Author: Laura L Barnes

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U.S. EPA finalizes Lead & Copper Rule Improvements

Brown metal pipes installed on a tan tile wall.
Photo credit: Bayram Er from Pexels via Canva for Education.

On October 8th, the Biden-Harris Administration issued a final rule requiring drinking water systems across the country to identify and replace lead pipes within 10 years. The Lead and Copper Rule Improvements (LCRI) also requires more rigorous testing of drinking water and a lower threshold requiring communities to take action to protect people from lead exposure in water. In addition, the final rule improves communication within communities so that families are better informed about the risk of lead in drinking water, the location of lead pipes, and plans for replacing them.

Under Public Act 99-0922, which took effect in January 2017, Illinois schools built between January 2, 1987 and January 1, 2000 were required to complete testing and submit results to the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) by the end of 2018.

Based on those results, IDPH recommends that testing at all schools built before 2014. Parents and guardians of students must be notified of lead results greater than or equal to five parts per billion (ppb). LeadCare Illinois, through funding from IDPH, provides FREE lead testing to schools and licensed childcare facilities.

For more information, see the IDPH publication Improving Water Quality in Illinois Schools.

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Carolina Diaz-Garcia accepted into SWCS Emerging Leaders Class of 2025

Carolina Diaz-Garcia, a postdoctoral research associate with ISTC, has been accepted into the Soil and Water Conservation Society’s (SWCS) Emerging Leaders Class of 2025.

The program is an immersive, interdisciplinary leadership experience designed to nurture the next generation of conservation leaders. The initiative blends learning modules, mentorship, and hands-on projects to foster resilient professionals. Through experiential learning and skill development, participants will gain the expertise, networks, and passion needed to drive positive change in their communities. 

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Learn more about the Illinois Farm to Food Bank program

The Illinois Farm Bureau has developed a series of videos about the Farm to Food Bank program:

From 2021-2024, the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center collaborated with Feeding Illinois, the Illinois Farm Bureau, and the Illinois Specialty Growers Association on this project. The goal is to expand commodity markets available to farmers and increase the supply of fresh food at food banks and food pantries.

Read more about ISTC’s part in the project here.

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USDA accepting applications for Composting and Food Waste Reduction Cooperative Agreements 

Food waste on a white surface.
Image credit: Susannah Townsend from baseimage via Canva for Education

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is accepting applications for Composting and Food Waste Reduction (CFWR) pilot projects for fiscal year 2024. The cooperative agreements, using remaining funds from the American Rescue Plan Act, are jointly administered by USDA’s Office of Urban Agriculture and Innovative Production and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA). Selected projects will develop and test strategies for planning and implementing municipal compost plans and food waste reduction plans and are part of USDA’s broader efforts to support urban agriculture.

USDA’s Office of Urban Agriculture and Innovative Production (OUAIP) – led by USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) – will accept applications on Grants.gov until 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time on Sept. 4, 2024. Projects must be two years in duration with an estimated start date of June 1, 2025.

Cooperative agreements support projects led by local and tribal governments, schools or other eligible entities that: 

  • Generate compost.
  • Increase access to compost for agricultural producers.
  • Reduce reliance on and limit the use of fertilizer.
  • Improve soil quality.
  • Encourage waste management and permaculture business development.
  • Increase rainwater absorption.
  • Reduce municipal food waste.
  • Divert food waste from landfills. 

Eligible applicants include:

  • Independent school districts
  • Special district governments
  • County governments
  • Public housing authorities/Indian housing authorities
  • Native American tribal governments (Federally recognized)
  • Native American tribal organizations (other than Federally recognized tribal governments)
  • City or township governments

OUAIP will prioritize projects that anticipate or demonstrate economic benefits; incorporate plans to make compost easily accessible to farmers, including community gardeners; integrate other food waste strategies, including food recovery efforts, and collaborate with multiple partners. Additional details are available in the  Grants.gov notice.  

In addition to meeting one or more of the above purposes applicants are encouraged to align their project proposals to address priorities on environmental justice, racial equity, climate, investment in disadvantaged communities, and climate smart agricultural practices. Priority will be given for each of the following elements that are included in a project:

  • Anticipate or demonstrate economic benefits for the targeted community;
  • Incorporate plans to make compost easily accessible to agricultural producers, including community gardeners, school gardens, and producers;
  • Integrate food waste reduction strategies, including innovative food recovery efforts such as, but not limited to, food gleaning, storage, and preservation techniques; and
  • Include a robust plan that describes collaboration with multiple partners.

Webinar  

A pre-recorded webinar will provide an overview of the cooperative agreements’ purpose, project types, eligibility and basic requirements for submitting applications. The webinar will be posted at usda.gov/urban.  

USDA, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and the White House also recently announced the National Strategy for Reducing Food Loss and Waste and Recycling Organics as part of President Biden’s whole-of-government approach to tackle climate change, feed people, address environmental justice, and promote a circular economy. 

Contact TAP for assistance if you’re interested in applying for an award. They can help with brainstorming project ideas and identifying potential partners or collaborators.

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ISTC researcher selected for University of Illinois Faculty Entrepreneurial Leadership Program

Sebastiano Giardinella, a project engineer with ISTC, has been selected to participate in the 2024 Faculty Entrepreneurial Leadership Program (FELP).

The University of Illinois Faculty Entrepreneurial Leadership Program (FELP) is a professional development program for faculty interested in entrepreneurship as a path to maximize the socio-economic impact of their research and scholarship. The specific goals of the program are:

  • Support entrepreneurship-oriented faculty in their development as entrepreneurs
  • Seed new venture creation from the “bench-up” and early-on in faculty research
  • Create and nurture a community of entrepreneurial faculty colleagues
  • Enhance diversity and inclusion among faculty entrepreneurs

Through these goals, FELP seeks to enhance the University of Illinois’ entrepreneurial ecosystem and nurture a vibrant entrepreneurial community across its campuses. The program is built to be an entry portal into faculty entrepreneurship, and its design is explicitly complementary to NSF I-Corps and other entrepreneurship resources available to faculty.

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ISTC provides food waste technical assistance to small businesses in Chicagoland

Compost from spilled food waste on the ground. Image source: Grisha Bruev/Canva
Image source: Grisha Bruev/Canva

In the fall of 2022, University of Illinois Extension received funding from the Extension Foundation USDA-NIFA New Technologies in Ag Extension (NTAE) program for the expansion of its “Building a Culture of Composting in Greater Chicagoland” project. The goal was to divert food scraps and organic waste from landfills through educational efforts on the benefits of composting. Extension asked the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center’s Technical Assistance Program (TAP) to partner with them to provide food waste technical assistance to small businesses in the Chicagoland area.

TAP recruited five small businesses to receive assistance in communities overburdened by environmental issues and lacking resources. TAP’s zero waste team did an initial on-site assessment for each business, followed by a food waste audit. Then they prepared a report and worked with each company to help them implement recommendations. Participants were eligible for up to five months of funding to contract with a commercial compost hauling service.

The four companies that contracted with the commercial compost hauler said that they would continue paying for the service after the grant funding expired. The businesses also identified implementation challenges that they faced. These included lack of physical space in the kitchen, consistent communication between staff, and lack of a champion to lead their food waste reduction efforts.

Read the new case study.

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ISTC Sustainability Seminar speaker discusses equity, energy, and just transitions

On September 27, ISTC hosted a webinar featuring Benjamin Sovacool, Professor and Founding Director of the Boston University Institute for Global Sustainability and professor at the University of Sussex. 

His presentation introduced just transitions and energy justice as a way to remedy inequality concerns by considering them from multiple perspectives to identify interlinked inequities. This approach points the way toward making low-carbon transitions more sustainable and has direct implications for business practices, supply chains, and energy and climate policy.

Watch the webinar recording and download the speaker’s slides.

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Essential pollution prevention publications to celebrate P2 Week

Pollution Prevention (P2) Week begins on Monday. The 2023 theme is Pollution Prevention Works.

In celebration, this post highlights some classic P2 publications. Although these were originally in the published in the 1990s through early 2000s, they contain a trove of useful information to make P2 work in modern industrial facilities.

Want to learn more? Visit the Pollution Prevention 101 LibGuide for a comprehensive guide to pollution prevention and sustainable business resources.

EPA Sector Notebooks (U.S. EPA, late 1990s)
EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance (OECA) developed the EPA Sector Notebooks to provide chemical profiles of selected industries. Each profile includes information about the processes conducted in the industry, chemical releases and transfers of chemicals, opportunities for pollution prevention, pertinent federal statutes and regulations, and compliance initiatives associated with the sector. Although these notebooks were published in the late 1990s, they still contain a wealth of information about the production processes, environmental impacts, and pollution prevention options for these sectors.

Facility Pollution Prevention Guide (U.S. EPA, 1992)
For those who are interested in and responsible for pollution prevention in industrial or service facilities. Summarizes the benefits of a company-wide pollution prevention program and suggests ways to incorporate pollution prevention in company policies and practices.

Guide to Industrial Assessments for Pollution Prevention and Energy Efficiency (U.S. EPA, 1990)
Presents an overview of industrial assessments and the general framework for conducting them.  It describes combined assessments for pollution prevention and energy and provides guidance for performing them at industrial or other commercial facilities.

The Industrial Green Game: Implications for Environmental Design and Management (National Academies Press, 1997)
This volume examines industrial circulation of materials, energy efficiency strategies, “green” accounting, life-cycle analysis, and other approaches for preventing pollution and improving performance. Corporate leaders report firsthand on “green” efforts at Ciba-Geigy, Volvo, Kennecott, and Norsk Hydro.

Organizational Guide to Pollution Prevention (U.S. EPA, 2001)
This Pollution Prevention (P2) Guide provides information to help organizations get P2 programs started or to re-evaluate existing P2 programs. It presents an alternative method for working on P2 projects and four approaches to implementing a P2 program in an organization.

Pollution Prevention : A Guide to Project and Program Implementation (Illinois Hazardous Waste Research and Information Center, 1999)
This manual serves as an overview for Illinois businesses of all sizes that have chosen to learn more about developing a pollution prevention program.

Searching for the Profit in Pollution Prevention: Case Studies in the Corporate Evaluation of Environmental Opportunities (U.S. EPA, 1998)
This research was initiated to more fully illuminate the challenges facing industry in the adoption of pollution prevention (P2) opportunities, and to identify issue areas that can be studied and addressed by policy-makers and industry. The case studies in this paper describe three P2 projects that were chosen/or analysis precisely because they were in some way unsuccessful. This analysis, based on a small and non-random sampling, is not necessarily representative of the experiences of all companies or all P2 investment possibilities.

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ISTC signs CCS open letter to international leaders

ISTC Director Kevin OBrien is one of the signatories on an open letter that outlines the importance of carbon capture and storage (CCS) in the fight against climate change.

While the letter is specifically addressed to international leaders, it is intended to encourage all levels of government and industry to recognize the value of CCS and to collaborate on finding realistic and sustainable solutions that will bring new projects to life across heavy-emitting industries worldwide.

The letter was published by the International CCS Knowledge Centre, which aims to advance the understanding and use of CCS as a means of managing greenhouse gas emissions.

Read the open letter.

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Farm to Food Bank project publishes case studies highlighting recent collaborations

Peaches in a wooden crate

The Farm to Food Bank project recently published six case studies of their work with farmers during the 2022 growing season. Each case study includes a summary of the project, as well as lessons learned.

The case studies highlight projects with:

During the 2022 growing season, these six partners delivered over 975,000 pounds of surplus and off-grade fresh produce to food banks and pantries throughout Illinois.

Key takeaways

  • Getting an early, off-season start with farmers markets and growers is essential. It allows farmers markets to introduce the program when growers aren’t as busy. It also allows food banks, food pantries, and growers to have conversations about what crops to plant, especially in areas of the state where the communities are diverse and may have preferences for specific types of produce.
  • Using reusable plastic crates prevents both packaging and food waste.
  • Growers can champion the program and recruit other growers.
  • Farmers can be aggregators. Having one farmer handle communications on behalf of several growers makes it easier for food banks to coordinate delivery and receive a variety of products.
  • Pairing farmers new to growing specialty crops with more experienced growers may help overcome challenges to participation.
  • Matching up harvest schedules with food bank pick-up schedules is essential.
  • When partnering growers directly with food pantries, additional considerations include:
    • how close in proximity they are to each other.
    • ensuring that food delivery and distribution schedules are in synch.
    • relying on food pantries to pick up at the farm presents challenges. Pantries often do not have adequate staff, capacity, or access to large vehicles, which means that some food gets left at the farm.

Learn more about the Farm to Food Bank project on the TAP website and at Feeding Illinois and view the complete list of Farm to Food Bank project publications on IDEALS.