Glass recycling finds funding on campus

MARK CAPAPAS

Recycling and trash bins lie near the west courtyard of the Union on Wednesday. The University offers more than 3,000 recycling bins around campus including glass deposits.

BY LUIS VELAZQUEZ, STAFF WRITER
OCTOBER 10, 2019

A glass recycling bin located in the Illini Union Courtyard surprised associate director of Facilities and Services for Sustainability Morgan White because she thought the University does not partake in recycling glass. Although many bins around campus only have places for plastic, paper, cardboard and scrap metal to be recycled, the University Housing Dining Services still funds glass recycling.

More than 3,000 recycling bins are available throughout campus in dorms, as well as public facilities where plastic bottles, paper, cardboard and scrap metal can be recycled. 

“A few times in the past 30 years, we have reviewed the materials that go through the F&S Waste Transfer Station, and we found that there is a very small amount of glass,” White said in an email. “Recently, Waste Characterization Studies were done for (eight) buildings on campus, measuring the exact amount of waste materials produced by each of those buildings.”

According to White, Dave Guth, interim senior associate director of operations at the Illini Union, said, “This is probably one of the last remaining fiberglass bins we have in the building. The old containers had a separate stream for glass bottles and aluminum cans/plastic bottles.”

White said although small amounts of glass come from campus buildings, the University Housing’s Dining Services have chosen to fund glass recycling.

According to the Waste Management and Recycling website, “The University ‘diverts about 30% of its waste from landfills.’”

With help from the F+S Waste Management Department, the University is aiming to reach its goal of reducing the total amount of waste sent to landfills. The University’s objective is to obtain a Zero Waste Campus environment, as indicated in the Illinois Climate Action Plan.

The Waste Transfer Station, a facility for recycling goods, operates daily compacting and shipping trash to a landfill. However, the recyclables that come from campus are manually sorted and deposited into storage bins. After being compressed in a different bin, they are sold to recycling companies.

Nichole Millage, environmental sustainability specialist for the City of Champaign Public Works Department, said the city offers glass recycling, but does not actually collect or process trash. This job is done by other companies, such as private solid waste haulers.

“The City manages a multifamily recycling program (Feed the Thing), but the pick-up services are contracted to a private hauler (Midwest Fiber Recycling in Urbana),” Millage said in an email. “Per City Code, all licensed residential solid waste haulers in the City of Champaign are required to accept glass for recycling from residents.”

Lesly Ortega, sophomore in LAS, said she believes since the University does not tell students to recycle, the majority do not properly recycle trash. However, Ortega is glad the University offers this option in general.

“I feel like glass is used a lot more now,” Ortega said. “A lot of the refreshments sold in vending machines or in stores are accompanied with glass, so instead of it being thrown away, it should be recycled.”

Attached are the meeting minutes for the Zero Waste SWATeam meeting on 15 October 2019, as well as a document referenced within the document.

The team discussed the current structure of the conversations around 2020 iCAP renewal and whether that would be the most efficient (in terms of both impact and timeframe) manner to create new objectives.

All, We’ve slowed down enough to offer the First Visit Free option again, which has its plusses and minuses but is at least consistent with our website/literature on the topic.

Last week we had our Bike Maintenance 101 class. Three attendees came, despite the cold and rain, so that was awesome. I think all of them had issues with their own bikes that precipitated their interest in the class and two of them said they’d be back to fix their bikes. A success!
One bike was on the donation rack this morning. Another small bike but of good quality that’ll hopefully fix up quickly.
I got in touch with someone from the Fine and Applied Arts to see if there’s any interest in using some of our scrap metal to keep it out of the dump but that was a dead end. I’ll still try to think of ways to keep our scrap pile a little smaller since we’re frequently at-or-beyond capacity. I think overall, we don’t have enough venues through which to repurpose a bicycle beyond B-a-B and Shop Builds. Something to think about.
This week if we’re slow I’ll have the student staff do a deep dive on our used parts inventory to get a better picture of just how many bike parts we’re storing here. Additionally, we have our What to Wear info session at ARC on Thursday evening from 7 – 8p.

The numbers:
Visitors: 82
Sales: $677.75
Memberships: 14 for $420
Tire/tubes: 14 for $79

Thanks!

Jacob Benjamin
Manager, Campus Bike Center

see attached file.

Attached are the minutes from the Transportation SWATeam meeting on 10 October. Discussed were the iCAP 2020 objectives, reflections on iCAP 2015 objectives, and facing the biggest issue with the obejctives: Metrics.

This meeting is open to anyone on campus interested in supporting local pollinators.

We are meeting tomorrow from 1:30-2:30 at F&S with both advisors and students from the Bee Campus USA committee.  Chantelle sent the invite, but there are more people than can fit in the room she sent, so please join us in the Garage and Car Pool building conference room.  This is in the building at the southwest corner of Oak and Kirby. 

Our agenda is as follows:

• Overview of the Bee Campus USA 2018 submitted plan (attached)
• review the draft signage for small Bee Campus USA signs and proposed placement (attached)
• discuss a student project related to future expansion of the Pollinatarium, with guest Namita Johri
• review annual renewal requirements (see attached)

Attached are the meeting minutes from the Zero Waste meeting on 8 October 2019. Once again, iCAP 2020 objectives were discussed; specifically, sustainable procurement (discussion led by Aaron Finder) took up the bulk of the meeting, with reuse of surplus goods taking up the last part. 

Tristan Pisarczyk connected Sarthak Prasad with Jenna Fesemyer, the Resident Director, at Newman Hall. Jenna said that she does not believe that this is a service that their residents need. She said that this program would serve better towards the beginning of the school year.

Jenna suggested that we should wait for the next academic year to put on a program during an earlier time.