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Project Updates for collection: Student Sustainability Committee Funded Projects

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  1. Weekly Update for Zero Waste

    Associated Project(s): 
    Achieve Zero Waste

    Hi Pete and Shawn,

    • Morgan finalized plans for a glove recycling meeting with the Division of Research Safety to discuss whether training may be needed to prevent gloves that have been in contact with harmful chemicals going into the recycling stream. Our instructions for participating labs note that gloves that such gloves cannot be recycled, but we want to discuss whether further instruction or training should take place. The call is scheduled for Sept. 4.
    • I posted glove recycling statistics that Kimberly-Clark sent us in the spring and back-dated the entry accordingly (April 10, 2018).

    Best regards,

    Marya Ryan

    Zero Waste Coordinator

  2. Weekly Update

    Associated Project(s): 
    Campus Bike Center

    All, busy times have arrived! We’ve mostly sold out of bikes (4 left), and been registering bikes like crazy. With a dearth of for sale bikes, we’ve got an uptick of B-a-Bs, for better or worse. The tail end of last week I officially suspended the First Visit Free option for the Campus Bike Center. Just too busy to accommodate freebies. I’ll reinstate FVF when it calms down, usually in October. I’ll add that info to the website today.

    Last week featured a lot of stern talking-tos with members about the concept of not being allowed to work on your bike without a stand. There’s a lot of pushback on it and I’ll attempt this week to emphasis the safety aspect and maybe that’ll help.

     

    Over the weekend were two outreach events: Quad Day and Illini Frenzy. Both were well-attending and well-received! I handed out a lot of registration forms and TBP hours pages.

    This week I’ll be interviewing for a potential new hire, building bikes, attending the Bike Project monthly meeting, and stripping the junk bikes we got donated last week to keep the shop as clean as I can during the busy times.

     

    The numbers:

    Visitors: 123

    Sales: $1,677.00

    Bikes (refurb): 6 for $960
    Memberships: 8 for $240
    Tires/tubes: 19 for $83

    Thanks!

    • Jake Benjamin
      Campus Bike Center Manager

  3. Weekly Update for Zero Waste

    Associated Project(s): 
    Achieve Zero Waste

    Hi Pete and Shawn—

    Last week’s zero waste activities were

    • Entering my weekly updates from the past year into the iCAP portal. I had been posting specific activities to specific projects, but the new entries will show a fuller (and more centralized) history of the past year’s discussions, efforts, and challenges.
    • A few emails with Morgan to try to set up a meeting regarding the glove recycling program.

    Best regards,
    Marya Ryan
    Zero Waste Coordinator

  5. Capacity of distribution lines

    Associated Project(s): 
    Solar Farm 2.0

    U19005: Electrical-Medium Voltage Power Distribution Study Updates - should start in mid-September - to evaluate capacity of power distribution line connected to proposed solar farm 2.0 site.

  6. New Trailer Location Map Sent to Participating Departments - August 2018

    Associated Project(s): 
    Glove Recycling

    The glove recycling trailer was moved to a different location at the Physical Plant Services Building during the summer of 2018. Marya Ryan sent a map showing the new location to all departments participating in the glove recycling program on August 14, 2018. The information on the iCAP portal page was also updated to reflect the change.

  7. Information Distributed to Housing Paraprofessionals - August 2018

    Associated Project(s): 
    Achieve Zero Waste

    F&S staffed a table at iSEE on Aug. 13, 2018, as part of the Housing Paraprofessionals Amazing Resource Race. Teams of paraprofessionals from the residence halls visited various sites on campus to learn about resources available on campus. When they visited the table at iSEE, each of the 9 teams that came to the site received a blue desk side recycling bin with flyers explaining campus zero waste efforts and several iSEE programs. They heard a brief overview of recycling efforts and got their questions answered.

  8. Weekly Update for Zero Waste

    Associated Project(s): 
    Achieve Zero Waste

    Hi Pete and Shawn—

    Last week’s zero waste activities were

    • Staffing a table at iSEE for the Housing Paraprofessionals Amazing Resource Race. Nine of the 18 teams stopped by to receive information about zero waste efforts on campus. Each team received a blue desk side recycling bin with recycling information fliers. iSEE placed flyers about academic and additional “green” programs in the bins.
    • Sharing photos of our WTS conveyor belt system with interested parties on the CURC list serv. A participant from University of Massachusetts-Amherst sent out a call for photos and information about conveyor belt systems, since they are considering using one. The list does not allow participants to attachments through the list, so I replied that I had photos and sent them to him. Participants from USC, UCLA, City College of San Francisco, and Oklahoma State contacted me individually for the photos.
    • Sent the map showing our new glove trailer location to contacts at departments that participate in the glove recycling program.
    • Recontacted Jordan Powers at Fisher Scientific to try to get the name of the current RightCycle contact person at Kimberly Clark.
    • Reviewed a revised battery recycling program proposal from the Campus Committee on Recycling Batteries, a group of interested faculty members and others, whose efforts Robert McKim has been coordinating. 

    Best regards,
    Marya Ryan
    Zero Waste Coordinator

  10. How to empty the trailer

    Associated Project(s): 
    Glove Recycling

    When the glove recycling storage container is full, Housing Food Stores Operations Manager Michael Olinger contacts Kimberly-Clark. Kimberly-Clark then comes to campus and loads the pallets of gloves into a truck to recycle them.

  11. Weekly Update

    Associated Project(s): 
    Campus Bike Center

    All,

    Last week was a whirlwind of cleaning and reorganizing. On Monday afternoon a large dumpster was dropped off and on Tuesday a bunch of new furniture and cabinets came. The old furniture and cabinets went into the dumpster and the new stuff has been put in its place. On Friday a new big metal work table was dropped off to replace the smaller, broken, and less effective one. Overall, the shop is still in progress but will look a lot better shortly. Unfortunately, on Friday and over the weekend, we got 4 more bike donations, which is counterproductive as far as a clean shop is concerned but they’re good bikes that we can get

    In moving some of the computer stuff to the new desk some cables got plugged in incorrectly and this caused a major headache for the IT dept and the Bike Project. A large thanks to Barry and the two guys from F&S IT who helped right the ship.  

     

    Despite the continued construction on Pennsylvania, we were jam-packed for an hour on Thursday. We still haven’t been so busy as to require the suspension of the Free Visit policy. I’ll gauge how busy it is today and go from there.

     

    Last week I ordered the lights for LTN 2018. They should be here Wednesday.

     

    This week I will finish up the dumpster-required work and spiffy up some more. We’re starting to sell bikes on the regular and thusly stock is starting to dwindle (this is good!)  so I’ll finish up a few more shop builds this week, too.

     

    The numbers:

    Visitors: 65

    Sales: $1,056.25

    Memberships: 7 for $210
    Bikes (refurb): 3 for $455
    Tire/tubes: 12 for $73

    Thanks!

     

    Jake Benjamin
    Campus Bike Center Manager

  14. Weekly Update for Zero Waste

    Associated Project(s): 
    Achieve Zero Waste

    Hi Pete and Shawn—

    Zero-waste activity this past week consisted of 

    • Emails and other preparation for participating in the Parapros Amazing Resource Race tomorrow. I’ll staff a table at iSEE, along with Micah Kenfield and hand out blue desk-side recycling bins with information about the campus recycling programs. Morgan has everything set up, so I’ll pick up the bins at her office in the morning and head over to iSEE to meet with Micah. 
    • I pinged Jordan Powers from Fisher Scientific for the name of the new Right Cycle contact at Kimberly-Clark. I believe the person will have been in the new position for about a week now, so hopefully, they are ready for us to post their contact information on the glove recycling page of the iCAP portal. 

    Best regards,
    Marya Ryan
    Zero Waste Coordinator

  16. Weekly Update

    Associated Project(s): 
    Campus Bike Center

    All, last week seemed to pick up towards the end of the week. We had to herd people out of the shop at 5:30. Even with the street closure, people are managing to find us. I’ve taken the sandwich board sign off the trike and placed it next to the garage door facing east since most of our traffic is coming from that side nowadays. I’ll reconstruct the trike and start using it again once Pennsylvania is reopened.

     

    This week I’ll be bringing the student staff in during the mornings to help clean and purge since we’ll be getting a pan dumpster and some new furniture. The disruption won’t affect open hours, as most of the cleaning will be in the back end of the shop anyway. We’ve got a dumpster here until Friday, so the staff and I should be able to concentrate all the cleaning to the mornings and have things back to functional order in time for open hours.

     

    I think either this week or next I will be suspending First Visit Free. This past week it was already affecting usage/stand availability for members. I’ll put a bulletin on the Bike Project website alerting people to that fact when I institute it.

     

    The numbers:

    Visitors: 79

    Sales: $468.00

    Memberships: 2 for $60.
    Bikes (Refurb): 1 for $170
    Bikes (B-a-B): 1 for $56
    Tire/tubes: 10 for $50

     

    Thanks!

    • Jake Benjamin
      Campus Bike Center Manager

  20. Feasibility study to be done

    Associated Project(s): 
    Geothermal at WPP

    Due to the complexity of this project, F&S recommended conducting a feasibility study before installation.  It is estiamted to cost approximately $10K and take about one month to complete.

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