One of the most important days for the Office of Campus Sustainability is the Dump and Run. As students move out of residence and summer arrives, many simply leave what they no longer wish to keep in their old rooms. Some leave them in the temporary donation bins left by our office, but most don’t know what happens to the items left behind. This event saves thousands of discarded items from being thrown out and instead, breathes new life into them by giving them the opportunity to be reused. The huge amount of wasted items saved is then sent to the Free Store where students and members of the community can take these second-hand items that are often still perfectly good and give them a new home. Some of the most common items found in the Dump and Run and in the Free Store can be very useful to students, especially those living in residence. These include kitchen appliances like pots, plates, utensils, and wooden spoons, home appliances (we’ve even gotten a vacuum and a great looking co...

In her cozy office tucked away on the third floor of the University Centre, Maryann Moffitt is working on a project that could help significantly reduce waste on campus and nourish people in the community. Maryann is a dietitian at Food Services , the group on campus responsible for the managing uOttawa's food service contract. But since she arrived on campus just a few short years ago, she has also worn the hat of sustainability practitioner, a role that that  Chartwells added to the University's food service contract. But don't think for one moment that she has taken this adopted role lightly. Since the beginning, it has been a baptism by fire. Maryann has successfully worked on the uOttawa Fair Trade Campus designation, helped Food Services earn a certification from the Green Restaurant Association , and now she has helped create a process to help donate unpurchased food to local community organizations. Donating food is not as easy as one might think. The foo...

T.S Eliot wrote that April is the cruelest month and although for different reasons than his, I couldn’t agree more. Exams are stressful, your thesis might be due, you have to nail down a summer job or maybe even decide what your graduation game plan is. You’re saying goodbye to friends and professors for the summer, or maybe for longer. And on top of all this, you might even have to move out, move in or move home. I see moving as an opportunity to downsize and declutter. One of the central tenets or zero waste is minimalism, or at least that everything you own serves a purpose and was procured sustainably. But how do you get rid of the big things, like a kitchen table or all your glassware, and not just leave them on the side of the road, or worst, throw them away. The reuse economy is the best place to get things and give away things when moving. What is the reuse economy? It is so many things! The salvation army, consignment stores, selling clothing in facebook groups or even...

You might have seen promos around the cafeteria lately advertising the love food not waste event. You might also be wondering what even is this event? Let us explain Who Student Volunteers and Food Services What A week of promoting the reduction of waste in the cafeteria Where The 24/7 cafeteria When Mar 6-10 between 11:30-1 Why To reduce the waste produced through the cafeteria How During the week between the designated hours, student volunteers will be standing at the compost stations in the cafeteria. Their job is to reward those with empty plates and to ask the people with stuff on their plates why that is. The purpose of this is identify why so much food goes to waste (that number being 314 kg of food waste everyday). During the event there will be a table showing us what that much food looks like. The volunteers want to know if something was cooked wrong, too spicy or even just if you took too much food. Their goal is to identify the reasons food goes to wa...

Here on campus we have a lot of cool places that are sort of university secrets, ones you only find out by word of mouth, only the senior students know, etc. We want to let you in on one of the coolest ones. The Free Store, which collects 22.5 tonnes of donations every year, and you can have any of it...for free! 1. Donation bin This bin fills up and has to be emptied every week. That is awesome, so many items for you to get your hands on. 2. Dump & Run When people move out we have locations in residences where they can dump all the stuff they don’t want instead of throwing it out. Think of all the blankets... 3. Toilet paper/paper towel They have this new project where they take the toilet paper and power towel rolls that are partially used and you can take them for free. Cause who wants to buy more toilet paper? 4. Super nice staff They are actually super nice and helpful. Don’t be afraid to ask questions! 5. Gorgeous building I mean what other st...

Penny pinchers and waste reducers rejoice- the Free Store has reopened for the summer! For a month and a half, we had to shut the store’s doors so that we could put all of our effort into Dump and Run, the massive task of collecting, cleaning, and organizing all the items students left behind after move-out. The donations filled two basement storage spaces and every inch of the store- you would have to see it to believe it! But now, every Wednesday from 10am-3pm during the summer, the Free Store will be open to fulfill all your needs- from a new outfit for that music festival, to a great summer read, to some kitchen gadgets for your new apartment. Opening day was a huge success- regulars returned and new comers flipped through the racks in awe. Customers left, arms loaded with sneakers, framed art, televisions, you name it! Volunteers were flying around, constantly reloading emptying shelves with treasures. Whether you’ve loved the store since the beginning or you’ve never h...

   I can’t recycle it. It’s missing a part. I don’t want this anymore. None of my friends want it. I don’t have time to sell it. I’m moving away soon and I can’t take this with me. These are all (mostly valid) excuses I’ve heard for tossing potentially useful things in a dumpster. But I think everyone should have the choice to not throw out their excess stuff when they no longer have any use for them, especially when some people go without these things. Fortunately, at uOttawa, you do have that choice at the Free Store .  The Free Store is a hub for all the things that you no longer need so they can find a home where they'll be used again. Donations are usually received in a large box on the porch of the Free Store ( 647 King Edward ) throughout the year, but especially during residence move out ( Dump and Run ). The donations are then cleaned, organized and presented on the shelves of the Free Store by volunteers to be taken by students, staff or community memb...

If you have ever wondered how a place like Walmart or Target stays in business the answer is simple... they sell a mountain of stuff. That stuff has a beginning and an ending and what I am interested in is extending the amount of time in between. Three times a year at uOttawa we do something called the Dump & Run . It is a very simple program to collect the stuff that students leave behind when they move out of residences. Simple and easy... except that it is actually a lot of work. The Office of Campus Sustainability recruits about 30 volunteer who help us collect stuff from residence rooms, donation tables, kitchens, lounges.... everywhere basically. All the collected items get cleaned, sorted, and donated to either the Free Store or to local charities in need. And thus, we can keep things out of landfills and reduce the amount of stuff that needs to be manufactured. As I mentioned, we have three events a year, one after each semester. But by far our largest Dump &...

A lot of things have been happening at uOttawa over the past month in the world of Recycling. I thought I would give you a quick update. The Dump and Run has finally come to a close. All the donations have been collected, weighed, and sent to the the Free Store for storage. A good chunk of the donations were sent off to local charities to help replenish their shelves (over 1,500 kilograms actually). We are hoping to finish this year with 4,000 kilograms of stuff collected from the residences. This year was a tremendous success for the Dump and Run thanks in large part to our wonderful volunteers. Over 50 people came out to volunteer and work with us. Without their help cleaning, sorting, weighing, moving, packaging, and singing, I am not sure we would have been able to accomplish even a fraction of what we got done. Bravo volunteers, you have turned this pile of dirt into a garden. Of course the focus will now be shifted over to the Free Store , which is closed during the sum...

The Dump & Run is simultaneously one of the most rewarding and disappointing activities that we have on campus. The event centers around campus move out, during which thousands of students flee the campus to have happy and productive summers back home. The problem is that during their time on campus, these students tend to over consume and then find themselves in the precarious position of having to get rid of their excess stuff in a small window of time. Our office therefore organizes the Dump & Run every spring to try to collect as much of this stuff before it is tossed into the garbage. So on the one hand the whole thing is very rewarding. We get to collect thousands of items (totally almost four tonnes last year) and then donate them to about a dozen charities around Ottawa. We get the satisfaction of knowing that we have diverted waste and helped out those in need. On the other hand though, I estimate that we are only able to capture about 20% of all the w...