We did an audit of the uOttawa residences waste infrastructure and this is what we found:

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Working at the Office of Campus Sustainability, well it’s doing a lot of things, discovering the campus and meeting people passionate about environment and sustainability.

In January, when I started working here, I met the uOttawa Green Reps, a program created to make residences more environmentally sustainable. In our first meeting, they had the idea of doing an audit of waste infrastructures in the uOttawa residences. The purpose of this audit was to recognize some of the problems with recycling in residences and to find solutions in order to improve recycling.

We got together with the University's waste coordinator to make this audit happen and on March 4th we explored the waste infrastructures of every uOttawa residences. If you were one of those people in residences who saw us taking notes and photos of bins and you were wondering why, now you have your answer.

We walked from residences to residences and took the stairs to audit every kitchen and every lounge of every floor…my legs hurt the next day.

Here is what we found:
  • There is a recycling room on every floor of Stanton residence, but it’s only advertised on 2 floors with some random sheet of paper someone put on the door. 






  • In some residences, there is NO compost.  (90U, Stanton, Marchand)



  • In Hyman-Soloway, students have to bring their waste, compost, metal, plastic, glass and paper to the basement in the garbage room and there is no sign of which bin is which.





  • In some residences, there is a lot of small bins with no sign.







  • It's not all bad news. In the Henderson's residence, they have every category of bin and its sign in each kitchen, on each floor. Plus, they have landfill, metal, plastic, glass, and paper recycling in each lounge on each floor. ♥



Before this audit, I used to think to myself “Recycling is so easy, why doesn’t everyone do it?!?” It is after seeing the state of waste infrastructures in residences that I understand the difficulties to overcome.

So, if you live in residences and you want better recycling, you can send a message to Housing Services. And if you notice something missing on campus… please take a picture and send it our way. With so much space on campus, it can be hard to cover it all and we really do appreciate your comments, complaints, and if you want, your compliments.

- chloé - engagement and outreach clerk apprentice