Live Simply.

Photo credit: unknown

I realize as September begins and students move into residence and new apartments that this saying is forgotten. The feelings of new beginnings overwhelm us and we decide to rid ourselves of last year’s Ikea furniture (because hey, we are getting the largest store in North America!) and make room for the new. I spent a chunk of this morning pulling “junk” from a dumpster in front of Brooks residence complex with the reward of saving numerous cardboard boxes from the trash along with two mirrors, a shelving unit and a few other assorted goods.

My first question/cry of outrage was, “Who in their right mind throws out a perfectly intact full-length mirror?” The response I received from Jon and Brigitte was that students that are moving just don’t know what to do with these things. I already knew this, after seeing the tonnes of material we saved from being tossed (and instead donated to local charities) but, still!

I look around my room with a sense of pride- my full length mirror was my sister’s old roommate’s and I salvaged it from being tossed, a wicker chair and wooden side table from the Dump and Run this year sit in the corner. Beside my bed sits a nightstand left from previous tenants that I stained a darker colour. My desk was found on one of my runs; carried back and painted black because it was once an obnoxious pink, and a black modern ladder-looking shelf that a neighbour was tossing now holds my books. I cannot even calculate the amount of money I saved; not to mention the amount of “junk” that my bedroom has managed to reuse makes me wonder how much space we could be saving in landfills if all students weren’t so picky about their furniture being trendy and new.

I am certainly not saying we have to pull a Thoreau and peace out to Walden Pond to live off the land and eliminate our footprint completely but borrowing some of these concepts and values from our good friends Thoreau and Malthus ("The power of population is so superior to the power of the earth to produce subsistence for man..”) and recognize that consuming and discarding our items in such a way cannot be sustained. Gather your roommates and walk the streets of Sandy Hill this upcoming week and I guarantee that among the rotting couches you will find some furnishings.

-merissa

http://thesustainabilitree.blogspot.com

Pour une rentrée durable…

Photo credit: dreamstime.com

1. Avant d'acheter de nouveaux livres, allez-voir les petites annonces pour des livres usagés. Rappelez-vous également d'annoncer vos propres livres usagés des semestres précédents. Ils pourraient être utiles à d'autres étudiants.

2. Même si les ventes chez IKEA sont alléchantes, avant d'acheter vos nouveau meubles, allez voir ce que vous pouvez trouver sur Kijiji, usedottawa, freecycleottawa, à la Gratuiterie de l'uOttawa, aux magasins de l'Armée du salut, chez Value Village, chez vos parents et même en bordure des maisons avant la collecte des ordures!

3. Assistez à la première classe de chacun de vos cours AVANT d'acheter vos fournitures scolaires. De cette façon vous saurez quels sont vos réels BESOINS.

4. Attendez un peu avant d'acheter une nouvelle garde-robe. Il y aura des ventes avant la fin du mois de toute façon et ils se cachent toutes sortes de merveilles dans les magasins de seconde main de la ville.

5. Équipez-vous d'une TASSE RÉUTILISABLE. 6500 tasses de carton sont gaspillées chaque jour sur le campus parce que les gens ne se donnent pas la peine de traîner leur propre tasse. Utilisez un mousqueton et attachez votre tasse après votre sac; vous ne le regretterez pas et vous donnerez un moment de répit à la Terre. Des bonnes tasses ne coûtent pas plus que 7$; le prix d'un Venti au méchant Starbucks.

6. Faites bon usage de votre U-Pass. Les adultes de la ville qui ne sont pas étudiants sont manifestement très jaloux de l'incroyable rabais qui nous est accordé pour le transport public. Profitez-en!

7. Si vous le pouvez, essayer de vous rendre à l'école en vélo avant qu'il fasse trop froid. L'exercice fait du bien à vos méninges en plus de votre corps.

8. Achetez de cahiers recyclés pour seulement 1$ au docUcentre.

9. N'imprimez pas vos notes et lectures de classe automatiquement. Faites-le seulement quand c'est absolument nécessaire.

10. Insistez pour remettre vos travaux imprimés recto-verso.

11. Amenez vos propres contenants réutilisables pour dîner. Plusieurs endroits qui servent de la nourriture aux alentours du campus seront d'accord pour y servir directement votre repas.

12. Parlant de nourriture, soyez conscient de la provenance de vos aliments. Mangez local, en saison, organique et équitable aussi souvent que possible.

-marie-pier

http://thesustainabilitree.blogspot.com

What Goes Around, Comes Around

Photo credit: Jonathan Rausseo

Remember that old saying? Also known as karma (or as I’d say in French “Faire sa b.a.” – bonne action). In this case, our food waste is what goes around and comes around. For example, you plant a few tomatoes on your balcony garden, pick it on a sunny afternoon, prepare it and then eat it. Now I could go into a lengthy (and gross) description of how it will end up in the sewer and be devoured by rats the size of Godzilla. Buuut, we’ll stick to the few bits and pieces going into the compost bin.

Now, let’s say you don’t compost in your back yard (or simply don’t have one), but do in your apartment building, at school or at work. The University of Ottawa is lucky to have devoted Eco Champions who encourage their colleagues to compost/recycle/bike/be happy/spontaneously dance. Often more than not, employees will take turns emptying the pretty little bins into the Big Kahuna of a compost bin in a smallish and smelly cupboard.

In our building, we usually do it ourselves or get our Katimaslaves to do it daily. Sadly, they have been gone this week, so we’ve rolled our sleeves up and been making the trips every day and discovered a confused culprit. It might be simple confusion/ignorance or laziness. We’ll hope it’s confusion. Someone has been leaving big black garbage bags full of potential compost in the compost bins. Thing is, we’re supposed to empty out our bins or bags into the bigger bin to facilitate the composting, as plastic doesn’t decompose for many, many years. Which left us with three bags filled with smelly (and rather liquid) waste at the bottom of the huge bins. We couldn’t possibly leave them there!

So MP and I have made it our mission these past few days to empty the foul smelling bags into the compost bin and then diligently put the empty bags into the trash can. But man, old milk mixed with soup, coffee and egg shells is really gross. Did I mention it smelled worse than my biking shirt when I forget to wash it for two weeks? Or crusty socks? Oh oh! Old diapers!

Now, close your eyes, imagine yourself in a small room with a trash can and a compost bin. Nice place, eh? Now, breathe in deeply, smell that past-date milk, old coffee, soup and eggs. How about we try to hit 4D now? Picture that big plastic bag and grab hold of it. Lift it up and empty it out. Do you feel the mushy texture through the bag? Good! Did some get in your hair? Even better!

Now, I don’t want to hold a grudge, so I’ll just hope that the saying was right. It’s like a free mud bath anyways!

-katherine

http://thesustainabilitree.blogspot.com

Imagine a Cube of Water...

Photo credit: Jonathan Rausseo

So it turns out that I got a lot of questions from my last post about just how much water we use on campus. We I didn't mention the total amount because I figured everyone would know once the annual report was published.

611,044 cubic meters of water. That's how much we consume on campus every year. This averages out to 1.7 Million litres of water every day. A lot of people have a tough time visualizing this, hence the little picture up above. If you can imagine a cube of water that is 12 meters long, by 12 meters deep, by 12 meters high... that's how much water we use daily. The average person is just under 2 meters tall.

The big culprits on campus for water consumption are basically exactly who you would expect.

1. Research equipment - Aquatic tanks, chemistry experiments, and so forth really gobble up the water. But this is a tough category to calm when you consider that fact that the University's bread and butter is research. Luckily equipment is becoming more and more efficient. Recently, a wonderful little scheme to recycle "pure water" at the Roger Guidon was cooked up. Our fingers are crossed to see if we can repeat this in other labs.
   
   
2. Sports facilities - The University boasts an Olympic sized swimming pool and several skating rinks. It's not hard to see how water is consumed by these facilities; nevertheless, there isn't much that can be done to use less water here. I mean an empty pool isn't very sporting.
   
   
3. Domestic water - This is just a fancy word for the water in showers, toilets, and sinks. This is actually the category with the most potential but that could require the most effort. Think about, if I want to get individuals to take shorter showers, I have to convince thousands of people to do it. Recently the University installed a bunch of 3 liter toilets around campus, but more needs to be done. My hopes are all hung up with trapping rain water right now.

Not being one for too much doom and gloom, I thought I would share some simple solutions with you. Now remember, these are campus specific things so don't try this at home... naw I'm just kidding, of course you can do some of these at home.

1. Let the heat climb a little higher in the summer time and get a little lower in the winter. Heating a cooling on campus works by moving hot and cold water around to the areas that need it. By not being so quick to run to the thermostat, we you help reduce our water consumption. The added bonus is that you save some energy too.
   
   
2. For guys, use urinals. They use 0.5 L compared to our most efficient toilets at 3 L (most are 6 L though). And if you are at home... if it's yellow, let it mellow. You could try this on campus but I don't think it will work out quite as well.
   
   
3. Report leaks, every leak. Even if it is just a faucet that is dripping a little too much for your liking. Call 2222 and tell the operator. Dripping faucets don't seem like much but multiply it out out over thousands of faucets and were are talking some serious volume.
   

Some people have asked me if our water has gone up because of the ban of bottled water. Technically yes, but I think that in this case it is worth it. But if you press me hard enough I am sure that I could prove that using fountains saves water. Next post I will try to review some of the really cool water saving features that we have on campus.

For more about what the University of Ottawa does to conserve water, check out the website.

-jON

http://thesustainabilitree.blogspot.com

Environmental initiatives at Mont Tremblant

Photo credit: Brigitte Morin

Camping has got to be one of my favorite pass-times; I have been camping for years, and have had the opportunity to visit over 30 Canadian parks. I always had a problem with going out in nature and creating a bunch of waste; all the food items which are practical on a camping trip come along with disposable wrappers, or there weren’t any waste diverting options (other than burning in the campfire) on site.

Hot dogs, dry foods, energy bars, even ice and log bags come with a plastic bag. Empty cans and beer bottles don’t smell nice after three days in the car; which is why most people throw out their recyclables in the park waste bins rather than bringing them home. At Mont Tremblant Park last week, I noticed that they were advertising recycling and a few other environmental initiatives on the plasma screen inside the welcome cabin. On the way to our site, I saw the huge recycling bins and noticed that they removed most of the waste bins at the cleaning station. I took a look inside the recycling bins and was really impressed, they were full and the contamination rate was low!

Then comes the camp-fire logs; at Tremblant, they sell them in cloth bags which you place on a hook at the cleaning stations once you are done to get a deposit back. There are also a variety of other initiatives including the use of sustainable local wood to build their cabins. I must say that I was really impressed; I am always extra careful while packing; cooking most of my foods ahead of time, and making sure that we will not produce waste, but there are always small things that you don’t think about ahead of time such as running out of food or wood.

The only thing left are replacement ice bags; I think they should offer to re-freeze your ice packs or sell the ice in bulk rather than bags.

Any Ideas?

For more SÉPAQ sustainable development initiatives, click here

-brigitte

http://thesustainable.blogspot.com

Water Under the Bridge

Photo credit: Jonathan Rausseo

A funny thing happened the other day. As it turns out I was slogging away at the annual Campus Sustainability Report (which is a giant document which sucks up weeks of my time) when I started to create a simple block diagram. You see, I thought to myself that this year I would create infographics to help explain everything happening on campus.

For those of you that don’t know, an infographic is a visualization of a set of data that is packaged into a simple graphic. Unlike pure data visualization, an infographic doesn’t always take an enormous amount of data, but it does take a bunch of complicated concepts and displays them in a simpler and more pleasing manner.

Anyways, I was making infographics for the annual report because of the complexity of a lot of the Sustainability Data that the University generates. It is sometimes really hard to interpret the scale of the data that comes out of these reports. I will give you an example; in 2010 the University of Ottawa used over 600,000 cubic meters of water. What the hell does this mean? Does anyone even know what a cubic meter looks like or what it feels like?

I personally believe that information becomes more accessible when people can fully understand it. When you understand something you can more easily manipulate it in your mind. And if you can relate to the information in a more personal way, my hope is that people will try to take more actions.

So there I was making a block diagram (as seen above). This diagram shows the consumption of water on campus by building. Each block is representative of the portion of water the building consumes with respects to the rest of the campus. The blocks are colour coded so that you can see the major functions of the laboratory (i.e. laboratory, offices, residence, etc…)

I finished the infographic and then it just happened. I looked at the blocks and BAM… I noticed the big consumers on campus; one of those big consumers being the Tabaret building. The Tabaret building?!?!? That doesn’t make any sense. Tabaret doesn’t have any laboratories, it doesn’t do massive research, it doesn’t have a bunch of showers, it doesn’t have a pool, whatever… I could go on like this for a while.

So like any good office drone, I went and gave this information to my boss. He looked at it and said, “Well, you see… the building… there are sometimes leaks….hold on a moment.” He took the infographic, went down to visit the plumbers, and an investigation was started. Essentially, the building is consuming $60,000 more than it should and now our plumbers are on it.

I felt pretty reassured about this news. My theory about seeing information in different formats paid off. Everyone had the information before; it’s just that a giant Excel table with hundreds of buildings on it doesn’t speak to you as much as a colourful assortment of boxes. So I am going to share a series of infographics with you ahead of the release of my official report. I am doing this because maybe your eyes will see something else I didn’t. Maybe you can find something else that will help make this campus greener.

Check out the water initiatives on campus at our website

-jon

http://thesustainabilitree.blogspot.com

Mind the Gap

Photo credit: Jonathan Rausseo

GAPinizer, GAPalyse, GAPitite…for some reason, these do not sound like cool super hero names. They just sound slightly creepy. The thing is, I wanted a cool name like Merissa has (#mapetite) for my gap analysis/recommendation report of the never ending STARS. That’s right, this baby ain’t done yet! I spent my entire summer working on this project.

Firstly, I read the manual over and over again to try to understand what the STARS committee was looking for and then create a Word document containing all the “questions”, ready to be filled out with oodles of knowledge. Sooo much knowledge.

Then! It was time to browse the uOttawa directory and contact some peeps with said knowledge. This is how I developed some very important people skills: prodding, annoying, calling multiple times in one day, emailing and visiting knowledge bearers‘ offices. Needless to say word got around quickly and some people emailed me before I got to them (smart cookies).

However, we are also required to prove that 1) these people exist 2) what they state is true (and not some kind of illusion of my tired brain). “Ni! Ni! Ni!” said the STARS website when I tried to submit information without proof, “We want…a shrubbery!”, but…I don’t have a shrubbery… “You must return here with a shrubbery or else you will never pass through this wood alive!” (said in the voice of The Dreaded Knights who say Ni – Monty Python). I offered a sacrifice of URL links which was happily accepted. I now dare you to find a URL link on the uOttawa website that explains reverse osmosis on campus.

Meanwhile, our website had been updated and it had been my sole purpose to check every possible URL we submitted in the STARS website. And I was hoping to jump right into operational mode and changing things on campus! Sadly the Knights of STARS don’t see it that way.

So what do we do now (STARS has been submitted afterall)? Wait for fame and glory? Nah, that’s lame. We write a gap analysis/recommendation report. That’s what cool kids do nowadays. Well, I think, there seem to be a few gaps in my memory lately.

The see a copy of the University of Ottawa's STARS submission (seriously... the entire entry), click here.

-katherine

http://thesustainabilitree.blogspot.com

Petit don va loin…

Photo Credit: www.footprintsnetwork.org

L’année dernière, alors que je m’apprêtais à partir en voyage de « backpacking » en Europe, j’ai dû magasiner mon assurance de voyage. Plusieurs compagnies m’ont étés suggérées mais celle qui attira mon attention fut World Nomads, une compagnie Australienne. En plus d’être abordable et recommandée par la plupart des guides de voyages destinés aux aventuriers (tel Lonely Planet, Rough Guides et Let’s Go), World Nomads est une entreprise philanthropique qui appuie plusieurs projets à but non-lucratif en Australie et dans le reste du monde.

Lors de l’achat d’une police d’assurance, leurs clients sont encouragés à laisser un don pour un projet au choix parmi une liste de projets parrainés par World Nomads. j’ai initialement douté de l’intégrité de la conscience morale de la compagnie, puis j’ai fait un peu de recherche, j’ai choisi un projet, j’ai donné quelques dollars et je suis partie en voyage sans plus y penser.

Tout juste hier, j’ai reçu un courriel de World Nomads me remerçiant d’avoir fait une contribution au Indigenous Youth Health Program de Kununurra (Australie). Le projet à été complété par l’organisme Save the Children après quoi et le rapport m’a été envoyé en guise de remerciement. Quelle beau geste! Et dire que j’avais complètement oublié mon don.

Je crois qu’il est important de partager sa richesse et son bonheur avec le reste de l’humanité et je poserais de telles actions qu’on m’en soit reconnaissant ou non. Néanmoins, World Nomads nous montre que les entreprises et les organismes de bienfaisance ont l’opportunité de maintenir le lien entre ceux qui donnent et ceux qui reçoivent par de simples gestes, tel un remerciement et quelques nouvelles. C’est par ces initiatives que la contribution d’une personne prend tout son sens, que quelqu’un est amené et maintenir son support et que l’impression de faire partie d’une communauté mondiale unique se propage.

Bien joué World Nomads!

- marie-pier

http://thesustainabilitree.blogspot.com

De quoi faire de mon monstre?

Photo Credit: Brigitte Morin

Pour ceux qui ont un déjà eu un jardin, vous savez que lorsqu’on revient de voyage, il y a toujours soit une abondance de légumes prêts, ou des monstres qui se cachent sous les feuilles. La semaine dernière, à mon retour d’une vacance de cinq jours, j’ai trouvé le dernier dans mon jardin; oui, un monstre de zucchini! Mitch mesure 18 pouces de long et 14.5 pouces de circonférence. De plus, j’ai découvert deux autres semi-Mitch; Roger, Robert et Suzie.

Pour vous mettre en perspective, ça fait plus de deux semaines que je mange des courgettes dans absolument tout; crus, dans mes sandwichs, dans mes pâtes, sur le BBQ, frit avec du beurre…je les donne à tout le monde…et l’a j’ai un monstre et demi de plus! Mission : trouver de nouveaux mets pour utiliser mes zucchini. J’ai fait des crêpes à base de zucchini râpés et œufs, et des petits gâteaux (grandement appréciés au bureau!) au chocolat et zucchini. Mais il me reste encore plusieurs petites courgettes qui seront prêtes dans la prochaine semaine ou deux au jardin communautaire.

Avez-vous des suggestions de mets?

-brigitte

http://thesustainabilitree.blogspot.com

School Time Approacheth!

Photo credit: Merissa Mueller

Summer is drawing to a close and as the hours on my banking excel sheet dwindle, it seems like a good idea to summarize the projects I have worked on this summer. After all, for all you know I have been sitting at this desk watching The Mentalist and Lie to Me, twiddling my thumbs (which I did do, for a week actually- more on that later).

I began my summer with data crunching. I sat in front of my computer staring at piles of data that was gathered by Eric Crighton’s first year Global Environmental Challenges class and compiling it into more useful information with the aid of pivot tables. The finished product was produced by Jon because of his talent with infographics. I also spent some of my time reviewing last year’s surveys and fixing them up to be more geographically correct (thank you, methods courses) for Crighton’s next year class.

On campus we have a board entitled the “SUDCOM” or Sustainable Development Committee that oversees various green initiatives on campus. I basically spent a month trying to put together a new format for this group and prepare for coming September- writing up all sorts of fancy agreements and letters which now get to be translated to make them legit before they get sent out to our new recruits. I’m excited for this to get up and running as it plays a major role in decision making on campus.

Who doesn’t love a good community garden? On campus, even better! Yes, the start of the summer involved a bit of planning and prep for our community garden including some surveying of past participants and writing up requests for space. Once we got the gardens created, they ran themselves! But now that the season is almost done, I sent ot some surveys hoping for some great feedback for next year.

Furniture inventory for the recycling program on campus would have gone a lot better except that we’re in the process of finding a new space. ALT 101 week kind of went for a flop too after I had mapped out a lovely green tour and started a workshop- oh well! We are still doing the Free Store for them and International Students.

Green guides! I have felt like Katherine with the amount of people I have been calling and emailing for answers about making events more sustainable on campus. It is close to complete thankfully and should be ready for some time in September if all goes well!

Let’s think.. what else.. mapping, of course! It took up the majority of my summer after all, gathering data for Emerald Ash Borer in Sandy Hill and for Transportation on campus. I am a G.I.S expert and my laptop and I have formed a bond over the hours I have spent in ArcMap trying to plot data. We are also starting to think about an accessibility map on campus which will be quite the challenge!

There were numerous other things I helped out with like Dump and Run- gotta love doing dishes for six hours straight and folding compost liners for residence students- hence the twiddling my thumbs while watching The Mentalist. This summer has been fantastic overall, I have thoroughly enjoyed working here in Ottawa and only mildly miss my home town.

-merissa

http://thesustainabilitree.blogspot.com

Have you heard? Green is the new black

Photo credit: zazzle.com

Or at least that’s what I read on a t-shirt the other day. I thought the slogan was clever at first, but then I, an environmentally conscious individual, had a much more cynical second thought – Wait a second! Being ‘green’ is not a trend or a fashion statement. Sustainability is not a fad. And it saddened me that making sustainable choices in one’s life (i.e. being ‘green’) would have to be marketed in such a cliché way in order to make it sexy and appealing.

Sigh...

Have you seen the globe? Is it not sexy and attractive enough on its own? With all the hues of blues in both the skies and the waters, and the yellows of the sun beaming through the urban and rural lands; is the place you live not worth your effort and attention already?

Sustainability - what does the word even mean?

A buzzword in itself, sustainability is interconnected to concepts such as economy, environment, climate change, consumption, consumerism, ecology, global warming, social justice, leadership, development, community, human rights, human needs, and social marketing, just to name a few.

Simplified, sustainability is the practice of living today without compromising tomorrow; a minimalist perspective which allows Earth, nature, and humanity to live in harmony. It is the combination of people meeting their basic and human needs, while allowing the planet to thrive and survive.

At the rate we’re going, it is not looking good. Not only do we have global disparities between distant countries and populations, but we also have significant imbalances within our own local communities.

Whether you choose to believe it or not, our planet Earth is in a state of environmental, ecological and sociological crisis. Our globe’s environmental resources, ecological systems and social fabric are being misused and abused by us, humans. Do you see it? Have you ever thought about it?

What we need is a solid paradigm shift. A popular shift in human behaviour to make sustainable practices the norm, and unsustainable practices frowned upon. At the personal level, in your daily lives, there are constant opportunities to make healthier more sustainable choices both on and off campus. You just have to think about it. That is why students study, n’est ce pas? To think? So I encourage you to THINK about it.

THINK about your ecological and carbon footprints. Google leads you to several eco calculators.

THINK about your consumption levels. Are you a bigger-is-better, or less-is-more type of person?

THINK about your consumer choices. Do you consider where products come from? Who they are made by?

THINK about what you put into the Earth – water, waste, chemicals, materials, etc, because if you don’t want them, the Earth probably doesn’t either.

With that, I formally add to the token 3 environmental R’s; RETHINK.

ReThink. ReDuce. ReUse. ReCycle. It’s that simple.

“The way we eat has changed more in the last 50 years than in the previous 10,000” is the opening line of the documentary FOOD INC.. And if you take the time to think about it and consider the implications of that statement, they are shocking; absolutely shocking. (As is most of the information provided in the film. Book and DVD available to lend in the HP Resource Centre, UCU 203)

Nowadays between mass production, marketing materials, and the influence of the media, the average Canadian struggles to acquire natural, wholesome, local, good-for-you products or services. Much of society continues to be caught up in the mentality that bigger-is-better, packaged-3-times-over goods are perfectly acceptable, alongside a convenience factor of right now, if not sooner.

But here’s the thing, LIFE was NOT designed to be convenient; particularly when it comes to food. Effort, patience, willingness, and awareness are essential ingredients in the recipe for a greener, healthier lifestyle. A sustainable lifestyle may slow you down a smidgen, but isn’t that the point?

You can be green, without being extreme. You can be green without being trendy. You can be green, live sustainably, make healthy choices, and just be a regular person. You don’t need to be a so-called ‘hippie’. You don’t need the dread locks, hemp clothes, a bicycle with flowers on the basket, and a joint hanging out of your mouth to identify with environmental consciousness– although if that is your choice, to each his/her own! The point is that regardless of who you are, you always have options. The question is whether or not you are aware of your options.

Ignorance is bliss. Or, is it?

Living sustainably requires an open mind, willingness to learn, willingness to change, and some hardcore respect for our beloved Mother Nature. So, challenge yourself. How green can you be? Where’s your limit?

Get involved. Change your lifestyle.

Kermit said it best, “It’s not easy being green”, but for the sake of Planet Earth, I think it’s worth a shot.

~SKM

http://thesustainabilitree.blogspot.com

Out with the Old and in with the 2.0

Photo credit: the web

You know that feeling you get when you look around you and you see that everyone else seems to have much newer stuff than you? Sometimes it's new shoes or a new t-shirt or a new smart phone. I have kind of been getting that feeling lately, and not just because I have a cell phone that is big enough to stop a bullet. It just seems that things are getting newer so much faster... it is hard to keep up.

I say this because it was time for us to retire an old friend of ours - our old website. Our first website was launched in 2008. It was designed to be an information repository for the campus about all things sustainable. The site was jam packed with almost 100 individual webpages and countless links to other sites and green info.

But in 2010 the University of Ottawa decided that it was going to move in the direction of creating a new 960 template (this refers to the width of the website). Most older sites use 780 pixels for their width of their site but with new computer screens being much wider... 960 was simply the new reality.

And so we decided that the folks at the Office of Campus Sustainability needed to get with the times. Goodbye old friend, you served us well, you served us proud, and we will never forget you.

Now with that out of the way, here comes our new site. TA DA!!!

Our new site is much wider and spacious. It has more room for widgets and a better layout. We wanted to do this to make it a little easier to find content. We add some new features too. Our Social Media offerings are now located in one simple area at the top right hand side of the screen. We also added a calendar to ever page so that you can see any green events.

The hope with our new site is to make it more of an information portal where we can bring together all the content on campus related to sustainability and help move you to the content you want in a much more efficient way. But to do this we need your help!!!!

We have finished the architectural side of our website (with just a little more tweaking to go) and we are now going to move into the content side of things. So this is your chance, tell us what we need, tell us what you want, and tell us how we can be better. Essentially we would like to know the reason you visit our site or what it would take to make the site more appealing to you.

Be harsh, we can take it. And don't be afraid to dream a little. Sure if there is a spelling mistake we want you to tell us but if you also want to see more pictures, more maps, more videos, tell us that too. Even if you want us to make new tools that don't already exist (like a CO2 labels for the campus or a nutritional map for the campus) we want your comments.

-jon

http://thesustainabilitree.blogspot.com

Top 5… Restaurants végétariens | Vegetarian Restaurants

Photo credit: unknown

Vegetarian Restaurants in and around Ottawa / Restaurants végétariens de la région de la capitale nationale

5. Perfection-Satisfaction-Promise (PSP) is practically located right on campus. Rare are such calming spaces as the one offered at PSP during the day. You will always be greeted with a smile and serenity even in the peaks of lunch hour. The menu is simple and filling. The lentil soup and mango lassies are delicious!

4. La Belle Verte ne reçoit que de bons compliments, en particulier pour ses desserts. C’est un restaurant végétalien cru. Ce restaurant offre aussi une cure de désintoxication de 5 jours pour ceux qui souhaite rafraîchir leur système.

3. Green Earth offers a wide selection of vegetarian and vegan food on its menu. Prices are very reasonable and we are told everything is quite tasty.

2. The Table vous présente un énorme buffet frais duquel vous vous servez à même les plats après quoi votre assiette est pesée pour déterminer le prix de votre repas. Le montant total peut grimper assez vite mais c’est si bon!

1. The Green Door is one of the oldest vegetarian restaurants in Ottawa. You can see them catering their delicious foods around town and at the Folk Festival among other events. You will never be disappointed by the cozy home-made feel of everything that comes out of this place.

Mentions Spéciales

Zen Kitchen presents Ottawa with Gourmet organic vegan foods. Prices were a bit too high to make our Top 5 but it is definitely a place to check out for a special occasion.

Govinda’s deserves a special mention and special thanks for tirelessly feeding students and the sandy hill community. The menu and the hospitality of this extension of a Hare Krishna Temple has been the same for many years thanks to the work of a few volunteers and a very dedicated owner.

*** THIS IS AN ADDITION BY JON ***

Sorry to high jack this blog entry but I just had to add Café My House. This is a magical little place that I visited with my friend for her birthday. My hats off, great veggie options, incredible prices, and a super awesome staff. My personal recommendation is the Kahlua Mocha. And if you get a chance, check out their blog... it is a really nicely constructed site with lots of information.

-marie-pier

http://thesustainabilitree.blogspot.com

“Where are we?” - Don’t worry people, I’m a Geographer!

Photo credit: http://etap.com/gis-map/gis-map.htm

Recently our department had a progress meeting to get an idea of how our summer projects are coming along. It was great to share with my coworkers all the things I have been doing, since sometimes we’re very discrete and have no clue what the person next to us has been assigned.

I was happy to report that most of my projects were nearing to an end, waiting for translation or for various responses from different people on campus. However, I realized that a massive chunk (I doubt you could even call it a “chunk” because it is so huge) of what I have done this summer was not even asked of me back in May. Yes, I am talking about mapping.

If you don’t recall from way back in January when I started working here, I am in Geography and Environmental Studies here at the University of Ottawa. This Geography stuff includes the use of Geographic Information Systems software such as ArcMap 10. In plain English, I map things digitally because answering spatial questions is what Geographers love to do. Just thinking about x,y coordinates and geoprocessing tools makes me smile contentedly. Okay, so maybe not so much but it does if Jon asks.

So, I cannot even really recall where these mapping projects came from. I know that the first one was for the Emerald Ash Borer beetle in Sandy Hill and that I was plagued with CC’d emails when I went on vacation in June, returning to discover that I had been lent out to Eric Crighton (a Geography prof and member of Action Sandy Hill) to work on mapping the ash tree species and places that would be ideal to plant more trees (because the EAB are on a murdering spree). I finished this map and it will be used by Lauren (his student) and me as we go door to door, offering up pamphlets on EAB and tree planting projects.

Cut to new scene: Nancy from the Geography library met with Jon and me about green maps of campus. We decided to start with a Sustainable Transportation map which entailed gathering coordinates of bike racks, taxi stands, bus stops… everything transportation related. Jon is now finishing the symbols for these features which all have their own attribute tables, feature tables, layers etc, etc. YAY ME for surviving through days of hair pulling trying to make my own data and get it onto a map.

Next scene: sitting in the Centre for Students with Disabilities office with Jon and Hannah discussing accessibility maps of campus. Sigh, this project is just beginning but we have sorted through some important features to represent and gathered ideas of how to lay out this map because it requires different floors of buildings on campus. Katimavik actually spent a few hours yesterday recording which doors are accessible, which is helpful because inputting and formatting data is time consuming enough without gathering it all by myself. Thanks, Katimaslaves.

Phewww, mapping is taking over my life. I shut my eyes at night and see Excel sheets full of lat and long coordinates (in decimal degrees of course!) and I have a feeling I am muttering about appropriate merges and clips that I should use in my next base map… On the bright side, I am so acing my Advanced GIS course next year, thanks Jon (I guess).

-merissa

http://thesustainabilitree.blogspot.com

Fifty-Three Feet and Counting

Photo credit: Jonathan Rausseo

A week ago we launched our new plastics recycling program. A revolutionary program (hyperbole) that will have a major impact on the University of Ottawa's waste diversion rate (not a hyperbole). If you haven't noticed, just about every recycling counter on campus not has that memorable yellow sign that just screams... "fill me with unusual types of plastic !"

In case you haven't heard about this program, Brigitte Morin (our trusted waste diversion coordinator) has found a company that will recycle the plastic locally (to make . The only catch is the we have to collect all the plastic ourselves, stuff it in a truck, and of course make sure that none of the plastic is very dirty.

Well, today was the day that we filled our first truck with plastic to send off for local recycling. Now before you freak out and say, "holy crap, you filled a truck in one week!", I need to tell you that we actually unofficially launched the program about 6 weeks ago. I mean, we weren't going to just launch a program this big without figuring out the bugs first.

Anyways, the truck arrived this morning, a 53 foot truck in point of fact, and we got to the task of trying to fill it. There was an unofficial bet as to whether we would actually be able to fill a truck that big. Brigitte was SO CERTAIN that would be able to fill the truck easily... whatever she was right but she doesn't have to gloat about it.

But I really do have to confess that I was totally shocked at the sheer volume of plastic we collected. More to the point, I was completely shocked by the volume of styrofoam that we still use on campus. Like 90% of the stuff that went into the truck was just styrofoam. Merissa, Kevin (Katimavik) and Jay (also Katimavik) were also totally flabbergasted by the amount of plastic. I mean think about it. This truck was 53 feet long, 8 feet wide, and 10 feet tall.

All in all I feel pretty good about today. We packed the crap out of that truck in record time;recycled a ridiculous amount of plastic; in a truck that was headed to Toronto empty anyways; and managed to help out the Sanitary staff (who are always helping us out so we got to repay the favour). HOWEVER, I don't feel great about the amount of plastic that we generate on campus and I really don't want people to think that people just because we can recycle plastic, that it is okay to just keep using it....

So think about this blog post more as a Want Ad than anything else:

Fun loving environmentalists looking for a faithful idea to reduce society's plastic consumption. Most be cool with sharing, enjoys cats, and wants to change the world.

Likes: reducing, reusing, and sometimes recycling (but only as a last resort)

Dislikes: easy fixes, elevator music, and apathy

-jon

http://thesustainabilitree.blogspot.com