In 2011 there were a lot of positive things going for the campus in terms of campus sustainability. Some setbacks for sure, but I would like to think more positives than negatives. Here is the whirlwind tour of what the office accomplished in 2011. CULTURE The year started on a high note with the Vision 2020 process, which included an entire pillar dedicated to becoming a more environmentally sustainable campus . Unfortunately by the end of the year the Destination 2020 plan (which was the implementation phase of the visioning exercise) had dropped campus sustainability as a priority. Another setback came with the Fair Trade Campus Certification. Brought forth by students with the uOttawa chapter of Engineers Without Borders, the certification is a program created by FairTrade Canada  to get campuses to offer more fair trade selection. The program started out very strong in the Spring but slowed down in the fall as issues related to the variety of coffees available as fai...

Not too long ago, I filled out an opinion survey on a variety of household and personal products (cleaners, hygiene, etc.). My goal was to voice my opinion about the toxicity of the average product. Last week, I received a ‘thank you for your opinion’ booklet of coupons (I am sure the Extreme Couponing people would be absolutely senseless for these ‘free X products’, ‘free Y products’, and ‘free Z products’). I noticed that several – more like 25% of them were for diabetes-related products…by this I mean different blood sugar testing machines, strips for these machines, sugar-free nutrient shakes for people suffering from diabetes, and a variety of foods marketed towards diabetics. You are suffering from type-2 diabetes when your body makes insulin, but it is not able to use it properly. It is usually caused by an unhealthy lifestyle, including lack of exercise, and eating unhealthy foods. Has it really become commonplace for the average person to be diagnosed with type-2 diabet...

Dear Canada, why do you let me down so? I can distinctly recall being in grade seven and clipping news articles about the Kyoto Protocol for a science journal. Granted, I was a HUGE geek already and adored the idea of Canada emerging as a world leader in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and saving our planet (I am pretty sure the idea involved hearts and rainbows doodled around images of trees in the margins of my notebook) but the simplified version of the protocol that a teacher explained in laymen’s terms seemed easy enough… I mean, we are a developed country with an above average standard of living and we theoretically should have been able to lower our emissions without severely compromising our growth or citizens’ lifestyles. Oh wait; there are those tar sands that we are exploiting out west- well, if it’s for the sake of progress, yes? Even with our failure at reducing our own national emissions, Canada had the opportunity to take advantage of Clean Development Mechanism...

Photo credit:  http://www.progadgetreview.com The Holiday season is around the corner, and some gifts are difficult to come by. Put aside the gift cards and boxes of chocolates. Apple has recently made apps “giftable” so that you may share the Angry Birds fun with your other iphone friends. For the environmentally conscious friend, why not the Carbon Footprint Calculator? It will help with some decisions and possibly motivate those friends to plant some trees as it calculates the number of these needed to offset their carbon footprint. Diamond Grading , an app for the occasional diamond buyer. After all, diamonds are a girl’s best friend! Others wish it could be summer year round so they may go for a sail on a December afternoon. Your budget may not let you buy him a house in the South, but the Waterski Duck should keep that friend busy on those cold days. Then for those who constantly get lost. In an effort to help them get around, the GPS coordinates may be a swee...

Photo credit: Marie-Pier Je vais faire une exception à mes principes et me permettre de CHIÂLER publiquement. Imaginez-vous que je viens de constater qu’un prof m’a enlever des points de présentation sur un travail qui était imprimer recto-verso. On m’a dit que ce n’était pas professionnel et que ça avait l’air moins propre. PARDON? Un travail professionnel doit avoir une page titre, une table des matières, être paginé, avoir un style uniforme et soigné, une structure logique, des références en bas de pages, une bibliographie, des annexes à la fin du travail… Ne pas imprimer ses feuilles recto-verso pour faire plus beau c’est une CONVENTION, non une règle. Vous savez ce que ça donne des conventions? Des institutions anachroniques comme le parlementarisme canadien. Qu’est-ce que ça peut bien leur faire que j’imprime mes travaux recto-verso? C’est déjà complètement outrageant qu’on doive imprimer à double-interligne et utiliser le double du papier nécessaire pour soi-disant ...

Photo Credit: Jonathan Rausseo Take a look at the picture. What do you notice? Nothing at first right? Just your typical everyday light switch... sitting on a window... wait, on a window? So this past week the University's Energy and Environment Engineer (Faizal) decided to try out a new piece of tech in the office. It is a wireless light switch with a piezometre activator. He did this because our office is a giant open space and we needed to divide up the lights in the area. I mean come on... this is an office full of environmentalists. Do you know how close we were to taring each other apart over having the lights on? So let me dissect this wireless light switch with a piezometre activator thingy. First, the light switch is wireless, so that means there is no need to make a giant hole in the wall and run a bunch of copper wires everywhere. This is super handy if you have to move a wall for example. Rather than pulling our the light switch and al...

Photo credit:  furniturehomedesign.com You will need: glitter, left-over ribbons, old cards and limited creativity Decorations in general around this time of year are for the majority plastic and will end up in the trash either this year or within the next five. Aim to purchase decorations that are either going to last (my family has a collection of tiny porcelain houses that we have had for as long as I can remember) or make your own decorations from materials you can recycle or compost. That’s right, compost. Trees that have been sustainably grown and harvested can be used and chipped up for your mulch in the spring or use a potted tree that you can replant in the spring. Make wreathes out of pruned branches, pinecones, etc and add some flare with ribbons (my dad enjoys throwing sumac in there) and compost them when you’re finished. I also came across an interesting blog  about creating x-mass tree balls out of aluminum cans and stars out of plastic bottles, if you are...