Hallways in the Foreign Language Building, especially on the upper floors, may go long periods with no traffic. However, the overhead lighting is always on, which is extremely energy inefficient. This project aims to replace some of the overhead lighting with more energy efficient options and install occupancy sensors to automatically dim the lights when people are not present.

There is a growing interest in doing several native plantings at specific buildings and undeveloped areas around campus. However, there is no real information on the soil at these locations. This project is looking to provide the data needed to successfully and efficiently manage these planting projects. Several students will take soil core samples from each site and provide the samples to a commercial lab. The data will all be analyzed in comparable manner by the same lab. The project team will take 170 samples/subsamples with an 8” soil probe from these sites. The project team, Facilities and Services, and interested faculty and students will select these sites. The goal is to have an initial database of certain buildings and sites with usable soil sampling data: pH, fertility, and basic grain size. The analysis of the samples can be complete within two months of sampling.

This is a multi-pronged project with four areas of focus, all working toward our eventual goal of being a Zero Waste Campus.

The largest portion of funding is going to add new recycling bins to areas north and east of the Main Quad as an expansion of the dual-bin recycling system currently used. The Main Quad bins have been very successful and this is a timely and needed expansion.

Over the last few years, the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center (ISTC) has been conducting waste audits of certain campus buildings such as the Swanlund Administration Building and the Business Instructional Facility. The second part of this proposal is supporting building-specific solutions for each of the eight buildings that were audited. Staff from ISTC will work with building stakeholders to identify how to reduce their waste, then implement the new measures.

Several other new waste streams, such as nitrile gloves and Styrofoam, have been added to campus’s waste diversion efforts recently. The third part of this proposal will employ student employees to conduct campuswide outreach with buildings on campus to improve participation in these new initiatives.

Finally, a small amount of money is being set aside for education and outreach to the campus community regarding zero waste efforts. This will largely occur via social media advertisements and digital signage, and will be developed in conjunction with SSC’s own subcommittee for marketing.

Today, Morgan Johnston met with Niharika Kishore to discuss the rooftop solar iCAP objective.  Niharika is going to review the work already done, in the iSEE solar box folder, and draft a proposal for getting the engineering design work done for a set of building.  She will be working towards meeting the FY20 on campus generation goal of 12,500 MWh/year, and possibly additional installations for FY25.

see attached report

see file

https://youtu.be/dcetof6KSXs is a link to a video interview a student did as a class project.  It features the planting project and mentions SSC, SECS, Red Bison, and CIMN among others.