Single-use plastics reuse and elimination protocols. Details coming.

According to the U20069: Pavement Analysis Study 2020ofUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign [1], out of the total pavement network(2.8 million ft2), nearly 33%(0.9 million ft2) of the campus pavements requires intervention and are in poor, very poor, serious or failed condition.This project has two principal goals: 1) low-cost inspection of campus pavements using student smartphones and drones, and 2) development of sustainable sealants to repair the identified sections of interest.

The CETACEAN project will culminate in a public performance built around an enormous marionette -a full-scale blue whale puppet suspended and “swimming” through the air of the University of Illinois Stock Pavilion. Using recycled plastic, the 100-foot-long creature will be built by local students—a haunting, crowd-sourced ghost whale.

The project plan is meant to incorporate art with sustainability, specifically to be representative of renewable energy. The objective of painting a mural on the utility boxes would be to remind students of the urgency of the situation regarding making the switch between energy usage; as we all know it is easy to maintain "out of sight, out of mind" mentality that facilities disregarding the bigger problem. Therefore the project goal brings to the forefront the concept of renewable energy to encompass the "in sight, in mind" concept. 

The Covid-19 Pandemic has drawn our attention to the unintended consequences of efficient building ventilation. Buildings have historically lacked the capability of verifying, managing, or communicating real-world ventilation and filtration performance for aerosol removal and infection control in occupied spaces due to limitations in existing building assessment tools.

The iCAP 2020 objective 7.3 is: Increase visibility of campus sustainability efforts by joining the Green Sports Alliance through the Division of Intercollegiate Athletics (DIA) by summer 2021. The responsible campus unit for championing this objective is DIA.

Check back soon!

One of the primary goals outlined in the Illinois Climate Action Plan is to enhance the culture of sustainability on campus ensuring that education and outreach initiatives are accessible and visible to all students, faculty, staff, community member and visitor. One way to make this culture visible is through artistic and design expressions. This can be through the fine arts including upcycling of materials into art work and landscape design. The only limitation is one’s creativity.  Sustainable art can be focused on education of the public and reuse of existing and discarded materials.

The purpose of the Urbana Climate Action Plan is to achieve a 25% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 from a 2007 baseline, an 80% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 from a 2007 baseline, and to adapt to climate impacts.

According to a 2012 EPA report, 251 million tons of municipal solid waste was generated in the US and the University generates about twelve tons of trash per day. After MSW recovery through recycling and composting, plastic was the 2nd largest component (18%) behind food waste (21%) of the 164 million tons discarded in 2012. This means that huge quantities of plastics end up in landfills (29 million tons). Translating these numbers to UIUC campus MSW would mean that we are sending 1.39 tons of plastic in trash to landfill daily.