ISTC Director Kevin O’Brien will be chairing a new session titled “Sustainable Solutions for the Power and Industrial Sector” at the upcoming Carbon Management Technology Conference which will take place November 17 – 19, 2015, in Sugar Land, Texas. The focus of this session is to “discuss products, services, and approaches that are being examined which are part of or in addition to Carbon Capture Utilization and Storage activities that impact the overall management of carbon at power generation and industrial facilities.” Abstracts for this session can be submitted through August 15.
Thanks to the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts for adding a Green Fair to their evening of blues music on Friday, July 17.
Come visit your sustainable technology friends from ISTC and other area organizations from 6:30-9 p.m. this Friday during OUTSIDE at the Research Park.
Enjoy music, food and opportunities to get busy with a healthier environment.
Dr. Amanda Hughes was a primary presenter at the Prairie Research Institute’s scientific workshop on PCBs at the University of Illinois in Chicago in September, 2014.
Amanda Hughes, one of the star experts at the Prairie Research Institute’s Sept. 17 workshop on “PCBs and Their Impact in Illinois” will be the special guest speaker at the Air & Waste Management Association, Lake Michigan States Section June Environmental Breakfast on Tuesday, June 23.
Hughes, of Geosyntec Consultants, will speak on “The Longstanding and Emerging Challenges of Addressing Polychlorinated Biphenyls.” Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) seemed great in their day — a set of durable synthetic molecules prized for their toughness in a variety of industrial uses. When they were found to pose human health risks they were banned, but they are still around.
From the Institute’s work, a report was published which can be downloaded HERE. Panel presentations by Dr. Hughes and others are also available for viewing at the workshop website. There is also an informative Library Guide published by the U of I Libraries HERE.
Registration is required for the 8-10 a.m. breakfast and payments ($40 ($20 students)) can be made at the organization’s website. The event is CLE and PDH credit-eligible.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Construction Engineering Research Laboratories in Champaign was the 2015 champion for green workplace achievements. It and nine other winners of the first Illinois Green Office Challenge were announced Thursday. Find out about all the winners here.
ISTC’s Zero Waste Program is innovating on the University of Illinois campus as a partner of student and administration leadership
College and university administrators going to the Illinois Recycling Association’s (IRA) June workshops for higher education will be inspired by the great ideas included on The Best Colleges dot org website.
ISTC is one of the sponsors of two training workshops for Illinois colleges and universities on planning, audits, analyzing data and other issues. Kennedy-King College will host a workshop for the City College of Chicago from 9 a.m. – 3 p.m. Wednesday, June 10. The deadline to register is June 10. Illinois Central College will be the site of the second workshop from 9 a.m. – 3 p.m. Wednesday, June 17. (Meet in the morning at nearby Embassy Suites, East Peoria.) The deadline for that one is June 12. The East Peoria workshop is conveniently scheduled the day before the IRA/ILCSWMA/SWANA Annual Joint Conference. For more information and to register, visit http://www.illinoisrecycles.org/events/2015-conference/pre-conference-college-seminars/.
As far as hip green universities go, we can all envy UC Davis’ commitment to zero-waste, which they plan to achieve by 2020. They have had their version of the U of I’s ‘Dump and Run’ since 1975. Such programs allow students to ‘donate’ good stuff they don’t want to take home and sell it back to other students next semester.
Maine’s College of the Atlantic is another beacon of greenness, where students recycling enterprise is ubiquitous. It is easy to recycle on campus and reportedly, no pizza crusts ever escape the compost bins.
Here in Illinois, take notes from Loyola University Chicago, which is featured in the latest One Billion Gallon Water Challenge Research Update. Faculty, students and staff there are the focus of experiments to improve water conservation behavior on campus. Their goal is to save up to three million gallons of water a year. They are designing a Resource Tool Kit to share their results with other Illinois colleges and universities.
Talk about student leadership of the green hue, it is hard to beat the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign where year’s ago students voted to charge themselves a Sustainability Fee. Since then the Student Sustainability Committee has used the fee to drive green initiatives in many fruitful directions. Read here some recent results of their leadership.
Technophiles, fashionistas and Earth Citizens take note: Volunteers at the University YMCA’s 2015 Dump & Run get exclusive, first dibs on the quality clothing, electronics and other cool stuff that students tend to chuck, not carry, at year’s end.
At the spring Dump & Run the YMCA accepts good stuff that they don’t want in dumpsters and sells them cheap to returning students in August.
The YMCA needs volunteers to collect and sort contributions May 11-16 and May 18-22 and May 25-29. Volunteer six hours or more and you get your pick of the mechandise in the fall.
“The key is not the will to win. Everybody has that. It is the will to prepare to win that is important.”
This statement is very true for the staff at the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center. They not only want the world to be sustainable, they are willing to prepare for a sustainable future and create new ways to be more sustainable. Some examples include their efforts on Zero Waste Illinois and their research on innovative ways to mitigate emerging contaminants. Continue reading “ISTC for the Gold!”
As population increases, the demand for clean, fresh water will also rise, making existing supplies a very precious resource in Illinois and other parts of the US. Groundwater supplies are being depleted and rivers and lakes cannot keep up with the demand for water. Though 71% of the Earth is covered with water, only 2.5% of the world’s water is freshwater. Of that, 70% is in ice and snow cover in mountainous regions, 30% is ground water, and only 0.3% is in rivers and lakes. ISTC is helping to mitigate water scarcity by researching water quality issues such as fate and transport pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) in the environment and encouraging businesses, organizations, and people of Illinois to save water though its Billion Gallon Water Challenge.
ISTC participated in the Community Water Day: Civic Engagement and Water Resources Management on Saturday, March 7 at the Champaign Public Library to spread the word about its research and water savings challenge. And will be participating in the Illinois Water Day 2015: Let’s Talk about Water on Friday, April 10, ISTC at NCSA. Both these events are free and open to the public and are part of a larger group of water issues events hosted by the University of Illinois and the Krannert Center (PDF flyer).
Bart Bartels calls the shots at the Fighting Illini’s Zero Waste football game during Homecoming.
ISTC’s Bart Bartels has joined the Purchasing, Waste, and Recycling SWATeam at the U of I. It is one of six SWATeams (Sustainability Working Advisory Teams) helping evaluate the university’s progress since the 2010 Illinois Climate Action Plan (iCAP). Their work will be important for the formulation of the next iCAP later this year.
As Sustainability Outreach Specialist at ISTC, Bart has helped organize zero-waste events on campus. The next one will be the Naturally Illinois EXPO (with something for all K-12 students) sponsored by the Prairie Research Institute. Bart also is the driving force behind the Illinois Green Office Challenge.
He has also worked as Zero Waste Coordinator within campus Facilities & Services and Campus Sustainability Manager at Grand Valley State University (MI). The SWATeams will be important to the successful updating of the iCAP this year by the Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment.
ISTC Director Kevin O’Brien will be chairing a new session titled “Sustainable Solutions for the Power and Industrial Sector” at the upcoming Carbon Management Technology Conference which will take place November 17 – 19, 2015, in Sugar Land, Texas. The focus of this session is to “discuss products, services, and approaches that are being examined which are part of or in addition to Carbon Capture Utilization and Storage activities that impact the overall management of carbon at power generation and industrial facilities.” Abstracts for this session can be submitted through August 15.
