Category: Campus Sustainability

As a land-grant institution, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign has a responsibility to acknowledge the historical context in which it exists. We are currently on the lands of the Peoria, Kaskaskia, Peankashaw, Wea, Miami, Mascoutin, Odawa, Sauk, Mesquaki, Kickapoo, Potawatomi, Ojibwe, and Chickasaw Nations. It is necessary for us to acknowledge these Native Nations and for us to work with them as we move forward as an institution with Native peoples at the core of our efforts.

---

 

The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is well past the halfway point from Illinois Climate Action Plan 2020 to iCAP 2025. It’s time to check in on each of the iCAP chapters to gauge progress, address the challenges our campus faces, and celebrate some achievements. This month, iSEE Communications Intern Gabe Lareau examines the Land & Water chapter to seewhat the university is doing to properly preserve its most valuable natural resources. View the full series >>>

 

 

Land and water are integral to our survival and have never been more threatened. Climate change exacerbates droughts and floods, groundwater is being rapidly depleted globally, and, according to Our World in Data, “tree loss in 2019 was 24 million hectares. That’s an area the size of the United Kingdom.”

Thankfully, on its little patch of prairie, the University of Illinois Land & Water iCAP Team is helping shepherd progress toward a more sustainable future where campus doesn’t just use its land and water resources, but actively cares for and replenishes them by reducing water consumption, increasing pollinator habitat, and continuing to plant native tree species across campus (to name a few initiatives).

Here are seven ways the University of Illinois is caring for land and water:

 

Reducing Water Consumption

As with any other resource, whenever water is wasted so is all of the energy (and therefore CO₂) used in its extraction, distribution, and return to the waste system. However, water’s biggest carbon footprint revolves around how it’s heated. On campus, that heat comes from Abbott Power Plant, which runs on fossil fuels.

Therefore, reducing campus’ collective water consumption is paramount to not only preserving our potable resources, but also ensuring the success of the iCAP’s overarching goal of reaching net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. In this regard, campus is staying on track.

The iCAP prescribes that campus “reduce potable water consumption to 721,500 kilogallons/year” by 2024 — a 45% reduction from 2008, which saw the university use more than 1.3 million kgal of potable water — enough to fill 2,563 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

Fortunately, campus potable water use steadily declined between 2008 and 2021, despite a growing student population, with a low of 652,833 kgal — a reduction of almost 50 percent — used in 2021. That’s thanks in part to initiatives like University Housing’s decision to no longer use and wash dining trays, which saves 110,940 gallons a year and replacing plumbing fixtures with low-flow replacements.

Recent campus water use has ticked slightly upward (in 2023, usage was 40,000 kgal above the goal) — likely in part because of two straight drought years. It is a warning, however, that complacency in our individual habits and institutional practices can spell real consequences.

2024 is far from over, and if campus makes a concerted effort to reduce its consumption, the 721,500 kgal figure is reachable. It will take future initiatives, like a state policy that would allow using reclaimed municipal or industrial wastewater to irrigate the South Farms, for campus to continue seeing its water use decrease and carbon output diminish.

 

Designing Resilient Landscapes

In 2020, the latest iCAP posited five main suggestions for campus to have truly resilient landscapes. Resilient, in this case, meaning that the flora and fauna who live on the University of Illinois urban landscape will be able to better weather climate change’s effects.

The first recommendation from the iCAP was a Campus Landscape Master Plan, which was completed in 2022. When implemented, it will not only beautify and buttress campus with native, pollinator-friendly plantings, but also increase tree cover and overall permeable surface area.

Those pollinator-supportive plantings will be installed much more quickly, as five new grounds workers are set to be hired by Facilities & Services (F&S), according to Campus Landscape Architect and iCAP Team Chair Brent Lewis. An increased number of hands on the ground, potentially including two new tree surgeons on campus, satisfies another major recommendation to make campus lands more resilient — and community members safer. After all, a branch knocked loose from a major storm has less of a chance of falling on your head if tree crews can get to it first.

The last major recommendation for making campus more climate resilient is the writing of a Rainwater Management Plan — a process that started in February 2024 and will take the rest of the year, Lewis said. Farnsworth Group, a local architectural firm, will conduct an analysis that will survey where water pools most on campus and causes the most damage. Then, according to Lewis, campus will be able to determine ways to better absorb rainwater into the ground and use the water draining into storm sewers more efficiently.

 

Planting Trees

Perhaps no effort pays greater dividends to fight climate change than planting trees. Trees have myriad benefits — offering habitats for animals, providing shade in increasingly warm summers, and loosening soil, which increases rainwater uptake, to say nothing of literally sucking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. For free.

The iCAP 2020 prescribed that there be 1,500 additional trees on campus by the end of this year. Lewis and the Land & Water Team are right on track: “We’re planting 300 trees a year.” However, the ever-warming climate is causing problems for some of the new trees.

“The thing that’s been really hard is that in the past two years we’ve had droughts, and those droughts have killed off a bunch of trees,” Lewis said.

Nevertheless, each new cohort, 300-strong, continues to grow and sequester carbon.

Where exactly are all of these 300 trees a year going?

“The campus is a lot bigger than you think,” Lewis said. “I’m doing trees on the South Quad; I’m doing trees by the Bell Tower. I’m planting trees by Architecture on Lorado Taft Drive. One area that has always bothered me is that very open walkway south of Madigan Lab on Gregory Drive. We’re going to tree that whole thing.”

Planting random trees in random places does not do much for campus landscapes — a great deal of thought must be put into what kind of plantings are used. In a given area, “the industry standard is 30/20/10,” Lewis said, meaning that the ideal diversity of trees is “no more than 30% from one family, 20% from one genus, and 10% from one species.”

Lewis says campus is riding more of a 19/15/8. Not perfect — he pointed out that few municipalities are — but still better than many. If campus planted only a few types of trees, as many cities unwisely do, the entire population would be one pest or disease away from being wiped out. And, along with them, a natural carbon sink.

 

Increasing Pollinator Habitat

In 2018, the University of Illinois was officially certified as a “Bee Campus USA,” a designation awarded by the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation. Becoming a “Bee Campus” involves feeding pollinators with native and biodiverse plants in adorably named but effective “Pollinator Pockets,” raising awareness in the local community, and ridding away pests with as few pesticides as possible.

While smaller in scale than some iCAP objectives, this remains one of the most important. Pollinators — bees, butterflies, even bats — are an integral, but threatened, pollination system that our food supply depends on.

According to Lewis, campus is looking to renew its annual certification as a “Bee Campus USA” — an easy task considering that there are 45 pollinator-supportive locations across campus, surpassing the 39 required in the iCAP by April 2024.

But climate action is not just about checking a box. It’s a continual transformation of habits, and the Land & Water team continues to look at possible locations as potential pollinator oases. During a recent meeting, the Team discussed the South Farms, specifically where the Embarras River crosses through the cropland. Lewis thought, “You know, maybe we should look at those corridors and see if we can get 30 acres of prairie in there.” On first impression, the College of ACES was amenable to the idea, he said. “I didn’t get any pushback.” Meeting minutes from the Land & Water Team identify the Department of Crop Sciences as a possible funder for a Prairie STRIPs project. If completed, it would “decrease erosion, pull pollutants out, and support pollinators,” according to the team.

 

Building Green Infrastructure

Beyond the beautiful landscapes, buzzing pollinator pockets, and thousands of trees, much of the campus is obviously still brick and mortar. When it rains, flat roofs and roads are unable to soak up the water, leading to flooding and, sometimes, extensive damage.

That is why Green Infrastructure is so important. Retrofitting the landscape with more permeable surfaces, ideally soil, can soak up the excess water. The Red Oak Rain Garden and the Illinois Street Residence Hall green roof are just two of the many examples of Green Infrastructure on campus. As of early spring 2024, 48 green infrastructure projects are active on campus, with another being installed by early summer, meaning we will reach our goal of 49 by the end of this year.

 

Planting Cover Crops

To increase their yields and protect their livelihoods, farmers enrich their crops with nitrogen- and phosphorus-rich fertilizers. These elements make their way into the water cycle and are eventually washed away and deposited into rivers — in the case of the South Farms, all the way to the Mississippi.

Why does this matter? Well, certain types of algae and phytoplankton thrive on these two elements and, when the resulting algal bloom dies, its decomposition sucks the oxygen out of the water — killing all life in the area. This phenomenon is the cause of the Gulf of Mexico’s annual summertime “Dead Zone” — a lifeless region fueled by fertilizer chemicals from midwestern farms.

Cover crops — flora planted in agricultural fields during the offseason — are integral to cutting off nitrogen and phosphorus from making their way into the Gulf and threatening its biodiversity. Like Green Infrastructure, keeping these plants as tenants during the winter ensures that farm soil stays permeable and the nitrogen and phosphorus are taken up as nutrients instead of washed away as waste. They may also help reduce erosion, keeping phosphorus-rich soil out of nearby water sources.

Planting cover crops on all 3,343 acres of the University’s South Farms, while technically possible, is not feasible. Some of the South Farms’ acreage, such as the 321-acre Energy Farm, houses experimental fields, and cover crops could be a confounding variable in an experiment. The good news, according to Lewis, is that the vast majority of the South Farms are cultivated for revenue, not research. Cover crops, by the way, can increase yields while also building soil organic matter — which can help increase water-holding capacity — and acts as a reservoir for nutrients.

The Department of Crop Sciences, which owns half the South Farms acreage, has 1,100 tillable acres of cropland in the South Farms, of which 18% have cover crops, per the Land & Water Team’s March 1 meeting minutes. The Department of Animal Sciences, which owns all but 5% of the rest of the South Farms, has cover crops on “13.6% plus or minus” of its land, Lewis said. While these are promising numbers for the South Farms’ two biggest occupants — and calculations are still being done to determine exact acreages — campus is likely still short of the iCAP’s 20% cover crop total.

 

Integrated Pest Management

The development of an Integrated Pest Management (IPM) plan, if adopted campus-wide, would mean an environmental boon. IPM overlaps with nearly every Land & Water iCAP objective: The university tree canopy can’t increase if it keeps falling victim to invasive species, and eradicating pests leaves more room for pollinators to flourish.

For those who prefer to spray pesticide and call it a day, Integrated Pest Management (IPM) is a more holistic approach to managing the invasive insects and weeds that plague campus land. According to University of Illinois Extension, proper IPM “uses all available control practices such as crop rotation (changing what’s grown in a field), selecting resistant varieties (plants resistant to pests), mechanical cultivation, changing planting and harvesting times, biological control (using other living organisms to control pests), and chemical control.” It’s not just a spray and pray — using a variety of approaches prevents excess amounts of pesticides into the land and water.

Lewis is coordinating with the grounds departments from F&S, the Department of Intercollegiate Athletics (DIA), and Campus Recreation to finalize a coordinated Integrated Pest Management Plan. “It’s been interesting and is just something we need to tick off.” (Pun intention unknown.)

The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is well past the halfway point from Illinois Climate Action Plan 2020 to iCAP 2025. It’s time to check in on each of the iCAP chapters to gauge progress, address the challenges our campus faces, and celebrate some achievements. This month, iSEE Communications Intern Gabe Lareau examines the Transportation chapter to see if the university is on the road to fully sustainable transport by 2050. View the full series >>>

 

America’s overuse of the internal combustion engine has resulted in one of the most visual reminders we have of our reliance on fossil fuels: the automobile, with its inescapable “honking, skidding, speeding, sputtering, and backfiring” and “emission of toxic fumes and filthy exhaust-pollution,” as eloquently described in The French Dispatch.

Is it possible to break this addiction? What will transportation of the future look like? Many have offered their fair share of outlandish ideas, like Walt Disney’s beloved monorail, the flying cars in Back to the Future 2, or Jean-Marc Coté’s early 20^th century drawing of … a whale-bus?

Whether high-speed rail or high-speed whale, the future of transportation will have to be more sustainable. In 2021, every single mode of transportation in the United States, from Navy aircraft carriers to amusement park go-karts, contributed 1,775 million metric tons of CO₂ equivalents to the atmosphere. That makes up 28% of overall U.S. emissions and represents the largest contribution from any one economic sector.

The urgency of this issue, and the important part it will play in getting the University of Illinois to net zero carbon by 2050, is not lost on the Transportation iCAP Topical Team. Since 2020, the team has seen progress on some of its biggest tasks — planning to electrify the campus fleet, which has already significantly reduced emissions due to fewer trips taken in more efficient vehicles; establishing an Electric Vehicle Task Force; and continuing implementation of the 2014 Campus Bike Plan among them.

But because “transportation” is so broad a topic, there are still a few bumps in the road. This mostly involves the copious amounts of emissions generated from air travel. To make that more sustainable, or any other form of transportation for that matter, the university community has three choices available.

First, campus can upgrade its equipment and infrastructure to decrease carbon emissions, like the iCAP objective of developing written plans to electrify 80% of campus’ fleets. Second, individuals can switch to low- or zero-carbon commuting alternatives by choosing to carpool, walk, ride a bicycle, or take mass transit. If neither of the first two “active transportation” options are feasible, then the university must negate the carbon it generates by purchasing responsibly sourced offsets. That’s especially true for air travel, as widespread sustainable aviation is decades off and biking across the country is out of the question save for a strong few.

To make campus transportation fully sustainable by 2050, the U of I will need to do a combination of all three.

In terms of upgrading equipment, electric vehicles (EVs) have surged in popularity nationwide as well as around the world, for a variety of reasons. Their range has steadily increased, and because they run on lithium-ion battery power they present a lower- or zero-carbon way to get around compared to traditional cars, depending on if the battery was charged by renewable energy.

Facilities & Services, which operates hundreds of trucks and cars, has introduced a few EVs and hybrid vehicles into its carpool; it also has a sustainable fleet plan aimed at reducing fuel usage and vehicles and introducing new technologies.

The iCAP prescribes that, by the end of this year, the university should have “written replacement plans for 80% of campus fleets” and that an Electric Vehicle Task Force should be well underway in exploring all options relating to EVs and charging stations for campus. These two objectives have been among the Transportation Team’s top priorities this past year, according to Chair Sarthak Prasad, Sustainable Transportation Assistant at F&S.

“During Fall 2023, we were mainly focusing on the fleet replacement plan that we had worked on in May,” Prasad said. “Since then, that recommendation was approved.”

In that recommendation are two preliminary but vital steps of establishing what exactly a “fleet” is, then establishing a “point of contact” for each fleet.

Deciding on what constitutes a “fleet” is kind of like determining the difference between a really big puddle and a small lake. Units like F&S or the Division of Intercollegiate Athletics (DIA) have large numbers of vehicles. But “there are departments that have one or two vehicles that are assigned to a certain researcher or a lab group,” Prasad said. Will those few internal combustion engines get a free pass because they’re not part of a larger group of vehicles?

Whatever the verdict, the next step will be asking each department to designate an existing employee to take on the responsibilities of a “fleet administrator.” Fleet administrators will coordinate with F&S to develop replacement plans with more sustainable options, like hybrids or EVs. Once a point of contact is established, “then communication will be much more efficient and coherent,” Prasad said.

Once all of these electric vehicles hit campus, they obviously will need to be charged. Currently, campus has 18 individual charging stations across six locations. Many, many more will be needed once EVs inevitably overtake the university district’s streets. That is why, in 2022, the Electric Vehicle Task Force — operated by the University Parking Department — contracted a third party to conduct an analysis for possible EV infrastructure on campus.

For the rest of the campus community, individuals with the means can invest in an electric car, which may be eligible for a $7,500 federal tax credit and a state credit of up to $4,000. Others who can’t afford an EV can turn to alternative means of sustainable transportation.

This leads us to our second way of mitigating transportation emissions: changing individual habits. According to Prasad, the average commute distance for university faculty and staff is about 7 miles. While that would entail a 30-minute bike ride — perhaps daunting to many commuters — those who live 4 miles or fewer from campus are at an entirely bikeable distance, aided by Champaign County’s mercifully flat topography and the university’s excellent bicycling infrastructure.

That infrastructure didn’t become exemplary by simple happenstance. The Transportation Team has followed the recommendations of the 2014 campus bike plan and worked to improve it; an updated draft will be submitted by the end of Spring 2024, according to Prasad. Until then, the U of I renewed its “Silver” status as a Bicycle Friendly University from The League of American Bicyclists in 2023. However, “our goal for the next cycle will be gold,” Prasad said.

If you’re closer to the university than average, walking is always an option that is not only sustainable, but also alleviates stress. Nor should we forget our partners at the Champaign-Urbana Mass Transit District (MTD). The MTD not only has its own climate action plan, MTD2071, but also four hydrogen-fueled, zero-emission buses that multiply the immediate reduction in emissions that comes from using public transit. And don’t forget: Anyone with an I Card can ride the MTD free of charge.

If none of these are an option, whether due to disability or chronically sleeping in, some employees may still be able to cut down on commuting by working a hybrid or fully remote schedule. Nixing the commute is an easy way to reduce emissions and therefore make campus cleaner and greener — a win-win, especially for those who prefer to work in their pajamas.

The options for sustainable commutes — “Bus, Bike, and Hike” as they’re known in the iCAP — are integral to the Transportation Team’s Commuter Program. This initiative, aimed at reducing the number of parked cars on campus by asking commuters to relinquish their parking permits, was launched in 2023 and seeks to have 100 registered members by the end of this year.

According to Prasad, the pilot program saw mixed success, with opportunities for improvement: “What we saw during the pilot was people signing up who don’t have a parking permit. That’s not a bad thing because it’s celebrating those people who ride a bicycle or take the bus or walk to work. But the intent behind this program was to reduce the number of parking passes on campus, which unfortunately did not happen.”

The Commuter Program is an attempt to accelerate a larger trend. The number of faculty, staff, and students who commute to campus by driving alone has steadily decreased for nearly two decades. In 2007, the percentage was in the stratosphere at 74%. In 2011, it dropped to 65%; in 2019, 60%. In 2022, partially due to the effects of the pandemic, campus saw its biggest reduction over the shortest time — 55%. This figure sets campus up to meet its 50% goal by 2025.

Such a radical reduction is due to multiple factors. Since the late 2000s-early 2010s, campus bicycle and walking infrastructure quality has dramatically increased. But simple infrastructure can’t actually make anyone do anything; individual choices have compounded to bring about large reductions in driving on campus, and therefore large reductions in carbon emissions.

The largest of those carbon emissions, air travel, is unfortunately out of individual control. While, of course, no one commutes to campus daily via plane, university-related plane trips are a significant factor in campus’ contribution to global climate change. Air travel is most commonly used in three separate areas: study abroad programs, conference travel, and athletic games — a metric that is surely set to increase, as the Big Ten has now expanded to the West Coast.

The best way to reduce air travel emissions is, obviously, not to travel by air. The COVID-19 pandemic also made teleconferencing, a sustainable alternative, more mainstream. When taking an airplane is absolutely necessary, the only realistic option to travel sustainably is to purchase carbon offsets. Work toward a university-wide system has stalled, putting the iCAP’s goal of a 50% reduction by 2025 in serious jeopardy.

Until then, we will have to rely on individual choice to reduce air travel emissions — a mixed blessing. Mixed because rallying some 50,000 individuals to achieve a common goal is a daunting prospect. But it’s also a blessing because when we reach our targets — as campus is projected to do for total emissions in 2025 — anything becomes possible.

The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is past the halfway point from Illinois Climate Action Plan 2020 to iCAP 2025. It’s time to check in on each of the iCAP chapters to gauge progress, address the challenges our campus faces, and celebrate some achievements. This month, iSEE Communications Intern Gabe Lareau examines the Zero Waste chapter to see if the university is creating a culture of reuse in order to reach its goal of being a zero waste campus. View the full series >>>

On Sept. 22, 1985, Memorial Stadium shattered its attendance record. A crowd of 85,000 descended on the home of Illinois football for the first-ever FarmAid concert — a 12-hour charity event founded by Willie Nelson and featuring a star-studded lineup. While the concert was a success and raised more than $9 million, no one knows how much waste was recycled at the event — if at all. In 1985, only 10% of Americans consistently recycled.

Thirty-eight years and one day after, Memorial Stadium hosted more than 53,000 people for an Illinois football game and the first-ever Zero Waste Tailgate. This time, we know exactly how much was recycled: more than 1,000 pounds.

A frequent FarmAid musical guest, the late folk singer Pete Seeger, would have approved of that number. One of Seeger’s famous quotes reads just below the email signature of U of I Zero Waste Coordinator Daphne Hulse: “If it cannot be reduced, reused, repaired, rebuilt, refurbished, resold, recycled, or composted, then it should be restricted, redesigned, or removed from production.”

It seems that Hulse wants to make sure that everything, not just recyclables, comes full circle.

Hulse, who is part of Facilities & Services (F&S), is an integral part of the Illinois Climate Action Plan (iCAP) Zero Waste Team. Its eponymous mission is the most straightforward of any iCAP Team. Getting to that point, though — and thereby helping the campus get to net zero carbon emissions by 2050 — is anything but. Deciding what is sustainably sourced, changing the habits of the public, and then recycling or composting what is left behind on a campus of more than 50,000 people is no easy feat.

Nevertheless, the Zero Waste Team has been racking up successes. Partnering with iSEE, Coca-Cola, and the Department of Intercollegiate Athletics (DIA), Hulse and F&S coordinated two zero waste basketball games in 2022-23 and two zero waste football tailgates last fall. Between the four events, volunteers helped fans recycle 2,560 pounds of bottles and cans. But the biggest takeaway, according to Hulse, is how these events illustrate how campus can “institutionalize sustainable waste management practices” into every major athletic event. Additionally, the nearly 700 (and counting!) reusable water bottle-friendly “hydration stations” across campus also cut waste by providing an alternative to single-use plastic bottles.

Those two efforts combined into “Be Orange, Go Green,” a campaign from iSEE, F&S, and other campus partners that encourages Illini fans, students, faculty, and staff to move away from single-use plastic water bottles. With DIA allowing empty, clear refillable containers into athletic venues newly equipped with hydration stations, nearly every facility on campus — whether used for the academic grind or the athletic gridiron — has the potential to be free of plastic water bottles.

Campus is expanding ways to reuse its waste, too. The university’s Waste Transfer Station has been sorting out recyclables since the ’80s; University Housing’s new “Grind2Energy” systems make energy out of dorm food leftovers instead of just letting them rot in a landfill; and since 2001, the University YMCA and its partners have held an annual “Dump and Run” — a program that puts quality goods discarded during move-out in May into the hands of charitable organizations to be reused — or repurposed by folks moving into new apartments at an annual August sale.

The reason for all these programs is obvious: Everyone wastes — from Swanlund’s reams of paper to Noyes’ lab leftovers. That also means everyone has the opportunity to cut down on their own waste — a process that starts well before anything is actually bought and requires reconsidering what one actually needs.

Not so long ago, the university’s various departments, divisions, offices, and institutes got everything they needed through “Banner” — a campus system that sent out any Purchase Orders (POs) printed out via snail mail to vendors. Because buying in bulk is cheaper, these POs looked more like Santa’s list than a quick request. The 2020 iCAP made a conservative estimate that just the process of buying things for campus used over 75,000 sheets of paper every year.

Enter “iBuy,” a purchasing platform introduced by the University of Illinois System in 2018 that is housed entirely online. Not only does iBuy cut down on waste, but it could also inform university buyers on what option is the most sustainable.

“Something that has been suggested is including information or recommendations within iBuy,” said Hulse, who is developing an Environmentally Preferable Procurement Plan for campus — one of the top priorities for the Zero Waste Team in the Spring 2024 semester. “For example, when you’re looking at a product, you could see if it’s locally recyclable or sourced ethically.”

While this option isn’t available on iBuy (yet), more university buyers are prioritizing sustainability over cost. “I think there’s a lot of interest from staff and faculty who are buying stuff to know that they’re making a choice that is sustainable for campus. We receive a lot of inquiries and get a lot of questions about that,” Hulse said.

In an ideal world, whatever is needed is purchased sustainably, used entirely, then reused or recycled into something else. Of course, that’s rarely the case and waste is bound to be generated. Campus generated 5,846.83 tons of waste during the 2022-23 school year to be exact — the equivalent of about 3,500 mid-sized cars, 1,400 elephants, or 17 Falcon 9 Rockets. Unfortunately, that figure puts campus behind where it needs to be.

In the 2020 iCAP, the latest data available from 2019 clocked campus waste at 5,049 tons. That number set the basis for a 10% reduction by 2024 to 4,544 tons. If campus is to reach that goal by next year, it would need to reduce its current total waste by 22% — nearly a quarter. It is technically possible; the 2022 fiscal year saw just over 5,000 tons of waste, meaning that 2023 could be an outlier. Nevertheless, the university seems unlikely to reach that 4,544-ton objective on time.

How do we rectify this recent increase in campus waste? By improving and increasing its recycling infrastructure, campus can establish a “Zero Waste Culture” which, with a strong enough foothold, can influence individual choice.

Say you just aced an exam and decided to treat yourself with Starbucks at the Illini Union. After savoring your mocha, that one-use cup has become useless garbage. On your way out, you spot a “3 Bin” — a receptacle with three clearly labeled containers to deposit paper, bottles and cans, or “landfill waste.” These types of bins (made out of recycled materials!) are the university’s most effective way of what Hulse described as “intercepting at the source.”

“These three-stream bins work so well because when you have a setup where people have to make a choice about landfilling or recycling, they tend to do better than just random stray bins with no signage,” Hulse said.

As for that Starbucks cup — made of paper, but lined with plastic and stained with coffee and milk — it has to go in the trash. Not great for overall campus waste, but it’s important to at least put it in the right bin. Even better than that would have been to bring your own reusable tumbler or coffee mug (and utensils for that matter) — nearly every café on campus will make your drink in them. After all, as Hulse points out, “recycling is important, and a good baseline for sustainable activity, but challenging ourselves to cut the waste entirely is transformational.”

When you throw away something in a university building, all of it accumulates at the Waste Transfer Station — a collection center unique to the University of Illinois, and one of the few in the country where recyclables are hand-sorted, baled, and sold to offset recycling costs. Aside from construction waste — 50% of which is recycled, by the way — garbage arrives at the station in a tri-color collage. Clear bags denote trash collected in common areas, blue bags from recycling bins, and black bags from bathrooms and labs. Workers painstakingly sort through the clear bags to separate recyclables (paper, cardboard, plastic, and aluminum) from the trash. The black bags go straight to the landfill, along with whatever errant recyclables were thrown in the wrong bin.

The best way to make the process less painstaking — and to lighten the load of the Waste Transfer Station’s eight sorters, who can only handle so much — is to do your own sorting on the front end. When recyclables are thrown into the trash on a large scale — at, say, a tailgate — the system that separates what can be salvaged from what can’t is overwhelmed, leading to higher costs and potentially more waste.

To help combat this, iSEE funded a project in early 2023 to upgrade the Waste Transfer Station with an automatic waste classification system. Using machine learning, cameras focused on the waste conveyor belt will be able to recognize six different types of waste. Once the new system is installed, the station should be much more efficient at identifying trash from recyclables and “determining which types of waste are the most prevalent and thus most crucial to cut down on,” according to Hulse.

When people aren’t careless, properly recycling their beer and soda cans in the State Farm Center or using the correct bin for their plastic water bottles during Quad Day, the waste transfer system can function normally. Visiting fans attending Illini games and especially new students during Welcome Week will also realize that they’re attending a university with a large, and growing, culture of Zero Waste.

While establishing that culture is certainly environmentally beneficial, the way it relates to the iCAP’s ultimate goal of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 is a little less straightforward. But make no mistake, it is just as impactful. Using less not only reduces waste but is directly related to how many greenhouse gases we emit. Everything has its own carbon cost; when you waste something, you also waste the energy that was expended in extracting, transporting, manufacturing, distributing, and, of course, wasting it.

Nowhere is this truer than with food. When any organic waste ends up just sitting in an open-air landfill, it can let off even more greenhouse gases as it decomposes. “CO₂ is indeed one of them,” Hulse said. “But the other specific greenhouse gas with food waste is methane.”

Methane (CH₄) warms the planet at 23 times the rate of carbon dioxide. One way to make sure that statistic doesn’t become reality is to only take as much food as you know you can eat. If you eat in the dining halls regularly, the leftover food you leave on the conveyor belt immediately becomes waste — and it adds up quickly.

“Sustainability-wise it’s amazing to reduce food waste, and in terms of our costs it’s also amazing to reduce food waste,” said iCAP Zero Waste Team member Thurman Etchison, University Housing’s Assistant Director of Dining Services’ Facilities and Equipment. “In a regular week during the school year, we’ll see about 20,000 pounds of food waste.” Over a 16-week semester, that clocks in at 320,000 pounds of uneaten and wasted food.

Dining Services has taken action to reduce the environmental cost of food waste. Rather than going straight to the landfill, leftover food from all university dining halls is ground into one of five “Grind2Energy” holding tanks. The resulting, certainly pungent, slurry is sent to the Urbana-Champaign Sanitary District, where it is deposited into an anaerobic digester that turns it into fertilizer and, you guessed it, methane.

But this methane does not leak into the atmosphere in the same way as if the food were in a landfill. Instead, the gas is eventually burned to generate energy. The full Grind2Energy cycle also ensures that dining hall food scraps are not wasted but instead used to provide a third of the electricity and half of the heating demand for the Sanitary District — thus reducing the need for other fossil fuels.

Grind2Energy is the best system possible, but not perfect: It still emits greenhouse gases — burning methane results in CO₂ — albeit far less potent ones. The best weapons in our arsenal to combat food waste are individual decisions.

There lies the good news amidst all the waste. It’s hard to individually change where you get your energy or make your community more climate-resilient all by yourself. However, minimizing waste, choosing to recycle, and managing food waste are some of the easiest ways an individual can fight climate change.

When that attitude is amplified on an institutional level, nearly anything is possible. For an example, look no further than “The Nation’s Premier College Marching Band,” the Marching Illini. Audition information, drill formations, and sheet music were formerly done on paper for the nearly 400-member organization, but the band is now an entirely paperless operation.

Now that students read music, drill, and check in for attendance on their phones, the Marching Illini save nearly $35,000 a year and thousands more sheets of paper. By rethinking what was necessary, and reevaluating how to reduce waste, the band’s environmental impact shrinks with each game.

Perhaps on some (hopefully soon) future Saturday in the fall, when the Marching Illini take the field at Memorial Stadium, it will be a Zero Waste halftime at a Zero Waste game at a Zero Waste university.

The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is already past the halfway point from Illinois Climate Action Plan 2020 to iCAP 2025. It’s time to check in with each of the iCAP topical chapters to gauge progress, address the challenges our campus faces, and celebrate some achievements. This month, iSEE Communications Intern Gabe Lareau examines the Resilience chapter to see how the university community is keeping up with its commitment to be climate-resilient. View the full series >>>

 

Climate change often takes the future tense. In our international accords, nationwide legislation, and general discourse, we set sustainability goals with the implication that, if we do not succeed, the planet will be in for an environmental, ecological, and economic collapse.

The conversation must now reflect the present. In recent years, extreme weather has become more commonplace — and more destructive. Oceans are rising and becoming more acidic. Wildfires are more frequent and burn longer, covering cities, like Champaign-Urbana last summer, in a blanket of haze.

The University of Illinois and its surrounding communities are and will be ever more affected. That’s why, in early 2019, representatives from Champaign, Urbana, Savoy, and the university formed the iCAP Resilience Team. This team is markedly different from other iCAP Teams. It is entwined with the community: Champaign, Urbana, Savoy, and other local entities are all involved in its efforts.

While the rest work away at reducing the U of I’s contributions to climate change — transitioning to renewables for the Energy Team, electrifying campus’ fleet for Transportation, etc. — the Resilience Team is preparing us for a more hazardous environmental future. Its mission is complex, interdisciplinary, unachievable without collaboration, and critical. By finding adaptation methods to minimize infrastructural or ecological damage due to the effects of climate change, the Resilience Team’s goals are deeply interwoven with the other iCAP teams’ efforts to mitigate further causes of climate change.

The 2020 iCAP identified three major areas that “augment our mitigation strategies with innovative resilience measures.” Those initiatives — rainwater management, urban biodiversity, and green jobs — each require an array of solutions. Because climate resilience presents a moving target that is hard to quantify, these approaches can seem unwieldy and even abstract. But these three areas are deeply interconnected.

 

Rainwater Management

While Champaign-Urbana isn’t affected by sea-level rise, flooding is still a risk. The most visible body of water here, the Boneyard Creek, is spanned by a bridge that takes three steps to cross, a timid non-factor whose biggest hazard is wet socks. But it wasn’t always this way.

In the 1980s, the Boneyard would invade Green Street, submerging Campustown in knee-deep, pungent, destructive floodwater. This once-every-rainstorm event had an enormous negative impact on people’s livelihoods – flooding businesses, disrupting foot and vehicle traffic, and making its way into residences. Since 2002, when the city of Champaign launched its Streetscape project to divert the Boneyard into places like the Healey and 2^nd Street basins, Green Street and its businesses and apartments have seen nary a drop of displaced water.

The Boneyard’s transformation from a perpetually imminent disaster to an issue the community hardly thinks about anymore is a local, effective example of what proper rainwater management can achieve. Its implementation has served a dual purpose: a drainage system for increased rainfalls and a prominent wildlife oasis in our increasingly drought-susceptible local climate. Since 2002, though, as the climate has grown hotter and more extreme weather events occur, both flood and heat risks have increased. More measures are needed.

Progress is being made through the Champaign County Stormwater Partnership, fulfilling part of the iCAP’s objective on the coordination of stormwater management across the C-U metropolitan area. A collaboration between the county, university, Champaign, Urbana, Savoy, and the Champaign County Soil and Water Conservation District (SWCD), the partnership provides resources on proper waterway management for industrial and residential uses. It also hosted the third Illinois Green Infrastructure & Erosion Control Conference in October.

Conferences like these further emphasize what the Resilience Team has recommended for this entire community: Upgrading rainwater management systems. Some of the best practices the team identified include an increased use of permeable pavement and native landscaping to minimize flooding. The recommendations have yet to be implemented and will likely require additional revenue — Urbana is set to increase its stormwater fees to $27 a month next year, and Champaign increased its fee by 3.5% last year.

 

 Urban Biodiversity

 While strengthening each community’s built infrastructure is certainly important, just as crucial for a resilient city is the capacity to support its natural infrastructure.

According to the Urban Biodiversity objective, not only do tree canopies “improve air quality and reduce atmospheric CO₂,” they also “curb the heat island effect.” This is good news for not just the human residents of Champaign-Urbana, but also native bird and insect species that use them as habitats.

Trees also function as a natural water management system — they decrease stormwater runoff not only by taking up water but also by increasing water infiltration because their roots loosen the soil. The more there are, the more water their roots, and the newly absorptive soil, can soak up. Even more, trees also prevent soil erosion, a vital service to waterways choked by unwanted sediments.

Along with reducing stress by being more aesthetically pleasing than a concrete slab, natural shade can mitigate the urban greenhouse effect — a dire need in lower-income areas. According to Scott Tess, Urbana’s Sustainability & Resilience Officer and member of the iCAP Resilience Team, the city has been “reorienting” where to plant, placing about 100 trees per year in low-income and unshaded low-income areas in an effort to address locally the nationwide problem of poorer areas’ lack of tree cover. Using trees to help the most vulnerable and least fortunate among us also plays into the Green Jobs iCAP goal and completes a “tree-fecta” — absorbing water runoff, improving air quality, and promoting environmental justice.

The Resilience Team recommended that UI Extension develop an Urban Biodiversity Master Plan to make “the campus metro area a model for biodiversity.” While still a year from its planned completion date, the preliminary draft extensively catalogs the biodiversity assets, vulnerabilities, and possible improvements for Champaign, Urbana, and Savoy.

Its data-based conclusions — including C-U’s natural areas and their unique ability for flood management, the opportunities offered by new plantings for large-scale green job growth, and a rough patch-and-corridor habitat plan that would support pollinator and bird populations, among others — will guide the iCAP Resilience Team’s future efforts in this topic.

 

 Green Jobs

 Proper stormwater systems and biodiversity infrastructure do not simply appear out of thin air. Every iCAP Resilience objective will require a massive effort to recruit workers with a multitude of skills. Managing projects, conducting scientific studies, surveying ecosystems, actually building climate-resilient green infrastructure — all of these (and more) will be needed to fulfill the iCAP’s Green Jobs objective.

The City of Champaign is actively searching for a new employee to oversee its sustainability plan, the City’s version of the university’s iCAP. In Urbana, Tess has held his position for almost a decade and has overseen the city’s participation in Geothermal Urbana-Champaign and Solar Urbana-Champaign programs — as well as a solar landfill project. Tess also noted the many “exciting” legislative developments on the state and federal level — like the Inflation Reduction Act and Illinois’ Climate and Equitable Jobs Act — that could expand similar future programs.

In truth, every objective within the Resilience chapter (and, arguably, the entire iCAP) has the potential to spur job growth, especially among underprivileged communities and at-risk youths.

Another prospect for green jobs within the university metro area is laid out in the as-yet unpublished Urban Biodiversity Master Plan. To fulfill its short- and long-term goals of restoring Champaign-Urbana’s natural infrastructure as much as possible will require vast amounts of effort.

Nor will the iCAP-related job opportunities arise only within the community. The iCAP requires the University of Illinois to be a regional climate leader — a goal that our campus has partially fulfilled via its partnerships with other Big Ten institutions, the Illinois Geothermal Coalition, and more.

The path to resilient communities depends on the growth of green jobs and the proposition that reframing the issue from climate change to job growth can dampen backlash from climate skeptics. And, with programs mentioned in the iCAP like the National Green Infrastructure Certification Program (NGICP), which educates participants about the technical aspects and importance of their work, more people will realize that building resilient communities is a job-creating endeavor.

Perhaps soon, talking about our environment in the future tense might sound a little bit brighter.