Search tips:
Hello all,
Last week’s zero waste activity was a conference call to talk about messaging and campus presentations about source separation. The immediate plan is for me to outline a presentation this coming week.
Sincerely,
Marya Ryan
Zero Waste Coordinator
REMINDER: The Energy Farm at Illinois and the Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment (iSEE) invite you to attend:
Illinois Energy Farm Open House
& Biomass Boiler Ribbon Cutting
1-3 p.m.
Wednesday, June 21, 2017
Illinois Energy Farm
(4110 S. Race St., Urbana)
In celebration of the completed installation of the Farm's state-of-the-art Heizomat biomass boiler, we invite you to tour the newly-built boiler facilities and meet Heizomat representatives.
Refreshments will be served. Please let us know you are coming so we can plan accordingly!
All, last week was uneventful—in a good way. People came, worked on their bikes and/or purchased one, and then left. We had 123 visitors. We netted $1,226.60. We sold: 5 bikes for $640; 1 Build-a-Bike for $84; 6 memberships for $180; 16 tires/tubes/wheels for $111.
Last week we had what felt like a surplus of volunteers—and inexperienced ones at that. I think at one point there were 8 people in the shop, all staff/volunteers. I will have to do a better job of creating manageable tasks for unskilled labor.
One longtime member of the Bike Project came by last week to bid farewell, as he got a job in Washington state. He was very thankful for what we do at CBC/TBP and expressed concern over finding a place in Washington as nice and helpful as we are. In parting, he donated some nice studded winter tires since, as he said, it doesn’t snow in the pacific northwest.
This week I will tackle establishing a manageable system for organizing the pile of bikes in the back. I think sorting by “Starting Price” would be useful, since that is always the first question asked. It would speed up the process and save me some of the anxiety of people pawing around in a potentially dangerous pile of bikes. This week, I will also create more zero-bike-knowledge tasks that volunteers can accomplish without me having to explain the esoterica of bike “standards”. And, of course, bikes will be built.
Sincerely,
Jake Benjamin
Campus Bike Center Manage
Hello all,
Here are my updates from last week:
Sincerely,
Marya Ryan
Zero Waste Coordinator
See attached story, published at https://www.tun.com/blog/university-of-illinois-student-funded-solar-farm/.
All, last week was the first steadily and surely busy week we’ve had this summer. Within the first hour or so we were at capacity stand-wise all five days last week. We had 119 visitors and there were probably a dozen or so more people that we missed.
Our sales for the week: Grossed $799.50; sold 10 memberships for $300; one refurbished bike for $50; 21 tires/tubes (new and used) for $113. While those numbers belie the visitors count, we did have a good amount of used cables/parts sales, indicating a healthy usage of the space that simply doesn’t translate into high dollar amounts. It probably didn’t help that most of our medium-sized stock of refurbished bikes has already sold out, leaving our small and large bikes only. That will be a focus for the coming week as far as shop builds are concerned.
Last Friday we had the Full Moon Bicycle Ride, a community social ride that I heavily advertised and promoted—so much so that a few people thought the Bike Project/University was sponsoring it. Rough conservative estimates tallied 160 or so people, so it was probably closer to 200. It was an affirming experience to see so many people coming out for such an event and really speaks to the strong presence of cycling in Champaign-Urbana. I lost count of how many people I recognized as visitors to the Campus Bike Center. Impressive, too, was how many folks were not decked out in full-on cycling gear but instead riding commuter-level bikes in the same clothes in which you’d walk your dog. That speaks strongly to the normalization of riding a bicycle and a good sign for the growth of the mode share.
The temperature is projected to be in the 90s all week and so I will bring out the big water cooler, fill it with ice and be diligent in telling all visitors to stay hydrated while here. I will build more medium-sized bikes this week as well as continue to free up space by scrapping more old and abused-beyond-repair bikes and parts.
Sincerely,
Superintendent of Grounds, Ryan Welch, describes the difference in heat tolerance between spring and summer flowers on campus:
"We plant the early flowers (pansies) because they provide early spring color and are one of the only annuals that prefer cooler temps and will withstand frost. The early or cool season annuals do not like heat, so they are removed and replaced with the summer annuals. The summer annuals will not tolerate even a light frost and should not be planted before May 1."
Hello all,
Here are my updates from last week:
Sincerely,
Marya Ryan
Zero Waste Coordinator
Hello all,
Last week was reasonably busy. We had 112 visitors. We totaled $638.10 in sales. We sold six memberships for $180; one refurbished bike for $80; one Build-a-Bike for $48; and $101 in both new and used tires/tubes.
New student hire Dennis started working last week. As a longtime member, he is familiar enough with everything that he’s been able to help right out the gate, which has been great. Additionally, Friday was Logan’s last day.
This week I will work on student worker scheduling for the summer, strip more old junk bikes that are taking up valuable space, stock all the new parts that arrived last week, attend the Bike Project meeting, and of course, build more bikes.
Sincerely,
All,
Last week was steady and manageable. We had one or two days of almost no one coming in and days of the summer average of 20 or so people through the human door. Our visitor total for the week was 92.
We grossed $1,243.81. We sold seven memberships for $210; two refurbished bikes for $385; one build-a-bike for $89; 16 tires and tubes for $73.
The Bike Project has decided to add a weekday open hours shift on Wednesday evenings for their Urbana location, which was mentioned at the Monthly Members’ Meeting on Wednesday. This will in turn allow those who utilize the CBC an additional resource for working on bikes. On Friday I met Parking out at the warehouse and picked up 16 or so bikes--of which half were worth the effort to rehab or store for B-a-Bs. The rest were promptly taken to the scrap yard on Friday afternoon.
This week Evan, a new student hire, is going to start working (albeit not daily, due to school conflicts). While it hasn’t been too busy for just Leah and me to handle, having another person around and the chance to train a new staffer when it is slow is definitely a plus.
This week I will also be working on creating some more wheel storage in the back garage bays. Bike builds and organization will occur per usual. One of the main tables that are home to our truing stands and our vice is falling apart. I will look into procuring a new one from Surplus this week as well.
Sincerely,
Hi Tracy—
This week, I started getting my head back in the game after my absence but did not accomplish anything substantive. I plan to go over notes and pick up the loose threads of the different projects I had been working on in the coming week. In particular, I have communications I need to make on the battery recycling and graduate student/family housing recycling efforts.
Best regards,
Marya Ryan
Zero Waste Coordinator
The Unviersity purchased an additional 16 3-loop, 20 4-loop, and 50 5-loop rail-mounted bicycle racks from RJ Thomas Manufacturing Co. Inc. in FY17. These bike racks were received in Spring 2017.
Xinlei Wang is the point of contact for using the RE-home.
F&S will offer monthly tours of the Solar Farm on the first Friday of each month from July to December 2017, from 2 to 4 p.m. You can sign up to participate at https://illinois.edu/fb/sec/3893405.
Attached are the presentations prepared by the students in ENVS 301. The course syllabus is also attached.
On the agenda at the ECBS SWATeam meeting:
1) Status of our recommendations to iWG;
2) Review of Illini Lights Out over the past year;
3) Any final thoughts, recommendations for Eco-Olympics;
4) Progress on building energy standards;
5) Updates on the revolving loan fund (RLF) projects;
6) Turning off computers. Change in policy, at least at F&S. Implications for Certified Green Office Program?
7) Building level energy consumption report summary;
8) Good-byes and thanks to departing members.
The Revolving Loan Fund selection committee has approved funding for all the viable RLF projects. See attached image for list.
STYRECYCLE: During the spring 2017 semester, student volunteers collected more than 500 pounds of expanded polystyrene for recycling — bringing their total collected to nearly 900 pounds. In addition, this program is saying goodbye to a founding member and longtime leader. Thank you to Marco Tijoe for your two years of steering the ship!
ILLINOIS BIODIESEL INITIATIVE: This past semester, students produced 100 gallons of biodiesel fuel and 2 gallons of soap from waste vegetable oil. The soap-making subgroup is refining its soap recipe for use at campus dining halls, and the diesel subgroup is improving the production process to make higher-quality fuels.
New York Times article on electric vehicles (EVs):
