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- Associated Project(s):Attached Files:
Energy iCAP Team Meeting
Associated Project(s):The Energy iCAP Team met for the first time on Oct. 2nd to discuss new ideas for addressing building-level energy usage during the pandemic and brainstormed priorities for achieving iCAP 2020 goals. Attached are the meeting minutes.
The agenda is as follows:
- Introductions
- Discuss Energy objectives
- Start developing goals for the team this year
Attached Files:Illinois Student Government initiates discussion with F&S about recycling plastic bags
Associated Project(s):Greetings Director Attalla,
The Environmental Sustainability Committee of Illinois Student Government is working on developing a solution to the increased plastic bag waste that has been generated on campus this semester. We would like to start an initiative to bring plastic bag collection locations on campus with the purpose of recycling plastic bags at an off-campus location. Myself, the committee chair Creen Ahmad, and our committee vice-chair Ari Kelo would like to organize a meeting with you and any other relevant members of the F&S team to determine how we can implement this plan.
Plastic bag use has increased greatly on campus this semester, being used in all dining halls, retail locations, and off-campus restaurants. Since these products are not easily recyclable, we feel it is important to ensure they do not begin to pollute the campus community or contaminate the current recycling chain on campus.
We hope to meet with you soon, and we look forward to hearing about your availability!
Sincerely,
Tyler Swanson
Campus Tree Advisory Committee: General Meeting notes from October 2020
Associated Project(s):Attached are the notes from the October general meeting of the Campus Tree Advisory Committee.
Attached Files:Weekly Update: Refurbished bike swap, low numbers, signage
Associated Project(s):All,
Another week in the books! It’s definitely still an adjustment to be open only by-appointment. We’re still getting phone calls and emails about user error and whatnot when scheduling and we’re only seeing 4 or so people per day. But hey, it’s a pandemic. People are still going to the old shop—some internet search engines are not up-to-date but we do have signage over there. Ironies of all ironies since people couldn’t seem to find that tucked-away garage before and are now flocking to it, it seems.Had a refurb-swap of a loose cranked bike. Thankfully the gentleman wasn’t injured in the failure. He took a different same-priced bike. He was very understanding and that was appreciated.
Still working on upping our staffing levels to a comfortable number.
We’ve only done a handful of bike registrations, which either speaks to the cost-as-deterrence or that people are picking them up elsewhere. Hopefully the latter!
Still optimizing the layout and functionality of our new space but everyone who’s visited that was familiar with the old space has been blown away by the across-the-board improvements. I discovered a closet here that I didn’t know existed which now is storing the Bikes at Work trailer and the smaller kid-sized one. Aquaham Lincoln will likely migrate over here this week.The numbers:
Visitors: 21
Sales: $562.70
Memberships: 3 for $90
Bikes: 3 for $360
Tires/tubes: 1 for $1Thanks!
Jacob Benjamin
Campus Bike Center Managereweek announcement
Associated Project(s):Sustainability Training
The Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment (iSEE) and Facilities and Services is excited to release a brief training opportunity to learn more about campus sustainability efforts and the Illinois Climate Action Plan (iCAP) 2020! We encourage all campus members to take the training and participate by providing feedback following the video.
Meredith Moore • Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment
This opportunity is available online.
links for resources
Associated Project(s):The Zero Waste SWATeam met 10-02-2020 to discuss the iCAP 2020 objectives for Zero Waste, and one of the topics was regarding the new objective for implementing a Food Literacy Project in campus dining halls. Team members identified a few resources that could be helpful in implementing this project:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/jiec.12923
https://dining.harvard.edu/food-literacy-project
"Modelling nutrient flows in a simplified local food-energy-water system": https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921344918300818
10/2 Transportation SWATeam Meeting
Associated Project(s):Attached are the meeting minutes for the Transportation SWATeam Meeting on 2 October 2019.
The items discussed were:
- Introductions
- Announcements
- Sustainability Celebration Information
- Student member involvement
- SSC Working Group Meeting Invitation
- Sustainability Celebration Information
- Team Member Updates
- SSC Grant Application for Abandoned Bike Path Removal
- Bike Census 2020 Volunteers
- CTAC Membership
- iCAP 2020 Objectives Assessment
- Team Members assigned objectives.
- Deadline for member contributions is 10/9 at noon.
Attached Files:10/2 Zero Waste SWATeam Meeting
Associated Project(s):Attached are the meeting minutes and chat log for the Zero Waste SWATeam meeting on 2 October at 4PM.
Also attached are resources for the conversation surrounding vending machine alternatives.
The agenda for this meeting is as follows:
- Introductions
- Announcements
- Sustainability Celebration Information
- Student member involvement
- SSC Working Group Meeting Invitation
- Sustainability Celebration Information
- iCAP 2020 Objectives Assessment
- Team Members assigned objectives.
- Deadline for member contributions is 10/9 at noon.
- Refresher
-
America To Go Sustainability criteria
- SWATeam can provide help in determining appropriate sustainability criteria to include.
- Vending Machine Single Use Plastics Alternatives Discussion
- Working through various points of consideration.
- Tabled discussion.
-
Attached Files:ZW_10:2_MeetingMinutes.docx
ZW_10:2_MeetingChat.txt
2020 College Stories Brochure - 304911.0 (3).pdf
Infographic- 6 Reasons to Use RFID Refillable Beverage Vessels on Campus.pdf
University of Illinois Review of Coca-Cola Freestyle With ValidFill 4-24-20.pdf
RE_ ValidFill Covid 19 Response_ Touchless Legacy Dispenser Retrofit & UV Sanitation Device Update.pdf
Letter to Tom McCann at ValidFill.pdf
Engagement SWATeam First Meeting
Associated Project(s):Engagement SWATeam met on September 30 to discuss expectations and goals for the upcoming year and the iCAP 2020 Objective Assessment. The meeting minutes are attached below.
Attached Files:September 2020 Buyer's Share Report
Associated Project(s):RailSplitter Wind Farm provided the September 2020 Buyer's Share amounts by hour, totaling 1,359.7 Megawatt hours. See attached file.
Attached Files:Updated schedule for the installation
Associated Project(s):Please see attached.
Attached Files:Sharing our Affiliate status with UIC
Associated Project(s):Morgan White shared the SmartWay Affiliate program information with Cindy Klein-Banai at the University of Illinois- Chicago(UIC)
Attached Files:Congress postponed to 2021
Associated Project(s):Due to the covid-19 pandemic, the iSEE Congress has been postponed to 2021. Sign up for the iSEE Newsletters to stay tuned for more information: http://illinois.edu/fb/sec/5031776.
Final numbers from Light the Night 2020
Associated Project(s):This year, Light the Night event was hosted at three locations: Alma Mater Plaza, Hallene Gateway, and Campus Bike Center (new location). Overall, the volunteers installed bicycle lights to nearly 450 bikes at these locations.
Leftover lights:
Red lights: 806
White lights: 779
The remaining lights are stored in Room 143 at F&S. They will be distributed among the four funding agencies.
Light the Night 2020 - post event meeting
Associated Project(s):The Light the Night 2020 organizing team met on September 29th, 2020 to discuss the event and lessons learned. Gabe Lewis said that he was in contact with City of Urbana to publish a final report for LTN 2020 in their upcoming newsletter. Sarthak Prasad would do the final count after the meeting so that Gabe can send the report to City of Urbana.
The team noted that there were several students who needed repairs on their bicycles, so they were given the informtion about Campus Bike Center. Jeff Yockey was also doing minor repairs at the Hallene Gatway location. Next year, we could maybe advertize the event so that those needing minor bike repairs can go to the CBC location. Jake Benjamin said that we could have a repair station at the end of the volunteer line at the CBC location for anyone needing immediate repair. We all thought it was a great idea!
The team also noted that since the light installation took minimal time, the attendees were more interested in learning more about the bicycle information, Census, and Wellness this year. We should also have the Bike at Illinois merchandize and other handouts at the exit rather than at the entry point.
Finally, we all thought that the presence of UIPD was very encouraging, the officers helped out a lot with handing out information, and they were happy to help!
The event was considered a success, considering the pandemic and concerns of having a distribution event. All volunteers were very careful and abided by the Safety Plan in place and helped keep the line of attendees moving (attendees were in and out within 2 minutes).
Stacey DeLorenzo, Chantelle Hicks, Sinead Soltis, and Sarthak Prasad took several pictures for the event and posted them to social media.
Weekly Update: First week open, Light the Night
Associated Project(s):All,
Last week was our first full week of being open since the pandemic-induced shutdown. We are by-appointment only and making do with that. Visits, sales, and the like are—compared to normal—way down for this time of year.
We also had Light The Night last week and hosted one of the sites here at the Bike Center. It wasn’t as great a turnout as hoped but it was a new location for LTN and it’s a pandemic. We weren’t able to do our normal word-of-mouth publicity during open hours to the degree we’re accustomed. Thankfully we got some signage up at the old garage alerting people to our new location.This week we’ll work on optimizing the scheduling system, staff meetings, and safety checking a handful of bikes.
Visitors: 38
Sales: $951.50
Memberships: 1 for $30
Bikes (refurb): 5 for $790
Tires/tubes: 3 for $27Thanks!
Jacob Benjamin
Campus Bike Center ManagerF&S sharing SmartWay status with UIC
Associated Project(s):Morgan White and Sinead Soltis met with Katherine Yoshida, the University of Illinois-Chicago's Sustainabiliy program director about our system's status of being an EPA SmartWay Affiliate. Discussion included the history of SmartWay on our campus, along with ideas of how to integrate into UIC's campus.
A follow up call is scheduled for the end of October.
eweek announcement
Associated Project(s):FGI Webinar: US EPA Reconsideration of Coal Combustion Residual Regulation
This webinar will discuss a series of proposed & finalized amendments to rules promulgated by the US EPA to the Coal Combustion Residuals Resource Conservation and Recovery Act Rule. This presentation will summarize the analysis from EPA’s Composite Model for Leachate Migration with Transformation Products and contextualize that output with the USWAG Decision and the 2020 Rulemaking efforts.
October 8, 11 am–12 pm • Map
Jen Miller • Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
The Day After Tomorrow: Cycling Through Urbana’s U-Cycle Program with Courtney Kwong
Associated Project(s):The Youth Climate Justice Forum presents this podcast series in which we will be trying to find ways for all of us to continue to work for climate justice during and after the coronavirus crisis. This week, Kaia and Theo interview Courtney Kwong, the Recycling Coordinator at U-Cycle, about waste management, COVID-19, and the difference Urbana’s community has already made on the environment.
https://youthclimateforum.wixsite.com/summit/podcast/episode/221f2e53/th...