Illinois Sustainable Technology Center • Prairie Research Institute
A zero waste audit by ISTC for the Forest Preserves of Cook County led to an expansion of the parks’ recycling capabilities, thanks to a grant from the Coca-Cola/Keep America Beautiful (KAB) Recycling Bin Grant Program.
One of the recommendations from the waste audit was to apply for the KAB grant. The new recycling bins are now used at large special events at the preserve attracting up to 4,000 visitors. More on the Cook County Forest Preserves recycling efforts.
People at the University of Illinois who care about recycling think about changing human behavior. They wonder how to make the distinction between the landfill bin and the recycle bin so convenient and so obvious that even the most stressed and preoccupied student hits the right target. At the Champaign-Urbana campus, zero-waste is a serious commitment. It is included as a component of the Illinois Climate Action Plan which obligates the U of I to achieving carbon neutral status by 2050. Read more on recycling improvements.
The got-to-have feeling about the latest and greatest tech gadgets might be contributing to some major global sustainability issues. Check out what The Conversation has to say in their article, “Annual upgrade? How your mobile contract is really costing the earth.” Visit ISTC’s Sustainable Electronics Initiative website to learn more about how the environment is impacted by and social justice issue related to electronics. For specific questions related to sustainable electronics, please contact Joy Scrogum, ISTC’s Emerging Technologies Resource Specialist.
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.
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.
Bobby Knight – 1984 U.S.A. men’s Olympic basketball coach – said,
“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!”
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’s Spring Sustainability Series, commemorating the Center’s 30th anniversary year, deals with new developments in the original green practice, practiced for thousands of years, recycling.
The series opens at noon, Thursday, Feb. 12 and continues for four more Thursday noon hours through the semester. The live presentations will take place at 1 E. Hazelwood Dr. in Champaign, IL. Each will also be available by webcast at the listed websites.
Feb. 12, “How Sustainable is Information Technology? Trends, Challenges, and Opportunities,” Eric Masanet, Morris E. Fine Junior Professor in Materials and Manufacturing and Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Chemical and Biological Engineering, McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science, Northwestern University. https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/7017258394988082434
March 12, “Building a Local Circular Economy in Chicago,” John Mulrow – Interim Executive Director, Plant Chicago. https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/3276792405148335106
April 2, “Bioprocessing of Microbial Biomass: Enabling Sustainable Zero-Discharge Seafood Production,” David E. Brune, Professor of Bioprocess and Bioenergy Engineering, Division of Food Sciences and Bioengineering, University of Missouri at Columbia. https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/502302355428424705
April 9, “Rubbery Shrubbery: Should We Use Rubber Mulch in Our Landscapes?” Linda Chalker-Scott, Extension Horticulturist, Puyallup Research and Extension Center, Washington State University. https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/3502265956143542273
April 30, “Zero Waste Illinois,” Shantanu Pai, Waste Research Specialist, Illinois Sustainable Technology Center. https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/7792068845789351938
Following each event, the recorded presentation will be available at http://www.istc.illinois.edu/about/sustainability_seminars.cfm. For more information about the individual seminars, visit http://www.istc.illinois.edu/calendar/.
Several upcoming training opportunities are available for those interested in zero waste, specifically the reduction of waste in food service operations.
The US EPA Sustainable Materials Management (SMM) program will present a webinar on January 15, 2015, entitled “Food Waste Reduction Alliance, a Unique Industry Collaboration.” The webinar will take place from 12:00 to 1:30 PM CST. Online registration is available.
As defined by EPA, sustainable materials management (SMM) is “a systemic approach to using and reusing materials more productively over their entire lifecycles. It represents a change in how our society thinks about the use of natural resources and environmental protection. By examining how materials are used throughout their lifecycle, an SMM approach seeks to:
The Food Waste Reduction Alliance (FWRA) is a collaborative project of the Grocery Manufacturers Association (representing food and beverage companies), the Food Marketing Institute (representing food retailers), and the National Restaurant Association (representing the food service industry), working to reduce food waste generation, increase food donations to the needy, and to divert unavoidable food waste from landfills through recycling.
In addition to the webinar overview of the FWRA, there will be a series of free webinars to guide users through the waste assessment and reduction process presented in the Reducing Wasted Food & Packaging Toolkit (available at http://www.epa.gov/foodrecovery/tools/). All are welcome to participate. The schedule for that series is below. Click on a webinar title to register online.
US EPA Region 9 is also inviting food service facilities (restaurants, cafeterias, grocers, and other commercial and institutional kitchens) in California, Nevada, Arizona, Hawaii and the Pacific Islands to pilot the toolkit. Along with the free webinar series, pilot participants are offered one-on-one technical assistance from an EPA team member; the opportunity to participate in peer groups to troubleshoot the tracking process; the chance to present in future EPA webinars; and the ability to jumpstart or enhance participation in the EPA’s Food Recovery Challenge. Learn more about the opportunity to pilot the Reducing Wasted Food & Packaging Toolkit at http://go.usa.gov/MuGA.
Questions can be directed to Amanda Hong at hong.amanda@epa.gov. Thanks to Amanda for sharing information on these opportunities.