On June 26, UIUC sustainability representatives met to discuss the following:

Attendance: Shawn Patterson, Marty Kaufmann, Thurman Etchison, Bryan Johnson, Shreya Mahajan, Naveen Reddy, Daphne Hulse

1. Tailgating / Welcome Week

   1. Coca-Cola ordered 20 recycling bins (metal frame)

      1. Cost will come from the wraps, Jake gathering a quote

   2. Welcome Week Dining - planning meetings that zero waste could join?

      1. Moved to Grange Grove for this year

      2. Thursday, 13th at 9am next meeting (N end)

      3. Consider t-shirts for volunteers

2. Housing Insider Newsletter

   1. Housing marketing team willing to consider sustainability submissions for consideration in their newsletters, but likely not every edition

   2. Next steps from here? Think about Eweek, iNews, GradLinks as places to include sustainability information, get the larger population thinking about sustainability

3. Plastic waste reduction

   1. Gathering information, exploring strategies used by peer schools

   2. Aim - engaging/lighthearted

4. Wednesday 6/28 - meeting with Coca-Cola

   1. Discuss cost of wrap for 20 bins

   2. Assess where we are at with the shared budget

   3. Discuss volunteer shirts for tailgating & explore giveaway items/incentives

   4. Discuss volunteer shirts for Welcome Week

   5. Anything else to add to the agenda for Wednesday?

On June 26, 2023 Amy Fruehling, Jen Fraterrigo, and Daphne Hulse meet to follow up after initial contact with Redwood Materials

• Amy is the connector so she can stay involved if need be, but batteries are not her expertise

• Ask Stephanie Hess about DRS about battery disposal on campus is how much is recycled. See if departments have a need for this

• Collection drives would be for students, primarily, for their personal items

  • Ask Goodwill about technology collected from Dump and Run - was it a good outlet for students?

• IT would be more surplus-oriented

• Could payment be associated with batteries collected?

• Would just have to try it out and see if it’s worth it - we won't entirely know what the demand will be for the service

• ARC does battery recycling

  • Reach out about that

• Collection sites must be supervised so nothing is mixed in

• Housing or libraries as a place of disposal would be most ideal. Having it available rather than waiting on a collection drive once or twice a year, is Amy's thought

• Seema will be sending over material about how they have done collection drives in other places, so we know how it might run

• Electrical and computer engineering department

  • Specialization in batteries

  • Looking at how to create batteries with a longer life span

  • Do they have a program? Sell to students?

  • A way for iSEE to integrate campus sustainability and research, so Jen will take the first step here

• Redwood contact is an alum, co-founder is tied to Tesla - Amy notes the significance of this

  • Feels like there could be even more than just collecting batteries

• Opening up redwood materials collection to the community - because the spring electronics event is once a year in the spring, so sparse opportunity for the community/county

From: Hess, Stephanie Tumidajski <sthess@illinois.edu>
Sent: Monday, June 26, 2023 4:02 PM
To: Hulse, Daphne Lauren <dlhulse2@illinois.edu>
Cc: Fraterrigo, Jennifer M <jmf@illinois.edu>; Hill, Landon E <landon@illinois.edu>
Subject: RE: DRS battery disposal

Hi Daphne,

A good area to look into. I remember there being battery recycling a long time ago and then was told it was no longer is a thing.

We do not recycle batteries that come through DRS. Those are disposed of using our hazardous waste vendor. I’ve copied the regulated waste compliance manager on this email. He can probably give you an idea about the volume of batteries that come through our waste facility and answer your specific questions.

Steph

From: Hulse, Daphne Lauren <dlhulse2@illinois.edu>
Sent: Monday, June 26, 2023 3:54 PM
To: Hess, Stephanie Tumidajski <sthess@illinois.edu>
Cc: Fraterrigo, Jennifer M <jmf@illinois.edu>
Subject: DRS battery disposal

Hi Stephanie,

A recurring topic that’s come up in sustainability conversations on campus has been about batteries, and we are working to assess what the needs are for this type of specialized recycling and for whom (campus property, personal, etc). In the past several years, battery recycling has been decentralized under departmental programs through companies like Battery Solutions and Call2Recycle for single-use and rechargeable batteries. I also understand that DRS disposes of departments’ unwanted batteries – I am curious, is this a program that is widely used by campus? Do most of the batteries collected under DRS get recycled?

Thank you,
Daphne

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


Please consider the environment before printing an email. 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.

On Jun 26, 2023 Karen Wheeler contacted Morgan White to verify that banking information was confirmed and payments would apply to the proper account on 6/28/2023.

On June 21, 2023 Daphne Hulse and Shreya Mahajan met with Seema Nilakhe to discuss Redwood Materials and opportunity for collaboration.

• Introductions

  • Seema Nilakhe, originally from Chicago suburbs, attended U of I

  • Amy Fruehling was career counselor for Seema during her undergraduate years

  • Dabbling in environmental initiatives

  • Worked at Amazon for supply chain

  • Worked at Tesla

    • Infrastructure projects in North America

  • Wanted to work at start up so went to Redwood Materials

    • Lithium ion batteries

    • Based out of Reno, Nevada

    • Consumer partnerships is Seema’s role

  • Don’t take

    • Lead acid

    • Cadmium

    • Car batteries

• Daphne notes that the batteries Redwood would be interested in would likely come from university property, which is handled by CMS/Surplus/OBFS

  • Seema can assist with looking into this process

• Redwood process:

  • Pickup batteries with large OEMs (large car companies that make EVs)

  • Redwood picks up scrap

  • Redwood partners with Call2Recycle

  • Typically you have to pay a fee for Call2Recycle for their services (U of I may have had the service for free?)

  • Collections would be the biggest benefit for us:

    • Cell phones, laptops, smaller devices are high in cobalt and nickel and critical elements that are part of the battery

    • Larger devices would need to be checked for logistics and chemistry

    • Pricing is based on gross weight

    • Collections - don’t provide packaging but suppliers have the drums, crates, or collection mechanism to do that

    • DOT shipping guidelines (Redwood has that and can give us a sample) we have to be in compliance

    • Under 60 watt hours

    • Engineering may have drums that we could use to ship the batteries

    • Gaylords work too

  • Differences between primary and secondary batteries

    • Primaries - non-rechargables

      • Watch batteries

      • Typically lithium ion

  • Have partners which take all of the excess materials that aren’t batteries

    • Secondary - rechargeable

Next steps:

• CMS/Surplus - ask if they already recycle batteries, or need an outlet for it

• Check inventory on drums and gaylords/shipping materials - Seema will send DOT guidelines

• Event with marketing/public relations

• Bin in the Union - how do you keep people from randomly throw items in there that are not batteries? Must be supervised

• Stick to call2recycle for AA AAA alkaline

P10G96447 lower lobby against the west wall.

From: Fancher, Matthew David <mfancher@illinois.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, June 20, 2023 10:01 AM
To: Hulse, Daphne Lauren <dlhulse2@illinois.edu>
Cc: Baarla, Naveen <nbreddy2@illinois.edu>; Mahajan, Shreya <shreyam6@illinois.edu>; Duda, Nikkole <nduda@illinois.edu>; Duda, Patrick Raymond <pduda@illinois.edu>
Subject: Re: Recyclopedia

Hi Daphne,

My apologies for missing your last message. You will still be able to log in to the dashboard using the link below.

https://archive.fs.illinois.edu/sitefinity/dashboard

We should probably get together and discuss moving the recyclopedia into our new website structure, as that is where our development efforts are currently going, and we can bring a more mature version forward there. I’ve tagged our Business Analyst Nikkole on this email, she would be a great point of contact if you don’t get a prompt response from me 😊.

Thanks,

MATT FANCHER
Software Developer 
 
IT Services | Facilities and Services
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Mfancher@illinois.edu
www.fs.illinois.edu

From: Hulse, Daphne Lauren <dlhulse2@illinois.edu>
Date: Tuesday, June 20, 2023 at 8:29 AM
To: Fancher, Matthew David <mfancher@illinois.edu>
Cc: Baarla, Naveen <nbreddy2@illinois.edu>, Mahajan, Shreya <shreyam6@illinois.edu>
Subject: RE: Recyclopedia

Hi Matt,

I wanted to follow up on this, as we attempted to log into the Recyclopedia editor (https://archive.fs.illinois.edu/Sitefinity/Login?ReturnUrl=https%3a%2f%2farchive.fs.illinois.edu%2fsitefinity) but were not able to gain entry using Net ID. Do you know if this would still be accessible to us?

Thank you!

Daphne

From: Hulse, Daphne Lauren
Sent: Friday, June 2, 2023 2:13 PM
To: Fancher, Matthew David <mfancher@illinois.edu>
Cc: Baarla, Naveen <nbreddy2@illinois.edu>
Subject: Recyclopedia

Hi Matt,

I know things were/are crazy busy for you with the website redesign! Just wanted to reach out and see what the status is with Recyclopedia and what you might need from us for this project. We’d love to get it to a point where it can be utilized by the campus community.

Thank you,

Daphne

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


Please consider the environment before printing an email. 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: Mahajan, Shreya <shreyam6@illinois.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, June 20, 2023 2:36 PM
To: Hulse, Daphne Lauren <dlhulse2@illinois.edu>
Subject: Re: Recyclopedia

Hi Daphne,

The link does not let me access the account. The setting normally used to login is under "ldap users" but this changed to "UOFI NetId". Putting the login information under "Default" or "UOFI NetId" does not let me access the site either. 

Thanks,

Shreya Mahajan