Sinead Soltis (F&S intern) presented an overview of the SmartWay Program to Dan Hiser of F&S Transportation & Automotive Services. Representing the department, Dan was very excited to be a part of this conversation and offered helpful suggestions for having a suscessful campus rollout. Adding the SmartWay logo to the keychains of the cars used for carpooling, along with adding it to his own signature were some of the many suggestions offered. We plan to also collaborate with F&S Transportation in the future to add the importance of our affiliate status in this program in the training for new employees within the department and throughout the whole campus staff.

See the attached pdf for presentation slides. 

Sinead Soltis and Morgan White of F&S Sustainability presented an overview of the SmartWay Program to different members of the Illini Union staff. The meeting included: Dave Guth (Illini Union Director of Operations), Tod Petrie(Director of Illini Union Bookstore), Erik Riha (Illini Union Marketing Director), and Todd Moeglich (Illini Union Asst. Director for Procurement). An engaging discussion led to ideas of where the SmartWay program can be shared to staff members across the Illini Union, along with the importance of our affiliate status as a model to the community.

See the attached pdf for presentation slides. 

Students seek sustainability for single use masks

KENYON EDMOND

A group of students wearing masks walks down Green Street on Aug. 21.

BY CATHERINE PAVILIONIS, STAFF WRITER
DECEMBER 3, 2020

As the presence of the pandemic looms in everyone’s minds, the importance of wearing a mask continues to remain a key part of everyone’s day-to-day lives. With so many single-use options to choose from, however, it can be overwhelming to think about all of the waste that has been produced directly as a result of one-time-use masks.

Shantanu Pai*, zero-waste coordinator for the Student Sustainability Committee, has been working closely with and helping Madalyn Liberman, senior in ACES, to navigate an idea she had to combat this issue.

Liberman came across an article about a Vegas hotel recovering masks and said, ‘Can we try this?’ She ran with the idea. She connected to the hotel, reached out to ask what they did and how and then learned that TerraCycle was the vendor that they used.

“She connected with TerraCycle, conducted a series of interviews with them and worked with our staff to figure out how we would begin,” Pai said.

With the campus being so spread out, it was also important to reach out to as many buildings as possible in order to be able to offer this service to a greater community of students and faculty. The goal was to have at least two bins in the open space of each building.

“We sent out a request early in the semester asking buildings if they’d want to be location sites and thirty-five agreed,” Pai said. “Then we prioritized to make sure that there was coverage across campus. Spatially, we’re pretty spread out.”

However, due to a lack of foot traffic through many of these buildings and the resulting unfamiliarity with the recycling program being offered, the bins have not yet had much use.

“We haven’t had anybody replace a bin so we’re not having a lot of use yet, which could mean one of two things,” Pai said. “It could mean that people don’t know (the bins) exist yet. The other thing is maybe people are using reusable masks and the idea is to promote it, and that’s what we’ve been working on— to get people to know that it exists.”

In light of the difficult times everyone is facing as a result of the virus, the Student Sustainability Committee wants to make something as simple as recycling a used single-use mask at least a little easier for everyone while also encouraging those who
hadn’t previously considered it to give it a try. There are so many opportunities to make a difference and help the campus community take one step closer to becoming zero-waste and the SSC hopes that this program will be one easy way for everyone to make a difference and possibly even get involved.

“There’s a risk in recycling programs…” Pai said. “We have the idea that we want people to use more reusable masks, but life isn’t always convenient, and we want people to have a convenient choice.

*Please note that Shantanu Pai is the Zero Waste Coordinator at Facilities & Services.

See https://bit.ly/2VpwHdg as well as research from https://www.geoexchange.org/.

RailSplitter Wind Farm provided the November 2020 Buyer's Share amounts by hour, totaling 3055.3 Megawatt hours. See attached file.

The Engagement SWATeam members met on November 20 with Eric Green (Education SWATeam) to discuss first-year sustainability education recommendations. Topics discussed included working recommendations for a sustainability module in college 100-level courses, a mandatory sustainability training, and a sustainability general education requirement, all of which are currently being investigated by the Education SWATeam. Additionally, discussion of successful sustainability engagement principles led to a forming of two sub-teams to work towards recommendations within our committee:

1) Led by co-chair Ann Witmer: Creating a roadmap of current sustainability-focused projects that are going on and connections we can utilize to make future recommendations more effective 

2) Led by co-chair Robert McKim: Creating a sustainability 100 for individual colleges or one-size fits all model 

Meeting minutes are also attached below.

CEOS Mini-Talks on the Economics of Sustainability

Please join the Center for the Economics of Sustainability (CEOS) for its 2nd Mini-Talks webinar! Talks will focus on organic famland, conservation tillage, food waste, and consumer preferences with regards to local brewing and local hops. Register by November 30: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/122-mini-talks-on-the-economics-of-sustainability-tickets-129242601099. We hope to see you there!

December 2, 12–1 pm

Caroline Helton • Center for the Economics of Sustainability

Meeting minutes from the 11/4/2020 Education SWATeam meeting. The team was joined by Gretchen Forman of the Grainger College of Engineering Office of First Year Experience and Creen Ahmad from Illinois Student Government. Discussions focused on enriching the first-year student experience through sustainability education. Strategies to acheive this goal include sustainability education in orientation and 100-level courses. 

On November 17th, the Energy iCAP Team met to discuss student, staff, and chair priorities for forming new recommendations. The team decided on starting to develop three different recommendations in the future:

(1) Requiring campus buildings to comply with state Energy Code Compliance;

(2) Encouraging labs on campus to save energy;

(3) Educating students in residence halls about reducing energy consumption.

Agenda, meeting minutes, and chat log are attached.

Ryan Day submitted a proposal to the SSC for $70k in support of adding solar over the parking at Willard Airport. See attached files. 

Sinead Soltis (F&S intern) presented an overview of the SmartWay Program to Travis Molitor of F&S Stores and Receiving. Collaboration on the topic will hopefully include affiliate recognition on their new website, along with physical signage outside of PPSB Stores & Receiving. In addition to this recognition, Travis plans to discuss with his staff about our status in this program. 

See the attached pdf for presentation slides.

Also, Travis recommends reaching out to Housing Storekeepers and Chem. Sciences contacts.

The following email was sent on November 16, 2020 to the RLF Selection Committee:

Revolving Loan Fund Selection Committee,

I want to thank everybody again for your participation in the previous selection process. With the completion of that vote, the RLF fund source still has approximately $300,000+ available and a time sensitive submission from DIA has been received recently. The project being submitted is for a Retro-Commissioning (RCx) effort at the State Farm Center. RCx efforts see great results under normal operating conditions, but with the pandemic, significant savings could be realized now that many events are being cancelled and the facility is not being utilized at its full capacity. The request is for $250K and could see a payback of less than 2 years. Please see the attached document for more information.

We don’t necessarily need to score this project, all we need is a majority decision (yes or no) to approve.

I ask that you please reply with your individual yes (in support of funding) or no (decline funding approval) votes before November 26, 2020 (10 days away).

... Thank you again for your continued support of the RLF program.

See the attached file to read details about the Retro-Commissioning (RCx) for the State Farm Center.

The DOE has awarded $25M to a three-year project, led by Kevin O'Brien at the Prairie Research Institute, for the design of a next-generation power plant that "combines multiple techniques to both reduce emissions and capture and re-use carbon dioxide." -- from: https://emails.illinois.edu/newsletter/1950450895.html 

OBrien and co-principal investigator Mohamed Attalla, director of U of I Facilities & Services, and ISTC project manager Les Gioja lead the project, providing combined expertise in power generation technologies, clean-energy generation, and large-scale construction. -- from: https://blogs.illinois.edu/view/7447/1913312422