At Friday's Illini Lights Out event, 4070 light bulbs were shut off that otherwise would have been left on all weekend, saving $619 in energy costs. This also prevented 4.9 metric tons of CO2 equivalent from entering the atmosphere, which is equivalent to the greenhouse gas emissions from 552 gallons of gasoline being consumed. That's a huge impact!

Michael McKelvey, Miriam Keep, and Morgan White met to finalize the discussion of how to structure iCAP Recommendations. We came to an agreement on the structure which we diagrammed online. Recommendations will be patterned after Metrics. If a Recommendation update warrants a Project Update, that will need to be added manually; it will not happen automatically with this approach.

Summary of structure:

• A Recommendation can be associated with a Project and an Objective and contains some additional general information
• A Recommendation can have many "tracking" updates including at least a status, date, and some notes

Detailed structure:

• iCAP Team
  • Title
  • Description
  • Theme [references one of our 10 themes, optional]
• Recommendation
  • Title
  • iCAP Team [references an iCAP Team]
  • Supplanted by [references another Recommendation, optional]
  • Associated Project(s) [references a Project, optional]
  • Objective [references an iCAP Objective, optional]
  • Description / "Specific actions/policy recommendations"
• Recommendation Tracking
  • Title
  • Recommendation [references a Recommendation]
  • Description
  • Date (M/D/Y field)
  • Status (dropdown list)
  • Internal Notes
  • Public File(s)
  • Private File(s)
  • Next step (dropdown list)
  • Next step due date (M/D/Y field)

Additionally, we do not plan to use the iCAP Portal to collect Recommendation feedback - a shared Word Doc on Teams is more conducive to this process. Certain fields in a recommendation will be added to the iCAP Portal Recommendation, and the uploaded document will contain more details, including comments.

I have attached files for the digital sign and the posters. I will get our marketing staff to add the digital sign to our boards in the next couple weeks, and I have asked them to add it to a future issue of Housing Insider. We already talked about the hall posters, but the larger foam board signs you can also bring to me and I will get them delivered to the halls. To cover all the halls we will need 20. I have seen them produced with the a build in fold out stand on the back, which would make it really easy to place in the halls as opposed to having to get a easel for each sign. But we can make either work.

Let me know if you have any questions or thoughts on the design.

BRYAN JOHNSON

Hi Bryan,

Thank you for sending these over! I wanted to follow up with a couple of items:

• I just got notice from University YMCA that we should include the ampersand as opposed to “and,” as well as the used of ® after the name, because YMCA received approval for trademarking. Would it be possible to revise what was created with this new info?
• Are there standard dimensions for the foam board signs? This isn’t something F&S created last year, so just want to make sure I understand the product we are talking about. Is this something that Housing communications would be able to assist with?

Thank you,

Daphne

The marketing person who typically orders the poster board signs is out of the office today, but she is expected back tomorrow. She is supposed to get me an answer on how we can get them produced when she returns. Until then, here are updated creatives with the suggestions you provided. Let me know if these look good.

BRYAN JOHNSON

Daphne, thank you so much for your efforts to wrangle the various building representatives! Did you happen to get a response from the Illini Union yet? Looking through the other polls, it seems as if someone from all the other buildings would be available for walkthroughs on either September 11th or 12th, so if the Union is available on either of those days, we’d like to go ahead and start scheduling appointments for those two days. Having all the walkthroughs on two consecutive days will minimize travel for Zach, who will be coming down from Chicago to participate. If the Union simply isn’t available either day, we’ll just schedule a time after the 12th and plan for me to handle that without Zach.

Speaking of scheduling, might I suggest that we go ahead and plan to conduct the building audits during the third week of October (16th-20th)? Looking at the academic calendar, there doesn’t seem to be a reason for that week to problematic in terms of student volunteer availability. I know maintenance of Memorial Stadium is the responsibility of DIA, not F&S, but I did check the football schedule too. There’s a game on Saturday the 21st, which also happens to be homecoming. If for some reason that makes you think it would be best to avoid audit activities on Friday the 20th, we could alternatively conduct the audits during the fourth week of October (23rd-27th). That week doesn’t seem to have any conflicts with the academic calendar or football schedule. I know it’s still a few months away, but because Zach and Savannah both will be traveling to Champaign for the audits, the sooner we settle on a week, the easier it will be to plan travel and other details leading up to the audits. If you have a preference for the third or fourth week in October based on F&S staffing and schedules, please let us know.

Thanks for your comments on the draft sorting categories! I read through them and accordingly made some slight changes to sorting category descriptions; see the attached file. I also replied to some of your comments or edited a few of the plastic-related categories, explaining my reasoning in the comments. I think this is in good shape! Just let us know if you have additional questions or suggestions.

Thanks so much, and good luck navigating move-in this week!

Joy

Hi Daphne! Thanks again to you and Pete for taking time to review the preliminary audit data with us yesterday. As you have time to digest all of that, please let us know if you have any questions. We look forward to the FY 2023 tonnage stats for landfilled waste, commodities recycled, and the updated effective diversion rate calculations to include in the report. As promised, I wanted to follow up with some questions our team has as we work on the report:

• How many campus buildings have at least one MaxR bin? https://icap.sustainability.illinois.edu/metric/buildings-new-waste-bins says 63, but https://sustainability.illinois.edu/icap-update-toward-a-zero-waste-campus/ indicates number is 64. 64 is correct; I had yet to update the number on the iCAP portal by 1!
• Does campus still send waste to Brickyard Disposal and Recycling, Inc., and is methane capture still happening at that landfill? We plan to note this in our report, as well as the life expectancy of that landfill (18 yrs.), based on IEPA info. No, our current contract with Green For Life (GFL) is with the Clinton, IL landfill which does not have methane capture.
• Regarding destinations for recyclables (previously shared by F&S):
  
  • Does F&S take scrap metal to Mack’s Twin City Recycling in Urbana, or Mervis? I know I’ve heard this before but both company names begin with “M” and they’re both in Urbana, so I want to make sure I’m not mixing them up. Mervis is who we use for our scrap metal.
  • Graphic Packaging in Battle Creek, MI was on the list of destinations for cardboard collected on campus. However, that location seems to have been closed (see https://wwmt.com/news/local/battle-creek-graphic-packaging-mill-closes-friday-employees-plant-expansion). Is cardboard still sent to Graphic Packaging, and if so, which location? Good question. I sent an inquiry to our GFL rep who directly works with the mill buyers/brokers who take our recyclables. I will follow up with his response.
  • Novelis in Atlanta, GA was listed as a destination for aluminum, but looking at their website, that seems to be their corporate HQ. Can we confirm the destination location for Novelis? Working on receiving confirmation!
• Clarifying current practices
  
  • All auxiliary units coordinate their own BSWs, correct? I know Housing, the Union, and Campus Rec do, but wanted to confirm this is true for other auxiliaries not included in the study. This is correct. Every auxiliary on campus has their own BSWs.
  • Are there any buildings on campus where cardboard is still being placed in the landfill dumpster as standard procedure, to be picked out later at the WTS, or is it the case that all buildings either have a cardboard dumpster or toters for cardboard collection? Yes, this is correct. If the carboard is grouped together and visible in the landfill dumpster, it can pretty easily be grabbed out when it is dumped at WTS. Similarly, are there any buildings on campus with such limited dock space that blue bags of recyclables are being put into the landfill dumpster for later recovery at the WTS? Yes, this does occur because of the limited dock space. In other words, are there buildings without adequate dock space even for toters for recyclables? I believe that was true in the past but want to confirm whether that is happening at all on campus as we work on process flow diagrams. Improvements are being made during new capital builds to include the perspective of waste management (BSWs, truck drivers) in the design process for buildings. We continually face the challenge that there is inadequate space outside of buildings to place more than 1 dumpster. This situation further emphasizes the need for correct color-coding of the bags.
  • When considering the “acceptable” materials list for paper bins, does “Office Paper: All Types” include shredded paper? I assume so but wanted to confirm. Yes, it includes shredded paper.
• We currently have the following items highlighted under “Current Campus Waste Reduction & Diversion Initiatives” in the draft report:
  
  • WTS Tours https://fs.web.illinois.edu/Insider/2022/08/19/tours-bring-reality-to-campus-waste-and-recycling/
  • Grind2Energy
  • Bin Standardization (Indoor & Outdoor)
  • Dump & Run  https://fs.illinois.edu/News/dump-and-run-expands-to-multiple-campus-locations/
  • Don’t Waste Campaign with Coca-Cola
    
    • Welcome Celebration Recycling https://icap.sustainability.illinois.edu/project-updates/8721
    • Fighting Illini, Fighting Waste
      
      • Basketball Game Recycling https://dailyillini.com/news-stories/around-campus/campus-life/2022/11/17/fighting-illini-fighting-waste/
      • Tailgate Recycling https://fs.web.illinois.edu/Insider/2023/09/29/illini-football-tailgate-recycling-event/ & https://newschannel20.com/news/local/university-of-illinois-promotes-sustainability-with-tailgate-recycle-event

Please confirm that we should also add:

• Recyclopedia Confirmed, let’s add!
• Pilot transition to new paper towel dispensers (which will help reduce paper towel waste) Confirmed, let’s add!
  
  • 17 buildings transitioned to the new paper towel dispensers over the holiday break (December 2023 – January 2024). The Building Services team is slated to transition another clockstation or two during the summer break (June 2024 – July 2024), transitioning an additional 40-60 buildings to the new dispensers.
• Anything else? Should we highlight LeanPath or other efforts related to organics (e.g. exploration of anaerobic digestion) given the amount of food scraps being sent to landfill?
• If you could point us to relevant iCAP or other online information on additional programs to highlight, and/or provide suggested blurbs, we’d appreciate it!
  
  • Other initiatives to consider including:
    
    • Provost-approved purchase of a $1.65M new recycling baler system. Joy already came across this news: https://fs.web.illinois.edu/Insider/2023/09/29/incoming-new-and-improved-baler/
      
      • This will be a sole-source contract. We attempted a competitive bidding process that failed, so we are moving forward with working with Harris Baler directly.
      • We have experienced a lot of issues with our current baler. A new baler will significantly improve the amount of unexpected down time that we see with our current baler.
    • Along with the paper towel dispensers, F&S is revamping its cleaning process to achieve LEED and WELL green cleaning certifications in the buildings it services. The transition started this past summer with five facilities. The transition across more buildings will continue to take place: https://fs.web.illinois.edu/Insider/2023/09/18/adapting-building-services-new-custodial-operations/
    • When the waste of a building is not contracted out during a construction & demolition project, F&S takes special care to recycle as much of the debris as possible. Undergrad library example: https://fs.web.illinois.edu/Insider/2023/03/16/big-blue-new-crane-acquired-to-use-on-ugl-renovation/
    • Early research into AI / robotic sorting. Joy, let me know your thoughts on including this? The research hasn’t started, but funding from both iSEE and SSC has been awarded to Nishant’s project.  https://sustainability.illinois.edu/isee-seed-funds-2-new-projects/ F&S recognizes that it will not be able to rely on DSC sort-line workers forever, and has started preliminary conversations with companies that retrofit MRFs for automated sorting.

Thanks in advance!

Joy

Hi Joy,

Please see in red the responses to your questions in your previous email. Let me know if anything needs more clarification. I will follow up on the questions I didn’t immediately have an answer for. Recyclopedia will eventually be a webpage on the F&S website but for now I have the drafted word doc form to share.

Question for you all – we have started up conversations with Tork/Essity for paper towel recycling in light of the preliminary results you shared with us last week. It’s a very telling story that paper towel recycling would be hugely beneficial for a campus that so heavily relies on the material. Would it be okay with you all for us to share the data with them/the drafted report you walked Pete and me through?

Thank you,

Daphne

Here’s a link to the Recyclopedia test site for everyone to look over to make sure everything’s good before we make it live. https://azuretest.fs.illinois.edu/RecyclopediaSearch/

Just a couple of quick, initial feedback items on this…

If this will be a stand-alone page then it would benefit from at least a short executive summary – what is Recyclopedia about/goals -  and primary image (assuming this structure will be the case for populating the responses from search).  Then we would want to tether all the related pages to it as well to establish that incorporated page flow.

If you do not return a hit on a search, we should have some type of default contact information that encourages outreach through email if there are remaining questions (instead of just “no results”)

I would like to see the full list because I wasn’t able to find a few items I thought would be included (e.g., gloves). Overall, it seemed to work well and I was able to find information for most of what I searched for.  It would be nice if search data was captured to determine if new sections need to be created.

I have more suggestions, but just a few highlights:

• The phone numbers are not to our style and would need to be redone to xxx-xxx-xxxx.
• Use of related links, etc. should help use reduce the need for us to have to constantly use hyperlinks in the text body (e.g., work request, Service Office)
  
  • Should be a way to aggregate the main potential contacts and avoid redundant links (keep specific ones)
    
    • Or maybe build in a new section on this page specifically to address this issue – a floating footer (would take care of a majority of the links to just do WTS, DRS, etc.

Nice job, this will be a good resource and something that we can definitely help to rollout in the future. Let me know if you want to discuss this further.

Steve B.