With the help of green-minded student volunteers and light bulbs donated by Seattle City Light, senior Chris Bruno hopes to exchange more than 4,000 incandescent light bulbs across campus to improve campus energy efficiency.

Bruno plans to replace the existing bulbs with compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs), which use 75 percent less energy than incandescents.

During the summer, Bruno catalogued the locations of exchangeable lights on campus as a student assistant with UW Facilities Services.

“I realized that the best way to exchange light bulbs is to simply do it all at once,” Bruno said. “One big, giant, quick sweep. To do that you have to know where every single light bulb is. I met with almost all of the building coordinators, who are staff members in charge of overseeing general maintenance. I toured through every single room so I could mark down what lights were in what rooms.”

He found 4,000 incandescent light bulbs in personal desk lamps that needed to be exchanged. The UW Medical Center was not included in his survey.

Fifty-five students from the campus environmental groups of SEED, WashPIRG, Earth Club and the Sierra Student Coalition have volunteered their time to help with the project. Bruno foresees the number of students increasing once he tables the idea to the Greek Community, where most houses participated in a successful light bulb exchange spring quarter 2008.

Bruno, a former director of SEED, has also been heavily involved in residential projects, where his efforts have contributed to Housing and Food Services’s move to replace all ceiling and light fixtures with CFLs.

Krysta Yousoufian, Webmaster for SEED, said that while there are no scheduled swaps, SEED has already exchanged several hundred bulbs and might plan more in the future if needed.

“Last year, we decided to make it fun,” Yousoufian said. “The point was to make it more lighthearted and silly, so we dressed up in ridiculous costumes. I was Bozo the Light Bulb Bunny with clown pants and bunny ears. Everyone called it CFL Fairies, and we did swap out quite a few bulbs.”

While it may seem contradictory to switch out working incandescent bulbs to promote environmentally sound practices, Bruno hopes that by doing it all at once, rather than piecemeal, it will be possible to find a more sustainable way to dispose of thousands of light bulbs. The UW is expected to save about 2.1 million kilowatt-hours (kwh) during the lifetime of the new bulbs as well as $12,000 per year.

“But, money savings is secondary to a much larger vision,” Bruno said. “The focus is on the fact that it’s the start of a series of projects that relate to making people more aware of their environmental impact and helping people to change their habits into more eco-friendly patterns.”

Reach reporter Heather Milligan at news@dailyuw.com.