Earth Month is a great opportunity to get involved in projects throughout the month of April. 

Check out the Sustainability Calendar for fun and virtual events!

Dining Services at University Housing is certified as a Green Restaurant by the Green Restaurant Association. Great job, Dining! 

Yanfeng Ouyang (Professor), Shelly Zhang (Professor), and their PhD students from the department of Civil and Environmental Engineering are collaborating with Facilities and Services to develop a model to optimize the pedestrian flow on the Quad Day 2020.

For this years climate summit, we've been working with the Independent Media Center (IMC) and the Urbana Park District to plan a youth summit on sustainability for this spring, though due to COVID-19 we've been forced to reschedule. During this time we have been working with WRFU to create a podcast in which we interview influential members in the community on climate change as well as COVID-19 response.

The Design for America students are leading a project to develop solutions to reduce plastic film waste.  They have contacted Morgan White at F&S and BK Sharma at ISTC to provide guidance as faculty advisors.

The Illinois Climate Action Plan (iCAP) outlines a path for the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign to achieve carbon neutrality as soon as possible, and no later than 2050, and to work with our local communities to build resilience to climate change. The iCAP 2020 is the campus’s strategic sustainability plan to meet our Climate Leadership Commitments.

For the iCAP objectives to be reached, sustainability outreach to the campus community needs to increase.  This project proposes to incorporate Campus Sustainability principles, expectations, and requirements in the annual ethics training required for all Urbana campus employees.  This can be done with optional short videos at the conclusion of the mandatory training. 

This project will improve the waste process around the outdoor campus areas and increase recycling participation. It will do this by increasing recycling bin visibility with improved bins and signage, co-locating waste and recycling bins, and improving the overall layout of waste and recycling bins on campus. There are currently 372 concrete trash bins on campus and an additional 60 made of other materials. Facilities & Services initially proposed to remove all 432 of the bins and to replace them with a total of 133 dual bins.

This project will improve the recycling process in buildings around campus by encouraging sustainable actions and improving the layout of waste and recycling bins within these buildings. Facilities & Services collaborated with ISTC to make an “Indoor Solid Waste and Recycling Collection Assessment”. This assessment determined that the type and layout of collection containers in buildings across campus should be standardized. An update would enable them to be co-located and allow for greater infrastructure consistency.

According to the Control Mandate #13 - Solid Waste Management Act (415 ILCS 20/3.1 thru 20/3.1), each State-supported institution of higher learning shall develop a comprehensive waste reduction plan covering a period of 10 years which addresses the management of solid waste generated by academic, administrative, student housing and other institutional functions.