Hi Tracy—

Last week, my main activities were

• Meeting with you to learn the online time reporting system and to discuss limitations at WTS related to locating additional recycling drop-off bins there; relaying information back to Morgan
• Organizing meetings related to glove and battery recycling
• Meeting with Jordan Powers and Tanya Lisowsky of Fisher Scientific about glove recycling

I can provide more detail on any of these items if it’s helpful/useful to do so.

Best regards,
Marya Ryan
Zero Waste Coordinator

John Marlin provided the following update: Attached are shots of woodland wildflowers beginning to emerge.  The photos are at the Chi Omega planting between the English Building and Lincoln Hall.   There are others that are not up yet.  Other woodland plantings are in front of the Natural resources building, Burrill Hall and the north Side Lincoln Ave residence Hall.

The Chi Omega planting looks good at this point , especially the big areas on the east and west sides.  There is good diversity of species, but some could be moved around to mix them in more with the geranium dominated areas.   The east sides will have issues with the cone flowers that were not part of the original plan and that Red Bison helped thin last fall.   We will see how the violets come up. 

Those of you interested in how location impacts blooming time will want to see the timing of blooming etc at the various sites as they have different light conditions.

Parking Department facility manager, Mike Wise, shared the following information.  "I will be submitting the resurfacing project for lot F4 as a FY19 Project in June/July of 2018. Then an Architect will be selected and design begins. Bidding and Construction will follow. Ideas can start now though so that we can vet them and include a finalized Program with the project request."

Here is a Channel 3 news story of removing garlic mustard at the South Arboretum woods.   It left out mention of PRI, the University and SSC, but it does have two NRES students speaking. 

http://www.illinoishomepage.net/news/local-news/plant-project-leaves-room-to-grow/684690600

Hello Eco-Olympic followers!

I encourage you all to add us on Facebook ! Teams are encouraged to post pictures throughout the competition so you can all follow along!

Check out how your hall and others are doing at this link  . Starting Tuesday, you can go to go.illinois.edu/ECO and click on your hall to find the results.

Below are the current results for sign up participation. Way to go Allen Hall!

Good morning, Tracy—

Here is what I’ve been up to this past week:

• Morgan and I met with Nick Osborne at the Wounded Vets’ Center last Tuesday to discuss glass recycling. I have a call in to Matt Snyder at CRI and will call him again to get costs, pickup schedules and other information we’ll need to get glass recycling set up at Wounded Vets and about a dozen other locations where it is needed to meet our LEED certification requirements.
• I attended the PWR SWATeam meeting last Wednesday and followed up by putting Meghan Killinger in touch with Ryan Welch and Brent Lewis on an effort to learn the waste pick-up routes on campus. They have also requested information on the status of composting, which I will provide in the coming few days.
• I have email in to Ryan and Brent to clarify what is needed by way of mapping waste bins around campus for the Dual Bin project.
• Jordan Powers from Fisher Scientific has been in touch with me. We are arranging a meeting to include Tanya Lisowski in the coming week or two.
• Morgan and I met for a couple of hours so that she could give me the history of waste reduction and diversion efforts related to glass, styrofoam, compostables and the anaerobic digester, gloves, and batteries.
• I signed up to get information from CURC. I got my F&S badge from Traice Quinn.

Best regards,

Marya Ryan

Zero Waste Coordinator

F&S requested funding from the Student Sustainability Committee for replacing 352 metal hallide lights along pedestrian walkways on campus with LED fixtures, expected to save approximately 90 tons of carbon dioxide per year.

Meeting Minutes 4.3.17

In attendance:

Josh Feldman – SWATeam Clerk

Shuang Chen

Ximing Cai – iSEE director

Summary:

Due to poor scheduling, several members were not able to show up to the meeting. However, it was a good chance for Shuang Chen, a student who is working to update the iCAP portal objectives, to learn about the group. Also, the new iSEE director Ximing Cai was in attendance, and plans to attend future transportation SWATeam meetings.

Shuang had several questions to ask about the transportation SWATeam’s objectives. Josh answered the questions to the best of his knowledge and also wrote down the questions so that other members of the team could respond via email. Below are the questions.

-          Can you provide a good overview of the bike plan and the fleet objectives?

-          What is the main purpose of the UI fleet? Transportation? Construction?

-          What is the exact amount/percentage of air travel emissions our campus produces?

-          Which objective do you believe is the most important? Which has impressed you the most, or made the most progress?

-          How does our bike plan compare with other universities’ bike plans?

Next meeting: Thursday 4/13 at 1pm

Updates and discussion of greywater meter, greywater design standards, cooling tower cycles of concentration, water use dashboard, and student outreach. 

The "invitation for bid" for our campus's purchase of offsets (both to replace those we sold to BPTN, and also to open our "offsets storeroom") has now been released, and bids will be opened in mid-April. 

All, the shop was closed for Spring Break, so going back two weeks to 3/13 – 3/17: Visitors totaled 60. We grossed $839.20. We sold 4 memberships for $120; one refurbished bike for $180; and one build-a-bike for $134.

This week I will be prepping for summer staff, building bikes, organizing/cleaning, getting in touch with the new supply representative, and attempting to streamline the reporting of stolen bikes.

Additionally, the Bike Project is hosting a bike light giveaway at Douglass Park in Champaign on Sunday (April 2nd;  2 - 5pm) that I will promote this week.

Sincerely,

• Jake Benjamin
  Campus Bike Center Manager

The UI Extension and F&S Grounds have agreed upon a Memo of Understanding (MOU) for the maintenance and care of the Red Oak Rain Garden.  An unsigned copy is attached here, and it will be routed for signature.