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Project Updates for collection: Student Sustainability Committee Funded Projects

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  1. Archived Info - Previous Project Description

    Associated Project(s): 
    Styrecycle: Expanded polystyrene (EPS) recycling program [ARCHIVED]

    Dart Container at 1505 E. Main St., Urbana, accepts expanded polystyrene (EPS), more commonly known by its brand name Styrofoam, for recycling. Departments are encouraged to take EPS there to recycle this bulky material. By doing so, we can reduce the volume of waste sent from campus to landfills and avoid the harmful environmental impacts of that practice. There is no charge to drop off EPS at Dart for recycling.

    There is currently no central funding source to pay for transportation of EPS to Dart, so departments need to arrange transport independently.

    The drop-off location is in a fenced-in area of the Dart parking lot and may be accessed 24 hours a day. Dart accepts foam packaging (except for packaging peanuts), foam cups, foam egg cartons, foam meat trays, foam ice chests, and other foam products that fall within these guidelines:

    • Make sure foam has the #6 chasing arrows symbol on it.
    • Deposit foam in a clear or translucent bag (large bags are provided at the drop-off site).
    • Rinse or wipe foodservice containers free from food.
    • Remove straws, lids, tape or any other non-foam material.
    • Do not include foam-packaging peanuts.

    From fall 2015 until summer 2017, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) ran the Styrecycle program in partnership with Community Resource Inc. (CRI). Ownership of CRI changed in July 2017, and the new owner was not able to continue the program.

  2. ECE Building Energy Dashboards

    Associated Project(s): 
    Energy Dashboard Project
    ECE Net-Zero Energy Building

    From: McKelvey, Michael L
    Sent: Tuesday, July 13, 2021 10:10 AM
    To: White, Morgan
    Subject: ECE building energy dashboards

     

    Hi Morgan,

     

    You may already be aware of this, but I wanted to let you know that, after corresponding with Aaron Mason and Ian Bonadeo at Hawkeye Energy Solutions since you put us in contact back in April, the ECE building’s energy dashboards are now available without requiring a login and via domain name rather than IP address! Here are the dashboards:

     

    ECE Building – Energy Dashboard

    ECE Building – Net Zero Energy Dashboard

     

    You can view the listing of dashboards currently available at the U of I Building Energy Dashboard Home Page.

     

    They’re now ready to be linked from the appropriate iCAP Portal entries!

     

         --Michael--

    ============== Michael McKelvey ===============

    Office for Mathematics, Science, & Technology Education

    University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

    https://mste.illinois.edu

    (217) 244-7148

    ============ mmckelve at illinois.edu ============

  3. Entomology Courses Review

    Associated Project(s): 
    Bee Campus USA

    Morgan White reviewed the following Entomology courses with Professors May Berenbaum and Adam Dolezal:

    • IB 105: Environmental Biology
    • IB 335: Systematics of Plants
    • IB 329: Animal Behavior
    • IB 444: Insect ecology
    • IB 451: Conservation Biology
    • IB 468*: Insect Classification and Evolution – being held this fall
    • IB 526: Seminar in Entomology

    *During the review, Professor Berenbaum and Professor Dolezal added IB 468 to the pre-existing list of the other courses.

  5. Archived Info - Previous Project Description

    Associated Project(s): 
    Sustainable Agricultural Food System

    This project is a significant expansion of the current local food partnership existing between the Student Sustainable Farm (SSF), Multifunctional Woody Perennial Polyculture (MWP), FSHN Pilot Processing Plant (PPP), and UIUC Dining.  Presently the Sustainable Agriculture Food System grows, processes, and serves on campus a variety of tomato sauces (pizza sauce is served across campus) and hot sauce.  Soon, the Sustainable Agriculture Food System will add a whole wheat flour milling line.  It have a very successful and growing program to provide quality, sustainable, and local food products and education to the UIUC students.

    This particular project will focus on the addition of a fresh juice processing line that will be able to handle a wide array of fruits and vegetables, packaged into an array of containers from single serving to bulk.  As with the other projects, this partnership has no funding for large capital equipment expenditures, and relies on grants to increase our capacity.  Dining Services is a strong partner in our project and has agreed to provide a grant to help with the purchase of items needed to produce fresh juice products including a harvester for fruit from the MWP site.

  6. Archived Info - Previous Project Description

    Associated Project(s): 
    Tomato Processing and Packaging

    The goal of the Sustainable Agricultural Food System is to further collaboration between the production activities of the Sustainable Student Farm; the teaching, research, and outreach activities at the Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition (FSHN); and Dining Services' goal of increasing procurement of locally grown foods. The specific action the project would take in order to support this goal would be purchasing tomato processing equipment.

    By weight, tomatoes are the farm's main crop. The Student Sustainable Farm sells most of its tomatoes to Dining Services raw, where they are either used fresh or processed and made into sauce. There are several issues with this system, however. Firstly, the Dining Services prefers to buy ready-to-eat sauces, as opposed to having to make the sauces in-house. Furthermore, only 60 to 70 percent of the possible tomato crop is harvested due to the seasonality of locally grown tomatoes not coinciding with the needs of Dining Services.

    Tomato processing could allow FSHN students to process tomatoes from the Student Sustainable Farm and produce shelf-stable products to be used by Dining Services. This would alleviate both of the current issues with the process, along with incorporating FSHN students into the sustainable agricultural efforts of the University. FSHN students and faculty would be able to use the equipment to research sustainable processing practices and establish processing protocols for small-scale production lines that could support local farmers.

    Student involvement would be a significant part of this project. The Student Sustainable Farm already introduces 200-300 student volunteers to sustainable agriculture each year. The project would add to this number by incorporating FSHN students, who would be involved as part of their coursework at the University.

  7. Weekly Update: Build-a-Bike; New Hire at CBC

    Associated Project(s): 
    Campus Bike Center

    All, Bit of a busy week in the books. Still getting regular and steady donations that are a challenge to keep on top of, but it is much preferable to NOT having any donations.

    I had a new hire start on Friday, who did a great job on his first day, considering it was a bit of a trial by fire with how busy we were. He’ll be a welcome addition around here!

    We had our first completed Build-a-Bike since the pandemic, which was also our first semi-fixed B-a-B. I think the person took 2-3 days, or 8-12 hours of labor to finish the bike. 

    A planning meeting for Bike Month is on the calendar for this week. Other than that, it is business as usual.

    The numbers:

    Visitors: 23
    Sales: $787.10
    Bikes (refurb): $390
    Memberships: 5 for $150
    Tires/tubes: 14 for $67

    Jacob Benjamin
    Manager, Campus Bike Center

  8. Meeting Minutes from Pollinator Call (07-12-2021)

    Associated Project(s): 
    Bee Campus USA
    Red Oak Rain Garden
    Plantings at Dorner Drive Retention Pond
    Native Plants at Arboretum
    Increase Pollinator-Friendly Areas

    On July 12, 2021, Adam Dolezal, May Berenbaum, Layne Knoche, Eliana Brown, Morgan White, and Avery Maloto met over Zoom to discuss pollinator efforts on campus. The conversation included topics such as: Bloom Calendar, Red Oak Rain Garden, Dorner Drive Retention Pond, Setting up a BioBlitz, and more.

    See the attached file to view the minute notes. 

    Attached Files: 

  9. The compost tumbler is back!

    Associated Project(s): 
    Compost at National Soybean Research Center (NSRC) [ARCHIVED]

    The compost tumbler is once again available for drop-off at the National Soybean Research Center! A few reminders:

    • Drop off organic material only, including food scraps (remove stickers!), coffee grounds, paper towels/napkins, and tea bags.
    • Compostable ware (cutlery, cups, etc.) cannot go in the tumbler.
    • Please refrain from putting in extremely dense or packed material. We'd prefer not to have excessively dense or heavy materials. 

    To prevent bad odors and flies, please also put in "brown" material, including leaves or paper towels, and give the tumbler a turn. If you encounter any issues, please contact Meredith Moore at mkm0078@illinois.edu. Thank you!! 

  10. Archived Info - Previous Project Description

    Associated Project(s): 
    Outdoor Recycling Bin Update

    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. Marya Ryan, an Academic Hourly at F&S working on Zero Waste projects, mapped the existing bins for the full University District and turned her maps over to the Purchasing, Waste, and Recycling (PWR) SWATeam for their recommendations on locations for dual bins. PWR SWATeam student member Fangxing Liu wrote an initial draft recommendation for the consolidation of dual bins outside. Additionally, one sample dual bin was installed by F&S Grounds at Altgeld Hall near Wright Street to test durability. In the fall of 2018, CEE students assessed additional bin locations throughout all areas of campus.

    During fall 2018, CEE students Junren Wang and Wen-Chi Chen worked on a project to clarify locations and review estimated costs. They mapped the future dual bin locations for the campus, with a total of 161 bins to install. The cost of the first pilot dual bin was about $4,000, so the initial estimate for all of them is about $625,000. The students recommended installing ten dual bins in various locations spread around campus. The student report was submitted with the Fall 2018 Semesterly Report to SSC.

    Morgan White and Brent Lewis met with F&S Grounds leadership, Superintendent Ryan Welch and Foreperson Isaac Williams, to initiate the installation. On June 18, 2019, Grounds ordered 30 bins for 15 dual bin locations, using the SSC funding. The material and shipping cost for the bins is $18,523.56. Installation materials and labor will be additional costs. Grounds will confirm the ten locations identified by the CEE students and select an additional five locations. Also, MCORE is installing dual bins at the new bus stops on Green Street with University funding. Additional bins are being installed outdoors during summer 2021 with the first being at the Northwest corner of E-14 and the North side of the Main Quad. Waste Management Intern Sydney Trimble will assist in the systemic updating and organization of the campus-wide rollout to take place this 2021 summer into the fall semester.

  11. Archived description

    Associated Project(s): 
    Pedestrian and Bicycle Counts

    The MCORE project requires the CUUATS partners to monitor the pedestrian and bicycle counts following the completion of the project. This requirement is to understand the increased waking and bicycling activities at the twelve predetermined corridors. CCRPC collected pedestian and cycling counts at these locations before the MCORE project. These twelve corridors are listed in this project update.

    The University has identified other locations on campus to add pedestrian/bicycle counters as well, other than these twelve MCORE corridors. In March 2020, the first Eco-Counter pedestrian/bicycle counter was installed at the Illini Union location on Green Street. The University is also working with Obama Energy to get IntelliStreet light poles for pedestrian/bicycle count collection.

  13. Archived Info - Previous Project Description

    Associated Project(s): 
    Bevier Café’s - Aquaponics System Demonstration Unit

    This project creates an aquaponics system that will work as a demonstrative unit on campus to spread sustainability awareness and illustrate the effectiveness of aquaponics in a small area. The goal of aquaponics is to create a closed ecosystem in which both plants and fish benefit and grow. Aquaponics has the potential to produce large quantities of both vegetables and fish with minimal inputs and nearly no negative outputs. The project teams' desire is to establish a base system from which the possibility to expand exists. This project is student-led and contains an educational element on aquaponics. This proposal is linked to the student sustainability course GCL 127.

  14. Archived Info - Previous Project Description

    Associated Project(s): 
    Enactus

    Illinois Enactus’s mission is to contribute to sustainable development goals by developing collaborative business ventures that work towards social, economic, and environmental equality in all communities. Illinois Enactus is an official chapter of the worldwide non-profit organization, Enactus. Enactus exists in more than 39 countries and has more than 1,600 teams across the globe. Being a member of Enactus means that you are a part of the largest and most prestigious business network on the planet. Our Enactus team partners with large corporations, local businesses, student organizations, non-profits, public schools, and entrepreneurs to execute our projects. Every project we implement requires us to consider the relevant economic, social and environmental factors to effectively empower people in need by applying business and economic concepts in an entrepreneurial approach to improve their quality of life and standard of living. In other words, instead of just doing philanthropy or service events, we create sustainable solutions to everyday problems so that people have the power to help themselves. Enactus projects apply the skills we learn in the classroom and have proven to be extremely relevant in prepare for a future career. Our team consists of students from a wide variety of backgrounds, so no matter what you are studying in school, you will be able to apply your knowledge and gain valuable experience. These skills are so valuable that numerous companies across the country only recruit Enactus students for internships and full-time careers.

  17. Project Update Request

    Associated Project(s): 
    Root to Roof Program

    Avery Maloto reached out to Lowell Miller asking him to update his project "Root to Roof Program" on the iCAP portal. Lowell replied explaining he will edit the project in the beginning of August, therefore Morgan archived the project description/background until Lowell had the time to edit it.

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