New year, new earth? Unfortunately that's not really quite how it works. In the immortal words of Eminem, "you only get one shot". We’ve reached a point where we can no longer remain complacent in regards to the environmental crisis, especially when considering the current political atmosphere. Simply thinking about climate change, waste pollution, food sustainability and conservation is not enough. We need tangible actions, both big and small. So here are five tangibles actions to reduce your environmental impact in the new year and new academic semester. Perhaps you can even pull Marshall Mathers and lose yourself... in sustainability! That might be a weak joke, but the earth certainly isn't getting any cooler and the new year is a great time to make small changes so you can keep living your best life for you, but also for the planet. Here’s how: Make your travel mug your new best friend Travel mugs are should be as essential as coffee is to university s...

It's the end of the summer and you know what that means? MOVING TIME!!!!!! Yes, the moment has come for that time-honoured tradition whereby thousands of students flock to the University of Ottawa and hunker down for 8 months of intense working, studying, and partying. And for about 3,000 students who will be living in residences, this will be their first trip to Ottawa. Now being the helpful people we are here at the Office of Campus Sustainability, we thought that we would share our top 5 tips for ensuring a green move-in here on campus. In fact, even if it isn't your first year, this list could really help you out. Don't bring your entire closet with you! I know it is tempting to make sure that you have hundreds of clothing / accessory options available to you when you arrive on campus, but take it from us, traveling light is the way to go. There are tonnes of free shirts available at virtually every major festival on campus and let's face it, after your f...

So you are coming to the University of Ottawa this fall and you want to be as green as humanly possible. Okay, well I am actually certain that this is one of the last things on your mind, with all the panicked packing and trying to squeeze out a couple of more summer moments with the friends and family. But I thought that I might give you a couple of tips for when you get to campus. We are Bottled Water Free here so don't freak out when you get to the caf or the Pivik and start searching around frantically. To facilitate this transition into your new bottled water free lifestyle, the SFUO puts reusable water canteens in every 101 Kit. And if you didn't get a kit, stop by the SFUO's Sustainability Centre and they'll fix you up with a canteen for free. A lot of you are new to Ottawa and are going to bring a bunch of luggage. Pack light ! You are going to be inundated with a tonne of swag and free "stuff". You will have memorabilia coming out the wazoo. S...

This is killing me. A couple of years ago I read about this lady at UBC who is magically able to make her office paperless - you can check out the article for yourself. Of course I become instantly green with envy (you like what I just did right there). I must have a paperless office too! I mean, if there is an office at the University of Ottawa that is going to be the first to become paperless.... why not our office? A couple of years later and reality of still kicking us in the gut. My desk is still a monument to paper. And so is everyone else's actually. There are a couple of hard truths that I have been ignoring. 1- I work with engineers and architects and so there is a whole lot of paper lovin' going on here (blueprints) 2- We don't have super modern equipment here... no I-Pads in every corner 3- Almost everyone here is over 50 so the ageist part of me wants to lay the blame on old school thinking Beyond that, there are also a couple of things that I ...

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...

Yes, so it turns out that Ottawa is in the middle of the longest heat wave it has experienced since the formation of the continents some 2 billion years ago. This kind of weather puts environmentalists in a tight spot. On the one side there is the need to look out for Mother Earth: on the other, no one wants to actual experience what it feels like to melt. So, here is our quick guide to staying green when the going gets hot. Unplug everything Seriously, it may not seem like it but all the things you have plugged in at home are contributing to an increase in the ambient temperature. Think of what happens when you leave your laptop on your lap for too long or when you touch an old style incandescent light bulb. Try to put as many thing as you can unto a power bar and just power down during the day. Take cold showers This is a tried and true method to keeping nice and cool. The cold shower not only doesn't use any energy to heat the water coming through the tap, but it can ...

In lieu of Jon’s recent blog on turning  wooden pallets into furniture , I decided to write my own blog on sustainable student living. Mostly because I have found myself since I started university to be very anti-Ikea. Now, don’t get me wrong, I am sure the Swedes have a lot of unique, mass produced, and cheap furniture to adorn your apartment with (you may sense some sarcasm and contradictions, I apologize Ikea lovers) but maybe I am just too crafty or cheap to commit to buying things. Thus, I have upcycled many a thing since I’ve moved to Ottawa. My tips : Find friends that are moving, or strangers, around the end of the month and pester them for shit they don’t feel like carrying to a new place, or scour the streets on the night before garbage day .This is how I have acquired the majority of my stuff; whether coming across it randomly when walking home or through friends that had no interest in packing it away and transporting it. Once you have found some stuff, customi...

http://www.sustainable.uottawa.ca/how-can-i-get-involved.html#Take the pledge I took on this challenge with gusto on February 5th - yes, the day of the Superbowl. I made sure the snacks and beverages I prepared were made and served in reusable containers. Then, as an added waste-reduction measure, I sorted through any other materials produced by others and recycled it. One of the best parts of this is that when I pulled a bunch of paper towel out of the garbage to compost it (yeah, garbage picking...it wasn't my finest moment), I found $10!!! Being waste-free really does pay off. As for work, everything I ate had to be packed in reusable containers and transported to and from the office. The hardest part of this was the organics...I had to bring home apple cores and banana peels in order to compost them since there were no bins at work. Everyone in the office thought I was mildly crazy for packing up a container full of organics and encouraging them to do the same, but I ...

I too used to be an optimistic about technology and science. I thought every time there was a problem either technology was going to fix it or science somewhere, we're over 7 billion on the planet, someone is bound to figure it out. - But now, not so much!It seems that there is good progress and bad progress and sometimes it is difficult to differentiate both of them. Here is an example of what I mean: We might have found a way to provide ourselves with basic foods such as vegetables and fruits all year round but it beats the purpose of their consumption: they are loosing their nutritional values (vitamins) because of chemicals used to grow them faster and bigger and the way we harvest them. Moreover, we keep investing in events like " bike for cancer" and "walk for cancer" and so on to get funds to develop more technology and science to find a cure for cancer. Maybe were going in the wrong direction. Maybe it's time to go back to our old habits. Ins...

WTF!?!?! I just finished reading the article "Katimavik Cuts..." from the Huffington Post ( click here to read ). I don't normally take many political stances but this is just too extraordinary to not talk about. The next federal budget could dictate the existence of the Katimavik program! If you know anything about our office you will know that Katimavik volunteers are the backbone of our operations. They literally make this place work. Without them.... actually I don't even want to think about that right now. Every time a new group of Katimavik volunteers start working for us, I give them the same speech. I tell them that "Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration" (thank you mister Thomas Edison). I tell them that anyone can have a good idea but making good ideas happen is what makes Katimavik so special. And "persperate" they do. Our participants are crucial to several of our programs. This past year we had Katimavik manage our Dum...

Photo credit: Jonathan Rausseo Remember that old saying? Also known as karma (or as I’d say in French “Faire sa b.a.” – bonne action). In this case, our food waste is what goes around and comes around. For example, you plant a few tomatoes on your balcony garden, pick it on a sunny afternoon, prepare it and then eat it. Now I could go into a lengthy (and gross) description of how it will end up in the sewer and be devoured by rats the size of Godzilla. Buuut, we’ll stick to the few bits and pieces going into the compost bin. Now, let’s say you don’t compost in your back yard (or simply don’t have one), but do in your apartment building, at school or at work. The University of Ottawa is lucky to have devoted Eco Champions who encourage their colleagues to compost/recycle/bike/be happy/spontaneously dance. Often more than not, employees will take turns emptying the pretty little bins into the Big Kahuna of a compost bin in a smallish and smelly cupboard. In our building, we usuall...

Photo credit: zazzle.com Or at least that’s what I read on a t-shirt the other day. I thought the slogan was clever at first, but then I, an environmentally conscious individual, had a much more cynical second thought – Wait a second! Being ‘green’ is not a trend or a fashion statement. Sustainability is not a fad. And it saddened me that making sustainable choices in one’s life (i.e. being ‘green’) would have to be marketed in such a cliché way in order to make it sexy and appealing. Sigh... Have you seen the globe? Is it not sexy and attractive enough on its own? With all the hues of blues in both the skies and the waters, and the yellows of the sun beaming through the urban and rural lands; is the place you live not worth your effort and attention already? Sustainability - what does the word even mean? A buzzword in itself, sustainability is interconnected to concepts such as economy, environment, climate change, consumption, consumerism, ecology, global warming, social justic...