The Purchasing, Waste, and Recycling SWATeam met to discuss a variety of updates and challenges regarding recycling on campus. The group discussed progress on the rearrangement of outdoor dual bins on the North Quad and standards for the placements of bins inside of buildings. The group also discussed their long-term vision for trash and recycling operations on campus and brainstormed various methods for increasing recycling at the Waste Transfer Station. An update was also given on the status of SmartWay certification on campus.

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Dr. Ximing Cai presented the attached presentation to the SWATeam members at the beginning of fall 2017.

Hi SWATeam,

I’m working with two interns, Kate Gardiner and Hursh Hazari, to address the recycled content paper habits on campus.  Hursh did an analysis of the paper purchases by college from FY15, and we are seeking updated data from OBFS.  That is attached in excel here.

Kate is working on putting the policy in the CAM format, and the first stab of that is attached here.

We just got off the phone with one of the F&S folks who orders paper, and she always orders from Office Max in iBuy.  She showed us (shared her screen) how she places the order in office max and got the current pricing for us.  Then she went into iStores from F&s and got the price for 30% recycled content paper.  She said she doesn’t usually go into F&S stores (“iStores”), and it isn’t a punchout in iBuy.  I had thought it was, but we couldn’t find it on the screen (see attached photo).  She couldn’t find the virgin paper pricing in F&S Stores, so we got off the phone and I logged into iStores to get that price. Here are the prices per ream:

Office Max – virgin paper $3.10

Office Max – 30% rec. content $3.55, which is 15% higher

iStores – virgin paper $2.97

iStores – 30% recycled content $3.03, which is 2% higher

Comparing Office Max virgin paper to iStores 30%recycled content paper, users could save 7 cents per ream by switching.  Also, Office Max pricing is based on buying at least 10 reams (or one case), and iStores has that pricing for any quantity, even just one ream.

HOWEVER, it is apparently pretty difficult to use iStores.  Can one of the staff or faculty on your team try to login to iStores and see if you need to get special permission to access it?  I already had access, but that could have been from sometime in my past 20 years on campus.  The logon is at https://my.fs.illinois.edu/fsportal/portal/.

Any and all feedback on the other documents is of course welcome.

Thanks!

Morgan

Morgan Johnston and Hursh Hazari met to review the FY15 paper purchases by academic college.  Hursh is going to add some analysis about the costs associated with switching to a minimum of 30% recycled content paper.  He is also going to take the draft purchasing policy proposed to UA (attached here) and modify it to meet UIUC CAM standards.

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At the PWR SWATeam meeting on Feb. 3, the team reviewed the status of the Illini Gadget Garage.  It is going very well, and they have hired students to help promote and market the open hours. The team also discussed the proposed recycled-content paper policy.  This policy was not approved at the System level, and UI at Chicago is working to implement their own policy for their campus.  UIUC can do the same, through an update to the existing policy.  Morgan will bring the policy to the next SWATeam meeting for discussion.  Morgan also asked about the SWATeam recommendation process and invited team members to send her comments and suggestions.  The Chair was selected as Fanxing Liu, with plenty of help from iSEE and the SWATeam Clerk, Meghan Killinger, because Fanxing just joined the team.