Good afternoon, Congratulations on completing the Plastic Free Challenge! You should be incredibly proud of yourself for your dedication to waste reduction this past month. We hope this challenge revealed some of your personal waste habits and prompted you to think about actions you can incorporate into your lives (and encourage others to incorporate!) to decrease your personal environmental footprint. Please don’t forget to share what you have learned this past month with friends, family, and peers. Keep up the momentum!

If you have not already, be sure to submit your Week 4 Google Form by Monday, March 29. Please submit a photo or short video of a sustainability action or tip that you are proud of from this past month or would like to share with others. As mentioned last week, we will reach out to you one last time on Thursday with some exciting announcements: the raffle winners and statistics on how we did as a group reducing our plastic waste over the past month. 

Although grid and point-tracking are no longer required actions, we hope you continue to be conscious of your plastic use this week and beyond. We are very impressed with everyone’s insightfulness and reflection during this challenge - don’t stop now!

We hope you continue to keep in touch with us and reach out with any questions or comments; we always love talking about sustainability and would be thrilled to discuss with you further! Earth Month is right around the corner - please check out the continuously-updated sustainability calendar of events (both virtual and in-person opportunities). To close out the March Plastic Free Challenge, we hope you join us this Tuesday, March 30 from 7-8 pm for our second Ted Talk: Eco-Edition event, hosted by senior Maddy Liberman and F&S/ISTC staff member, Shantanu Pai. This month, the focus will be on plastics. Together we will watch a pre-recorded Ted Talk followed by a casual discussion and roundtable. Sign up here to register for this online event.

Be sure to sign the "Use the Bin" pledge to commit to sustainable action and personally pledge that you ensure your recyclable items always make it into the appropriate receptacle. Thank you for a great month, and congratulations once again! Have a wonderful week and talk to you on Thursday.

Meredith Moore, iSEE Sustainable Programs Coordinator
Emily Dickett, iSEE Sustainability Intern

https://www.solsystems.com/groundwork-for-solar-sustainability/

The waste data for Week 7 (March 14 - March 20, 2021) is as follows: 

Bottles/Cans: 0
Paper: 9,989
Cardboard: 10,570
Food Organics: 15,000
Trash: 169,780

Attached are the meeting minutes from the Zero Waste SWATeam meeting on 3/26. The agenda is as follows:

• ZW002 NERC Recommendation (+comments)
• ZW003 GreenerOffice Delivery Program
• ZW004 Reusable Dining Options (+comments)
• Roundtable Discussion (if necessary)

Good afternoon! We are feeling bittersweet that this is our last week of the first Plastic Free Challenge. We are so grateful and impressed by each and every one of you for your participation and focus throughout this month’s challenge. There are 139 of you registered for the challenge; together, we make up a beautiful community of individuals on our way to living a life with less plastic! 

Our final tip of the challenge is a guide on how to live sustainably beyond the challenge. In a few days, you will no longer have to tally your plastic items or receive emails every week to hold you accountable, reminding you to keep up the hard work. The attached guide contains tips for moving forward. We encourage you to reflect on your own. Did you discover something interesting or helpful? Did you try something new? As always, we’d love to hear and we also hope you share this knowledge with friends, family, and the Waste Reduction @ Illinois Facebook group if you choose!

One next step outlined in the attached guide is Plastic Free July -- a global movement uniting against plastic use. Plastic Free July is observed by millions of people across the world and it is similar to this challenge as you will receive resources and play a part in a broader community of sustainable individuals. If you enjoyed this challenge, we highly encourage you to check out Plastic Free July!

As this month-long challenge is coming to an end, we are sure you are all wondering what comes next. We will check in again on Sunday reminding everyone to submit their Week 4 Google Form and grid. In the meantime, try estimating your plastic footprint. Did it change since the beginning of the challenge? After the grids are all submitted, we will raffle off two sustainability packs using a random name generator. Your name will be entered one time for each week you participated in the challenge and submitted a grid. Next Thursday, we will reveal the winners and also include statistics on how we did as a group throughout the challenge. 

Don’t worry, this won’t be the last time you hear from us. April - Earth Month - is right around the corner and there is a lot to look forward to. We will talk to you again on Sunday - finish strong and have a great rest of the week! 

Meredith Moore, iSEE Sustainable Programs Coordinator

Emily Dickett, iSEE Sustainability Intern

Izabelle met with Morgan and Brent at F&S today. 

• She shared that they met with Professor Mike Ward from NRES and get some advice, including herbiciding the full area, and possibly splitting the area in two for a pathway through the site for walkers.  To herbicide the full area, they are going to talk with Professor Ward a bit more and send us a plan for the herbiciding process.  Morgan said we will need a week to approve the plan, to make sure we have the reporting requirements handled correctly. 
• They will also talk with Housing about their plans, to communicate with Orchard Downs residents appropriately. 
• Red Bison has agreed to let them use the shed in the Arboretum and share tools.

The attached building sustainability checklist will be used to guide the NRES 285 students in conducting their assessments of five campus buildings (Union, Armory, Huff Hall, ECE, and Bevier Hall). This checklist was reviewed by a variety of stakeholders, including iSEE staff and F&S employees: Morgan White, Brent Lewis, Shantanu Pai, Paul Foote, Stacey DeLorenzo, Beth Leitz, and Maddy Liberman. 

Jenna Kurtzweil and Julie Wurth presented the attached slides on Campus Engagement to the NRES 285 class on March 2, 2021. 

Thurman Etchison and Kelly Boeger with University Housing and Dining presented the attached slides on Sustainability in Dining at the NRES 285 class on February 25, 2021. 

Ashlynn Stillwell (CEE) and Eliana Brown (University of Illinois Extension) presented these slides on "water in buildings" and "stormwater at Illinois" respectively to the NRES 285 class on February 18, 2021. 

The waste data for Week 6 (March 7 - March 13, 2021) is as follows: 

Bottles/Cans: 1,910

Paper: 8,562

Cardboard: 18,120

Food Organics: 10,800

Trash: 146,140

Check out how many schools are participating: https://recyclesearch.com/profile/recyclemania/map/8 

Go Illini!

All, We’re definitely getting busier as we creep closer to “Everyone Rides” weather.
Highlight of the week was a dad and daughter coming in with the daughter’s bike. Bad freewheel so we took it apart and cleaned/re-greased it. That kid was into it! She was eager as all get-out, loved every step of the process, refused dad’s help on multiple occasions, and wanted to know all the names of all the bike parts. A model visitor. Dad loved our education/recycling mission and shared a disheartening story about government-mandated lawnmower obsolescence.

Elsewhere, I got some IT things sorted out that will help the bike center run more smoothly, picked up some bikes from the warehouse, and hired a new employee to help in advance of the warm/busy times.
This week I’ll have the aforementioned employee start, host a staff meeting on Wednesday evening, and sit in on the SSC Coffee Hour for Transportation & Infrastructure on Thursday.

The numbers:

Visitors: 16
Sales: $511
Memberships: 5 for $150
Bikes (refurb): 1 for $180
Misc: $88

Thanks!

Jacob Benjamin
Manager, Campus Bike Center

Happy second day of spring, We would have loved to see an Illini win this afternoon, but what a great year for the Illinois men’s basketball team! Welcome to the final week of the Plastic Free Challenge! We cannot believe how quickly March is flying by and we are so grateful for your dedication to the process of tracking and reducing your plastic waste. You have one week left to push yourself outside of your comfort zone and try something new to decrease your waste! If you find that you have managed to either recycle or reuse items in your daily life, why not try something new by helping someone else or sharing a few tips with us! If you have not already, please submit your Week 3 Google Form by Monday, March 22.

This Thursday, we will send the final tip of the challenge: how to go forward and live sustainably, even when the Plastic Free Challenge ends. You did not do all of this hard work to revert back to using disposable items or for “points”; now, it is time to use what you have learned and help others in their own path to waste minimalism. We encourage you to start thinking about what tips you will incorporate in your daily lives, what you still plan to work on and work toward, and everything you have learned this past month. Until then, enjoy your final week. As a group, let’s try to generate the least amount of points this week compared to the rest of the month!

Here is the Week 4 Form. Please submit the form and grid by Monday, March 29. We look forward to checking in on Thursday with information about the end of the challenge, including the prize raffle. As you will see on the Week 3 and Week 4 Google forms, we are encouraging each of you to please send a photo or short video of a new sustainable action, story, or image that encompasses "plastic-free living" for you. For example, you can show off your bulk purchases or containers, recycling or composting in action, or even a reusable item that you regularly use instead of a disposable/single-use product. Don't worry about producing a high-quality video - this is supposed to be fun and not stressful! Feel free to upload this to the form or email us.

Remember to reach out with questions, comments, or stories about your challenge experience. Do you have any feedback for us? Is there anything you particularly enjoyed or would like to see changed? We would love to hear!

Have a great week and finish strong! 

Meredith Moore, iSEE Sustainable Programs Coordinator
Emily Dickett, iSEE Sustainability Intern

SSC is now accepting applications for Student-Led Projects Under $10,000 for its first funding cycle of the semester. The deadline for this initial round of funding is March 31. Join one of the virtual working group meetings on 3/22/2021 or 3/24/2021 for help with applying!

March 18–31

Samuel Yoo • Student Success and Engagement

Applications for SSC Student-Led Projects Under $10,000