Greetings Director Attalla,

The Environmental Sustainability Committee of Illinois Student Government is working on developing a solution to the increased plastic bag waste that has been generated on campus this semester. We would like to start an initiative to bring plastic bag collection locations on campus with the purpose of recycling plastic bags at an off-campus location. Myself, the committee chair Creen Ahmad, and our committee vice-chair Ari Kelo would like to organize a meeting with you and any other relevant members of the F&S team to determine how we can implement this plan.

Plastic bag use has increased greatly on campus this semester, being used in all dining halls, retail locations, and off-campus restaurants. Since these products are not easily recyclable, we feel it is important to ensure they do not begin to pollute the campus community or contaminate the current recycling chain on campus.

We hope to meet with you soon, and we look forward to hearing about your availability!

Sincerely,

Tyler Swanson

Grind2Energy: Turning Campus Food Waste into Fuel

The 49,000 students educated at the University of Illinois can generate a lot of food waste. Most of it winds up in a landfill. But for students with a dining hall plan, food waste is ultimately turned into energy, helping the campus reduce its carbon footprint.

With the "Grind2Energy" system, food scraps are ground down and ultimately run through an anaerobic digester at the Urbana-Champaign Sanitary District, producing methane that is used for fuel to power the plant. The system was installed at Florida Avenue Residence Halls last fall, and others are in the works.

"Hopefully this small piece will be part of a bigger system down the road," said Thurman Etchison, Assistant Director of Housing Dining Services for Equipment and Facilities.

SOLAR FARM LANDSCAPE BUFFER
F&S representatives shared detailed designs for the pollinator supportive landscape buffer along the future Solar Farm 2.0 site to the Village of Savoy. Village leaders were pleased with the design plans and thanked us for being responsive to their neighborly request. When completed, this site will serve as a demonstration for pollinator-friendly solar arrays, following the requirements of the Pollinator Friendly Solar Site Act (Illinois Pub. Act 100-1022). Solar Farm 2.0 will produce approximately 20,000 megawatt-hours (MWh) annually, and will generate the equivalent electricity use of more than 2,000 average American homes.

East Central Illinois Master Naturalists just formed a Pollinator Taskforce. They are focused on getting more pollinator plants into the community and planning programs associated with pollinators and pollinator plants.

The Extension team created some wonderful handouts that have native plant suggestions for 5 types of habitat. We have been handing those out like crazy. PDFs can be found at (https://extension.illinois.edu/cfiv/pollinator-pockets).

We have the pollinator pocket program (see link above)

Educational Programs held (just ECIMN, does not include programs organized by master gardener programs):

March 18, 2019 – Making Pollinator Habitat Work on the Modern Landscape

May 16, 2019 – Wildflowers

July 15, 2019 – Champaign Prairie Areas

July 22, 2019 – Buzz on Native Bees

August 19, 2019 – Illinois Monarch Project

January 27, 2020 – Native Plants in the Landscape

They just had a table at the Mudpuppy festival and had information on pollinators for children

The Master Gardener program in Vermilion County is mostly organic (unless something crazy happens). The Master Gardeners in Champaign put in a native pollinator garden last year at the IDEA garden on campus.

In the training for MG and MN we talk about pollinators, native plants, and pest management.