I am an active cyclist. I love to ride my bike and I get really excited in the Spring when the weather warms up... because that means that I'll be back on my bike again soon. I am not a cycling expert, I don't bike in the winter anymore, and I don't go on 50km rides just for the fun of it; most of my cycling is utilitarian.  So for a person that is on their bike basically every day in the summer time, you can imagine that I worry from time to time about getting hit by a car. It has happened to me a few times in my life and so I don't blame people who don't want to ride their bikes in heavy traffic. And when I watch videos about bike infrastructure in cities, I definitely cringe when I see how unsafe it can be. (I suggest this video by Not Just Bikes if you are looking for a good watch) Now the reason I am focusing on bike safety is because I know that getting more people on bikes is better for the planet, but to get more people on bikes they have to feel safe cycli...

~ This is a piece about plastic that I really could live without and how to navigate normative grocery stores in a more eco-friendly way. Yes more than anything really, this will be a rage piece about unnecessary everyday plastic that really does not need to exist and what we can do to live without it. ~ I began thinking critically about the everyday items I buy each week at the grocery store around September when I started to transition more and more towards being plastic-free. Like most students, my life is a balance between trying to eat healthy and work hard and then eating my stresses away with sweets. We are all trying our best. Its exam time now. Nothing a few bulk chocolate chips can’t fix. It’s going to be all good. You know what isn’t all good? Foods packaged unnecessarily! Foods for sale that have unnecessary plastic packaging when you can get the same food in a plastic-free manner! So I am going to tell you how I really feel and we’re going to go through the grocer...

You may have been busted a couple weeks ago in the “Bike Safety Blitz” conducted by the Ottawa Police in attempt to “to bring awareness to cycling safety and to ensure that all cyclists follow to the rules of the roads set out in both the Ontario Highway Traffic Act and Municipal Bylaws”. If you were one of the 385 persons that were charged over the three day span, then you know that this translates to “the Ottawa Police pulled over a bunch of cyclists in order to dish out tickets for anything from not having a bell and proper lights at night to not fully stopping at stop signs”. I understand the need to enforce good biking behaviours in order to prevent sidewalk cyclers and nighttime collisions but the issue should be a two-way street (if only all one-way streets had counter-flow bike lanes like the ones in front of Marie-Curie at uOttawa, then you wouldn't have been pulled over for cycling the wrong way up a one-way street). Every day cyclists in Ottawa  face-off against ...

"We are all part of the same compost heap." Let’s face it; Tyler Durden knew his shit- or compost rather. The importance of composting lies at the root of waste diversion (ah ha ha - root, compost = I’m hilarious). We are able to recycle the basics - paper, metal, glass and plastics but the bulk of what is left in most people’s trash is compostable items. I know this because I had the pleasure of sorting through dumpsters and residence rooms after students moved out at the end of April. The main components of student’s (and in all probability the average person’s) trash was compostable (in the form of rotting foods, yum). This surprised me as the campus has a great composting system in place; a campus vermi-composter located near the portables and an off campus mechanical composter, named Oscar, at 200 Lees. This combination of systems allows for 200 tonnes of composting a year. For students in apartment style residences, it is as simple as contacting your residence ...