It can be all too easy to get stuck in a rut. The school term is well under way, and I know between work and school there is little room for deviation in my established routine. But that’s the thing about routines - they are comfortable and they function sufficiently, so we rarely break from them until they are antiquated. However, more so than our day-to-day practices, habits of thought die hard. It is too easy to get stuck in the same line of thought, to approach everything from the same lens, and moreover to stop asking the important questions. I’m writing this because I have been catching myself and others fall into this fallacy of circular logic. It’s important to remember there is an infinite amount of means to the same end, and just because something has always been done a certain way doesn't mean it has to be done that way, should be done that way, or that is the best way to it. I find this to be a particularly common method of thinking when I talk to people about t...

Have you ever gone on a shopping spree, and no matter how great the pieces you bought looked on you, you couldn’t shake the feeling of guilt for having spent too much cash? Well I have a solution for all you shopaholics out there who don’t have the dough to support your favourite hobby: a free store shopping spree! I recently had time to go down to the store and rummage through all of the racks; I found some amazing treasures that have become staple pieces for my fall wardrobe! Here are a few examples of things I have picked up. Le Petit Prince is my all time favourite children’s book so I fell in love with this shirt instantly. However, I do have a confession to make: I made some slight modifications to it. This was a bit of an oversized t-shirt for me, so I simply cut off the sleeves and made the neckline a bit lower (to make it a bit more feminine) and voilà! There are some pretty wicked graphic tees at the free store who are just looking for homes, and this is a great way...

Incredible and unfortunate, but true: Canadians are the biggest producers of municipal waste per capita in the developed world, according to a study by the Conference Board of Canada . This week is National Waste Reduction Week (from October 21st to 27th), and we’ll be making important changes to the recycling counters on campus — all 170 of them! — so that most of them will have 4 categories: Metal, Plastic, Glass  Mixed Paper Compost  Garbage.  Our aim is to divert as much waste from landfill as possible while at the same time encouraging better recycling and composting practices among students and staff. Last year we composted 70 tons of organic material through the University’s industrial composter. Hopefully, adding compost options to more of the recycling counters will increase that number quite a bit. Besides ensuring that many more recycling counters have compost options, the yellow signs that say “all plastics” will be changed to read “metal, plas...

When faced with the task of furnishing the empty space in her research lab, uOttawa linguistics professor Tania Zamuner turned to the university’s Furniture Reuse Program, which transplants gently used office furnishings from one part of campus to another. Photo by  Tania Zamuner Program coordinator Alex Forest gave Prof. Zamuner a tour of the warehouse, and was able to connect her with a set of desks, hutches and chairs that are in mint condition. You’d never know they weren’t brand new, and now Prof. Zamuner’s graduate and undergraduate students have a comfortable and functional space to work. “I'm very pleased with the results,” says Prof. Zamuner. “Since adding the furniture, the lab is constantly full with students and my research is moving forward because there is a common area from which students are working and collaborating.” Moreover, the furniture was provided for free, saving Prof. Zamuner and the Centre for Child Language Research approximately $10,712.03 ...

Working at a University gives me the chance to work on a bunch of really big projects with big budgets. Currently the University of Ottawa is getting started on the second phase of the EcoProsperity Project , a series of deep energy retrofits that will help save uOttawa millions of dollars in utilities costs. But that's not what I want to focus on, I would rather focus on something much smaller because I think its impacts could be much bigger. Today I want to advocate for the little things that you might not normally think of but nevertheless could be the key to unraveling our energy problems. Have you ever thought of getting rid of your screen saver, deleting the extra content in an email, or using the stairs whenever you are going down a floor or two? Now most people`s first inclination to save energy is to cut the heat and turn off the lights. Sure, that is certainly useful but there are many emergency lights that just can`t be shut off and let`s face it, who wants to sit...

Whether you’re packing it up and heading out of town for a weekend with family and friends or sticking around and planning your own feast, there are a number of things you can do to show some gratitude to the Earth and make your festivities a little more sustainable this year. All together now! — There’s something to be said for gathering people together under one roof, using energy in one place instead of multiple houses. Bonus points for carpooling to get there.   Buy local and in season — Ever notice how yams aren’t really so popular in the summer? Eating seasonally around this time of year is almost built-in to the holiday, since Thanksgiving stems from the Fall harvest tradition. That said, your yams could be trucked into your local grocery store from halfway across the continent. Try hitting up a local farmers’ market, and check your food labels. Buy organic if you can. It tastes better, is better for your health, and bees everywhere will thank you.   Use re-usab...

If Part One was freeing myself from the shackles, Part Two was being blinded by the light. In non-Plato's-Allegory-of-the-Cave terms, this was the hump of the trip. A lot happened over the course of the last 9 days. Over 900 km and the equivalent of two solid days of biking will take a toll on anyone. However, this was not just the biking. There were tears and tantrums, hours spent lost and confused, torrential downpours and wicked winds that cut my speed in half. Quebec was not for the faint of heart. Or lungs. Or abs. Or legs. Taking all that into consideration, Theodore Roosevelt once said: “Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty… I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life. I have envied a great many people who led difficult lives and led them well.” So has this venture been worth doing? Most certainly. Has it been sustainable? That is a question that can not be answered so easily. Let's loo...