’s People, Prosperity and the Planet (P3) Phase I Awards. P3 is a national competition that encourages undergraduate and graduate students to create sustainable solutions to environmental problems through technological innovation. These sustainable solutions must be environmentally friendly, use natural resources efficiently and be economically competitive.

The $10,000 grants are to be used to research and develop their design projects during the academic year. In the spring, all P3 grant recipients from around the country attend the National Sustainable Design Expo and P3 Award Competition in Washington D.C. where they will compete for award money of up to $75,000 and the opportunity to implement their designs in the field and move them to the marketplace.

“The creativity displayed by these students proves that technological innovation is an important aspect of sustainability,” said George Pavlou, Acting Regional Administrator. “It also demonstrates the fact that a green environment can go hand in hand with a green economy.”

Two groups at Clarkson University received awards – one for research on manure-treatment technology that would turn farm waste into energy and the other for researching a system of growing plants more sustainably in cold climates. A Cornell University team was granted funding to research strategies for simplifying water treatment plant operations and a team at the Rochester Institute of Technology is designing an improved cook stove to be used in Haiti that would reduce carbon dioxide emissions and time spent gathering fuel.

For more information on the P3 Award competition, visit https://www.epa.gov/P3.

For more information about the grant winners and their projects, visit https://www.epa.gov/ncer/p3/current/index.html.

Follow EPA Region 2 on Twitter at http://twitter.com/eparegion2 and Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/eparegion2.

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