Minutes from the Purchasing, Waste, and Recycling SWATeam on May 9, 2016.  The meeting covered several topics, and was the last meeting with Bart Bartels in attendance.

The Sustainable Student Farm (SSF), has been growing sustainably produced vegetables for the U of I campus community since 2009. Since 2012, Fresh Press (FP) has been producing paper from agricultural waste like soybean stalks and prairie grass, including much of the waste from SSF.

This project deepens the connection between SSF and Fresh Press while expanding their offerings to the community. In addition to expanding the current paper production, this project will also allow for the creation of a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program at the Sustainable Student Farm, increasing the farm’s ability to sustain itself financially. Through employing students while selling their products to the campus and the community, this proposal ultimately truly creates a circular and sustainable economy on campus while furthering campus sustainability goals.

The Sustainable Student Farm currently grows numerous varieties of hot chilies, but demand is often lacking in the dining halls over the summer and excess crops are simply composted. One option to help reduce this waste is adding fermentation capabilities to the current Sustainable Agriculture Food Systems to create hot sauce for the dining halls. One especially exciting aspect of this project is that the student body itself will have the opportunity to create different blends of sauces, with the winner of the taste test becoming the official hot sauce for the semester.

While this equipment will initially be used to create campus’s hot sauce, it can also be used in the future to create products ranging from sauerkraut and pickles to soy sauce and kombucha.

Fume hoods are one of the largest sources of wasted energy in laboratories because of inefficiencies in fume hood use. This proposal specifically funds a Fume Hood Energy Conservation Pilot Project in the National Soybean Research Center (NSRC), in which ways to reduce fume hood energy waste through behavioral interventions will be explored.

Small changes in behavior such as keeping hoods closed when not in use can have large impacts on energy conservation, but behavioral changes can be difficult to achieve. This project adapts Harvard University’s highly successful “Shut the Sash” program to the particular needs of Labs in NSRC, first by working closely with “early adopters” — labs that are actively interested in reducing fume hood energy use — to develop protocols, reminders, and reinforcement/tracking systems that help reduce fume hood-associated energy waste, and then by reaching out to other labs in NSRC. The long-term project goals are to make NSRC a model for the campus in fume hood energy conservation, and to develop an approach to fume hood energy conservation which can be readily applied to other labs and buildings on campus.

The Illini Gadget Garage is an initiative to provide University of Illinois students, faculty, and staff a place to bring their personal electronic devices for assistance with assessment and repair. Using the same “collaborative repair” model employed at the campus bike shop and MakerSpace Urbana, clients with devices in need of repair or troubleshooting can work together with Gadget Garage student staff and volunteers to perform the necessary device assessment and maintenance activities.

SSC initially funded this project in Fiscal Year 2015, contingent on a permanent site being established. A permanent location has been selected and partially renovated; however, in order to meet the accessibility requirements for final occupancy, additional construction is required.

This proposal directly funds the construction cost from skilled trades to add ramp access and other code requirements to the Gadget Garage’s permanent location to allow for general occupancy.

The Illinois Biodiesel Initiative (IBI) is a registered student organization whose primary mission is to produce biodiesel and soap from waste vegetable oil (WVO) collected from campus dining halls. The Student Sustainability Committee initially voted to fund the Illinois Biodiesel Initiative during its 2012-13 funding cycle; however, due IBI being forced out of their old site at the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center, SSC funding was put on hold. While they wait for their permanent site in the Integrated Bioprocessing Research Laboratory, IBI is currently running scaled-down production in a space in Roger Adams Laboratory.

This project helps IBI to rebuild production up to previous levels at the ISTC, where they were self-funding. An infusion of funding over the next year is critical to allow the IBI to grow and develop into a self-funding organization.

Agreements are already in place with Campus Fleet and Campus Dining for the sale of biodiesel and soap, respectively.

Campus currently gives out tens of thousands of single-use plastic bags every year through its retail operations, including more than 50,000 each year at the Illini Union Bookstore alone. This proposal seeks to address waste by offering reusable bags via a partnership with on-campus traditions and university-affiliated retailers.

Approximately 20,000 bags will be supplied to students alongside an educational campaign about the impact of bag waste. The combination of replacing plastic bags with cloth reusable ones and an educational campaign to ensure reuse is projected to save hundreds of gallons of oil and thousands of pounds of CO2 emissions.

The Sonified Sustainability Festival provides a new way for sustainability to intersect with campus – through the arts. The 2016 Sonified Sustainability Festival, funded in part by SSC, was developed as a 2016 Earth Week kick-off event focusing on sustainable practices in the arts featuring live music, interactive art making, and information fair to provide greater visibility of local projects, programs and organizations working towards a sustainable future. National and local musicians performing on original instruments made from recycled and repurposed materials were showcased at the Earth Week event, as well as two prior events at the Krannert Art Museum

The goals and outcomes of the next year of the festival will be similar, while expanding on the successes of the past. The events will encompass a series of music and arts programs spanning the 2016-17 academic year. The culmination is an Earth week event at the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts that features a mix of live music, art making and information fair promoting campus-based and local organizations engaged with sustainability projects.

This project allows campus to process wheat and oats grown on several of the UIUC campus farms into a finished flour product that will be utilized in the UIUC Campus Dining Halls. There are currently ~20 acres of ground planted in wheat/oats on the Urbana campus as part of large breeding program, and many more acres available off of the direct Urbana campus. Additionally, the University has significant acreage on campus that could be converted to grain production if needed.

Each acre of wheat produces 40-80 bushels of grain (2400-4800 lbs) depending on variety, producing up to ~4000 typical loaves of bread. The varieties of flour can be used to produce a number of products (bread, pastries, cakes, pasta, biscuits, etc.). One of the more exciting possibilities is making pizza dough to combine with the pizza sauce project already running, bringing campus dining very near an entirely locally produced pizza product.