Biking vs. Walking

I recently joined up for the Bike to Work challenge being hosted by the City of Ottawa. The point is to create a goal about how much you would like to bike to work during the month of May, post your goal on their website, and then work towards that goal. Everything was going really well, I signed up on the site, set my goal.... and then I realized a day later that I have moved and don't bike as much as I used to, In fact, I don't actually need to bike at all to get to work.

So now I am stuck in the precarious postilion of in no way being able to meet my cycling goal. This has played heavily on my mind and it got me thinking... what is better for the environment, walking or biking. At first glance you would think walking has biking beat hands down on this one; but maybe not.

Resources
First consider the amount of stuff that goes into making a bike (frame, pedals, seat, etc.) and maintaining. This number isn't so bad if you consider that amount of time you keep a bike for. If your bike lasts 10 years, how many pairs of shoes will you go through during that same period? Not only that, you have to consider the use of the shoes on a kilometre to kilometre basis. So how many pairs of shoes does that total up to?

Consumption
Did you know the average Canadian owns something like 22 pairs of foot wear? Seriously, go check your closet. Shoes are a fashion item and are therefore marketed heavily in society. Bikes are also heavily marketed but because of their size and their cost, people don't buy a bunch of bikes. If I had to guess, a person will go through about 200 pairs of shoes / boots during their lifetime. As for bikes, I figure (and this is a complete guess) the average person will go through about 6 or 7 bikes.

End of Life
So the other thing to think about is what happens to your shoes when you are done with them. Don't worry, we all know that for the most part they go into the garbage bin (I mean come... they are bacteria traps, right? Come on). Bikes though, we it is rare that an entire bike would go right into the garbage bin. Usually they are resold or stripped for parts, so if you think about it they actually have a life-cycle that is much much longer.

Utility
This is a pretty simple comparison... how far can you go on a bike versus by foot, and how long does it take? Bikes = further + faster.

So you see my dilemma right? I mean my heart rate gets a lot higher when I am biking, but of course I am at a higher risk of getting hit by a car. Although I do get around a lot faster. And if you look at what the uOttawa campus offers in terms of biking facilities (secure bike enclosure, bike share program, showers, counter-flow bike lanes, and a bike coop), you can see that there a a lot of good reasons why I would want to hit the bike again rather than beat my feat.

A little help please?

~jON - campus sustainability manager
photo credit - jonathan rausseo

I'm a freegan today. It's my birthday!

I love the month of May. Apple trees are blooming, lilac trees smell like rainbows and I can party like a rockstar. Why? Because it’s my birthday and what better way to celebrate than with free stuff? Basically, it’s been my birthday all month thanks to Dump N’ Run : shampoo, lip balm, a cute dress, rockin’ heels and some summer reads. Least to say the Dump N’ Run has taken away any prejudice I might have had about receiving free things, hence my impatience to set up the permanent Free Store and my frequent visits to the FreeCycle website.

But back to the birthday part. I remembered reading about a girl having spent a day roaming Ottawa for birthday freebies. Not only do I get to wear my favourite dress and receive funny phone calls from relatives, but I can also get free stuff?? AWESOME! Thanks to Google and Yahoo Answers, I managed to track down a few stores I really wanted to visit, besides the obvious restaurants that offer a slice of cake or a drink. Here are a few fun ones:

1. Timothy’s offers a free coffee to anyone who joins their coffee club. Technically, it isn’t a birthday freebie, but maybe they’ll add some extra joy for your special day.

2. Booster Juice offers a free drink on your birthday if you sign up for their updates and what not. You can always send all the mail to your spam box and just check it on your birthday.

3. Sephora will give you a pretty little gift if you go to their store (no purchase necessary) and give them your email address. This year they are giving out a lip balm duo that smells like sunshine and protects your lips from the rays. Yum-my!

4. Dairy Queen ‘s “freebie” is only “free” if you get a friend to buy a medium sized Blizzard and you print off the special coupon. But! If a friend wants to treat you to an ice cream date, it’s ideal.

5. Denny’s offers a great big breakfast to help you recover from last night’s celebrations: pancakes, eggs, bacons, toast and coffee.

6. Tuckers marketplace offers you a free meal on your birthday. That's right free. What could be more freegan?

7. For gluten eaters, What a Bagel will give you a dozen bagels on your birthday. (I’m sooo jealous).

Oh, and if my suggestions are too tame, Hooters will give a t-shirt to the birthday boy or girl.

Enjoy!

~katherine - campus sustainability coordinator

photo credit - jonathan rausseo

Post Bottled Water Free Campus

I had a scare a while back in the form of a mysterious phone call...

Background: I never get calls at work, mostly because I have a strong distaste for talking on the phone and do all my contacting by email or in person but also because I don’t have a work extension nor a phone plan on my cell (hell, I still have a 519 number from home). This equalled my terror when Jon’s voice floated over the cubicle wall to inform me that someone was on the phone for me. In fact, I thought he was joking. Answering the phone, I had my wavering, stranger voice on to hear a man inquire about a report I had written on Water Fountains on campus.

I relaxed a little as he explained that he worked for the Green Education Council of Canada and was interested in setting up a meeting between myself and their CEO to discuss post bottled water ban tactics. ASLDFHEJFKGHY^N%$%[insert excitement here] It just seemed like a great opportunity to showcase the University’s progress as a bottled water free campus; and even though I was not involved in the banning of bottled water (before my time as a Sustainability Coordinator), I have aided in the post-ban strategy. Thankfully, as it was this in particular that the council is interested in exploring.

For those of you who didn’t know, the University of Ottawa became the first bottled water free university in Ontario in September 2010. Since then, the university has invested hundreds of thousands in order to revitalize fountains and keep the campus community satisfied with water access and quality. Where do I fit into all of this? Well, I am an expert water assesmentress (it’s a word, I swear). Basically, I have spent the last two years conducting and writing the water fountain assessment which involves visiting water fountains on campus and taking care of them. I guess my work and Jon’s sweet infographictizing (another real word, look it up) got us noticed :D

Anyhow, after meeting with their CEO, Jon agreed to put me on the project of creating a post ban document that will serve for Canadian (who knows who else) campuses as a strategy guide. It’s all pretty exciting in my enviro geek opinion. Except, Jon seems to think I will be contacting other universities by phone to get input [insert fearful twitches here]. Gulp* time to face my phone anxieties…

~merissa, campus sustainability coordinator
photo credit - kira lamont

Vivre sans déchets: gagnant

Mon introduction dans l'univers du mouvement environnemental est assez plate comme histoire : ma tante travaille dans le même édifice que la Saskatchewan Environmental Society. Elle m’avait perçu comme un jeune militant potentiel déjà à l'âge de 11 ou 12 ans, et donc elle m'a amené au boulot un jour.

Mon premier souvenir en tant qu’« écologiste officiel » a lui aussi peu d'allure : je siégeais à un comité de planification de ladite organisation sans but lucratif. Je crois que ma première vraie tâche était d'appeler la compagnie qui gère les publicités sur les autobus de Saskatoon (ma voix avait encore à mûrir--la honte).

Neuf ans plus tard et je me trouve au Centre de développement durable à l'U d'O. Comme simple bénévole, d'ailleurs. Et un jour, à un atelier, on me demande si je me soumettrais à l'engagement de vivre sans déchets. N'ayant jamais eu l'aptitude qu'a l'individu moyen de dire non, je dis oui. Et voilà ! Deux, peut-être trois mois plus tard et, malgré tout département de marketing et tout fabricant de collations en sachet, je me suis conservé. Malgré eux. Vive l'esprit libre !

L'était-il pénible, l'engagement ? Non, pas autant que ça. Comme j'ai dit à Christine Bérubé au moment de ma conscription, je menais déjà une vie passablement éco. Je mange d'habitude chez moi et apporte de quoi à manger à l'université tous les jours. Ça en soi épargne beaucoup de déchets potentiels. J'achète autant que possible en vrac à l'épicerie, je mange peu en premier lieu, je suis végétarien, je ne me brosse jamais les dents (je blague), je n'ai aucune amante (pensez-y un instant) et je n'ai pas fait du magasinage depuis presque un an. 


Vous voyez, pas dur. J'ai aussi quelques avantages. Je vis tout seul avec ma chatte et fais donc toute décision moi-même. Nous sommes aussi chanceux à cet égard de vivre à Ottawa (Hull, j'en sais rien malheureusement), une ville avec un système de compostage et recyclage raisonnable. Je vous dis, ce n'est pas pareil en Saskatchewan. Le recyclage là, ça « suce ». 

Une information en particulier m'a sauvé la vie : le recyclage de plastique sur le campus, non comme le système municipal, accepte littéralement toute forme de plastique. Un fardeau de moins !

L'était-elle savante, la décision de le faire ? Oui, il va sans dire. Une maxime que nous partageons tous est de se comporter tel que l'on veut que les autres se comportent. Pour reprendre une anecdote de Christine, quelle horreur il serait si tout le monde devait traîner leur propre poubelle toute la journée longue ! Il serait humiliant combien de déchets que l'on produit.

En partie, j'ai accepté le défi pour la même raison que je continue d'être pescetarien (végétarien, si vous voulez), quoique je ne prenne pas plaisir au goût d'animaux morts quand même. Je ne crois pas que la consommation de viande doit être forcément interdite, mais tant qu'il y a autant de gens qui en prennent trop, je me vois dans l'obligation de n'en manger aucune afin de rééquilibrer la situation. De même, il y a trop de déchets, donc même s'il me faut quelques sacrifies, il vaut la peine.

Il ne faut pas nécessairement s'inscrire pour embarquer dans un tel projet personnel. Vous pouvez commencer tout de suite ! Le moins de gaspillage que mon existence suscite, le mieux que je me sens. C'est aussi simple que ça.

~Alex Jürgen Thumm - 1ère année en science politique et philosophiephoto credit - jonathan rausseo

Waste Free Pledge - runner up

http://www.sustainable.uottawa.ca/how-can-i-get-involved.html#Take the pledge

I took on this challenge with gusto on February 5th - yes, the day of the Superbowl. I made sure the snacks and beverages I prepared were made and served in reusable containers. Then, as an added waste-reduction measure, I sorted through any other materials produced by others and recycled it. One of the best parts of this is that when I pulled a bunch of paper towel out of the garbage to compost it (yeah, garbage picking...it wasn't my finest moment), I found $10!!! Being waste-free really does pay off.

As for work, everything I ate had to be packed in reusable containers and transported to and from the office. The hardest part of this was the organics...I had to bring home apple cores and banana peels in order to compost them since there were no bins at work. Everyone in the office thought I was mildly crazy for packing up a container full of organics and encouraging them to do the same, but I think they realized just how much garbage I was NOT producing with my lunches. Hopefully they've taken note of some food to prepare which doesn't produce any garbage.

Throughout the two weeks of my participation in Recyclemania I worked on getting my roommates to recycle and compost more. By the end of my challenge, February 19th, my four roommates had produced only a half-bag of garbage in a week. This is a huge improvement from before Recyclemania! In addition to the half-bag of garbage, there were two full bins of recycling and a good amount of compost. I was fairly proud of them for putting up with me every time I stopped them from throwing food in the garbage or for taking the lazy route of not recycling because they didn't want to rinse a container. We're still rocking the composting and recycling routine and producing far less garbage than before.

I think this challenge was excellent and raised awareness about how wasteful our lifestyles are. I will keep at the anti-waste regime and continue to encourage others to do so as well. Thanks for this challenge!

Cheers,

~Courtney, guest blogger
photo credit - jonathan rausseo

Tell me what you want and I’ll make it happen

I’ve been working on the newsletter for a while now. Trying to make it sexy, easy to read and damn attractive. Besides lathering it in chocolate and honey (the obvious way to make anything attractive), I guess I could work on the design and the content. Move around the columns and rows. Add some flashy colours.

Maybe I could add some weird content, for example: “Weird fact of the month: A gorilla can fart ten times louder than a human being”. Would that entice more people to read our newsletter? Or maybe I could do like Cosmo does and add a little corny love story at the bottom that will perpetually end with “to be continued”. If that still doesn't work, we could try a section called “Ten ways to crush compost”, for those who’d rather see old fruit explode.

Why am I throwing out so many random ideas? Well, I find it difficult to tell if the content is interesting or not. The content is what I think will interest fellow students. But I don’t know what everyone else wants and/or is thinking about. I kind of wish I could read minds when this happens. You like Bike to Work Month memes? Done! Silly tweets about nasty underwear found during Dump N’ Run? Done! Volunteer opportunities? Sooo done! I’m the Santa of social media.

I just want to make you happy. Tell me what you want and I’ll make it happen.

~katherine - campus sustainability coordinator
photo credit - jonathan rausseo

You are all Part of my Compost Heap

"We are all part of the same compost heap."
Let’s face it; Tyler Durden knew his shit- or compost rather.

The importance of composting lies at the root of waste diversion (ah ha ha - root, compost = I’m hilarious). We are able to recycle the basics - paper, metal, glass and plastics but the bulk of what is left in most people’s trash is compostable items. I know this because I had the pleasure of sorting through dumpsters and residence rooms after students moved out at the end of April.

The main components of student’s (and in all probability the average person’s) trash was compostable (in the form of rotting foods, yum). This surprised me as the campus has a great composting system in place; a campus vermi-composter located near the portables and an off campus mechanical composter, named Oscar, at 200 Lees. This combination of systems allows for 200 tonnes of composting a year. For students in apartment style residences, it is as simple as contacting your residence program coordinator for a bin and emptying it when needed in the same area as you do recyclables and waste. For conventional residences, if you do not have a Green Rep, then you can opt to become one here which would make you responsible for emptying the bin on your floor’s kitchen to the recycling area. To learn more about what can be composted click here.

Some interesting campus composting facts:

• the utensils in the cafeteria are compostable, they have the brand name “Polar” and can be placed in the food area composting bins 
• most containers given out in the cafeteria are compostable, 28 are thrown out per hour in the cafeteria on average 
• brown paper towels (when wet) are compostable, most washrooms on campus have specific bins for their disposal 
• coffee cups on campus are compostable (their plastic lids are recyclable in the all plastics program) 

For those off-campus readers, the City of Ottawa’s green bins are collected every week. If you are new to composting or need to replace a stolen bin, look here. If you live in a multi-unit or apartment building, it may be as easy as contacting your landlord and requesting a system be put in place. You can offer to take responsibility for the disposal of your own kitchen bin and larger green bin to the curb each week and even connect with neighbours to get involved.

Finally, remember to keep your bins clean! Rinse after each disposal to prevent ants from infiltrating your kitchen. Cleaning bins is a lot easier when using compost bin liners which you can apparently buy- but we suggest making them yourself from old newspapers. See how here. Also, for any further information on campus composting check out our office’s website.

Happy Composting!

~ merissa | campus sustainability coordinator

photo credit | merissa

The Gender of Recycled Clothing

Spring is now fully upon us, bringing with it an anxiousness to rid oneself of all the habits and possession that we accumulate in the long cold winters. Some students are moving on to new lives having graduated, others may just be moving on to new places, leaving behind their cramped residence rooms, in lieu of less supervised and more spacious digs to live out their future university memories. In any case it has led to an abundance of perfectly good clothes, food, and furniture to end up on roadsides, in dumpsters, and in some cases in our Dump ‘N Run locations.

For those of you that haven’t seen the photos, or seen our posts, Dump ‘N Run is a time when we take donations or things we’ve found dumped around the University, sort it, clean it up and then donate it to local charities and shelters, saving hundreds pounds of perfectly good things from ending up in landfill sites. For those of you who have seen the photos and posts, yes we did in fact climb into dumpsters and sort through garbage, as yes the smell is as bad as we claim.

Now I’m not an organizationally inclined individual, so my recent condemnation to “the pit”, as we’ve nicknamed it, to sort through Dump ‘N Run things, has caused a temporary shift in my otherwise abstract thought process. Everything has a category, subcategory, and by extension a pile on the floor. Now this may seem silly to most but this has lead to an immense amount of internal conflict and self-reflection for me, especially when it comes to sorting clothes.

You see some of our categories are things like mens shirts and womens shirts, mens pants and womens pants, and then dresses/skirts. This means every shirt, pair of pants or dress/skirt has to be designated as a man’s or woman’s. Now at first I didn’t think much of it, some things just seemed to obviously belong to one pile or the other, but every now and then I would wander across something which I couldn’t decide to which pile it belonged. This got me thinking about what descriptors I was using to categorize clothes in.

For instance larger shirts often got grouped into the “mens” pile, while smaller ones “womens”, but that didn’t seem right as women can and do wear large size shirts, and men smaller ones. Colours and cuts also were a factor, but that too wasn’t taking into consideration men who may like more tailored cuts, or find that the colour pink really brings out their eyes, or women who like mens clothing cuts and patterns. This just lead to deeper and deeper contemplations, like “well why is this a descriptor I associate with a specific gender, and why is everything to be confined to such a binary system”.

I myself have been known to wear ‘mens’ clothing, and many of my male friends to wear ‘womens’ clothing, so who am I to reinforce age old gender stereotypes on people, especially on those who might not identify with the gender norms imposed by society.

So before I knew it I had one towering pile developing in front of me, filled with a mix of colours cuts, sizes, patterns and no longer subject to sub categorizations, or classifications. Now I know that many of you may think I took this sorting thing too far, and maybe that’s why my room is in a state of perpetual disaster, but I couldn’t help but to continue these contemplations on the gender assumptions we make which I feel are based on outdated systems of categorization.

I guess I’m not totally sure where I going with this, or whether there is a point to this blog at all. I suppose all I’m trying to do is engage you readers in my thought process, and share in this reflection of mine, in hopes that maybe we can all move forward being more conscious of the gender binaries and norms which exist in our society, and work to develop alternative structures, because well... sustainability is about more than just the environment.

~kira - campus sustainability coordinator
photo credit - jonathan rausseo

Smart Spring Cleaning

It’s the time of year when the weather is warming up, everything is fresh and new and everyone’s favorite activity comes to mind… Spring cleaning!

Here are some quick tips on easy ways you can get rid of clutter, clean up and organize without creating waste.


Purge Unused Items 
Someone wise once said, “If you haven’t used it in 6 months, you don’t need it.” Maybe it was Oprah. Maybe not. Since we live in an extremely seasonal climate, I stretch this for a year. For me this is mostly a wardrobe purge but look in your closets and under your bed. Are you REALLY going to use that tennis racket that has been lying around for 2 years?

Collect all your good but unloved stuff and bring them to the Dump and Run! You may not be using the seashell adorned photo frame your aunt gave you for graduation but someone out there might just fall in love with it.

Don’t forget to look through your cupboards and pantry. Lots of dry goods can keep for extended periods of time but often, if it’s been hiding way at the back, it may be unsalvageable. Put it in your home or campus compost.


Clean Up Using Natural Cleaners
It’s very easy to make a wide array of cleaning products if you have the following ingredients on hand:

• Baking soda (scrubs, deodorizes and clears blockages) 
• Vinegar (disinfects, deodorizes and softens fabric) 
• Lemons (dissolves soap scum and mineral deposits, polishes wood and shines metals) 

The internet is awash with recipes for homemade cleaners. Some of my favorites can be found right here.


Keep It Up
Be sure to regularly assess what you need before bringing more stuff into your space. Is this going to end up in the far corner of your closet within two months? Another way to ensure that you use what you have is to keep everything where you can easily access it. If you can see all the contents of your closet/pantry/shelves etc. easily without having to shuffle stuff around, you are more likely to use it. You can donate your stuff all year round at the Free Store just in case you are looking for a place to send it all.

If you are fully using everything you have, you might be less inclined to get more stuff you don’t really need.

~tiana - guest blogger

Good Progress, Bad Progress

I too used to be an optimistic about technology and science. I thought every time there was a problem either technology was going to fix it or science somewhere, we're over 7 billion on the planet, someone is bound to figure it out. - But now, not so much!It seems that there is good progress and bad progress and sometimes it is difficult to differentiate both of them. Here is an example of what I mean:

We might have found a way to provide ourselves with basic foods such as vegetables and fruits all year round but it beats the purpose of their consumption: they are loosing their nutritional values (vitamins) because of chemicals used to grow them faster and bigger and the way we harvest them.

Moreover, we keep investing in events like " bike for cancer" and "walk for cancer" and so on to get funds to develop more technology and science to find a cure for cancer. Maybe were going in the wrong direction. Maybe it's time to go back to our old habits. Instead of lobbying to get funds for research, we should lobby against the use of chemicals in our food industry and body products or any products we use and has contact with our body. One good outcome of science is that we figured out why cancer cases are increasing: it is not because population is increasing but rather because we are treationg our bodies like machines, we fill our bodies with chemicals through eating and cleaning ourselves and expect to stay alive without any consequences.

It is time now to start being more sustainable, buy more locally and tell our government that we can't take it anymore, we want to eat and live without chemicals, a few voices may not be heard, but millions of voices can!

~alex, campus sustainability coordinator
photo credit - loup niboyet