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  1. Weekly Update - Working Bikes, Fix-a-Flat. Bicycle Food Drive

    Associated Project(s): 
    Campus Bike Center

    All, Last week was productive! We continued counting everything and made some real progress cleaning up here at the shop. I’ll be doing a walk-through this week with TBP on what to keep and not keep. I went to the bike barn and counted bikes: We’ve got 277 to donate to Working Bikes and 56 to keep. Those numbers are rough counts and not exact. Things are relatively organized over there now. Once we set a date for them coming down I’ll move all the bikes we want to keep out of there. Fingers crossed for an easier go of it this time around!
    This Thursday we have our Fix-a-Flat class at 11am. Doubtful turnout will be great. It is November, after all.
    On Saturday the Bike Project is hosting a bicycle food drive. All donations go to Eastern Illinois Foodbank, and we’ll be promoting that over here at the Bike Center. It’s a fun event I’ve participated in for years. 

    This week we’ll keep paring down our stock and keep cleaning up in advance of our TBD move!
    The numbers:
    Visitors: 61
    Sales: $527
    Bike (refurb): 1 for $170
    Memberships: 2 for $60
    Tires/tubes: 10 for $53

     

    Thanks!

    Jacob Benjamin
    Manager, Campus Bike Center

  2. News Gazette article on net square footage on campus

    Associated Project(s): 
    Establish a Net Zero Waste Plan and Policy

    This article in today’s News-Gazette addresses net square footage on campus, which is squarely in the portfolio of our committee. It has been a concern of iCAP since its inception in 2008. It is also one of two items called out in the charge letter for our committee for this year.

    I consider our obligation as a committee is to address the issue seriously within our committee and within the iCAP process, in order to effect change in campus growth. Any of us may of course, as citizens, engage the public dialogue on this issue. With this email I’d just like to bring everyone up to speed on the work of our committee last year. See slides 2 through 7 in the attachment.

    I don’t know that we need to do anything differently, given the public airing of this issue. I’d like to hear from others on the committee on this matter.

    Bill Rose

     

    Attached Files: 

  4. VeoRide October 2019 ridership overview

    Associated Project(s): 
    Bike Share with Veo

    Please see the numbers below for the month of October 2019. ~400 e-bikes and ~75 pedal bikes

    October:

    Total Rides – 37,443

    • Peddle Bike – 3,677
    • E-bike – 33,766

    Total Users gained – 1,281

    Average Ride Time – 8.76 Minutes

    Overall:

    Total Rides: 375,147

    Total Users:19,749

    Reporting:

    • We received 5 reports to remove bikes from private property
    • We received 10 calls about bikes parked inappropriately

    Events: We were a sponsor for the Aruna 5k on Oct 26th. We provided 250 coupons good for $2 of ride credits

    Attached Files: 

  5. 2020 iCAP October Final Objectives: Transportation SWATeam

    Associated Project(s): 
    iCAP 2020: Illinois Climate Action Plan
    Transportation iCAP Team
    Encourage Active Transportation

    Attached is the final draft of the recommended 2020 iCAP objectives from the Transportation SWATeam. 

    Any meeting minutes from October 2019 or November 2019 may reference the following categories: Reduce the Number of Cars on Campus, Increase LEV Use, Decrease Business Travel Emissions, Road Management Systems, and Increase Active Mode of Travel/Active Transportation. Please refer to this document for any details. 

    There will be a revised version by the end of the 2019 Fall Semester after iWG gives feedback for the SWATeams to revise.

    Attached Files: 

  6. 2020 iCAP October Final Objectives: Zero Waste SWATeam

    Associated Project(s): 
    iCAP 2020: Illinois Climate Action Plan
    Zero Waste iCAP Team
    Achieve Zero Waste
    Food Waste Reduction
    Sustainability Engagement and Outreach
    Increase Recycling Rates
    Reuse Surplus Goods and Valuable "Waste"
    Green Cleaning Products and Practices

    Attached is the final draft of the recommended 2020 iCAP objectives from the Zero Waste SWATeam. 

    Any meeting minutes from October 2019 or November 2019 may reference the following categories: 

    • Food waste: Reducing & Diverting Food Waste
    • Education
    • Purchasing
    • Increasing Recycling Rates
    • Reducing Consumption
    • Increasing Reuse Rates
    • Source Reduction
    • Builsing Cleaning and Maintenance

    There will be a revised version by the end of the 2019 Fall Semester after iWG gives feedback for the SWATeams to revise.

    Attached Files: 

  8. Conversation with Krannet Center for the Performing Arts

    Associated Project(s): 
    It's Your MTD Too!

    Reached out to Sam Smith and Lisa Lillig at the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts (KCPA). Informed them about the event, and requested a meeting to discuss the event in more details. This event was planned to be open for faculty, staff, and students. The event was planned to be held at the end of November and first week of December.

  11. Freezer Challenge for the win!

    Associated Project(s): 
    Freezer Challenge


    The University has been recognized for winning the Freezer challenge for a second year in a row, in the magazine Nature. Click the link to go to the site!  https://www.nature.com/articles/d42473-019-00288-0

    A cool competition for sustainable labs

    Laboratory refrigeration requires a surprising amount of energy. Since 2017, the International Laboratory Freezer Challenge has pushed labs to reduce their draw.

    Produced by

    Nature Research Custom Media

     

    My Green Lab

     

    International Institute for Sustainable Laboratories

    •  
    •  
    •  

    Inefficient freezers waste energy and money.Credit: Cavan Images/ Alamy

    For scientists, a good freezer is like a good colleague: integral to doing your best work. But cooling comes at a great cost. Ultra-low temperature freezers, which usually store samples at –80°C, can use as much energy as an average household, and more as they get older. Multiplied by hundreds of thousands of units in labs around the world, that humble lab freezer has quite an energy footprint.

    In 2017, My Green Lab and the International Institute for Sustainable Laboratories (I2SL) created the International Laboratory Freezer Challenge* to inspire labs around the world to reduce energy used for cold storage, from refrigerators to the coldest freezers. Individual labs or organizations complete a scorecard detailing the implementation of best practices and energy-saving processes: good management practices, including defrosting freezers; temperature tuning, such as setting a freezer at –70°C or higher; retiring unused refrigerators/freezers or replacing them with more efficient ones; and some unexpected improvements, such as storing certain samples at room temperature.

    Labs receive points for every action that they take. In four categories, academia, the biopharma industry, hospitals and government/non-profit, individual labs and organizations that accumulate the most points win. There can be eight winners, all of whom receive an award and recognition in Nature. This year, awards were given to labs and organizations in three of the four categories.

    “The number of participating labs in 2019 nearly doubled from 2018,” says Allison Paradise, CEO and founder at My Green Lab, bringing the number of entrants worldwide to about 400 this year.

    Organizational winners

     

    University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign winning team Credit: University of Illinois

    In a repeat of 2018, the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, took the top spot among academic organizations by saving about 160,000 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per year. To win as a university, Madeline Barone, an undergraduate studying environmental science who organized the effort, made it her mission to get as many labs as possible involved. “Following up with people was super important,” she says.

    Teamwork also made a big impact in the biopharma-organization category. Charles River — a global, preclincal contract research organization and headquartered in Wilmington, MA — registered all its sites around the world for the competition and encouraged them to compete against each other.

    “This led to one of the most meaningful reductions in energy consumption and greenhouse-gas emissions we’ve ever seen,” Paradise says.

    Winning team from Charles River

    Charles River, Mattawan (MI), took the top spot. “We entered to see where we stood in relation to industry standards,” says neurobehavioral scientist, Rachel Tapp. The team ended up learning a lot. “Our sustainability crew is new within our Charles River site,” Tapp explains. “So, we learned much about who manages these systems and how they were managed.” Charles River, Mattawan saved about 423,000 kWh a year.

    Rounding out the organizational winners, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) earned a threepeat in the government/non-profit category. Even after wins in 2017 and 2018, the CDC added an estimated saving of 300,000 kWh a year.

    Individual winners

    Among individual laboratory winners, the Multiple Sclerosis and Parkinson’s Tissue Bank at Imperial College London took the top academic spot. To do that, says tissue bank manager George Gveric, “We increased the temperatures on all our freezers and rearranged samples so that freezers are opened less frequently.”

    Winning team at Imperial college London

    The top honor in the biopharma industry category for an individual lab went to Amyris Biology/Automated Strain Engineering Lab. The start-up is based in Emeryville, CA. Senior associate scientist, Gloria Sagala calls the Freezer Challenge “a great opportunity for our team to come together around a common goal to improve our energy efficiency with our cold storage.” Sagala and her colleagues removed inefficient and unnecessary freezers and implemented a system to track defrosting, saving the lab 30–40% in freezer energy.

    Amyris Biology/Automated Strain Engineering Lab winning team Credit: Amyris Biology/Automated Strain Engineering Lab

    An individual lab winner in 2018, the Inorganic and Radiation Analytical Toxicology Branch of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) teamed up with the Clinical Chemistry Branch to take the individual government/non-profit lab category. “We keep entering because we keep trying to increase awareness of energy use for cold storage in our division,” says Deanna Jones, a team leader in the CDC’s Division of Laboratory Sciences. When asked about the biggest change this year, Jones says, “We have begun buying ENERGY STAR-rated freezers to replace old, less energy efficient ones.”

    CDC winning teamCredit: CDC

    Overall, the combined efforts of participants in 2019 saved about 2.4 million kWh a year. That’s enough energy to power more than 230 average American homes for a year.** Freezer Challenge organizers hope to see that number double again in 2020.

    Organizational honorable mention:

    • Charles River Laboratories, Leiden

    • University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

    • US. National Institutes of Health

    Individual-laboratory honorable mention:

    • Janssen Immunology Biology Lab at La Jolla, CA, led by Steven Nguyen

    • Laboratory Research & Reference Branch, Division of STD Prevention, CDC

    • Ming Lab, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, managed by Julie Nguyen

     

    *The Freezer Challenge is made possible through the generous support of sponsors, including 2019’s Gold Sponsors Eppendorf and PHCbi.

  12. Weekly Update - Working Bikes

    Associated Project(s): 
    Campus Bike Center

    All, Steady week, surprisingly. We even had a waiting list one day. Generally, though, things have slowed down. We’re still getting our inventory tallied up. We’ve got 6 bikes for sale with a few more to come.

    Last week I counted and moved bikes around at the warehouse. I’ll be doing more of that this week with the help of some of my student staff. I have reached out to Working Bikes about coming down to collect our unusable bikes. I’ll have a better idea of just how many bikes that’ll be after this week.
    This week we’ll be keeping on with the inventory/pitching junk, organizing the parts we keep, building up the good bikes, and the aforementioned warehouse bike fun.

    The numbers:

    Sales: $318
    Memberships: 5 for $150
    Tires/tubes:  8 for $30

     

    Thanks!

    Jacob Benjamin
    Manager, Campus Bike Center

  14. Apply by Nov 1 for Wanxiang Fellows Program (Sustainability in China)

    Associated Project(s): 
    Educate Future Leaders

    The Illinois Wanxiang Fellows Program is a competitive program open to U of I undergrad students at the Urbana, Chicago, and Springfield campuses. The program offers a unique opportunity for students to study environmental issues and renewable energy in China while gaining exposure to the Chinese language and culture. Most travel & program costs are covered. https://go.illinois.edu/wanxiang

    Yu Chuan Shen • Center for East Asian and Pacific Studies

    Apply by Nov 1 for Wanxiang Fellows Program (Sustainability in China)

  15. Division of Research Safety - battery recycling

    Associated Project(s): 
    Rechargeable Battery Recycling

    All rechargeable batteries that are received through the campus waste program are recycled. The campus community must submit an online waste request through the DRS waste application to have their rechargeable batteries picked up and recycled.

     

    I would be happy to answer any additional questions you may have.

     

    Thanks.

     

    LANDON HILL
    Chemical Waste Manager
    Division of Research Safety

  16. Weeky Updates for Zero Waste

    Associated Project(s): 
    Achieve Zero Waste

    Hi Pete and Shawn--

    This past week, I had a phone conversation with Meredith Moore about composting on campus. I also reviewed the Zero Waste SWATeam iCAP recommendations and submitted a comment regarding the need for transportation resources for departments to enable them to move recyclable materials to centralized collection/drop-off points.

    Best regards,

    Marya Ryan

  18. Transportation SWATeam Meeting 24 October 2019

    Associated Project(s): 
    Transportation iCAP Team
    iCAP 2020: Illinois Climate Action Plan
    Encourage Active Transportation
    Encourage Low-Emission Vehicles and Renewable Fuel Options
    Reduce Driving on Campus
    Encourage Telecommuting
    Reduce Emissions from Business Travel

    Attached are the meeting minutes from the 24 October Transportation SWATeam meeting.

    Stacey DeLorenzo was able to join us in order to provide insight to the Road Management Objectives the SWATeam discussed earlier, and to answer questions. She also was able to take a look at other objectives and provide input on potential objective ideas.

    The SWATeam confirmed submittal of Road Management, Active Transportation, and Business Travel Emissions objectives and added a new objective under Reducing Business Travel emissions.

    The next meeting is 31 October 2019.

    Attached Files: 

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