The Makers UIUC Bike Seat Project is a student-centered venture to design, produce, and distribute an environmentally-friendly and economical bike seat cover in order to promote biking on campus. By providing a way of protecting bicycle seats, we are addressing the problems of biking in adverse weather conditions. Our intention is not only to design a product made with environmentally friendly materials, but to encourage the use of eco-friendly transportation as a whole.

This project was developed by Eco-mmunity, a team of students passionate about sustainability, after noticing that students were not recycling within the residence halls. After further research, interviews, and observations of facilities and processes we noticed that it all came down to students’ convenience. After completing a pilot study we recognized that if students had the option to sort their trash and recycling in their room, they were much more likely to participate in recycling. With recycling bins placed in each student’s individual room, alongside their trash bin, students could conveniently dump them into their corresponding bins in the trash rooms at the end of the hallway. The goal of this project is to create positive long lasting habits that residents and students will continue to use after leaving University Housing. We also hope that this larger awareness and convenience of recycling will stimulate and promote more recycling around campus, as well as set a standard for other non-University Housing and private certified residencies to follow.

This project is to build and test a scaled-down prototype of the electrical system of a solar car. The major parts of this prototype are the solar array, maximum power point trackers (MPPT), rechargeable batteries, and a load. The solar array will be made of flexible silicon crystalline solar cells encapsulated (to protect from debris and enhance performance) and mounted on a contoured composite panel that mimics the surface of our car body. The applicant will design and build our own MPPT which is a variable DC/DC boost converter that raises the voltage of their array. The MPPT has a feedback loop control to ensure maximum output from the array under different insolation and temperatures. The rechargeable batteries will be Li-ion batteries that will act as a buffer energy source when sunlight is not available or is insufficient to power the system. Although Li-ion batteries have a high energy density, they require a battery management system to ensure safe and optimal operation. Thus, they will purchase a battery management system that is suitable for our car. Lastly, the energy generated by the solar array will power a load, which will be a motor planned to be borrowed from another team.

Global Arts Performance Initiatives is pleased to present a final proposal for a series of sustainability-themed arts programs in the 2015-16 academic year that serve the educational mission of the Student Sustainability Committee. The principal event of the proposal is Sonified Sustainability Fest – a celebration of ecological music and arts, presented in the lobby, Stage 5 and amphitheater of Krannert Center for the Performing Arts.

This all ages event, offered admission free to campus and community audiences, will feature live music and interactive art making focused on sustainable practices in the arts, accompanied by an information fair that will provide greater visibility of local projects, programs and organizations working towards a sustainable future. National and local musicians performing on original instruments made from recycled and repurposed materials will be showcased at the fest, as well as in two preceding concerts of the Sudden Sound Concert Series at Krannert Art Museum, all scheduled as part, or promotion of Sustainability Week 2015 and EarthWeek 2016.

This project is intended to permanently set up styrofoam (expanded polystyrene, or EPS) recycling on the UIUC campus for the first time. This project aims to emulate a very successful program at the University of Wisconsin at Madison; some funding has already been secured for student support and supplies from UW as part of an EPA grant that students and postdocs there have received. The key difference between UIUC and UW is that UW had the benefit of a local styrofoam recycler, and UIUC does not have that benefit: the closest recycler is in Indianapolis and the cost of transporting undensified EPS is too high for this to be viable. This project will establish a partnership with Community Resource, Inc. in Urbana, who have agreed to handle all of the logistics of picking up styrofoam from large containers (“gaylords”) in campus buildings, transporting it to their site, feeding it into a machine called a “densifier”, and selling the densified material to a company in Chicago. Community Resource, Inc. will in return pay back a portion of the proceeds from the sales in order to support student interns on campus who will promote and support the program. The goal of this project is to establish a self-supporting program that will ultimately capture most of the styrofoam waste from our campus and recycle it, while supporting student interns to oversee and continually improve the program.

The Veterinary Diagnostic Lab (VDL) at the College of Veterinary Medicine (CVM) functions similar to a human medical institution, in that it generates waste that is not recyclable due to biosafety considerations. This is an unfortunate waste. This project seeks to begin recycling some of VDL’s plastics. This project’s goal is to capture the waste from their work that involves single use sterile pipette tip boxes, which are safe to be recycled. The VDL typically disposes of 12lbs a week of clean plastics in the form of pipette tip boxes; VDL operates 52 weeks a year, generating over 600lbs a year of recyclable plastics. With funding from the SSC, VDL can take 600lbs of plastic out of the waste stream using a clean pipette tip recycling program.

The goal of this project is to further develop the relationship between the university, the Illini Algae Club and its students, the Agricultural and Biological Engineering Department as well as other departments, and the Abbott Power Plant. Using a pre-established waste to algae remediation system used in experimental design, we will apply this system to a real-world use. We will do this through the use of a semester project focused on remediation of university wastewater that can be scaled up into a larger scale project in the future that the club can build off of. Our goal is to provide the foundation of active student involvement for which our organization can grow.

We will do this by first analyzing how well our small-scale systems can work with the local Abbot Power Plant waste. This further enhances our cooperative relationship with the Abbott Power Plant. Once we determine feasibility of the system, then the students can design and build a larger scale system at the local power plant that can reduce their waste as well as produce some renewable energy for the university. This will provide the ability of students to make their own choices with our small-scale experiment as well as allow them to create a vision of their own for the club’s future larger scale activities.

In keeping with recent sustainability projects currently underway, Allerton Park would like to install a Clivus Multrum compost toilet system at the park’s Schroth Trailhead, providing park volunteers, trail-hikers and other visitors the ability to use the restroom in an environmentally sustainable and convenient manner without needing to travel all the way to the Visitor Center to do so. Allerton would like to install permanent restroom facilities at the Schroth trailhead, replacing the need to rent portable restrooms for every outdoor event or volunteer day. The addition of the Clivus Multrum compost toilet will provide Allerton with a much-needed restroom facility located at the Schroth Trailhead while at the same time providing University of Illinois students and members of the general public the opportunity to learn about the technology available that can help society manage waste sustainably. Additionally, the compost created by the compost toilet may be used directly on park grounds or integrated into the compost system at the Diversified Farm at the park’s northeast edge, augmenting the quality of the present compost system.

In accordance with the explicit goals of the Allerton Park Climate Action Plan (apCAP), Allerton Park aims to install an augmented park-wide recycling collection system. The project is a critical component of the larger Solid Waste Diversion Plan, currently under development by Urban Planning Masters student, Tony Herhold. The goal of the project is to provide park visitors and staff with the opportunity to dispose waste in an environmentally sound, sustainable manner. By providing receptacles for the multiple waste streams accounted for in the park waste audits performed in the fall of 2014 and spring of 2015 alongside new waste collection protocols, park staff will now be able to recycle or compost waste that would otherwise be directed to the landfill. Allerton seeks funding for nine Super Sorter receptacles form Busch Systems, based in Canada. The four-stream receptacles are built from 66-99% recycled plastic materials and are themselves 100% recyclable. The remaining funding will go toward purchasing indoor receptacles for various office locations throughout the park as well as signage for the receptacles. The goal of the project will be to make it as easy, or easier, to recycle waste than it is to throw it into the landfill waste receptacle. Clear signage signaling what types of waste should be deposited into the specific receptacles as well as deterrent signage (e.g. “LANDFILL WASTE†on trash cans instead of the typical “Wasteâ€) will help to deter improper waste disposal. The goal of this project is to further develop the relationship between the university, the Illini Algae Club and its students, the Agricultural and Biological Engineering Department as well as other departments, and the Abbott Power Plant. Using a pre-established waste to algae remediation system used in experimental design, we will apply this system to a real-world use. We will do this through the use of a semester project focused on remediation of university wastewater that can be scaled up into a larger scale project in the future that the club can build off of. Allerton’s goal is to provide the foundation of active student involvement for which our organization can grow.

The project calls for clear, concise signage and information pamphlets/posters on and around the waste stations. The goal is to make it as easy, or easier, to recycle than to dispose of trash in a landfill waste receptacle (which will still be available), and with access to an array of receptacles for new waste streams, park visitors and staff should have no issues.

The School of Chemical Sciences houses a data center in Noyes Laboratory which is the home to more than 30 racks of computers. These machines are used by the Chemistry Learning Center, which serves all undergraduate students in General Chemistry courses, the departments of Chemistry and Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, and are used constantly by faculty and graduate students. The goal of this project is to make the server room more energy efficient so as to reduce both the financial and environmental impact on the university.

This is a multi-phase project with the plan being each phase will take steps towards energy reduction. (1) Install power monitors in the panels so we can collect data on how much electricity is consumed by the machine room, (2) Contain the cold aisle so that hot and cold air do not mix, (3) install new hardware into the HVAC units so that they can communicate with each other so they will not fight, and (4) install a heat exchanger for use during winter. Steps 3 and 4 are planned for a future date.

Here is the layout of the 4 prairie plots just west of the pollinatarium building and wooded area.  They are designed to give decision makers and homeowners an idea of how prairie plantings of different heights can look.

The plant mix is good for pollinators and will have something in bloom most of the growing season, it was however limited by what we could get late in the late spring. 

~John C. Marlin, PhD, Illinois Sustainable Technology Center