Current Issue of Watch Your BudgIT: UNCW: ITSD

UNCW June 2, 2009

Save money and the environment with rechargeable batteries

By Lynn Allen

Every year Americans buy approximately three billion batteries to run their cameras, cell phones, toys, watches, flashlights and all manner of electronic gadgetry. We also throw away 15 billion single-use batteries each year. These batteries go into our landfills where they will eventually leach toxic metals into our ground water, lakes and streams. The good news is that alkaline batteries can and should be recycled. Many people mistakenly believe it is acceptable to dispose of alkaline batteries in household or office trash. In 1996, mercury was banned in the manufacture of alkaline batteries, but even so, unavoidable traces are present in alkaline batteries. This is due to the mining processes of the zinc and manganese used for manufacturing batteries. Battery Solutions helps consumers recycle alkaline batteries. It costs an affordable $34.00 to purchase a pre-paid postage kit to recycle a year’s worth of household batteries. Brunswick County residents can recycle single-use alkaline batteries with automobile batteries for no charge at the Brunswick County C&D Landfill / Transfer Station at 172 Landfill Road NE (Off Galloway Rd.), Bolivia, Monday through Saturday, 8:00 AM - 4:00 PM. Even better than recycling alkaline batteries is using rechargeable batteries. They save you a great deal of money and save space in the landfill and put fewer poisons into the environment. The newest rechargeable batteries can quickly and easily be recharged, and they actually hold their charge. They can be reused up to 1000 times! Even though they cost a little more to buy initially, rechargeables give a tremendous cost savings over their life span.
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Sustainability Tip from the ITSD Green Team: Conserve Paper--Print double-sided and set your printer to "low toner mode."

EndNote ® essential for scholarly research, writing and publishing

by Anne Pemberton, Randall Library

What do these products do?
Bibliographic management systems allow users to store, organize and format lists of references and citations. Users create “libraries” of citations that can include references to books, journal articles, images, webpages, and more. Users can search through these libraries, insert citations into papers, and instantly create bibliographies in any style format such as APA or MLA formats. There are hundreds of formats to choose from.

How will these tools help me? These programs allow you to organize references in a searchable database and format a bibliography instantly as you write your paper or manuscript. If you have difficulty organizing your citations or finding them when it comes time to write your paper or manuscript or if you have trouble formatting a bibliography, then EndNote or EndNote Web would be an excellent tool for you. EndNote and EndNote Web are two bibliographic management systems available from Thomson Reuters, a company that specializes in bibliographic research. EndNote is a desktop software program while EndNote Web is available online. In general, EndNote (the desktop software) is more powerful, easier to use, and allows users to save .pdf articles within the program but is only available through purchase.

EndNote Web has the advantage of being completely online which allows for access anywhere and is available to all UNCW students, faculty, and staff through Randall Library at no cost to the user. EndNote Web seems to meet the needs of most researchers. (read more)

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