In July 2018, BER student volunteers identified contacts for about 15 departments that purchase significant quantities of nitrile gloves but do not currenty participate in the glove recycling program. In the fall, volunteers will follow up with the contacts to inquire about interest in participation.

The current Bee Campus committee at the U of I is working to develop a University Habitat Plan and official web page this semester (Spring 2018). In addition, with funding from the SSC, we will be installing pollinator signage on campus this year. A goal is set to submit our first application for certification by June 2018.

On May 14, 2018, Marya Ryan added a PDF with instructions for program participants to drop off gloves at PPSB.

SSC approved a $200 micro grant to Eco-Olympics for digital signage in the residential halls. These signs will display progress and energy savings.

"Eco-Olympics is an energy saving competition between the dorms. Residents sign up for teams which then participate in activities led by hall captains to earn points. Energy use also translates into points, and less energy used means more points. At the end of the three week competition, the team with the most points is declared the winner and members of that team receive a prize."

The campus recognizes that we need to support the pollinator population on campus.  Potential solutions include creating "Pollinator Pockets" in strategic locations throughout the campus grounds, and encouraging the use of native plants in appropriate landscape locations.

The F&S Landscape Architect is working with campus stakeholders and subject matter experts to develop sustainable landscape solutions that support pollinator populations.

Matt Turino at the Sustainable Student Farm provided this overview of the food waste handling / transportation related to the Vermicompost project.

"So we only collected Pre-consumer waste from Busey-Evans so only the things that were cut off the usuable parts of vegetables and fruits.  We had special  30 gallon trash cans that only existed in the kitchen of the Busey-Evans so there was almost never other kinds of trash.  If we saw some while handling we would remove it but we did not need to sort it.

We had no packaging or animal products in the compost.

We used a pick up truck to transport the containers and we did not have a good way to load these.  We often had to lift 50-90 lb trash containers up into the truck bed, and us not having the correct equipment contributed to it not being a sustainable program for us.  The waste was extremely wet and so something that made it tricky to handle and and to transport.  We were using leaves from U of I landscaping for the Brown material.

I did not track the cost of our transportation because we would often drop our produce off and pick up the waste on the same trip.  We were driving a pickup truck about 3 miles per trip 2-3 times a week.  We were picking up between 60-100 gallons of food waste per week during the semester. 

Also we were using a vermi-compost unit which was not the most effective system for this, if you wanted to do a composting set up I would recommend a larger windrow set up."

Krannert Art Museum started participating in the glove recycling program in the fall of 2017. The location was added to the map of participating locations on Feb. 4, 2018.