P10G96449 placed at C100A.

P10H08424 outside of room 62 in the basement and P10H0843 in 163C area where the old cafe space used to be.

On June 26, 2023 Amy Fruehling, Jen Fraterrigo, and Daphne Hulse meet to follow up after initial contact with Redwood Materials

• Amy is the connector so she can stay involved if need be, but batteries are not her expertise

• Ask Stephanie Hess about DRS about battery disposal on campus is how much is recycled. See if departments have a need for this

• Collection drives would be for students, primarily, for their personal items

  • Ask Goodwill about technology collected from Dump and Run - was it a good outlet for students?

• IT would be more surplus-oriented

• Could payment be associated with batteries collected?

• Would just have to try it out and see if it’s worth it - we won't entirely know what the demand will be for the service

• ARC does battery recycling

  • Reach out about that

• Collection sites must be supervised so nothing is mixed in

• Housing or libraries as a place of disposal would be most ideal. Having it available rather than waiting on a collection drive once or twice a year, is Amy's thought

• Seema will be sending over material about how they have done collection drives in other places, so we know how it might run

• Electrical and computer engineering department

  • Specialization in batteries

  • Looking at how to create batteries with a longer life span

  • Do they have a program? Sell to students?

  • A way for iSEE to integrate campus sustainability and research, so Jen will take the first step here

• Redwood contact is an alum, co-founder is tied to Tesla - Amy notes the significance of this

  • Feels like there could be even more than just collecting batteries

• Opening up redwood materials collection to the community - because the spring electronics event is once a year in the spring, so sparse opportunity for the community/county

On June 21, 2023 Daphne Hulse and Shreya Mahajan met with Seema Nilakhe to discuss Redwood Materials and opportunity for collaboration.

• Introductions

  • Seema Nilakhe, originally from Chicago suburbs, attended U of I

  • Amy Fruehling was career counselor for Seema during her undergraduate years

  • Dabbling in environmental initiatives

  • Worked at Amazon for supply chain

  • Worked at Tesla

    • Infrastructure projects in North America

  • Wanted to work at start up so went to Redwood Materials

    • Lithium ion batteries

    • Based out of Reno, Nevada

    • Consumer partnerships is Seema’s role

  • Don’t take

    • Lead acid

    • Cadmium

    • Car batteries

• Daphne notes that the batteries Redwood would be interested in would likely come from university property, which is handled by CMS/Surplus/OBFS

  • Seema can assist with looking into this process

• Redwood process:

  • Pickup batteries with large OEMs (large car companies that make EVs)

  • Redwood picks up scrap

  • Redwood partners with Call2Recycle

  • Typically you have to pay a fee for Call2Recycle for their services (U of I may have had the service for free?)

  • Collections would be the biggest benefit for us:

    • Cell phones, laptops, smaller devices are high in cobalt and nickel and critical elements that are part of the battery

    • Larger devices would need to be checked for logistics and chemistry

    • Pricing is based on gross weight

    • Collections - don’t provide packaging but suppliers have the drums, crates, or collection mechanism to do that

    • DOT shipping guidelines (Redwood has that and can give us a sample) we have to be in compliance

    • Under 60 watt hours

    • Engineering may have drums that we could use to ship the batteries

    • Gaylords work too

  • Differences between primary and secondary batteries

    • Primaries - non-rechargables

      • Watch batteries

      • Typically lithium ion

  • Have partners which take all of the excess materials that aren’t batteries

    • Secondary - rechargeable

Next steps:

• CMS/Surplus - ask if they already recycle batteries, or need an outlet for it

• Check inventory on drums and gaylords/shipping materials - Seema will send DOT guidelines

• Event with marketing/public relations

• Bin in the Union - how do you keep people from randomly throw items in there that are not batteries? Must be supervised

• Stick to call2recycle for AA AAA alkaline

 P10G96446 C108 hallway by stairs.