The Faculty of Education's EcoClub set out to uncover the truth behind our recycling habits, and the results were were eye-opening.  Digging into the Waste Audit In late October, a dedicated group of professors and teacher candidates joined forces with Facilities to conduct a waste audit of Lamoureux, the Faculty of Education's main building. A waste audit may sound a bit technical, but it's simple: we collected all the garbage, tracked where each bag came from, and then weighed and sorted the contents. This hands-on approach allowed us to see what people are really recycling and composting, as opposed to what could be properly sorted and recycled. Before we dive into the nitty-gritty of our findings, let's address why this matters. Sending compostable organics to a landfill is not just bad for the environment; it's contributing to the climate crisis. And when recyclable items end up in the wrong bin, it's a tremendous waste of valuable resources in a worl...

L'EcoClub de la Faculté de l'éducation a entrepris de découvrir la vérité derrière nos habitudes de recyclage et les résultats ont été révélateurs.  À la fin du mois d'octobre, un groupe dévoué de professeurs et d'étudiants en enseignement a joint ses forces à celles du service des Immeubles pour réaliser une vérification des déchets du Lamoureux, le pavillon principal de la Faculté d'éducation. Une vérification des déchets peut sembler un peu technique, mais c'est assez simple : nous avons fait ramasser tous les déchets du Lamoureux, suivi la provenance de chaque sac, puis pesé et trié leur contenu. Cette approche pratique nous a permis de voir ce que les gens recyclent et compostent réellement, par opposition à ce qui pourrait être trié et recyclé correctement.  Avant d'entrer dans le vif du sujet, voyons pourquoi cela est important. L'envoi de déchets organiques compostables au site d’enfouissement créer des gaz à effet de serre et contribue donc au...

Coca-cola helped popularize the modern image of Santa Clause... they didn't invent it but they used it to great effect to help sell their product and forever link Christmas and Coca-Cola. Every year our office participates in something known as the Alternative Student Break (ASB) . This activity gives students the opportunity to do a full semester of volunteer work in just one week. During the winter semester, we give a workshop about concepts related to waste and then we do a waste audit to see how the campus is doing. This past month we experimented with a new topic... anti-consumption! This idea came to us as we debated the topic of whether it was a bad thing that the Free Store was promoting the idea of consumption... which means consuming more resources. I won't spoil the entire workshop but I am going to give you a breakdown of what we did and what we discovered. The Workshop Our first day was spent going over the concepts of consumption, consumerism, and marketing. Ess...