You are here

Project Updates for collection: Student Sustainability Committee Funded Projects

Search

Search tips:

  • This form will search for words in the title OR the description. If you would like to search for the same term(s) across both the title and description, enter the same search term(s) in both fields.
  • This form will search for any of the words you enter in a field, not the exact phrase you enter. If you would like to search for an exact phrase, put double quotes (") around the phrase. For example, if you search for Bike Path you will get results containing either the word Bike OR the word Path, but if you search for "Bike Path" you will get results containing the exact phrase Bike Path.

  1. Weekly capstone meetings: Meeting from 2/15

    Associated Project(s): 
    2024 Campus Bike Plan
    Independent Student Projects

    Ethan and Sarthak met via zoom to discuss Ethan’s progress in reviewing relevant documents toward the former 2014 Bicycle Plan and for the future 2024 Bicycle Plan. Ethan has finished reading the 2019 and 2023 progress reports on the bicycle plan and reviewed which projects have been finished and are yet to be finished. Ethan’s main goal is to develop a presentation for a meeting with Morgan and Stacy to discuss the work he and Sarthak have been doing. Also, they must present their plan for the semester in regard to developing the planning process for the next year, in reference to the 2024 Bicycle Plan. Ethan and Sarthak also discussed highlighting the bicycle audit expected to be done in the Fall.

    Attached Files: 

  4. iSEE Green Event and Chapter Certifications

    Associated Project(s): 
    Certified Green Chapter Program
    Certified Green Event Program
    Certified Greener Campus Programs

    Congratulations to the newest recipients of our Green Event and Green Chapter certification programs! 

    Green Chapter: Kappa Delta, Gold, Recertified February 2023

    Green Event:

    -Krannert Art Museum SPEAK Cafe: Rest and Rejuvention, Certified February 2023

    -F&S, iSEE, DIA, Coca-Cola partnered event Zero Waste Basketball Game, Certified February 2023

    -University of Illinois Office of the Chancellor for Special Events Holonyak Memorial, Certified February 2023

    -Office of the Chancellor for Special Events Filler Scholar Dinner, Certified February 2023

    -Chancellor's Office for Special Events University of Pretoria Dinner, Certified February 2023

    -Chancellor's Office for Special Events Strategic Planning Summit, Certified February 2023

    -Chancellor's Office for Special Events Illinois vs. Rutgers Men's Basketball Game, Certified February 2023

    -Chancellor's Office for Special Events Illinois vs. Minnesota Men's Basketball Game, Certified February 2023

    -Chancellor's Office for Special Events Illinois vs. Northwestern Men's Basketball, Certified February 2023

    -Chancellor's Office for Special Events Illinois vs. Michigan Men's Basketball, Certified February 2023

    -Chancellor's Office for Special Events University-wide Commencement Ceremony, Certified February 2023

    Keep up the great work!

       


     

  5. ISTC assists Project Revert to Earth with project inception

    Associated Project(s): 
    Project Revert to Earth

    From: Scrogum, Joy Joann <jscrogum@illinois.edu>
    Sent: Friday, February 10, 2023 2:11 PM
    To: Kim, Hannah <hannahk9@illinois.edu>
    Cc: Jacobson, Debra F <djacobso@illinois.edu>; Feher, Savannah <sfeher@illinois.edu>; Samaras, Zach <zsamaras@illinois.edu>; Hulse, Daphne Lauren <dlhulse2@illinois.edu>; Patterson, Shawn L <spttrsn@illinois.edu>
    Subject: Food waste on UIUC campus

     

    Hello, Hannah. I’m a member of the Technical Assistance Program (TAP) at the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center (ISTC). You recently contacted our director, Kevin OBrien, about a project you’re planning related to separating food waste from the rest of the waste stream to see if this might improve capture and quality of recyclable materials at the Waste Transfer Station. Kevin suggested in his reply that TAP may be able to help you because of our work on zero waste projects and interest in food waste reduction in particular, and he copied Debra Jacobson, who leads TAP, on his reply. She in turn discussed your inquiry with our zero waste team—Zach Samaras, Savannah Feher, and myself—and we reached out to Daphne Hulse, our campus zero waste coordinator at UI Facilities & Services (F&S) to discuss this further. TAP has worked with F&S on multiple waste management projects over the years, and have been discussing potential campus waste audits that are tentatively planned for the fall.

     

    Daphne recalled that you were recently part of a tour of the Waste Transfer Station and that you had spoken briefly about this with her and Shawn Patterson, who oversees operations at the transfer station. All of us—ISTC TAP and F&S staff—are interested in learning more about your ideas and supporting you however we can. We’re all passionate about improving waste management on campus and love to see students showing interest and initiative!

     

    Note that of our TAP crew, I’m the only one based here in Champaign, but we’ve all worked with this and other universities on waste management projects. TAP staff won’t be able to directly advise you if you require a faculty advisor for your project, but we’re happy to work with F&S to help you think through logistics, potential challenges, and how best to take your next steps. If we’re not able to serve as official advisors, we’ll do whatever we can to help you identify campus contacts who can.

     

    For the sake of efficiency, we’d like to try to schedule a conversation with you, TAP’s zero waste team, Daphne, and Shawn so we all hear about your ideas directly from you and can better collaborate. Before I send out a poll to select a time for a Zoom or Microsoft Teams meeting, I want to be respectful of your class schedule. Please let me know if there are particular days/times M-F between 8 AM and 5 PM that you’re regularly free from school or work obligations. From there, I’ll create and send out a poll so we can schedule a virtual meeting that works for everyone’s schedules.

     

    We look forward to learning more about your ideas. Best wishes,

    Joy

     

    Joy Scrogum
    Assistant Scientist, Sustainability
    LEED Green Associate | Sustainability Excellence Professional (SEP)
    University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
    Prairie Research Institute
    Illinois Sustainable Technology Center (ISTC)
    Champaign, IL 61820
    217.333.8948 | jscrogum@illinois.edu
    www.istc.illinois.edu | www.prairie.illinois.edu

    https://www.linkedin.com/in/joyscrogum/
     
    Bu0VAhW8+s0AAAAASUVORK5CYII=

    Under the Illinois Freedom of Information Act any written communication to or from university employees regarding university business is a public record and may be subject to public disclosure.

  6. Weekly capstone meetings: Meeting from 1/25 and 2/1

    Associated Project(s): 
    2024 Campus Bike Plan
    Independent Student Projects

    1/25 Meeting Recap:

    • Sarthak introduces the project to Ethan in their first meeting via zoom. They are expected to develop the planning process for the development of the 2024 Bicycle Plan, which is expounding upon the former 2014 Bicycle Plan. Next school year, Ethan would work alongside Sarthak in developing the plan itself. 
    • Firstly, Sarthak wants Ethan to read all of the relevant readings for understanding the context of this project, especially the 2014 Bicycle Plan and report/updates on that plan since then. Sarthak introduces the iCAP portal to Ethan and grants him access to the reports/to make edits to the developing projects. 
    • Ethan to start the readings before the next meeting on (2/1).

     

    2/1 Meeting Recap

    • Sarthak and Ethan met via zoom to discuss Ethan’s progress in familiarizing himself with the 2014 Bicycle Plan and its other relevant documents and reports. 
    • Ethan read 30 pages of the 2014 Plan so far, and had two questions for Sarthak. One was in regard to the scope of the 2024 Plan’s recommendations. Specifically, Ethan was wondering to what degree will their 2024 Plan discuss campus connectivity with the greater Champaign-Urbana areas. Sarthak said that he would need to get a confirmation from his colleagues, but he believes that the scope of this plan should only encompass the campus district. This considers the main campus, but also the adjacent northwest area that contains mostly residential and commercial spaces. This campus district stretches to the northbound-southbound railroad tracks west of campus and up to University Avenue. 
    • Ethan’s second question was in regard to the goals listed in the executive summary versus the desired outcomes listed in the introduction. The executive summary lists the primary goals of the entire plans while the introduction’s outcomes describe the specific goals of the bikeway network improvement project. 
    • Sarthak shows Ethan how to post updates to the 2024 Bicycle Plan on the iCAP portal. Ethan will begin posting his weekly updates based on their weekly meetings there. 
    • Sarthak advised Ethan to finish reading the 2014 Bicycle Plan by next week’s meeting (2/8) and to finish the rest of the relevant readings/reports by the end of the month (February). 
    Attached Files: 

  8. Weekly capstone meetings: Meeting from 2/8

    Associated Project(s): 
    2024 Campus Bike Plan
    Independent Student Projects

    Sarthak and Ethan met in person to discuss Ethan’s updates on his readings on the former 2014 Bicycle Plan. He has completed his review of the 2014 Plan and will delve into the progress reports and updates reports published in 2019, 2022, and 2023 for next week to see which projects have been completed, changed, or left unfinished indefinitely. He will also review the feedback from the League of American Bicyclists based on the University’s Bronze Bicycle Friendly Status awarded in 2019. The goal is to receive Gold Status this August, if not in 2027 because the review is done every 4 years. A main aspect of the 2024 Bicycle Plan will be to achieve Platinum Status by 2031. Sarthak also assured Ethan that many of the projects of the 2014 plan have since been completed which will be seen in the update/progress reports. Ethan’s to do list is to finish his readings relevant to the 2024 Bicycle Plan, such as the update reports. Also, he must begin preparing to consolidate the work he and Sarthak have done. This will then be presented to Sarthak’s bosses which will focus on the plan for this semester and the next two semesters.

    Attached Files: 

  9. Town and gown volunteer partners

    Associated Project(s): 
    Dump and Run

    As of February 7, Champaign County Forest Preserve, Champaign County Master Naturalists, and the Rotary Club of Champaign have expressed support for the initiative and will advertise the volunteer opportunity to their respective communities come April/May.

  10. Meetings with Merci's Refuge + Goodwill Land of Lincoln + Salt & Light

    Associated Project(s): 
    Dump and Run

    On February 7, Daphne Hulse met with Nate Himes (Director of Counseling Ministries) at Merci's Refuge and Tom King (Director of Logistics) + Wally Proenza (VP Retail Operations) at Goodwill Land of Lincoln to discuss donation logistics. On February 13, Daphne will meet with Lisa Sheltra (Director of Community Engagement) + Mike Jenkins (Director of Retail Operations) at Salt & Light.

  11. Weekly Update: steady week

    Associated Project(s): 
    Campus Bike Center

    All, Steady week. Had a few new staffers start, held a staff meeting—some good ideas batted around!—and got a couple bikes safety inspected and ready for the sales floor. Still about a dozen bikes that are student-level “finished”.

    This week is another round of interviews as we bolster our team for expanding hours and programming this spring/summer. I’ll also move a few forgotten steeds over here from the land of the abandoned bikes.

    The numbers:

    Visitors: 24
    Sales: $151
    Memberships: 1 for $30

    Thanks!

    Jacob Benjamin
    Campus Bike Center Coordinator

  12. Donation partners

    Associated Project(s): 
    Dump and Run

    As of February 6, Daily Bread Soup Kitchen, Merci's Refuge, Salt & Light, Goodwill, and Habitat for Humanity ReStore have all expressed interest in exploring a donation partnership for Dump & Run.

  13. BTAF Waste Affinity Group asks schools to input their answers into a spreadsheet

    Associated Project(s): 
    Big Ten & Friends Sustainability
    Achieve Zero Waste

    Good morning BTAF,

     Hope everyone’s year is off to a good start!

    At the last BTAF Waste Affinity group meeting in October, the group members shared many exciting initiatives and programs related to recycling and waste diversion. Over the past few months, a working group has developed a comprehensive benchmarking survey to facilitate knowledge sharing and to organize program information. So, now we need your participation in the Waste Survey [redacted].

     At the suggestion of Nicole Berg, a google spreadsheet format was chosen for ease of use, as well as the ability to update the survey each year. In the link, you’ll find two tabs on the survey:

    1. Waste Survey: Broad swath of questions related to Zero Waste and Recycling, including strategic planning, outreach, waste management operational processes, waste metric tracking, procurement, athletics, organics, medicine/research labs, and surplus. This an “everything and the kitchen sink” approach to enable comparative analysis.  
    2. Diversion Rate Methodology: One question that continues to bubble up from time to time is, “What do you include in your diversion rate?” This survey tab requests that you mark a “x” next to each category that is included as diversion in your annual diversion rate report.   

     Three schools have already filled out the survey, so our hope is that it’s intuitive to follow along and to input your school’s information. If you have any clarifying questions, feel free to shoot me an email. We ask that each school completes the survey by Friday, February 13th.

     Once the data is collected, an intern will compile the data, and we will share the results in another BTAF Waste Affinity Group meeting at a date TBD—probably in March.

     Shout out to the team, including Tony Gillund (Purdue), Patrick Brown (Purdue), Daphne Hulse (Illinois), Dominika Szal (Illinois-intern), Nicole Berg (Michigan), and Alison Richardson (Michigan).

    Mary

     

    Mary Leciejewski
    Zero Waste Manager

    Pronouns: She/Her/Hers 

    Facilities Operations and Development, Sustainability & Strategic Services
    1130 Service Building Annex | 2578 Kenny Road, Columbus, OH 43210
    (O) 614.292.3637
    fod.osu.edu/sustainability

  14. Weekly Update: Sales numbers, new hires

    Associated Project(s): 
    Campus Bike Center

    All, Last week we had some ominous weather that didn’t turn out to be much. Our visits were down but only barely—I expected a bit of a nosedive that didn’t materialize. Champaign Cycle donated some kids bikes and box store bikes, which is always appreciated. We had another person start a B-a-B.

    This week I’ve got another interview, some new hires starting, and a staff meeting on Thursday night. I’ll also draft a B-a-B/Membership flyer to better explain those programs as there’s been some consistent misunderstanding/miscommunication on that front.

    The numbers:

    Visitors: 34
    Sales: $933.50
    Bike (refurb): 2 for $375
    Memberships: 6 for $180
    Tires/tubes: 5 for $50

    Thanks!

    Jacob Benjamin
    Campus Bike Center Coordinator

  15. New iSEE Green Event Certification

    Associated Project(s): 
    Certified Greener Campus Programs
    Certified Green Event Program

    Congratulations to the newest recipient of our Green Event Certification Program! iSEE Illini Lights Out was certified as a Green Event series in January 2023. The events take place Jan. 27, Feb. 10, Feb. 24, March 24, and April 21 this semester. Students volunteer for an hour and a half on Friday nights by turning off lights in university buildings to save energy and money over the weekend. Keep up the great work! 

  20. Zero Waste Coordinator meeting with Kasey Umland

    Associated Project(s): 
    Dump and Run

    On January 24, Daphne Hulse met with Kasey Umland, Director of the Women's Resources Center, formerly the Associate Director at University YMCA, to discuss the following:

    1. What is the history of UIUC-YMCA Dump and Run events?

      1. Started with private certified housing, religious affiliated groups around 2012. 3 semi-trailers worth of stuff from campus and from the community. A lot of staff time went into the program.

      2. Previously had 2 boxes on every floor of Illini tower, which was a huge source of items. 26 boxes in this one building. Change in Illini tower management meant YMCA couldn’t do collections here anymore. It was great to have the materials, but hard to get everything out in time. the same year, University Housing came to YMCA about their Housing salvage drive (the person who ran it left). This was the first year YMCA collaborated with UIUC.

        1. Started doing some university housing dorms, but not all.

        2. Realized they couldn’t keep up with the overflow of materials.

        3. Big shift in kinds of items they received. Went from servicing mini apartments/suites (Illini Tower) versus university dormitories. 10x the amount of stuff as before with the Illini tower. 3/4 was clothing and bedding.

      3. Talked to Housing and needing more resources. It was too hard for YMCA to keep up. Majority of volunteers who did collections were students, but it was finals. Had a close relationship with them, but students would need to go right when things were picking up near the end of the move out week.

    2. Based off a quick survey of other schools move-out programs, it seems most common for schools to work with local nonprofit(s) to immediately donate items following the move out program. As opposed to storing items over the summer and preparing for a fall move-in sale. Thoughts about these two different ways of operating?

      1. Donating most items straight away seems like it may be the only way it can work for the university, since there’s an immense quantity of items to deal with.

      2. Suggest talking with intended recipients of non-profits beforehand, to see if they can accept it all immediately, or if it will be too much.

      3. Even when YMCA was running it, their excess was too much for some places.

      4. Salt and light had capacity.

      5. Goodwill said to stop (no more clothes).

      6. Most places would say they would want at least some items.

      7. The value of selling these items in a sale near move in is that there are items unique the college experience: XL twin sheets, for example.

    3. What are some best practices for event coordination?

      1. If you are dealing with multiple sites - think in advance about plotting out how to do collections.

      2. Thinking about when things will come in from certain places. Which were high donation spots? Some will only need checked every so often, some places needed checked 2 or 3 times a day.

      3. Capacity - Kasey always wanted something better than just putting items in a cardboard box.

        1. It is easier if items are placed directly into a bag. Otherwise, volunteers have to do this work.

      4. Try to be really clear about what people can and cannot donate. In a perfect world, check the boxes in the evening, that’s when students move out.

    4. We will have to rely on the help of volunteers, but students will have their finals during this time, and be moving out. We want to strengthen town and gown relations through this program. Any suggestions for local groups/organizations who would be good to reach out to who you think would have an interest in volunteering?

      1. Rotary Clubs

      2. Church or high school youth groups

      3. If the university would consider half day leave, that could be an incentive

      4. during business hours means it increases the privilege needed to participate

      5. Honors societies

      6. Sierra Club

      7. Junior League

      8. Humane Society

      9. Court Diversion

Pages