Welcome to the final week of the Plastic Reduction Challenge! We cannot believe how quickly October is flying by and we are so grateful for your dedication to the process of tracking and reducing your plastic waste. You have one week left to push yourself outside of your comfort zone and try something new to decrease your waste! If you find that you have managed to either recycle or reuse items in your daily life, why not try something new by helping someone else or sharing a few tips with us! If you have not already, please submit your Week 3 Google Form by Monday.

This Thursday, we will send the final tip of the challenge: how to go forward and live sustainably, even when the Plastic Reduction Challenge ends. You did not do all of this hard work to revert back to using disposable items. Now, it is time to use what you have learned and help others in their own path to waste minimalism. We encourage you to start thinking about what tips you will incorporate into your daily lives, what you still plan to work on and work toward, and everything you have learned this past month. Until then, enjoy your final week. As a group, let’s try to generate the most amount of points yet!

Here is the Week 4 Google Form. Please submit the form by Halloween (Monday, October 31). We look forward to checking in on Thursday with information about the end of the challenge, including the prize raffle.

Remember to reach out with questions, comments, or stories about your challenge experience. Do you have any feedback for us? Is there anything you particularly enjoyed or would like to see changed? We would love to hear.

Have a great week and finish strong!

Congratulations to our newest Green Event Certification recipients.

iSEE 2022 Campus Sustainability Celebration, Certified October 2022

iSEE/SECS/SSLC Clothing Swap, Certified October October 2022

ISTC Sustainability Seminar Series, Certified October 2022

Keep up the great work!

F&S Safety and Compliance renewed annual membership with Green Sports Alliance (GSA) on 10/17/22. Membership runs through November 30, 2023. 

Take the survey here!

This survey is the result of a recommendation by the Zero Waste iCAP Team and is intended to gain a better understanding of drinking water behavior at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

The survey is broken into eight sections. Section one asks demographic questions, sections two through seven ask you to respond to statements on a 1-5 scale, and the last section asks open ended questions. Please answer as truthfully as possible. The survey should take no more than 5 minutes. 

Participants will be entered into a drawing for a $50 Illini Bookstore gift card!

To get involved or share your ideas, please contact sustainability@illinois.edu.  

See the attached presentation for the quarterly Big Ten & Friends meeting held on 10-21-22. 

Good morning!

It’s Thursday so you know what that means… time for our weekly check-in! You are almost done with Week 3 of the Plastic Reduction Challenge. There is just over one week left until the end of the challenge. We are sad to realize this, too. We love communicating with you and building our community of sustainability enthusiasts. How have you improved since Week 1? What more do you have to learn?

During Week 2, we raised our group average to 12.75 points! This number is outstanding! Not only did our group improve from Week 1, but this number reflects largely positive actions by the entire group. This number is equivalent to refusing plastic (+8 points) and picking up litter (+5 points), while also throwing away no plastic. Wow!

This week, let’s focus on avoiding plastic in the home: the kitchen, the laundry, and the bathroom, specifically. Have you noticed how heavily food products are packaged? Do you know that dryer sheets and cleaning products contribute to plastic waste? The attached weekly tip includes ways to avoid plastic while making and storing food, cleaning, and doing laundry. This week’s tip is a particularly good one to share with friends, roommates, and family members, as well!

Please remember to submit your  Week 3 Google Form by Monday, October 24. Feel free to reach out with any questions, comments, or concerns at any time. 

Late to the challenge? No worries! Check out the Box Folder for any materials you may have missed.

Enjoy the rest of your week and we will talk to you again on Sunday.

Meredith Moore, iSEE Sustainability Programs Manager

Emily Dickett and Jenna Schaefer, iSEE Sustainability Interns 

All, Last week was a busy one. We had Strong Towns talk on Tuesday and the Illinois Bike Summit on Wednesday. Got in some good networking, heard some interesting talks/discussions, and got buzzed by two MTD buses on my bike commute there and then one car on my ride back to the Bike Center. Oh, the irony.

The cooler weather has curtailed our visitors, but we’ve had a few volunteers, too—always nice.

Grabbed some bikes from the warehouse last week and will continue to do so as I can this week. I have jury duty potentially all this week and next week, which majorly mucks up my plans for setting up with Working Bikes since I can’t plan past day-to-day. Likely will have to bump that to early November unless circumstances change.

The numbers:

Visitors: 42
Sales: $266
Memberships: 3 for $90
Tires/tubes: 3 for $20

Thanks!

Jacob Benjamin
Campus Bike Center Coordinator

The 2022 Campus Sustainability Celebration was a huge success! Thank you to all who participated! The PowerPoint presentation is attached, and the agenda for the event was as follows:

• 3-3:15 PM – Welcome
  • Jennifer Fraterrigo, on behalf of Director Madhu Khanna (iSEE)
  • Chancellor Jones
  • Vice Chancellor Susan Martinis (OVCRI)
• 3:15 – 3:30 PM – Holistic initiatives
  • Plastic reduction (Jen)
  • Clean energy/Solar Farm 3 (Morgan)
  • Greener Campus Program (Meredith)
• 3:30 – 4:40 PM – iCAP Team presentations
  • Energy
  • Transportation
  • Land and Water
  • Zero Waste
  • Education
  • Engagement
  • Resilience
• 4:40 – 5 PM – Student groups (SSLC, SSC) – Jack Reicherts and Maiah Caise
  • Closing remarks by Jennifer Fraterrigo (on behalf of Madhu Khanna)
• 5 – 6 PM – Celebration - refreshments, roundtable forum with each iCAP Team, student tabling session  

One of our favorite times of the year is almost here… Campus Sustainability Month! Below is a highlight of major events and programs happening this October, though check out the iSEE Sustainability Calendar for the full list. This is the perfect time to take action and show your support for environmental consciousness (and the Illinois Climate Action Plan!). I look forward to seeing you across campus!

• Plastic Reduction Challenge: Are you up to the challenge? From October 3–30, we provide the resources and point system to help you track your plastic use each week and find sustainable alternatives. The point system and fillable grid are attached, and additional information will be sent out prior to the start of the challenge. Take part with this fun and interactive community, and earn the chance to win a sustainability prize pack. It is easy to make a positive impact! Sign up here for the challenge.
   
• Clothing Swap: This is the perfect opportunity to donate your clothing items and update your wardrobe! Join iSEE, SECS, and SSLC for this reduce/reuse event at the Channing Murray Foundation on Tuesday, October 11. Drop off clothes at Channing Murray the day before, or during the event itself from 10AM – 3PM.  All are welcome to drop off and/or participate (it’s free!).
   
• Green Quad Day: Come check out the variety of student, staff, faculty, and community-led environmental groups on Thursday, October 13 from 11AM – 3PM at the Anniversary Plaza (cement area between the Quad and Union). This is a great opportunity to talk with and learn about the many sustainability efforts on campus. The rain date is October 17. If you are interested in representing your organization at a table, sign up here.
   
• Water Taste Test: It’s 2022 – why are we still drinking from plastic bottles? Let’s put our tap water to the test and see, blindly, which water we prefer. Check out the iSEE table at Green Quad Day (above) and see if you can taste a difference between bottled water and tap! In the meantime, take our drinking water behavior survey (and win a chance for a $50 gift card).
   
• Illini Lights Out: Join us to shut off lights in buildings around campus to save energy and reduce the environmental impact of our massive university! Meet at 5:30PM in the lobby of the Foreign Language Building on Friday, October 14 to receive brief instructions before heading out to turn off lights in assigned buildings. Come back to FLB (roughly 6:30) when you are done to turn in your clipboard, get a snack, and pat yourself on the back for helping to save so much energy! Register here, and come by yourself or bring a friend!
   
• Campus Sustainability Celebration: All are welcome to attend this annual event on Monday, October 17 from 3-6PM at NCSA (auditorium and lobby), 1205 W. Clark St., Urbana. The first two hours will be spent in the Auditorium, where we will hear from campus sustainability leaders and from the iCAP Teams. Following the presentations (5-6 PM), each iCAP Team will have a table in the lobby/atrium area for roundtable discussion, suggestions, and a Q&A. Student environmental groups will have tables set up and together, we will enjoy conversation, light refreshments, and cake!
   
• Trash Cleanup: Help keep our campus beautiful! On Wednesday, October 19, meet at Alma Mater at 4PM and join us to collect trash and recycling around campus until 5:30PM.
   
• TED Talk: Eco-Edition Series: Tune in to this edition of iSEE’s ongoing Zoom series on Wednesday, October 26 from 7 – 8PM. Our host this month is Lucy Nifong, a senior in Agricultural and Consumer Economics, iSEE Communications Intern, and Vice Chair Internal of the Student Sustainability Committee. Participants will view a prerecorded TED Talk, followed by a guided discussion and roundtable on Campus Sustainability Month! Sign up here.
   
• Sustainability BINGO: Fill out the iSEE board (attached) for a chance to win prizes! The board (PDF) includes sustainability-related activities and initiatives you can do across campus during Sustainability Month (Oct. 1-31). Make sure you document and let us know which actions you completed using the Google Form to be eligible for the prize drawing.
   
• Have you gotten your office, event, or Greek chapter certified as Green yet? It’s easy to be sustainable! Get certified and be recognized!

In this meeting,  potential ideas for secured bicycle parking were discussed as ways to promote awareness among the campus community. A capstone proposal outlining the final objectives and deliverables was drafted and Sarthak helped support this discussion sharing an Excel sheet that has all of the goals, current status, and plans for the future of some mentioned ideas towards achieving the said objectives with challenges that are yet to be tackled. 

This week, Aparna is going to try to get in touch with the transportation team from other universities that have achieved the Gold BFU status to gather some ideas specific to raising awareness about bike thefts. This would navigate the research better. 

Aparna is also spending her initial time on the project learning about the Bike registration process and other initiatives that are already ongoing at UIUC to help understand the way forward. She also has access to the iCAP portal to update and document the weekly meetings to keep a track of the project progress.

Attached is the "Save the Date! March Monarch Meeting" invitation: