Book worms at the University of Ottawa rejoice! You will be happy to know that you can continue to study at the library and be perfectly at ease with the fact that the library is using less energy. Admittedly energy consumption and libraries don't typically go hand in hand but they should. Did you know that library are energy pigs. Think about it, lots of people that need fresh air circulated around and books that can't get too dry or too wet or they risk being damaged. Finding that balance takes a whole bunch of energy. So today I thought I would share with you some good news from our EcoProsperity program. Now for those of you who don't know, the uOttawa EcoProsperity program is just a fancy name we have given to our energy savings program. Essentially we are going around to every building on campus and trying to make it more efficient. This past year the engineers and operations people at Physical Resources Service have been working to see what they could do t...

A couple of weeks ago an email circulated around our office, the contents of which focused on lunch bags in the refrigerator. The message: don't put them in the fridge. My prognosis... best idea ever! There are actually a couple of really good reasons why you don't want to put these lunch bags in the fridge if you can avoid it. Our office was doing it because we were running out of space, but allow me to delve into the green side of this issue. They actually do take up too much space I remember when I was a kid my lunch bag was nothing more than a brown paper bag that could basically only last 1 week before it was shredded into oblivion. Nowadays, lunch bags are huge, space sucking behemoths. I kid you not, there are some people in my office who use their lunch bags as backpacks and purses. So what's the environmental impact? Well bigger lunch bags mean less space for everyone else. Think of it as the inefficient packing of the refrigerator space. If my lunc...