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  1. SSLC Executive Board Applications

    Associated Project(s): 
    Student Sustainability Leadership Council (SSLC)

    Below is an email from Jack Reicherts regarding SSLC Executive Board Applications.

     

    Ahoy mateys!

    I hope this message finds ye well after our SSLC meeting on Monday. I wanted to take a moment to thank all those who were able to attend and make the meeting a success. We had a jolly good time discussing some important and exciting updates for the SSLC.

    For those who missed the meeting, we discussed the upcoming Sustainability Career Panel on February 15th from 5:30 - 7:30 pm at the Campus Instructional Facility in Room 2035. We also talked about an opportunity to view a screening of the documentary "The Magic Stump" on 2/19, put on by Grand Prairie Friends and several other community groups  (We will arrange carpool (shippool?) next week, RSVP here: https://www.grandprairiefriends.org/events/the-magic-stump-bird-documentary-screening-conservation-reception). Additionally, we discussed a letter writing event on March 9th in collaboration with the Citizens Utility Board.

    We also went over the process for applying to be a co-president of the SSLC, which includes a short application and an interview. Here's a short blurb if you want to promote this opportunity to your members, which I encourage you to do!

    "Apply to be considered as a Co-President of the Student Sustainability Leadership Council (SSLC) and make a difference on campus! The SSLC is a student-led organization that brings together the leaders of campus sustainability and environmentalist student groups to collaborate and drive positive change. Exec board responsibilities include overseeing sustainability programming, planning meetings with member organizations, and serving as a liaison between the student body and the campus administration. The time commitment is estimated at 2-3 hours per week on average.

    To apply, fill out this form (https://forms.gle/uGhFA3SYpHFTF4Nt5).  We collect your basic information, a short statement of purpose, and an endorsement from the leader of your respective sustainability organization. After submitting your application before the February 25th deadline, you will be contacted for a short interview. Any questions, comments, or concerns may be directed to sslc-chair@mx.uillinois.edu"

    Lastly, we talked about our plans for Earth Month, including Green Quad Day on 4/21, a Tuesday Talk by Citizens Utility Board on April 25th with free meals for the first five attendees, and the Sustainability "Greenies" (Awaiting official approval on this name lol).

    I also want to give a hearty shout out to all of our member organizations for providing us with some great updates. And remember, anyone is encouraged to use our listserv and Discord to promote any upcoming opportunities from their groups.

    Thank ye again for yer attendance and contributions to the meeting. I look forward to seeing ye at our next gathering. Hit me up if you have questions, comments, concerns, or a treasure map.

    Fair winds,
    Jack Reicherts, Pirate Co-Captain of the SSLC.

    Arrrr! 

  3. Town and gown volunteer partners

    Associated Project(s): 
    Dump and Run

    As of February 7, Champaign County Forest Preserve, Champaign County Master Naturalists, and the Rotary Club of Champaign have expressed support for the initiative and will advertise the volunteer opportunity to their respective communities come April/May.

  4. Meetings with Merci's Refuge + Goodwill Land of Lincoln + Salt & Light

    Associated Project(s): 
    Dump and Run

    On February 7, Daphne Hulse met with Nate Himes (Director of Counseling Ministries) at Merci's Refuge and Tom King (Director of Logistics) + Wally Proenza (VP Retail Operations) at Goodwill Land of Lincoln to discuss donation logistics. On February 13, Daphne will meet with Lisa Sheltra (Director of Community Engagement) + Mike Jenkins (Director of Retail Operations) at Salt & Light.

  5. 2-6-23 Internal Meeting

    Associated Project(s): 
    "Don't Waste" with Coca-Cola
    Fighting Illini, Fighting Waste
    Green Sports Alliance (GSA)
    Tailgate Recycling

    On February 6, UIUC sustainability representatives met and discussed the following:

    Attendance: Bryan Johnson, Steve Breitwieser, Julie Wurth, Shawn Patterson, Dominika Szal, Travis Tate, Jen Fraterrigo, Thurman Etchison, Pete Varney, Tony Mancuso, Daphne Hulse

    Agenda:

    1. Housing/Dining: #Don’tWasteWednesday

      1. Housing is prepared for their post on Wednesday.

    2. Housing/Dining: Glass hauling to Midwest Fiber

      1. Thurman reported that Dining does not pay to dispose of (recycle) their glass at Midwest Fiber.

        Tailgate recycling Fall 2023 - exploring glass recycling.

      2. Dominika will follow up with Midwest Fiber.

    3. iSEE: Basketball volunteer sign-up timeline

      1. Daphne to create the sheet, iSEE/Eric to send out/promote.

      2. Volunteer numbers:

        1. 15 sign up spots for 5:00pm-6:30pm (set up, advertisement to those entering)

        2. 35 sign up spots for 6:30pm - 8:00pm (half-time collection, t-shirt giveaway)

        3. 50 sign up spots for 8:00pm - 9:30pm (end-game collection, arena collection, tear down)

    4. iSEE: Earth Week/Month programming - interns/Tony/Eric Green

      1. Office Supplies Collection - check on timing of this. Already a lot is planned!

        1. Bypass Surplus: <$100, no p-tag - loop in Steve Breitwieser/Travis Tate into this conversation.

        2. “Take it or leave it,” allow students, faculty, staff, to take and leave items, donate excess office supplies to local schools.

      2. Arbor Day & Tree Planting - ?

      3. Trash Pick-Up - iSEE interns looking into this.

    5. F&S CRC: F&S basketball communications strategy

      1. Digital signboards across campus - Coca-Cola to provide a digital sign.

      2. Eweek, GradLinks, iNews posts

      3. Other recommendations?

        1. Outreach to media (recap of previous game, segue into long-term direction).

          1. Daphne to send info to Steve.

          2. Jen: Tim Knox says single-ticket and season-ticket holders receive information. Can we raise visibility of this event to them? Highlight reusable bottle policy. Daphne + Jen to work with Marty + Tim.

    6. Group feedback: Game day posters design

      1. Consistent branding with the digital signboards.

      2. Communicate the primary objective of the event.

        1. Feedback

          1. Reduce sponsorship size - remove F&S and iSEE change to general university, move to bottom

          2. Increase size of text, remove “with us,” consider removing “Bottles & Cans”

          3. Increase the size of recycling logo

    7. Group feedback: Post-game survey

      1. Did you notice that this was a recycling-focused game? YES/NO

      2. Did you know State Farm Center recycles bottles and cans? YES/NO

      3. Did you recycle your cans and/or bottles at this game? YES/NO/I HAD NO RECYCLABLES

      4. Would you like to see more recycling initiatives at State Farm Center? YES/NO

      5. Can we use this as a vehicle for messaging re: reusable bottles?

        1. Did you know you can bring your own clear, reusable bottle to [check DIA language] athletic events? YES/NO

     

  6. Weekly Update: steady week

    Associated Project(s): 
    Campus Bike Center

    All, Steady week. Had a few new staffers start, held a staff meeting—some good ideas batted around!—and got a couple bikes safety inspected and ready for the sales floor. Still about a dozen bikes that are student-level “finished”.

    This week is another round of interviews as we bolster our team for expanding hours and programming this spring/summer. I’ll also move a few forgotten steeds over here from the land of the abandoned bikes.

    The numbers:

    Visitors: 24
    Sales: $151
    Memberships: 1 for $30

    Thanks!

    Jacob Benjamin
    Campus Bike Center Coordinator

  7. Donation partners

    Associated Project(s): 
    Dump and Run

    As of February 6, Daily Bread Soup Kitchen, Merci's Refuge, Salt & Light, Goodwill, and Habitat for Humanity ReStore have all expressed interest in exploring a donation partnership for Dump & Run.

  11. Illini Oak-Hickory Teaching Arboretum StoryMap

    Associated Project(s): 
    Tree Campus Higher Education

    Jay Hayek, Extension Forestry Specialist, compiled all the information and effort for the 1.5-acre oak-hickory teaching arboretum. The story map below contains information on the two phases of planting and great pictures of the volunteers that contributed. In addition to the story map, there is an attached Excel spreadsheet detailing the exact species in their respective plots. 

     

    ArcGIS StoryMap: https://go.illinois.edu/oak-hickory-arboretum

     

     

    Attached Files: 

  15. January 27, 2023

    Associated Project(s): 
    Illini Lights Out

    At last Friday's Illini Lights Out event, 5,043 light bulbs were shut off that otherwise would have been left on all weekend, saving $767.27 in energy costs. This also prevented 6.17 metric tons of CO2 equivalent from entering the atmosphere, which is equivalent to the greenhouse gas emissions from 694 gallons of gasoline being consumed. That's a huge impact!

    The next Illini Lights Out event is on Friday, February 10th, and you can sign up using this link. Stay up to date with other sustainability-related events and news by signing up for the Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment (iSEE) newsletter here!

    Illini Lights Out addresses objectives 2.2 and 2.2.2 of the iCAP, or Illinois Climate Action Plan, to increase energy efficiency and reduce building-level energy. Find out about other iCAP objectives here and read the entire iCAP here.

    Illini Lights Out is a certified Green Event! Click this link to learn how to green-certify your own event.

  19. BTAF Waste Affinity Group asks schools to input their answers into a spreadsheet

    Associated Project(s): 
    Big Ten & Friends Sustainability
    Achieve Zero Waste

    Good morning BTAF,

     Hope everyone’s year is off to a good start!

    At the last BTAF Waste Affinity group meeting in October, the group members shared many exciting initiatives and programs related to recycling and waste diversion. Over the past few months, a working group has developed a comprehensive benchmarking survey to facilitate knowledge sharing and to organize program information. So, now we need your participation in the Waste Survey [redacted].

     At the suggestion of Nicole Berg, a google spreadsheet format was chosen for ease of use, as well as the ability to update the survey each year. In the link, you’ll find two tabs on the survey:

    1. Waste Survey: Broad swath of questions related to Zero Waste and Recycling, including strategic planning, outreach, waste management operational processes, waste metric tracking, procurement, athletics, organics, medicine/research labs, and surplus. This an “everything and the kitchen sink” approach to enable comparative analysis.  
    2. Diversion Rate Methodology: One question that continues to bubble up from time to time is, “What do you include in your diversion rate?” This survey tab requests that you mark a “x” next to each category that is included as diversion in your annual diversion rate report.   

     Three schools have already filled out the survey, so our hope is that it’s intuitive to follow along and to input your school’s information. If you have any clarifying questions, feel free to shoot me an email. We ask that each school completes the survey by Friday, February 13th.

     Once the data is collected, an intern will compile the data, and we will share the results in another BTAF Waste Affinity Group meeting at a date TBD—probably in March.

     Shout out to the team, including Tony Gillund (Purdue), Patrick Brown (Purdue), Daphne Hulse (Illinois), Dominika Szal (Illinois-intern), Nicole Berg (Michigan), and Alison Richardson (Michigan).

    Mary

     

    Mary Leciejewski
    Zero Waste Manager

    Pronouns: She/Her/Hers 

    Facilities Operations and Development, Sustainability & Strategic Services
    1130 Service Building Annex | 2578 Kenny Road, Columbus, OH 43210
    (O) 614.292.3637
    fod.osu.edu/sustainability

  20. Matt Fancher planning to make alterations to the format and layout

    Associated Project(s): 
    Recyclopedia

    From: Fancher, Matthew David <mfancher@illinois.edu>
    Sent: Tuesday, January 31, 2023 7:26 AM
    To: Varney, Pete <pvarney@illinois.edu>; Hulse, Daphne Lauren <dlhulse2@illinois.edu>
    Subject: Re: Recyclopedia Changes

     

    Hi Pete,

     

    Of the requested changes we can resolve 3 of them.

     

      *   Add pages and have 20 items on each page – NOT POSSIBLE
      *   Create a "featured" portion at the top of the page - POSSIBLE
      *   Have information on an object show when clicking the picture (right now it just enlarges the picture) - POSSIBLE
      *   Make pictures centered - POSSIBLE

     

    I put some time in last Friday, and will hopefully be able to resolve these this coming Friday with a bit more time.

     

    Thanks,

     

    MATT FANCHER
    Associate Software Developer 
     
    IT Services | Facilities and Services
    University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

    Mfancher@illinois.edu
    www.fs.illinois.edu

     

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