I am going to talk today about something that happen on the university campus that really frustrate me every time I see it and which is the food waste at the caff by the students. Last year, university of Ottawa renovated the caf and it became open buffet dining hall. All the students were really happy when they found out, but there is something that a lot of people don’t realize and it is the amount of food waste that is coming out of the dining hall! Student are either part of the meal plan or they pay at the door to get in. They get access to an open buffet and they typically put so much food in their plates that most of it ends up in the compost. People are over-consuming, and over-consuming leads to an unsustainable environment. This issue makes me sad and mad at the same time for so many reasons. One of those reasons is that in my religion, and I think in many other religions as well, wasting food is something we are simply not allowed to do. Another reason is that the...

The results are in for the 2014 uOttawa Sustainable Literacy Survey and the results are... well I don't know. They aren't good but they definitely aren't bad either. Last year, students from a first year Environmental Studies program participated in the distribution of a sustainable literacy test on campus. Students approached campus community members, including professors, students, and external community members, and asked them to fill in a simple 11 question test. The questions were multiple choice and all the tests were conducted in person. The results.... on average a score of 54% was achieved. So just in case you don't know, a sustainability literacy test is essentially a tool that helps measure understanding of sustainability concepts. The hope is that with a tool like this you can help increase knowledge about sustainability, and by extension promote more sustainable practices. Furthermore, organizations can use this tool to measure the impacts of messag...