May 2, 2023 Green Research Committee Meeting 2

Present: Mitchell Bryant, Shari Effert-Fanta, Paul Foote, Jennifer Fraterrigo, Stephanie Hess, Daphne Hulse, Maisie Kingren, Tim Mies, Lisa Moore, Jeremy Neighbors, Chad Stevens, Sabrina Summers

Absent: Morgan White

Discussion:

• Meeting with leadership on Friday (Jeremy and Stephanie)
• Discuss ideas for each team:
  
  • Team 1
    
    • Mitchell: outreach to graduate students who are disposing of waste. What can and cannot go down the sink and other waste diversion mechanism to keep it from reaching the environment.
    • Stephanie: what kind of waste?
    • Mitchell: plastic waste is an issue in itself in the laboratory. There’s a balance because some things need to be sterile.
    • Stephanie: can we repurpose any waste? Hexane for example can be used as fuel unless disposed of improperly.
    • Tim: every lab needs a point contact for lab safety. Don’t leave it to the students alone to know what they are doing.
    • Jen: you must have standard operating procedures in the lab safety binder. Students must review and sign off that they’ve read it. Also includes waste disposal.
    • Maisie: One point of contact for waste disposal and another contact for other responsibilities would be ideal.
    • Mitchell: not many people know to close the sash.
    • Stephanie: how to reach grad students? Stuff on walls becomes wallpaper eventually.
    • Mitchell: flyers at labs, fume hood posters, buildings have digital boards that scroll especially if it’s a lab building. Newsletters to reach different audiences.
    • Paul: fun competitions to promote good behavior. Pizza parties, trophies for winners. Chem Life Sciences proximity alarm for shutting the sash.
    • Jeremy: energy saving technology on ventilation systems. It would be good to establish a policy on what those systems should be helpful to know what we are getting out of it. Not necessarily energy, but the maintenance/safety side of reducing maintenance for things (duct/conduit). Lab space management - objective 2.1 in the iCAP. objective 4.1 is reduce water consumption. Adding to the chilled water is really expensive.
      
      • Paul: be a liaison between facilities on campus to know what’s going on, to coordinate, and ensure better outcomes. Nobody has a roll assigned to this.
      • Stephanie: some faculty no longer do research but still have their lab space. It may be because they think they might return in a future year. Regardless, departments need to know how many active wet labs they want to maintain. Some people are exclusively hired for outdoor lab work but still have indoor labs.
        
        • Safety issues arise when researchers are hired and have to use tiny spaces.
        • Research work is going more interdisciplinary as we go. The traditional way to manage space was to do it within facility, but some people need to share space across disciplines.
  • Team 2
    
    • My Green Lab training was very good, according to Stephanie. Could encourage grad students to do it, only an hour long.
    • Stephanie would like to composting with animal bedding.
      
      • Jen and Daphne have explored composting, but have found that Central Illinois is not there yet in terms of infrastructure needed to compost on a larger scale.
    • Daphne introduced recycling and waste management.
      
      • Currently only recycle 5 items: plastic 1 and 2, aluminum, paper, cardboard, and scrap metal.
      • There may be an opportunity to grow in our plastic 5 recycling. This is a material that seems to crop up a lot in research. Vet med is doing a small scale recycling program, and is sending their items over to ISTC.
      • Summer and fall 2023 F&S is rolling out a program to recycle paper hand towels from bathrooms and laboratories. Piloting in a few buildings this summer and upon success will roll out into more buildings. Paper towels are not heavy, but they are a source of waste in labs that can be reduced through this new program.
    • Group question - are the brown glasses for recycling, or for disposal? Stuff we don’t know about that we should explore.