Good morning friend of the Reimagine Our Future competition,

We were wondering if you would like to continue to be a part of the competition for this upcoming school year. 

If so, can you please fill out this google form?

We appreciate your support and hope you will join us for another year of this amazing competition inspiring undergrads to come up with sustainable solutions.

Thank you so much,

Allie Garlin

Reimagine Our Future Student Assistant

There is a sustainability program called "reverb" which is for music festivals.

May 2, 2023 Green Research Committee Meeting 2

Present: Mitchell Bryant, Shari Effert-Fanta, Paul Foote, Jennifer Fraterrigo, Stephanie Hess, Daphne Hulse, Maisie Kingren, Tim Mies, Lisa Moore, Jeremy Neighbors, Chad Stevens, Sabrina Summers

Absent: Morgan White

Discussion:

• Meeting with leadership on Friday (Jeremy and Stephanie)
• Discuss ideas for each team:
  
  • Team 1
    
    • Mitchell: outreach to graduate students who are disposing of waste. What can and cannot go down the sink and other waste diversion mechanism to keep it from reaching the environment.
    • Stephanie: what kind of waste?
    • Mitchell: plastic waste is an issue in itself in the laboratory. There’s a balance because some things need to be sterile.
    • Stephanie: can we repurpose any waste? Hexane for example can be used as fuel unless disposed of improperly.
    • Tim: every lab needs a point contact for lab safety. Don’t leave it to the students alone to know what they are doing.
    • Jen: you must have standard operating procedures in the lab safety binder. Students must review and sign off that they’ve read it. Also includes waste disposal.
    • Maisie: One point of contact for waste disposal and another contact for other responsibilities would be ideal.
    • Mitchell: not many people know to close the sash.
    • Stephanie: how to reach grad students? Stuff on walls becomes wallpaper eventually.
    • Mitchell: flyers at labs, fume hood posters, buildings have digital boards that scroll especially if it’s a lab building. Newsletters to reach different audiences.
    • Paul: fun competitions to promote good behavior. Pizza parties, trophies for winners. Chem Life Sciences proximity alarm for shutting the sash.
    • Jeremy: energy saving technology on ventilation systems. It would be good to establish a policy on what those systems should be helpful to know what we are getting out of it. Not necessarily energy, but the maintenance/safety side of reducing maintenance for things (duct/conduit). Lab space management - objective 2.1 in the iCAP. objective 4.1 is reduce water consumption. Adding to the chilled water is really expensive.
      
      • Paul: be a liaison between facilities on campus to know what’s going on, to coordinate, and ensure better outcomes. Nobody has a roll assigned to this.
      • Stephanie: some faculty no longer do research but still have their lab space. It may be because they think they might return in a future year. Regardless, departments need to know how many active wet labs they want to maintain. Some people are exclusively hired for outdoor lab work but still have indoor labs.
        
        • Safety issues arise when researchers are hired and have to use tiny spaces.
        • Research work is going more interdisciplinary as we go. The traditional way to manage space was to do it within facility, but some people need to share space across disciplines.
  • Team 2
    
    • My Green Lab training was very good, according to Stephanie. Could encourage grad students to do it, only an hour long.
    • Stephanie would like to composting with animal bedding.
      
      • Jen and Daphne have explored composting, but have found that Central Illinois is not there yet in terms of infrastructure needed to compost on a larger scale.
    • Daphne introduced recycling and waste management.
      
      • Currently only recycle 5 items: plastic 1 and 2, aluminum, paper, cardboard, and scrap metal.
      • There may be an opportunity to grow in our plastic 5 recycling. This is a material that seems to crop up a lot in research. Vet med is doing a small scale recycling program, and is sending their items over to ISTC.
      • Summer and fall 2023 F&S is rolling out a program to recycle paper hand towels from bathrooms and laboratories. Piloting in a few buildings this summer and upon success will roll out into more buildings. Paper towels are not heavy, but they are a source of waste in labs that can be reduced through this new program.
    • Group question - are the brown glasses for recycling, or for disposal? Stuff we don’t know about that we should explore.