Changes to the Blog

If you're reading this on facebook, I urge you to go to http://gci-uchicago.blogspot.com/ and check out the small but pretty important changes I've made to the blog.

First, I've added a Twitter feed widget thing on the right. Blog posts are about GCI. The twitter feed will have links to stuff outside of GCI. You know, news, analysis, opinion, policy, politics, laws, conferences, and such. I've played around with it for a couple of weeks, and I feel I can keep up a good stream of links. But of course, the links are coming out of my filter. I'll try to put up thoughtful, important, and meaningful articles. No guarantees though.

I've also updated some the links section, which is right underneath the Twitter feed. In addition to making sure all environmental organizations at UChicago are represented, I've added some links to sites in Chicago. Very much thanks to Asif at Ecofiend and Columbia College! He gave me most of these links. Check 'em out. There are several excellent ones out there.

So I remember telling myself to do this back in the summer. I feel like I've written this sentiment before, but at least we got it done! Hooray!

Eating grapefruits,

Willy

Michael Recycle

So our high school Environmental Club decided to make a comic book. The hero was Michael Recycle. I've decided to take pictures of it and to share it with y'all. The pictures are from my phone, so they aren't great. And I guess I could've picked better lighting. But hopefully you'll enjoy :) It's cute.

Blogging twice in one day?

Willy

P.S. Sorry I cut off some of the images. Hopefully they're still understandable =/

Tapioca Plastic Bag Meeting

Tuesday November 3, 2009

Christina Melander, UChicago alumna, and her colleagues comes to our school to pitch biodegradeable plastic bags in an effort to reduce "White Pollution". What sets these apart from other biodegradeable plastic bags? Sugianto Tandio, a chemical engineer from Indonesia, uses tapioca root to make these bags. Tapioca biodegrades faster than corn and use less water and energy to grow. Furthermore, they have a positive effect on local agricultural communities of Indonesia. Christina, her brother, her father, and Mr. Tandio are touring the U.S. to promote this product for PT Tirta Marta, an Indonesian company. They held a demonstration in our very own UCEC in the hopes that our school would move away from plastic bags. Here's my blog post documenting this meeting. Let's see how good my notes are.

The official name of these bags is Ecoplas. More information can be found here. The website is here.

These bags deteriorate in about 10 weeks. We were shown samples of the bags at different stages of biodegradation. They just stuck the bags in the dirt and dug 'em up at different intervals. Pretty effective, I'd say. Mr. Tandio told us that 8 years of research had gone into these bags. Along the way, he worked with the National Cooperative Grocers Association and local growers of tapioca to ensure fair trade and fair labor.

Some things about tapioca. It is cheap and grown like a weed in the tropics. 90% of poor people reside in the tropics. Thus, not only is tapioca a good crop for plastic bags, it also helps the poor. There are social and environmental benefits to these bags.

Most importantly, they stressed that these bags are almost the same cost as regular plastic bags. As much as we would like it otherwise, monies play a big role in many environmental decisions.

So what can we do with these on our campus? First, if we wanted to convince the school to adopt these bags, what places can the school influence? Two places, really. C-shop and the bookstore. And you might be thinking "Big whoop. That's two places". But the bookstore is a rather public place. Visitors, prospective students, random people all go there to take a look at UChicago swag. What impression would the school make if the bags were these biodegradeable things made from tapioca? What would people think when they found out many other schools' bookstores did NOT do this? UChicago would be pretty ballin.

Another idea that I'd like to throw out there would be partnering with local businesses. Much like how SG has given us discounts (kudos to them!), businesses that make a switch to more sustainable practices will get some sort of benefits from increased student traffic. Of course, this is the least fleshed out of all plans out there, but it's a start. And we can we use these plastic bags as a more sustainable practice.

There has actually been a GCIer willing to take up reducing plastic bag use or improving the plastic bag situation at our school. We will explore this more fully in Winter quarter.

Feeling good after the weekend,

Willy

ISEC Conference

O Muse of Environmental Blogging, please help me remember the events that transpired on October 17th. It's been 2 months to the date now, and as you know, it is hard for us to remember detailed events so long ago. While I've got a basic outline in my head, I hope you help me flesh out the details.

XoOOXoxo,                                                              Willy

Our party included Aninna, Julie, Homaira, Sebastien, and me. Homaira came a little later because of some complications, but that's okay. At least she made it out! We were late anyways as we got off at the wrong station. Me and Julie both swore google maps told us to get off at Sheridan. I guess getting off at the stop called "Loyola" (where the conference was) would've made more sense. Eh... It was also cold, so we put our hands on my water bottle that had warm water inside. Look!

When we got to the conference, we got the last of the opening speaker.  Unfortunately, I cannot remember what he said exactly.  I think something else happened for an hour or so, but then we had two options of tours- a biodiesel lab and a roof garden.  I chose to go to the roof garden.

The roof garden was located on top of Uncommon Ground.  Definitely a place to go eat in the near future.

Their roof garden was more of a farm.  There were these fancy tubs of dirt and plants with special irrigation systems.  My memory fails me, but trust me, the whole system was pretty innovative.  To support the added weight of all these plants, they actually raised the roof and installed supports (not sure about the exact term).  There were tomatoes, sunflowers, peppers, and herbs. 

Our tour guide said the food grown up on the roof probably accounted for 1% of the ingredients used.  In fact, they were actually losing money off of the garden.  Still though, they felt it was important to provide this opportunity to educate young people about local food, and to show the public that these novel ideas really can work.  The tour guide also showed us their cold frames to extend the growing season.  Those are in the first picture and the second picture shows a wider view of the roof.

 

Those wire frames help the plants grow.  Oh, and I think they grew cabbage and lettuce, too.  Thanks Muse!

We then walked back and had lunch with strangers.  We were each assigned a number with a corresponding table.  That way, we were forced to go out and meet other people.  I’m firmly in the camp of those who want to meet people but need a little prodding here and there.  Lunch were these organic wraps, and I finally got some falafel!  Bartlett stopped serving them :(  I met some people from Roosevelt and Elmhurst.  Elmhurst, I learned, was just starting an environmental club.  We traded stories about homework, how printing works at our schools, and environmental spirit at our respective schools.  It was nice to meet other people out there trying to do the same things as you. 

Next, Julie Hamos, gave a speech about her efforts in working on the environment as a state legislator.  I don’t remember much about what exactly she talked about, but I do remember one girl asking her some pretty tough questions about coal power plants.  We heard a representative at Power Shift, too, and to be honest, neither of them were very impressive. 

The keynote speaker was Rob Kelter, President of the Board of the Illinois Environmental Council.  I don’t remember much.  Yeah sorry, I’m pretty worthless.  I’ll make a better effort to put up blog posts as soon as the event occurs in the future.  Pinky swear.

And then we went home.  The Klarchek Information Commons, where the conference was held, is a very nice building.  Loyola is a very nice campus.  Props to them!

Will do better in the future,                                         Willy

Yes!

Hey everybody,

GCI would like to thank all of those who voted for our t-shirt in MAC Property Management's t-shirt design contest. Thanks also to Stuart, Campus Marketing Coordinator, for organizing and hosting this competition. Here's our design. Eric and Paul of Imago are behind the artwork.

Many, many, many appreciative gratitudes. I don't think that made much sense, but I hope y'all understand :)

Because we won, we got 30 t-shirts with our design in any size we want. Any size we wanted! Wooooow! I made the decision to reward our most active members with a free t-shirt. It's been a busy quarter with lots of hard work. There remains a lot to be done, though, so hopefully that polar bear will look you in the eye when it's 5:45 on a Wednesday and you're debating whether or not to come to the meeting. :)

We also got $500 as part of the winnings. While we were probably out of debt with some monies we made from our printer cartridge recycling program, we are now officially out of debt. Let all the animals, humans, plants, and microbes in the world hear us proclaim. Green Campus Initiative is now out of debt. From $750 in debt at the beginning of last year, we have clawed our way out of the hole. !!!

!!!

Even with money in the bank, that's not going to solve all the problems. People do that. Like you! If you're reading this and are interested in joining GCI, shoot me an e-mail wwgu44@gmail.com . Check out our facebook page. Join our listhost. Feel inspired by the Copenhagen talks (or lack significant progress) to do something? I'm with you. Let's use GCI as the vehicle to get us to our destination, yeah?

Still amazed by how sweet persimmons are,

Willy

No Trash Bash Debriefing: Part 3, Improvements and Future Ideas

(old school logo)

So almost a month after No Trash Bash, we're here finally finishing debriefing. If you think that's bad, I'm still going to write a post about the ISEC conference on October 17th, almost two months ago! But at least it's getting done, ya?

One thing we talked about was the lineup of music. Having a capella groups there was great, as that brought in their friends to the event. These people probably came to see their friends sing first. During one of our meetings afterwards, we talked about having Lakesigns play first? This way, it would keep the energy high for 30-40 minutes, and then as people got their food (or we ran out), they would settle down and listen to the a capella groups.

Our main objective was to educate students about environmental projects and initiatives on and off campus. Is there any way we could make sure people actually got out, talked to the booths, and learned something? During our meeting, we talked about the booths offering raffle tickets or punching out a card that could be redeemed for prizes. If the prizes were good, this would work. But then again, we're all adults. Is it patronizing that one might be treated as a little kid in an effort to get him or her to talk and learn about an environmental organization? Should it be up to the actual booths to have an exciting and attractive table, and that should be the reason people come over to talk? That's one area where we can improve a lot, I think. The booths after all, are the centerpiece of NTB.

The tie-dye worked out fantastically. It didn't take much space, wasn't messy, and gave the event a more interesting element. We'll do it next year and maybe look for more colors from natural things? Perhaps we'll have some more money to spend so we could provide t-shirts/sell them for cheap.

With more money, we could also diversify the food selection. Not only that, we could stagger the handing out of food, so there would be a steady stream of people in line (I feel like I've written this before. Sorry if I have). Hopefully we can find something that everybody will like as well as provide portions for everybody. We did run out of chips and lemonade, although we still have much ice tea mix left. I don't think people minded that our refreshments were just powdered mix and water. Whatever works, yeah? And supposedly, we should have some Brita filters in the UCEC, so we can just provide drinkable water from tap water, although tap water from a drinking fountain isn't really that much different. See Tap Water Challenge!

I admit, I've forgotten a lot. And it's 68 degrees outside, so that's inhibiting my ability to think of more improvements. So please excuse me for leaving this post. Hope y'all are having great Winter Breaks!

Putting sunglasses on,

Willy

Minutes from 12/2 Meeting

Hallloooo there from Winter Break!

Minutes from 12/2 Meeting

Present: I once again forgot to write it down. Thanks to those who came though!

Explanation of GCI for next quarter (I will type up a more detailed blog post about this later)

• Everybody will work in pods, small groups of 3-4 people. Each pod will have a specific project to focus on. These projects will have concrete and attainable goals.
• As for those jobs that are ongoing and don't really have a goal, other than to be successful, those will be called officers.

We then talked about a list of projects and which ones we should actually focus our time on. Here's the list of projects and our thoughts

• recycling in the dorms
• printer cartridge recycling program
• trays in the dining halls
• manageable. have a big impact
• would work with Aramark and Sustainability Office
• investigative reporting
• share boxes
• recycling for apartments
• plastic bag use
• bags are really cheap. would be hard to change
• SG funding clause
• Bake sale
• having a presence at Kuvia
• handing out free stuff to people who leave Kuvia.
• get GCI's name out there
• culture shows
• lots of exposure
• easy to just get composting and recycling at dinners
• working with UC Dems on Gala
• green roofs
• bottled water

Jobs that require a sustained effort (officers)

• typing up minutes- Lauren will do it
• manage blog, facebook, twitter, website, and general publicity- Jefferson
• facebook items will have a facebookey nature to it. smaller items, more interesting to read, more local, more exciting
• our eventual website will primarily be a blog, but there will be a twitter feed or something with links to news items and environmental happenings outside of Chicago
• Treasurer/money manager-
• GAIA director- Rahul
• ECO director- Julie

So I finally figured out how to use my webcam. Please excuse me if I decide to post some video footage or something.

Byeeeeeee,

Willy

Exams

Rararooaahaargghhhhh gagagaga

Exams are approaching. I will be focusing on those for now. But to entice you with what's to come, here's the list of blogposts that will be written. After exams. Raaraaarroooogaorghghhhh

• GCI Mission Statement
• ISEC Conference
• Tapioca plastic bag meeting
• Lester Brown's Talk (I took notes!)
• NTB Debriefing Part 3
• What we did this quarter and how that compared to our plan
• Next quarter's GCI structure and activities
• some things from over the summer that I have kept in a Google documents file saved online

Goooooood luuuuuckkkk,
Willy

Polar Bear Shirt!!!

We're in a t-shirt competition. Let's win.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/GKFBH68

Vote for ours! I've sent out some e-mails already, so here are some reasons why you should vote for GCI's!

"The polar bear represents the fight against and victims of climate change. He or she has been a symbol of the environmental movement. And the environment is something that we all have a stake in. When you wear that shirt around, people aren't going to ask you "oh, what's Eckhart Consulting?" (sorry Eckhart Consulting) They'll get it. GCI, as it should be, is just an afterthought."

"The bear is pretty cute"

"the polar bear, a symbol for climate change, the environment, and cute cuddlyness, needs your vote. :)"

Here's the link again http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/GKFBH68

Thanks for all that y'all do,

Willy