The following is an email sent by Stephanie Hess on May 11, 2023.

Green Research Committee,

Jeremy and I met with Susan, Ehab, and Madhu last week to give them an update on our progress over the past few weeks. I have attached the topics discussed. Here is a brief summary of that meeting and how we propose to move forward.

• The October deadline can be extended. However, if there are requests for campus funding, it is a good deadline since all the budget meetings with the Provost happen in the Spring. As long as we continue making progress, we will update them in October with what we have done by then.
• When we write recommendations, we should consider the financial impact. Cost to implement and money saved following implementation.
• Jeremy is going to put together a single document that includes the information Paul shared on Teams and more details for the topics discussed in the meeting. That will be shared with the committee.
• Next meeting, we will discuss that document. Please read it before the meeting and write comments.

I will try to get something on the calendar soon.

Thanks,

Stephanie

 

Attached is the Informal Summary.

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by: Noah Nelson

Posted: May 6, 2023 / 02:00 PM CDT

Updated: May 10, 2023 / 06:13 PM CDT

CHAMPAIGN-URBANA, Ill. (WCIA) — U of I Facilities and Services (F&S) announced that the 21st annual Dump and Run event is expanding to multiple campus locations this year beginning Monday, May 8.

The U of I said the Dump and Run event, a collaboration between University Housing and U of I F&S, is designed to achieve campus sustainability goals, including reaching zero waste targets and preventing trash from reaching waterways and landscapes.

Officials said in past years when the event was hosted at the University YMCA, more than 30 tons of material was recycled and kept from reaching the landfill because of these efforts.

U of I officials said expanding the Dump and Run event this year makes it easier for students and others to donate unwanted items at the end of the semester. They said eight 20’ x 8’ mobile storage units will be placed near campus residence halls for the event, including:

• Barton Hall/Flagg Hall/Weston Hall/Student Dining and Residential Programs Building
• Busey Hall/Evans Hall
• Florida Avenue Residence Halls (Oglesby Hall)/Pennsylvania Avenue Residence Halls
• Hopkins Hall
• Illinois Street Residence Halls (Wardall Hall)
• Lincoln Avenue Residence Halls (Allen Hall)
• Nugent Hall/Wassaja Hall
• Taft Hall/Van Doren Hall/Snyder Hall

University volunteers will be available at the sites to help prevent overflow and ensure additional pickups as necessary.

“We’re excited to bring the Dump and Run event right to where the students live and closer to the majority of faculty and staff,” said Daphne Hulse, F&S zero waste coordinator. “This setup offers everyone a simple way to give back to local nonprofits while preventing littering and keeping items that can be reclaimed from reaching the landfill unnecessarily.

Each day, the containers will be opened at specific times to accept donations. Officials said individuals can donate surplus or gently used items by putting them into bulk boxes inside the containers. Accepted items include:

• Accessories (handbags, belts, scarves, hats, etc.)
• Appliances – small to medium size (coffee makers, kettles, mini-fridges, microwaves, etc.)
• Books
• Collectibles/antiques
• Computers and equipment (printers, cables, speakers, hard drives, monitors, etc.)
• Clothing (rips and tears are okay – but must be washed)
• Electronics
• Furniture
• Housewares (dishes, mirrors, decorative accessories, etc.)
• Jewelry
• Linens
• Lamps
• Multimedia (DVDs, CDs, records, etc.)
• Shoes
• TVs (flat screen only)

Throughout the week, officials said the donations will be collected by local participating charities Salt & Light and Goodwill.

“We are pleased to continue to support the Dump and Run initiative, which is a benefit to our residents, the campus, and the local community,” said Alma R. Sealine, executive director of University Housing.

The donation schedule includes:

• May 8: 10 a.m. – 2 p.m.
• May 9: 10 a.m. – 2 p.m.
• May 10: 10 a.m. – 6 p.m.
• May 11: 10 a.m. – 7 p.m.
• May 12: 10 a.m. – 7 p.m.
• May 13: 9 a.m. – 3 p.m.

U of I students and staff can donate accepted items in one of the available mobile storage units during open hours until Saturday, May 13.

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From: Leciejewski, Mary <leciejewski.8@osu.edu>

Sent: Wednesday, May 3, 2023 7:37 AM
To: B10andFriends@umich.edu
Subject: Waste Affinity Survey & Meeting

Morning Big 10 and Friends,

 

Hope everyone everyone’s semester is wrapping up nicely. A big thank you goes out to everyone who participated in the Waste Survey [redacted] so far. We’ve already found the excel tool has been helpful in considering new initiatives. If you haven't had the chance to add your school's information, please do so at your earliest convenience.

If you’re interested in reviewing the waste results together, fill out this When2Meet [redacted] by Wednesday, May 10th.

 

Looking forward to catching up and discussing the findings with all of you!

 

Mary, Tony, and the survey subgroup

 

Mary Leciejewski, MS
Zero Waste Manager

Pronouns: She/Her/Hers 

Facilities Operations and Development, Sustainability & Strategic Services
1130 Service Building Annex | 2578 Kenny Road, Columbus, OH 43210
(O) 614.292.3637
fod.osu.edu/sustainability

 

 

From: Leciejewski, Mary <leciejewski.8@osu.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, May 3, 2023 6:52 AM
To: Szal, Dominika Patrycja <dszal2@illinois.edu>; Patrick T Brown <brown471@purdue.edu>; Anthony Gillund <agillund@purdue.edu>; Hulse, Daphne Lauren <dlhulse2@illinois.edu>; alisonlr@umich.edu; nberg@umich.edu
Subject: RE: Purdue/OSU/Michigan/UIUC Waste Survey

 

Hi Dominika,

 

Thanks for the nudge. I just had an email exchange with Tony, and we've decided to send out an email to find a time to review results, as well as to encourage everyone who hasn’t yet to complete the survey. We'll have to work with the responses we get, and I know our group has already found the results useful. This is a good litmus test for gauging people's availability for benchmarking surveys in the future.

 

Hope everyone is making it through the tsunami that is move-out! I am continually shocked at the amount of material going to waste this time of year.

 

Mary Leciejewski, MS

Zero Waste Manager

Pronouns: She/Her/Hers 

Facilities Operations and Development, Sustainability & Strategic Services
1130 Service Building Annex | 2578 Kenny Road, Columbus, OH 43210
(O) 614.292.3637
fod.osu.edu/sustainability

 

 

 

From: Szal, Dominika Patrycja <dszal2@illinois.edu>
Sent: Friday, April 28, 2023 1:09 PM
To: Leciejewski, Mary <leciejewski.8@osu.edu>; Patrick T Brown <brown471@purdue.edu>; Anthony Gillund <agillund@purdue.edu>; Hulse, Daphne Lauren <dlhulse2@illinois.edu>; alisonlr@umich.edu; nberg@umich.edu
Subject: Re: Purdue/OSU/Michigan/UIUC Waste Survey

 

Hello all,

 

Just to briefly reintroduce myself, I am an intern working with Daphne on this waste management survey. I'd like to thank you all for the contributions that you have made for this initiative; it has been very exciting witnessing the collaboration and ideas that have been taking place. Given that we have some responses, do you believe that we have enough information to move forward to the analysis phase of the project? As of today, we are still awaiting responses from nine universities for the general questions and fourteen universities for their diversion rate methodologies.

 

Thank you,

DOMINIKA P. SZAL (she/her)

Waste Management Intern

(217) 333-9191 | dszal2@illinois.edu

Facilities & Services | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

 

Please consider the environment before printing out an email. 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.

From: Leciejewski, Mary <leciejewski.8@osu.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, January 31, 2023 06:09
To: Patrick T Brown <brown471@purdue.edu>; Anthony Gillund <agillund@purdue.edu>; Hulse, Daphne Lauren <dlhulse2@illinois.edu>; alisonlr@umich.edu <alisonlr@umich.edu>; nberg@umich.edu <nberg@umich.edu>
Cc: Szal, Dominika Patrycja <dszal2@illinois.edu>
Subject: RE: Purdue/OSU/Michigan/UIUC Waste Survey

 

Thanks everyone for your feedback. I will get the survey out later today! Mary

 

Mary Leciejewski
Zero Waste Manager

Pronouns: She/Her/Hers 

Facilities Operations and Development, Sustainability & Strategic Services
1130 Service Building Annex | 2578 Kenny Road, Columbus, OH 43210
(O) 614.292.3637
fod.osu.edu/sustainability

 

 

 

 

From: Patrick T Brown <brown471@purdue.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, January 25, 2023 1:44 PM
To: Anthony Gillund <agillund@purdue.edu>; Leciejewski, Mary <leciejewski.8@osu.edu>; Hulse, Daphne Lauren <dlhulse2@illinois.edu>; alisonlr@umich.edu; nberg@umich.edu
Cc: Szal, Dominika Patrycja <dszal2@illinois.edu>
Subject: RE: Purdue/OSU/Michigan/UIUC Waste Survey

 

Hi, all. I added a few clarifying comments to the Diversion Rate Methodology sheet. The comments are on cells: Precious Metals, Yard Waste, Recycled Batteries, Recycled Vehicles, and Surplus Donate Items. I also added a few more streams we

Hi, all.

 

I added a few clarifying comments to the Diversion Rate Methodology sheet. The comments are on cells: Precious Metals, Yard Waste, Recycled Batteries, Recycled Vehicles, and Surplus Donate Items.

I also added a few more streams we track that were not on the list. Those cells are filled with yellow. Feel free to remove if they don’t make sense. For the added Surplus Sold Items stream, it will be dependent on the answer to the comment on Surplus Donated Items.

 

Thank you!

 

Patrick T. Brown | He/Him
Sustainability Coordinator | Campus Planning, Architecture and Sustainability

 

m: 219-677-6330

Website, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram

 

 

From: Anthony Gillund <agillund@purdue.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, January 25, 2023 9:38 AM
To: Leciejewski, Mary <leciejewski.8@osu.edu>; Hulse, Daphne Lauren <dlhulse2@illinois.edu>; alisonlr@umich.edu; nberg@umich.edu; Patrick T Brown <brown471@purdue.edu>
Cc: Szal, Dominika Patrycja <dszal2@illinois.edu>
Subject: RE: Purdue/OSU/Michigan/UIUC Waste Survey

 

Thanks Daphne.  Mary actually made that draft (thank you Mary!) and Patrick and I had a few minor edits to add.  Hopefully that can be completed today or tomorrow and back to you for review.  We will definitely include the idea of the “other – list please” being added.

 

Thanks again,

Tony

 

From: Leciejewski, Mary <leciejewski.8@osu.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, January 24, 2023 8:10 PM
To: Hulse, Daphne Lauren <dlhulse2@illinois.edu>; Anthony Gillund <agillund@purdue.edu>; alisonlr@umich.edu; nberg@umich.edu; Patrick T Brown <brown471@purdue.edu>
Cc: Szal, Dominika Patrycja <dszal2@illinois.edu>
Subject: RE: Purdue/OSU/Michigan/UIUC Waste Survey

 

---- External Email: Use caution with attachments, links, or sharing data ----

 

Thanks for the feedback, Daphne.

 

Once we have the go-ahead from Tony, I will send to the larger affinity group.

 

Excited to see all the results!

 

Mary

 

Mary Leciejewski
Zero Waste Manager

Pronouns: She/Her/Hers 

Facilities Operations and Development, Sustainability & Strategic Services
1130 Service Building Annex | 2578 Kenny Road, Columbus, OH 43210
(O) 614.292.3637
fod.osu.edu/sustainability

 

 

 

 

From: Hulse, Daphne Lauren <dlhulse2@illinois.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, January 24, 2023 4:33 PM
To: Anthony Gillund <agillund@purdue.edu>; Leciejewski, Mary <leciejewski.8@osu.edu>; alisonlr@umich.edu; nberg@umich.edu; Patrick T Brown <brown471@purdue.edu>
Cc: Szal, Dominika Patrycja <dszal2@illinois.edu>
Subject: RE: Purdue/OSU/Michigan/UIUC Waste Survey

 

Hi Tony, I took a look at the new tab for diversion materials and think it looks great. There was a comment made asking about what to do if a school has a material they include in the rate that isn’t listed on the sheet, so I added a “Other

 

Hi Tony,

 

I took a look at the new tab for diversion materials and think it looks great. There was a comment made asking about what to do if a school has a material they include in the rate that isn’t listed on the sheet, so I added a “Other – please list” column for that purpose.

 

Otherwise, I am happy with the survey and would call it good! Thanks so much for the assistance.

 

Thank you,

 

Daphne

 

Daphne Hulse (she/her)
Zero Waste Coordinator
Facilities & Services | University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
+1 (217) 333-7550 | dlhulse2@illinois.edu
 


Please consider the environment before printing an email. 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.

 

 

 

From: Anthony Gillund <agillund@purdue.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, January 17, 2023 8:05 AM
To: Hulse, Daphne Lauren <dlhulse2@illinois.edu>; Leciejewski, Mary <leciejewski.8@osu.edu>; alisonlr@umich.edu; nberg@umich.edu; Patrick T Brown <brown471@purdue.edu>
Cc: Szal, Dominika Patrycja <dszal2@illinois.edu>
Subject: RE: Purdue/OSU/Michigan/UIUC Waste Survey

 

Thanks Daphne.  We will get back to you ASAP!

 

From: Hulse, Daphne Lauren <dlhulse2@illinois.edu>
Sent: Friday, January 13, 2023 10:19 AM
To: Anthony Gillund <agillund@purdue.edu>; Leciejewski, Mary <leciejewski.8@osu.edu>; alisonlr@umich.edu; nberg@umich.edu; Patrick T Brown <brown471@purdue.edu>
Cc: Szal, Dominika Patrycja <dszal2@illinois.edu>
Subject: RE: Purdue/OSU/Michigan/UIUC Waste Survey

 

---- External Email: Use caution with attachments, links, or sharing data ----

 

Hi Tony,

 

Thanks for the update! We are appreciative of the feedback you and OSU have provided and are happy to incorporate it. I think the suggestion to add a tab for diversion rate materials is a great one, and we would appreciate your help with integrating it into the survey!

 

Thank you,

Daphne

 

From: Anthony Gillund <agillund@purdue.edu>
Sent: Thursday, January 12, 2023 12:55 PM
To: Leciejewski, Mary <leciejewski.8@osu.edu>; Hulse, Daphne Lauren <dlhulse2@illinois.edu>; alisonlr@umich.edu; nberg@umich.edu; Patrick T Brown <brown471@purdue.edu>
Cc: Szal, Dominika Patrycja <dszal2@illinois.edu>
Subject: RE: Purdue/OSU/Michigan/UIUC Waste Survey

 

Hi Daphne,  Mary and I met to discuss the Waste Affinity Group topics and we are hoping to be able to focus in on the survey you have developed.  Once the document is ready to share, we are happy to help send it to the group, and then we can remind folks to complete it at the February BTAF Meeting (exact date TBD).  We are anticipating not having a Waste Affinity Meeting prior to the full BTAF Meeting in February, but if this group needs to get together, just let me know and I would be happy to schedule. 

 

In terms of finishing the survey, it appears that you have largely incorporated all the recommendations, thank you!  There is one modification that I wanted to validate with you that our group has offered to make:  a separate tab in the same spreadsheet where the answers for cell AH Materials included in your diversion rate can be put into its own grid and easier to compare school to school.  If you are good with this idea, we will try to complete this next week and send it back. 

 

Thank you,

Tony

 

From: Anthony Gillund
Sent: Friday, January 6, 2023 12:42 PM
To: Leciejewski, Mary <leciejewski.8@osu.edu>; Hulse, Daphne Lauren <dlhulse2@illinois.edu>; alisonlr@umich.edu; nberg@umich.edu; Patrick T Brown <brown471@purdue.edu>
Cc: Szal, Dominika Patrycja <dszal2@illinois.edu>
Subject: RE: Purdue/OSU/Michigan/UIUC Waste Survey

 

Hi Daphne, we just had a meeting today with our local waste district and one of the questions that came up is if there are institutions that have found methods to eliminate the plastic bags from the recycling stream.  I thought some institutions do this (e.g. breaking bags of recycling into the recycling dumpster but tossing the bag into the trash).  If you think it is beneficial, perhaps this is another item to add to the survey.

 

Thanks again,

Tony

 

From: Anthony Gillund
Sent: Friday, January 6, 2023 8:51 AM
To: Leciejewski, Mary <leciejewski.8@osu.edu>; Hulse, Daphne Lauren <dlhulse2@illinois.edu>; alisonlr@umich.edu; nberg@umich.edu; Patrick T Brown <brown471@purdue.edu>
Cc: Szal, Dominika Patrycja <dszal2@illinois.edu>
Subject: RE: Purdue/OSU/Michigan/UIUC Waste Survey

 

Hi Daphne, great survey and I agree with Mary it is very comprehensive!  Patrick and I reviewed the document we came up with a few recommendations for your consideration:

1. It might be beneficial to add another question after cell G3 that asks if there are secondary waste goals.
2. Cell K3 was a little confusing trying to determine what was meant by ‘Benchmark Year’…. Is this supposed to say ‘Baseline Year’ instead? 
3. For Cell AG3, we are recommending that a separate tab in the same spreadsheet where the answers can be put into its own grid and easier to compare school to school.  For instance, I found it very interesting to see UIUC include tires but not surplus material, and it would be interesting to see how many folks include tire recycling/repurposing.  Patrick is going to take a 1st stab at creating this for your review.  
4. In the Waste Metric Tracking section, would it be possible to add a few questions around accounting for avoided waste?  Take-back programs would be a prime example of this… for instance, if a university handles furniture whether by diverting it or landfilling it, but then works with a manufacturer on a take-back program, do you get to count that material as diverted?  I am not sure of the best way to ask this question(s)… maybe it should be integrated with the matrix developed as part of bullet #2? 
5. The organics section might benefit by clarification on what should be included.  We interpreted it as more than just food scraps and included animal bedding and landscape debris in our answer, but questioned if other items should be included here such as food grease recycling.

 

Thank you again for putting this together.  Looking forward to seeing it once it is all filled out!

Thanks,

 

Tony Gillund 

 

Director of Sustainability

Campus Planning, Architecture, and Sustainability

 

o: 765-494-3911 | agillund@purdue.edu

 

 

 

From: Leciejewski, Mary <leciejewski.8@osu.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, January 4, 2023 8:26 AM
To: Hulse, Daphne Lauren <dlhulse2@illinois.edu>; alisonlr@umich.edu; Anthony Gillund <agillund@purdue.edu>; nberg@umich.edu; Patrick T Brown <brown471@purdue.edu>
Cc: Szal, Dominika Patrycja <dszal2@illinois.edu>
Subject: RE: Purdue/OSU/Michigan/UIUC Waste Survey

 

---- External Email: Use caution with attachments, links, or sharing data ----

 

Daphne,

 

Thanks for reopening the conversation and putting this together. This survey looks comprehensive. We’re excited for the results!

 

Here’s our quick feedback:

• For “Waste Reduction Goal” section, add question asking if school has formal, published waste plan and request link.
• For D5, we usually count interns as a 3:1 FTEs. Might be useful to make this clear or to have a separate column for number of FTE’s vs. number of interns.
• For the Surplus category, I’d be interested to learn if other schools have internal reuse or external donation programs to nonprofits. (Our Surplus group has mentioned some legal/logistical issues with donation…)

 

We can make these edits directly in the survey but didn’t want to make changes without giving you a heads up/getting sign off from the group.

 

Once the other folks on the chain provide feedback, we can help disseminate to the larger BTAF group. When the results are in, it’d be a perfect intern project to assemble results in a slide show and do some data visualization. Happy to donate our intern time towards that task.

 

Best, Mary

 

Mary Leciejewski
Zero Waste Manager

Pronouns: She/Her/Hers 

Facilities Operations and Development, Sustainability & Strategic Services
1130 Service Building Annex | 2578 Kenny Road, Columbus, OH 43210
(O) 614.292.3637
fod.osu.edu/sustainability

 

 

 

From: Hulse, Daphne Lauren <dlhulse2@illinois.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, January 3, 2023 5:07 PM
To: Leciejewski, Mary <leciejewski.8@osu.edu>; alisonlr@umich.edu; agillund@purdue.edu; nberg@umich.edu; Patrick T Brown <brown471@purdue.edu>
Cc: Szal, Dominika Patrycja <dszal2@illinois.edu>
Subject: RE: Purdue/OSU/Michigan/UIUC Waste Survey

 

Hi all, Happy New Year - I hope you enjoyed a nice holiday break! Dominika and I wanted to re-open the conversation on the BTAF waste survey. The questions are ready for your review/input when you have a chance J Mary & Tony, we are happy

 

Hi all,

 

Happy New Year - I hope you enjoyed a nice holiday break! Dominika and I wanted to re-open the conversation on the BTAF waste survey [redacted]. The questions are ready for your review/input when you have a chance J

 

Mary & Tony, we are happy to coordinate with you both on getting this spreadsheet out to the schools when everything is finalized.

 

Thank you,

Daphne

 

Daphne Hulse (she/her)
Zero Waste Coordinator
Facilities & Services | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
+1 (217) 333-7550 | dlhulse2@illinois.edu
 


Please consider the environment before printing an email. 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.

 

 

 

From: Hulse, Daphne Lauren
Sent: Tuesday, November 29, 2022 9:43 AM
To: Leciejewski, Mary <leciejewski.8@osu.edu>; alisonlr@umich.edu; agillund@purdue.edu; nberg@umich.edu; Patrick T Brown <brown471@purdue.edu>
Cc: Szal, Dominika Patrycja <dszal2@illinois.edu>
Subject: RE: Purdue/OSU/Michigan/UIUC Waste Survey

 

Thank you, Mary! We’ve got all our original survey questions inputted now and are working to finalize questions on other topics such as sustainable procurement and organic waste, which we didn’t previously include.

 

If you all have an opportunity to take a look and provide feedback, that would be appreciated!

Thank you,

Daphne

 

 

Daphne Hulse (she/her)
Zero Waste Coordinator
Facilities & Services | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
+1 (217) 333-7550 | dlhulse2@illinois.edu
 


Please consider the environment before printing an email. 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.

 

 

 

From: Leciejewski, Mary <leciejewski.8@osu.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, November 29, 2022 8:12 AM
To: Hulse, Daphne Lauren <dlhulse2@illinois.edu>; alisonlr@umich.edu; agillund@purdue.edu; nberg@umich.edu; Patrick T Brown <brown471@purdue.edu>
Cc: Szal, Dominika Patrycja <dszal2@illinois.edu>
Subject: RE: Purdue/OSU/Michigan/UIUC Waste Survey

 

Hi everyone,

 

Hope everyone had a nice holiday.

 

Just want to give a shout out to Daphne and her team for uploading the survey onto the google drive in a spreadsheet format. The benchmarking tool is looking pretty robust. If you haven’t had a chance to check out the google drive, here’s the link [redacted].

 

Aside from adding additional relevant survey fields and filling in our school’s data, is there anything else we need to do to provide feedback before we take this to the larger BTAF group?

 

Thanks, Mary

 

Mary Leciejewski
Zero Waste Manager

Pronouns: She/Her/Hers 

Facilities Operations and Development, Sustainability & Strategic Services
1130 Service Building Annex | 2578 Kenny Road, Columbus, OH 43210
(O) 614.292.3637
fod.osu.edu/sustainability

 

 

 

-----Original Appointment-----
From: Hulse, Daphne Lauren <dlhulse2@illinois.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, October 26, 2022 3:15 PM
To: Hulse, Daphne Lauren; alisonlr@umich.edu; Leciejewski, Mary; agillund@purdue.edu; nberg@umich.edu; Patrick T Brown
Cc: Szal, Dominika Patrycja
Subject: Purdue/OSU/Michigan/UIUC Waste Survey
When: Friday, November 11, 2022 11:00 AM-12:00 PM (UTC-06:00) Central Time (US & Canada).
Where: https://illinois.zoom.us/j/83465397844?pwd=K0dHcWlkaXExOTQyUDdrN3J6VXhVUT09

 

Daphne Hulse (she/her) is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting. Join Zoom Meeting https: //illinois. zoom. us/j/83465397844?pwd=K0dHcWlkaXExOTQyUDdrN3J6VXhVUT09 Meeting ID: 834 6539 7844 Password: 337564 ‍ ‍ ‍ ‍ ‍ ‍ ‍ ‍ ‍ ‍ ‍ ‍ ‍ ‍ ‍ ‍ ‍ ‍ ‍ ‍ ‍ ‍ ‍ ‍ ‍ ‍ ‍ ‍ ‍ ‍ ‍ ‍ ‍ ‍

 

Daphne Hulse (she/her) is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Join Zoom Meeting
 

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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.

 

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