From: Hulse, Daphne <dlhulse2@illinois.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, January 23, 2024 3:59 PM
To: Kuehl, Mark A <mkuehl@illinois.edu>
Subject: Lithium ion battery from vacuums at Housing?

Hi Mark,

Last semester when I came by LAR/Allen to do a tour of the recycling system there (during which we discussed the blue bag transition), one of the staff mentioned that there are a particular type of vacuums used that utilize lithium ion batteries, that then must be discarded.

Would it be possible to get a specific URL link or photo of what the vacuum / batteries look like? We may have found a vendor willing to responsibility dispose of these (recycle them).

Thank you,
Daphne

DAPHNE HULSE (she/her)
Zero Waste Coordinator
Facilities & Services | University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
+1 (217) 333-7550 | dlhulse2@illinois.edu

https://fs.illinois.edu/zero-waste
 

“If it cannot be reduced, reused, repaired, rebuilt, refurbished, resold, recycled, or composted, then it should be restricted, redesigned, or removed from production.” – Pete Seeger

On Jan 23, 2024 4:01 PM, "Kuehl, Mark A" <mkuehl@illinois.edu> wrote:

Oly,

I believe Daphne is talking about the zoom batteries. Can you provide a picture of the batteries for her?

Thanks,

MARK A KUEHL
Assistant Director for Housing Building Services
 
University Housing │ Student Affairs │ University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
6A LAR │ 1005 S.Lincoln | M/C 030 │ Urbana, IL 61801
217.300.4590│ mkuehl@illinois.edu

www.housing.illinois.edu
 
                 



Under the Illinois Freedom of Information Act any written communication to or from university employees regarding university business is a public record and may be subject to public disclosure.

From: Bytnar, Olymer <obytnar@illinois.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, January 23, 2024 4:43 PM
To: Kuehl, Mark A <mkuehl@illinois.edu>
Cc: Hulse, Daphne <dlhulse2@illinois.edu>
Subject: Re: FW: Lithium ion battery from vacuums at Housing?

Pictures attached.

Thank you,

Olymer Bytnar 

From: Hulse, Daphne <dlhulse2@illinois.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, January 23, 2024 2:56 PM
To: Sophie Boel <sophie@redwoodmaterials.com>
Cc: Fraterrigo, Jennifer M <jmf@illinois.edu>
Subject: FW: FW: Lithium ion battery from vacuums at Housing?

Hi Sophie,

Happy new year! I wanted to reach out and ask if this type of lithium ion battery would be of use to Redwood? I recently learned that our Housing department uses these types of batteries fairly regularly for a piece of cleaning equipment, and once they are used they have to discard them and replace with new ones.

Thank you,

Daphne

DAPHNE HULSE (she/her)
Zero Waste Coordinator
Facilities & Services | University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
+1 (217) 333-7550 | dlhulse2@illinois.edu

https://fs.illinois.edu/zero-waste
 

“If it cannot be reduced, reused, repaired, rebuilt, refurbished, resold, recycled, or composted, then it should be restricted, redesigned, or removed from production.” – Pete Seeger

From: Sophie Boel <sophie@redwoodmaterials.com>
Sent: Wednesday, January 24, 2024 12:10 PM
To: Hulse, Daphne <dlhulse2@illinois.edu>
Cc: Fraterrigo, Jennifer M <jmf@illinois.edu>
Subject: RE: FW: Lithium ion battery from vacuums at Housing?

Hi Daphne!

Happy New Year to you and the U of I team!  It’s great to hear from you.  We absolutely do take these types of batteries and would be happy to recycle these for you.  Just a few quick questions that will help determine the shipment approach:

1. How many of these batteries do you currently have on hand that need to be recycled? (count / wattage – info needed because we have a 300Wh limit per box) I will have to reach out to other areas to see if they have batteries to dispose of. I am only of aware of one at the moment but I am sure there are more in other buildings.
2. What is the frequency per semester / year that you think you would need recycling? (so that we can sort out the sequence that we send boxes and expect shipment back) I would say once a year pickup would work.
3. Do you have a safe place on campus where you are aggregating these batteries right now as they reach end-of-life, or is that also a solution you are looking for? We keep them in the foremen office or equipment room on a shelf.

Thanks for reaching out!

From: Hulse, Daphne <dlhulse2@illinois.edu>
Sent: Monday, February 12, 2024 11:12 AM
To: Sophie Boel <sophie@redwoodmaterials.com>
Cc: Fraterrigo, Jennifer M <jmf@illinois.edu>; Kuehl, Mark A <mkuehl@illinois.edu>
Subject: RE: FW: Lithium ion battery from vacuums at Housing?

Hi Sophie,

Please see our responses below! Apologies for the delay on my end in communicating with you. I’m looping in Mark here from Housing for any next steps so I am not a bottleneck.

Thank you,
Daphne

DAPHNE HULSE (she/her)
Zero Waste Coordinator
Facilities & Services | University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
+1 (217) 333-7550 | dlhulse2@illinois.edu

https://fs.illinois.edu/zero-waste
 

“If it cannot be reduced, reused, repaired, rebuilt, refurbished, resold, recycled, or composted, then it should be restricted, redesigned, or removed from production.” – Pete Seeger

From: Sophie Boel <sophie@redwoodmaterials.com>
Sent: Monday, February 12, 2024 3:27 PM
To: Hulse, Daphne <dlhulse2@illinois.edu>
Cc: Fraterrigo, Jennifer M <jmf@illinois.edu>; Kuehl, Mark A <mkuehl@illinois.edu>
Subject: RE: FW: Lithium ion battery from vacuums at Housing?

Hi Daphne,

No worries at all.  Happy to learn more, Mark!

Based on your current answers, we can ship you an Obexion box for you to place your single battery in and can accumulate a few more in (depending on physical size and storage capacity of that battery).  When you are ready for it to be picked up, we’ll send you a shipping label and can have it collected.

Best,

Sophie

At Friday's Illini Lights Out event, 3,686 light bulbs were shut off that otherwise would have been left on all weekend, saving $560.80 in energy costs. This also prevented 4.4 metric tons of CO2 equivalent from entering the atmosphere, which is equivalent to the greenhouse gas emissions from 500 gallons of gasoline being consumed. That's a huge impact!

The next Illini Lights Out event is on Friday, March 22nd, and you can sign up using this link. Stay up to date with other sustainability-related events and news by signing up for the Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment (iSEE) newsletter here!

The Urban Biodiversity Master Plan has neared its completion and will be sent to the iCAP Resilience Team for implementation. The iCAP Resilience Team will continue to work with city officals from Savoy, Champaign, and Urbana to collaborate and establish this comprehensive plan.

The iCAP Resilience Team met on 2/22/24 to kickoff the new semester and discuss further objectives for the 2025 iCAP. Meeting minutes are attached.

Miriam Keep, Sarthak Prasad, Christina Tran, and Michael McKelvey met to discuss a proposed structure for updating iCAP recommendations.

Agenda

• Discussed structure outlined in iCAP Portal Admin Meeting - February 2, 2024 under Discussion/Decisions section plus attached file
• Christina walked through the Figma Recommendations mockup she created, showing the workflow of the current approach and the proposed new approach. Notable changes:
  • Remove duplication of effort by providing only one place to enter information about a new Recommendation status
  • Once basic structure is in place, adding new Recommendation updates will require minimal extra work
  • Current Recommendation status and history can be automatically shown in multiple places across the iCAP Portal, either for individual Recommendations or all Recommendations under a Team

Discussion

• Miriam requested a "Next Steps" text field on Project Updates (in the Recommendations tab), visible only to people with iCAP roles (i.e. clerk and above)
• Discussed using Tasks section in Project Updates to keep track of pending tasks related to Project Updates (especially helpful for Recommendations). Pending Tasks are Project Updates which have a due date and no completion date. See Pending Tasks page.

Questions/Proposals

• Propose allowing a Team to have no associated Theme. This currently only impacts the iWG Recommendations Team, since there is no Implementation theme.
• Propose removing "Recommendations Summary" projects associated with each team (e.g. Resilience iCAP Team Recommendations Summary). The need for those projects will be supplanted by the automatically generated page for each team.

Parkland Environmental Biology class visited (24 students) on February 20, 2024.

Attendance: Pete Varney, Dan Hiser, Miriam, Bryan Johnson, Thurman Etchison, Daphne Hulse

Agenda

1. Determine exact remaining budget for this year (Daphne)

   1. $5,951.38 in SSC fund

   2. $6,992.19 spent for the 2023 program

2. Identify locations for Orchard Downs & Ashton Woods (Mark, Bryan)

3. Reassess all previous locations & confirm (Mark, Bryan)

   1. Box truck sizes on Euclid - donation partners

   2. Babcock Hall - inquire with driver on the northernmost suggestion

   3. Sherman Hall - inquire with driver

4. Inquire with Housing communications team about opportunity for advertisement + communications for Orchard Downs, Ashton Woods (Mark, Bryan)

5. Loop in Jenna (Project4Less) into food pantry donation conversations (Thurman, Daphne)

   1. Connected with the Eastern Illinois Food Bank - setting up meeting to discuss logistics

6. iSEE - what materials will be collected? (Miriam)

   1. Out of office - reconnect later

7. Assign locations to non-profit partners, once locations are determined (Daphne)

Action Items

1. Connect with driver for shipping containers, ensure access to locations (Daphne)

   1. Confirm all locations with Stacey DeLorenzo (Daphne)

2. Connect with non-profit groups, confirm participation (Daphne)

3. Confirm graduate halls move out timing (Mark, Bryan)

4. Marketing materials from Housing - posters, digital sign (Mark, Bryan)

5. Confirm iSEE’s plan for integration (Miriam, Daphne)

Staff tour (2 staff) on February 16, 2024.

Hermandad de Sigma Iota Alpha Inc., a Gold awardee in January, was certified as the newest iSEE Certified Green Chapter! The Institute also certified four new Green Events or series last month: weSTEM Conference; N2Onet Workshop; Free Medical Screenings; and Student Success Symposium.