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Project Updates for collection: Student Sustainability Committee Funded Projects

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  1. 70/80 building dashboards complete!

    Associated Project(s): 

    Currently, 70 of the first 80 building dashboards are complete, which represents 92% of the University's energy consumption. Many of the dashboards are visible on building video displays for all building occupants to view. They continue to vet the data streams and will add more dashboards as they continue our efforts in the future. We contract Hawkeye Energy Solutions to develop and maintain the dashboards.

  2. Land & Water iCAP Team October 2023 Meeting

    The Land & Water iCAP team met on Teams from 1-2 PM on Friday, October 6th. The team reviewed the iCAP Land & Water objectives, discussed area/projects of focus for the year, and brainstormed next steps in relation to projects that are underway. Meeting minutes are attached.

  3. Weekly Update: Abandoned bicycles, new staff

    All, Big news of last week is the abandoned bikes. Bike Project folk and I were able to take an inventory of the bikes that are available and given the number of bikes—fewest in my tenure!—we are not partnering with Working Bikes this year. I communicated as much last week and no hard feelings. If anything, they’re happy to hear we have less bike waste—and they would know, they’ve got a 3 story building full of bikes.

    This week we have a couple new staff members starting here. We’ll do some off-hours training with them.

    The numbers:

    Visitors: 40
    Sales: $1,030.50
    Memberships: 18 for $540

    Tires/tubes: 27 for $212

    Thanks!

    Jacob Benjamin
    Coordinator -- Campus Bike Center

  4. Unclaimed abandoned bicycles donated to the Campus Bike Center

    Following the deadline day to claim impounded bicycles, Sarthak Prasad reached out to Jake Benjamin, campus bike center coordinator, to inform that these bicycles are now considered donated to the Campus Bike Center and the Bike Project of Urbana-Champaign. See the email below:

    Hi Jake,

    The deadline to claim impounded bicycles have passed, so you can start checking the bicycles in the barn now. These bicycles are now considered donated to the Campus Bike Center and the Bike Project. I have the serial number information for almost all of those bicycles in the spreadsheet as well. We had about 240ish bicycles to start with and 24 bicycles were returned this year.

    Thank you,

    Sarthak

  5. Cetacean Exhibit Viewing Dates

    Associated Project(s): 

    Cetacean will be taking place during the times listed below.

    Deke Weaver: Cetacean

    CETACEAN (The Whale) is the sixth interdisciplinary performance from Deke Weaver’s The Unreliable Bestiary—a lifelong project representing an endangered animal or habitat. CETACEAN has evolved into a juxtaposition of lo-fi effects, story, video, dance, sound design, and a colossal installation—a plastic sea with plastic whales. It’s gonna be a whale of a show!

    September 28–October 2, 7:30 pm • University of Illinois Stock Pavilion, 1402 W Pennsylvania Ave, Urbana, IL 61801

  6. Weekly Update: Busy times, Light the Night, abandoned bikes

    All, Pretty standard week. Busy with some wait time on stands/repairs most days. Had a Build-a-Bike completed—always a good thing. My team and I did Light the Night on Tuesday at the Ikenberry Quad area. First time in a new location always gets us some looks and questions. Not as busy as we hoped but again, it’s not yet familiar to folks. No word yet on numbers. 

    We were dangerously overloaded on scrap by Friday, but Todd pick it up over the weekend—always appreciated.

    This week I’ll do inventory of the abandoned bikes to see what’s worth keeping. Of note: Easily the fewest abandoned bikes in my tenure. I think my first year there were over 500 bikes left over. Maybe bike shares are really helping that issue (and maybe creating others)?

    This week I’ll have two new staffers start. It’s apparently midterms, so reinforcements are paramount.

    The numbers:

    Visitors: 62
    Sales: $1,122.50
    Bikes (B-a-B): 1 for $50
    Memberships: 20 for $600
    Tires/tubes: 26 for $192

    Thanks!

    Jacob Benjamin
    Coordinator -- Campus Bike Center

  7. Green Research Committee 4th Meeting

    September 20, 2023 Green Research Committee Meeting 4

     

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

     

    Absent: Mitchell Bryant

     

    High-level overview (Jeremy leads)

    • Full-time GR Coordinator
      • Reduce, reuse, and recycle campaign headed by the new coordinator.
    • Centralized location for chemicals
      • Tim: are there concerns or risks with transporting.
      • Stephanie: opportunity for reuse. Repurpose bottles. ECE, MRL, SCS (no space here though). Various locations that we can split up. Lot of labs have bottles that they use up
    • Grad student to help coordinate reduce, reuse, recycle. Additional student supports the GR coordinator with tasks as needed.
      • Morgan: need a full-time staff person for GR. But it is not enough. Need a student or two at least, to help support the staff. Without at least 2 paid students, you won’t get far. 40 hours’ worth of student time? During the school year, sometimes 2 students doing part-time still is not enough.
      • Jen: maybe consider what we need first for the program, before determining how many students to include (and staff). Start modest with our first proposal, with the expectation that we will build over time.
      • Paul: typically hire 2-5 students, some stay through the summer, to help with his energy-specific lab programs.
    • Where will this GR program reside? OVCRI office, with input from Madhu, Susan, and Ehab.
      • Morgan: is it in DRS or is it in iSEE? Both are under VCRI, so that makes sense. It is about sustainability with research. Include requirements in the job description to directly communicate to various stakeholders: research,
      • Paul: green research is all about change and adapting, which isn’t necessarily DRS culture. iSEE is always rolling out new initiatives and is very fluid.
      • Lisa: DRS works with regulation; sustainability is not regulation. Thought DRS first, but then looked into iSEE and thought that GR can be more easily built out under iSEE.
      • Morgan: happy to host it under F&S, but it makes more sense to have it under VCRI.
      • Jen: PI who has a lab perspective: already have a relationship with the audit. Potential to have a partnership with DRS in this new way.
      • Chad: safety is paramount over sustainability, so agree with Jen.
      • Stephanie: conversation with Daphne showed that breaking down barriers between units is very possible.
    • GR ambassadors (Jeremy)
      • Every department would have GR ambassadors, encourage it at the lab level. Would work routinely with the GR coordinator to roll out
      • Training curriculum, system for communicating what’s going on, what metrics we have, what results we’re seeing.
      • Behavior of labs and groups. Reduce, reuse, recycle campaign.
      • Shut the sash, use of equipment timers, can implement on day one.
      • Promoting some type of certification. Implement GR in other ways. Lab assessment tools (UIUC based internal, or MyGreenLab).
      • Certification would be a longer-term goal with the GR coordinator.
    • Incentives
      • Recognition is the primary way
      • Stephanie: faculty peer pressure, you want to be that person that is recognized for these initiatives. Susan promote some of these people might be good, too.
      • Chad: could there be monetary award for the research group for their future research. $2500 not a lot, $10K much more head-turning.
      • Tim Mies: Illinois Professionals (highlights), HR. Would that model work for this?
      • Stephanie: working with Patty to work on awards for safety (Oscars for safety). Could work well with research.
    • Communication and education
      • Well-developed education and outreach program for what we will do.
    • Safe energy conservation plans
      • Form task forces to address the two different processes in the charge:
        • How to hibernate labs
        • How to deal with renovation projects
      • Fully funded capital projects, facilities with significant infrastructure deficiencies, facilities without significant infrastructure deficiencies. Would need to be very collaborative. Building-by-building basis.
      • Morgan: 1.5 years to complete a campus facility assessment. December of 2024 all info will be up to date. It won’t cover all portions, because it’s more visual. How are the fume hoods being used?
      • Stephanie: Wondering the same question.
      • Chad: We don’t want to shut off a fume hood forever. There’s always going to be some revolving research based on grants, etc.GR coordinator could look into high-efficiency fume hoods. Need to have campus support for green energy.
      • Shari: Agree with Chad, with Paul’s team coming in, they can see where improvements can be made. Incur energy savings but not lose the capacity. Finding unique ways to do that. Install the newer technology, like low-flow, high-efficiency will go a long way in meeting iCAP goals. Need help with things that are outside the department’s DOR.
      • Paul: Agree with everyone. Shut down almost all hoods at the top floor of Soybean. Morrill Hall needs a lot of help with renovations. Helped get them out during a pilot program. There are other places that use them 24/7 and they are clean and well managed. We see it all.
    • Additional resource for kick-off
      • GR coordinator, communications team, IT support
  8. Weekly Update: Bike to Work Day, Light the Night

    Associated Project(s): 

    All, I was out sick all last week with some combination of flu/cold/sinus infection. My staff handled operations in my absence. However, there were some issues tracking visit numbers, unfortunately.

    Last Thursday was Bike To Work Day. Some very awesome people stepped up and filled in for me. Sounds like it was a banner year! Congrats to all involved.

    Tomorrow evening is Light The Night. We’ll be hosting at a different location this year. Should be a better spot for folks to get their lights.

    We were inundated with donations last week. I’ll bring in staff off-hours to help scrap the junk bikes and reorganize this week. Hopefully we’ll have our space in better shape by our open hours on Wednesday.

    The numbers:

    Visitors: 8*
    Sales: $1,242.50
    Bikes (refurb): 2 for $215
    Bikes (B-a-B): 1 for $40
    Memberships: 17 for $510
    Tires/tubes: 9 for $55

    *See above issue with visit numbers.

    Jacob Benjamin
    Campus Bike Center Coordinator

  9. Brent Lewis approves 17 more dual bin locations

    Associated Project(s): 

    On July 18th, Brent Lewis approved 16 more sites for installation, and the site on Champaign property was approved on July 6. On September 6th, these 17 sites plus the 7 additional sites sent to earlier this summer on June 7th (the eighth site at Siebel Center for Computer Science was installed on August 1st, so it was omitted from this spreadsheet), were sent to the iron workers for a total of 24 sites.

     

    55 dual bins remain in storage and need site proposals from the zero waste team and approval from Brent Lewis.

  10. Green rolloff for recycling arrives!

    It's here, it's here, it's finally here. Waste Transfer Station purchased a new green rolloff container specifically for recycling. We expect to use it for tailgate recycling, welcome week, and any other event that produces an excess of recycling or would benefit from a container dedicated to recyclables.

  11. Building Services Specialist Cleaning Program Launched This Semester

     

     

    Group photo of building service workers involved in receiving ISSA certification in the Campus Instructional Facility lobby

     

     

    Before the start of the fall semester, the F&S Building Services department launched a new Specialist Cleaning Program in five high-usage campus facilities. Almost 40 BSWs underwent professional development and received training certification from the ISSA, a leading organization for the cleaning industry worldwide.

    ISSA professional development at the university will organize detailed cleaning tasks and deliver many benefits of a more systematic approach that transitions from the current zone cleaning setup, where BSWs perform all cleaning tasks within a specified area. Streamlined processes for color-coding will help eliminate the potential for cross-contamination and promote the more efficient utilization of equipment and supplies.

    The pilot buildings are the Campus Instructional Facility, Talbot Laboratory, Grainger Engineering Library Information Center, Lincoln Hall, and the Materials Science and Engineering Building. These high-usage facilities were selected based on the ability to successfully evaluate and replicate the program in other similar facilities moving forward. A list of departmental expectations is available to help further explain key aspects of this initial effort. 

    For questions about the Specialist Cleaning Program and Building Services Transformation Initiative, contact Director of Transportation & Building Services Pete Varney pvarney@illinois.edu, 217-333-7583.

     

  12. Meeting notes with Ethan Garcia - Capstone project

    Prepare outline for bike audit

    • how to do it
    • What will we need
    • What information do I need
    • What information are we trying to get out of this
    • How are we trying to do this 
    • What resources will we need (GIS)
    • When are we doing the audit 
    • When do we think we can finish it (number of hours, dates not necessary)
    • Condition assessments of bike rack 
    • Looking at rack itself and concrete 

     

    Re-familiarize self with stuff

     

    Black racks are ground mounted, we want bike racks on rails (gray ones)

     

    Only university owned bike racks and paths 

  13. Weekly Update: very busy week

    Associated Project(s): 

    All, Another doozy of a week. Long wait times for stands, cash offers to “hold” bikes, and my favorite: “When will you get a new shipment of bikes?”

    This week promises to be a little better with more staff on board, and presumably fewer folks coming for their registration sticker. We’ll also have our first Friday Ride of the semester. Weather looks good for it!

    Tonight is the Bike Project Members’ Meeting. I’ll mention it to all the new members we sign-up today.

    The numbers:

    Visitors: 142
    Sales: $2,631.38
    Bikes (refurb): 5 for $855
    Bikes (B-a-B): 2 for $100
    Memberships: 28 for $840

    Tires/tubes: 37 for $263

    Thanks!

    Jacob Benjamin
    Campus Bike Center Coordinator

  14. Redwood Materials: Jen, Daphne, and Amy meet with Sophie Boel

    Attendance: Jen Fraterrigo, Sophie Boel, Daphne Hulse, Amy Fruehling

    Sophie Boel introduction: been with Redwood 2+ years, managing construction and engineering team, moved to external affairs (consumer recycling, outreach and education programs). Taking over the university partnerships piece from Seema. Two pieces to look at together:

    • Consumer education, branding materials, and how-to for safe collection and mailing.
    • Research - existing program to bolster with data, or bring about together.

    Recalling our first conversation with Redwood Materials:

    • What is redwood looking for?

    • How can the university offer collaborative experiences with Redwood? Research, battery collection drives.

      • Jen forwarded Sophie the documents she had provided Seema as far as research opportunities go.

    Redwood's experience with collection:

    • 40-50 Audi and Volkswagen dealerships have collection bins - regularly collected and shipped back to Redwood.
    • International Rotary Clubs host collection events throughout the country.

    Daphne's research on where batteries are sourced from and where they end up across campus. Daphne could only speak to batteries that are procured with university money. There is not a gauge on what the community does with batteries and what their needs are.

    • DRS collects Nickel-Cadmium (NiCd), Nickel Metal Hydride (NMH), Lithium (Li) Ion & Polymer (LiPo), and Silver Oxide (AgO) batteries for recycling. Daphne and Jen don't know the name of the recycling vendor, but they will find out. Sophie says there is a chance that the vendor already works with Redwood Materials, we just have to find out. Rechargeable batteries that are part of a device may get removed, and the device sent to someone like Redwood Materials to find recycling outlets for the device materials, too.

    What could Redwood provide support on if the university would undertake something with them?

    • Bring Seema back into the conversation side (she is involved with business development support).

    Has Redwood done many events with universities? No, they haven’t done many events with universities:

    • University Nevada - Reno, as this is located close to their HQ.
    • Have done events in collaboration with International Rotary Clubs:

      • Environmental & Sustainability Action Group (ES-RAG) - made collection events a part of their piece on sustainability

      • 50-100 collection events - active consumer engagement pieces

      • Earth Day events

    • For events, Redwood can send a Redwood employee - if there is a lot overlapping in terms of time of year (especially Earth Day or Month), some of the rotary district governors act on behalf of Redwood go to an event to staff and educate.

    • Reach out to Urbana and Champaign counterparts - they hold an annual event for Illinois residents for electronics recycling. Maybe there is a need for more than just once a year? And if they combine forces with the university and Redwood, we would have more resources and support to go around.

      • It will be good to hear what the cities think, as their population will likely be the main source for the waste. Students don't often have these kinds of devices and batteries laying around.

    • Any money that can be reinvested to the program? The university tries to find ways to reinvest when possible.

      • Sophie to talk to Seema about this

     

  15. Weekly Update: Students are back, Illini Frenzy

    Associated Project(s): 

    All, The semester has officially started! People are knocking on the doors at all hours, we’re almost out of sale bikes, the 529 registrations are a near constant, and there’s a wait for stand time by 3p every day. Demand is never higher than this time of year.

    On Saturday, we had the Illini Frenzy, and our spin-a-prize bike wheel was a huge hit. Something Pavlovian about the act of spinning a wheel. Even when we were out of all our freebies, people spun it anyways, and a line formed almost immediately. I’ll need to work out a couple of things with it, but I think it’s a keeper for outreach events and the like.

    On Friday, Daniel and Rick—two experienced volunteers—came by to lend a hand—and boy did we need it! Many thanks to them. Also, thanks to Todd for grabbing scrap over the weekend.

    This week I’ll try to throw some bikes together during our off hours, send out some offer letters for new hires, and do some trainings for our new/returning staff.

    The numbers:

    Visitors: 156
    Sales: $3,127.75
    Bikes (refurb): 13 for $1,840

    Bikes (B-a-B): 1 for $50
    Memberships: 21 for $630
    Tires/tubes: 10 for $84

    Thanks!

    Jacob Benjamin
    Campus Bike Center Coordinator

  16. DRS tracks the batteries that they give to WTS, that they recycle, and that they trash

    From: Lee, Morris <morrisl@illinois.edu>
    Sent: Friday, August 18, 2023 11:00 AM
    To: Hulse, Daphne Lauren <dlhulse2@illinois.edu>
    Cc: Hill, Landon E <landon@illinois.edu>
    Subject: RE: DRS battery disposal

     

    Good Morning Daphne,

     

    Attached is a report for the batteries handled by the DRS Waste Group.

     

    If you have any data related questions, please let me know (I will be on vacation next week). Landon would be able to answer the operational questions.

     

    Thanks, Morris

     

     

    MORRIS LEE
    RESEARCH SAFETY PROFESSIONAL
     
    Division of Research Safety
    Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research
    University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
    102 Environmental Health and Safety Building
    101 S. Gregory St. | M/C 225
    Urbana, Illinois 61801
    217.300.4563 | morrisl@illinois.edu
    www.drs.illinois.edu
     
    P698ojxP4tc7j8gMqgPv+E4KQAAAABJRU5ErkJggg==

    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. 

  17. WTS hosts collection site for lead acid battery recycling

    Neither the Waste Transfer Station nor Interstate Batteries (vendor) tracks or weighs the lead acid batteries that are picked up from the cage at the Waste Transfer Station. Rather, the battery unit sold is. The new battery is sold without a core charge, and then the old battery is picked up at a later time. The number of battery units sold is tracked (from 1501 S Oak Street), so this is our best metric for tracking lead acid battery recycling.

    Attachment only covers 2022-2023 sales, a request has been sent for historical data.

    FYI - lead acid batteries (often used in the automobile context) are some of the most easily recycled and rechargeable batteries out there!

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