Hi Dan,

I hope you are doing well these days.  I am writing to request you assistance with a Zero Waste effort for the system and universities.  We have previously received paper purchase data from someone at OBFS (see https://icap.sustainability.illinois.edu/project-update/fy08-17-uiuc-copy-paper-office-depot-only), and we would like an updated report.

Jennifer Fraterrigo, the iSEE associate director for campus sustainability, and Daphne Hulse, the F&S Zero Waste Coordinator, are copied here as well.

Thank you for your help!

~Morgan

(PS. the last time we communicated, I was Morgan Johnston.)

---------------------------------

Morgan,

We haven’t forgotten about your request!  Unfortunately, with the decentralized management of the ODP agreement, we had to do some additional work to identify the appropriate SKUs to include in this year’s report.  Happy to report that Jeremiah and Alex in our office were able to pull the attached two documents together which we feel addresses your questions.  If you need additional information on the documents, please feel free to reach out directly to Jeremiah (copied on this e-mail).

Jeremiah/Alex, thank you both for your work on this one!

Thanks,

--Dan

texted my plumbing friend – he thought we should talk to Brian Cox with IDPH (he thought his email was brian.cox@illinois.gov).  He thought that even if the variance does not get approved, that having the university put in such a request might bring it closer to reality in future editions of the Illinois Plumbing Code.

Chapter 13, “Non Potable Water Systems” is in the International Plumbing Code.

CHAPTER 13 NONPOTABLE WATER SYSTEMS, 2021 International Plumbing Code (IPC) | ICC Digital Codes (iccsafe.org)

I do think if a variance is requested, the variance should make note that ICC does acknowledge these types of systems and provides a framework for life safety, and that on an environmental level, these systems are a method of saving water and reducing total sewage volumes in a climate that is changing rapidly.

I think the question at this point is – who is the correct person to put time into this?  It would benefit the university, however, I don’t think we could ask for a ‘blanket university variance’, it would have to be a project specific variance.  With this in mind, it is a specific group that is wanting it for their building – so does this group apply?  Or, would direction be given to F&S to apply?  This is a strange one as we are code enforcement, but also representing the owner.

KATIE sPERL

------------------------------

Katie & Lisa,

Is it possible to discuss this with Brian Cox at 217-524-0791?  It may be beneficial to seek a blanket variance, but only under certain circumstances.   I’ve also cc’d Colleen, Frank, and Jeremy in the case they had a say on your question of who would apply for a variance to IDPH.

Thanks,

Kelly Jo

-----------------------------

FYI, Attached is the submittal package that Cannon sent to Brian Cox at IDPH in May 2021.

Lisa

---------------------------

Please see the attached and provide me with your initial thoughts.  If everyone thinks this might be a good idea, I will ask Jim Sims if he would be okay letting us send to IDPH under the University of Illinois letterhead.  I feel like if we took this letter, all put our names to it – and then sent to other organizations such as AIA, they might all send a similar letter.

I was at a plumbing lunch-and-learn today, and I just feel this is something that should be considered.  If toilets went from being 5 gallons a flush to 1.25 gallons – we could potentially get this down to zero in some situations…isn’t that a win?    

KATIE sPERL

---------------------------

All,

Do other State Plumbing codes allow use of Grey Water Recycling? If yes, can we reference those states and language used in those State Plumbing codes?

Thanks,

Jim

---------------------------

Most states don’t have a state plumbing code – I believe that only California, Illinois, Kentucky, Minnesota and Oregon do.  Most states use International Plumbing Code or Uniform Plumbing Code.  IPC allows rainwater/graywater harvesting.  I’m not sure about UPC but I can look into it.

Lisa

--------------------------

UPC also allows rainwater/graywater harvesting.

Lisa

-----------------------

Thanks Lisa.

Seems like we would want to include alignment with International Plumbing Code and UPC in a letter that we send regarding Illinois Plumbing code?

Thanks,

Jim

-----------------------

All,

As I thought about this more, I was thinking that UIC might have submitted and received approval to IDPH for a grey water system on one of their recent projects (a couple years ago now). It might be worthwhile checking in with UIC to see if this was the case and learn from their experience, including the process and justification they utilized to gain approval for a project.

Thanks,

Jim

-------------------------

UIUC submitted one on Illini Hall via Cannon Design (attached) and have not received approval.  I can email up to UIC to see if they have had any luck.

KATIE sPERL

Done:

• Added map embed capability for collections (see iCAP Portal Map Embedding demo)
• Objectives Dashboard link on individual objective pages - changed text to "See all 20XX iCAP Objectives"
• Remove unintended orange underline on "View Image Gallery" link on project & theme pages (e.g. Sustainability iCAP Portal)

Discussion:

• Question about a TODO: "Collections page: Add image upload option". At a previous meeting we had this TODO, but what was the context? Was it to have a thumbnail for each Collection? Or a banner image? Or an image gallery?
• Should we link to "Take Action" project from homepage?
  • Replace map link in Highlights?
  • Need to finish Take Action page content
• SSC projects
  • May want to use this Archive of Funded Projects on old SSC site (2019) as a reference for showing SSC project info
  • Discussed using iCAP Portal projects for SSC projects page vs. maintaining own project pages directly on SSC website.
  • One possible challenge - SSC sometimes funds part of a project or provides funding for a period of time (e.g. 1 year) for a longer-term project, so only the project updates for that period of time are relevant, not all updates in perpetuity. How do we handle that?
  • Decided to start with map embed from Student Sustainability Committee Funded Projects collection, then look at adding card-based project embed as well.
• Continue discussion of Fancy Page Layout (see the 4 mockups in the October 21, 2022 meeting notes)
• Continue discussion of improving site's aesthetics
• Archiving projects
  • Add "Archived" checkbox?
  • Add "Archived" to Visibility options?
  • Add "Archived" to Project Status options? (probably not - this mixes the status of the project itself with whether we still want it to show up on the site)
  • Remove from nested listings, still publicly available?

TODO:

• Main map:
  • Start with only Campus Tour locations shown (for now, start with Reporting Progress theme)
  • Filter by Theme or Collection
  • See CSU's campus map (Sustainability section) for inspiration
  • Smaller markers
  • Remove businesses layer
  • Campus boundary, like ArcGIS Bicycle Map
• Homepage has extra padding on right side on mobile
• SSC project embedding: add category filtering options
• (long term goal) look into importing information from another source, e.g. SSC students without iCAP Portal access can put together info in a structured format for automatic import into iCAP Portal
• Look into Collection embedding again, à la Drawdown Solutions Library Sammy had found ("Filter by sector or area of action" section)
• Metric search/display:
  • Theme (via connected Project, i.e. Theme -> Project -> Metric)
  • Most recent updates as of: (list of years) -> can we query Tracking data?
  • (Internal only) Last updated before (list of years) -> can we query Tracking data?
• (Low Priority) Make column headers click-sortable on Projects by Project Status page
• Fancy project layout mockups - keep tweaking #3 to improve contrast
• Discuss metrics
  • Metrics with lots of data
  • Consider how to handle old metrics that no longer track new data. Archive somehow?
  • Fun with math (e.g. combining multiple metrics)
  • Calculated Metrics on Dev site

Done:

• From August 9 meeting:
  • Created iCAP 2010 Objectives Dashboard (currently no chapters) - kudos to Quinn for all the work adding 78 objectives and Sarthak for helping out with metric targets!
  • Fixed chapters for iCAP 2015 Objectives Dashboard
  • Fixed styling for individual objective pages' prev/next buttons
  • Added link back to applicable full dashboard for each objective
  • Still investigating issue with some incorrect project updates showing up for objectives - I know why it's happening, just need to figure out the fix

Discussion:

• SSC projects
  • May want to use this Archive of Funded Projects on old SSC site (2019) as a reference for showing SSC project info
  • Discussed using iCAP Portal projects for SSC projects page vs. maintaining own project pages directly on SSC website.
  • One possible challenge - SSC sometimes funds part of a project or provides funding for a period of time (e.g. 1 year) for a longer-term project, so only the project updates for that period of time are relevant, not all updates in perpetuity. How do we handle that?
  • Decided to start with map embed from Student Sustainability Committee Funded Projects collection, then look at adding card-based project embed as well.
• Continue discussion of Fancy Page Layout (see the 4 mockups in the October 21, 2022 meeting notes)
• Continue discussion of improving site's aesthetics
• Question about a TODO: "Collections page: Add image upload option". At a previous meeting we had this TODO, but what was the context? Was it to have a thumbnail for each Collection? Or a banner image?
• Should we link to "Take Action" project from homepage?
  • Replace map link in Highlights?
  • Need to finish Take Action page content
• Archiving projects
  • Add "Archived" checkbox?
  • Add "Archived" to Visibility options?
  • Add "Archived" to Project Status options? (probably not - this mixes the status of the project itself with whether we still want it to show up on the site)
  • Remove from nested listings, still publicly available?

TODO:

• Send Codie map embed code for Student Sustainability Committee Funded Projects collection
• Objectives Dashboard link on individual objective pages - change text to "See all 20XX iCAP Objectives"
• "View Image Gallery" link on project pages has orange underline (e.g. Sustainability iCAP Portal)
• Main map:
  • Start with only Campus Tour locations shown (for now, start with Reporting Progress theme)
  • Filter by Theme or Collection
  • See CSU's campus map (Sustainability section) for inspiration
  • Smaller markers
  • Remove businesses layer
  • Campus boundary, like ArcGIS Bicycle Map
• Homepage has extra padding on right side on mobile
• SSC project embedding: add category filtering options
• (long term goal) look into importing information from another source, e.g. SSC students without iCAP Portal access can put together info in a structured format for automatic import into iCAP Portal
• Look into Collection embedding again, à la Drawdown Solutions Library Sammy had found ("Filter by sector or area of action" section)
• Metric search/display:
  • Theme (via connected Project, i.e. Theme -> Project -> Metric)
  • Most recent updates as of: (list of years) -> can we query Tracking data?
  • (Internal only) Last updated before (list of years) -> can we query Tracking data?
• (Low Priority) Make column headers click-sortable on Projects by Project Status page
• Fancy project layout mockups - keep tweaking #3 to improve contrast
• Discuss metrics
  • Metrics with lots of data
  • Consider how to handle old metrics that no longer track new data. Archive somehow?
  • Fun with math (e.g. combining multiple metrics)
  • Calculated Metrics on Dev site

Madhu, is this the section you were asking about? - Jen

https://www.toriis.earth/fossil-fuel

In Fiscal Year 2022, the University of Illinois System reported over $120 million worth of corporate debt held in 52 companies (about 12% of the operating pool corporate bond ownership) that profit from the extraction, transportation, or combustion of coal, petroleum, or natural gas. In total, the University of Illinois System’s operating pool is responsible for financing 86,000+ metric tons of C02 emissions (calculated as total carbon emissions) as of FY 2022. Of these emissions, 66,000+ metric tons of C02 come from fossil fuel companies. The math is simple: by divesting the 12% of investments in fossil fuel companies, the University of Illinois System would cut its carbon footprint by 78%.

From: Lee, Morris <morrisl@illinois.edu>
Sent: Friday, August 18, 2023 11:00 AM
To: Hulse, Daphne Lauren <dlhulse2@illinois.edu>
Cc: Hill, Landon E <landon@illinois.edu>
Subject: RE: DRS battery disposal

Good Morning Daphne,

Attached is a report for the batteries handled by the DRS Waste Group.

If you have any data related questions, please let me know (I will be on vacation next week). Landon would be able to answer the operational questions.

Thanks, Morris

MORRIS LEE
RESEARCH SAFETY PROFESSIONAL
 
Division of Research Safety
Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
102 Environmental Health and Safety Building
101 S. Gregory St. | M/C 225
Urbana, Illinois 61801
217.300.4563 | morrisl@illinois.edu
www.drs.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.