The Land and Water team met on March 7th, 2025, at 9 am on Teams this month. In this week's meeting, the team discussed prairie strips, sustainable water usage on campus, milkweed plantings for pollinators, and activities to participate in this coming Arbor Day. The agenda and notes from the meeting are linked below. 

The prior annual reports were not submitted, so F&S worked to update the Bee Campus Committee members, update the Charge Letter, and submit the 2023 data.  The Xerces Society approved the 2023 Bee Campus USA report on March 5, 2023. 

The Zero Waste team met on February 28 at 1pm. Attached are the meeting minutes.

Attached is a news article titled Urbana’s Feet Hit the Streets, 1977, covering Urbana’s "Bus, Bike, and Hike Week." This was among the initial initiatives promoting alternative transportation to reduce traffic, pollution, and encourage exercise. The event included a pedestrian parade, free bus rides, a film on automobile impacts, and bike trips across Illinois. Check it out to learn more about Urbana’s historical sustainable mobility efforts.

See attached an aerial image from the construction of KCPA, 8/3/1966. An example that showcases the university's leadership in bicycle friendliness in the 50's and 60's.

Staff collected and updated data for the month of January and February on 2/26/25.  

At this past Friday's Illinii Lights Out event, 3953 light bulbs were shut off that otherwise would have been left on all weekend, saving $601.43 in energy costs. This also prevented 5.8 metric tons of CO2 equivalent from entering the atmosphere, which is equivalent to the greenhouse gas emissions from 660 gallons of gasoline being consumed. That's a huge impact!

25 lbs of common milkweed seed was dispersed by F&S Grounds. The attached pdf shows a map of places where this seed was dispersed.

Dart Container at 1505 E. Main St., Urbana, accepts expanded polystyrene (EPS), more commonly known by its brand name Styrofoam, for recycling. Departments are encouraged to take EPS there to recycle this bulky material. By doing so, we can reduce the volume of waste sent from campus to landfills and avoid the harmful environmental impacts of that practice. There is no charge to drop off EPS at Dart for recycling.

There is currently no central funding source to pay for transportion of EPS to Dart, so departments need to arrange transport independently.

The drop-off location is in a fenced-in area of the Dart parking lot and may be accessed 24 hours a day. Dart accepts foam packaging (except for packaging peanuts), foam cups, foam egg cartons, foam meat trays, foam ice chests, and other foam products that fall within these guidelines:

• Make sure foam has the #6 chasing arrows symbol on it.
• Deposit foam in a clear or translucent bag (large bags are provided at the drop-off site).
• Rinse or wipe foodservice containers free from food.
• Remove straws, lids, tape or any other non-foam material.
• Do not include foam-packaging peanuts.

From fall 2015 until summer 2017, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) ran the Styrecycle program in partnership with Community Resource Inc. (CRI). Ownership of CRI changed in July 2017, and the new owner was not able to continue the program.