It’s hard to decide where to begin, but I think the best way to start is by saying that this whole project began on Instagram (I bet you don’t hear that very often!)… About a year ago I was scrolling through my page, liking posts left and right as we all do, when I came across an advertisement about a new program that the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) had put out for university/post-secondary students. It caught my eye and I decided “Why not check it out?”, I had some spare time on my hands and what harm could it do? The ad looked a little something like this (see below) and I thought it might be a great addition to my growing resume; allowing me to get further involved in my university community. I looked through the contents, decided “Hey, I can do this!” and signed up right away. When my friends heard about this new initiative, they asked questions like “Why would you do this, it has nothing to do with your program or future career?”, and to that I say: why the heck not? The Living Pla...

Can you imagine a world without garbage and landfills? In fact there is an easy solution to reduce waste and we can even make something useful out of it.  Composting! Maybe it doesn’t sound appealing at first; you know food scraps, banana peels, dirty napkins….but composting works like magic. Compost is made of organic materials (meaning that they are composed of carbon) and therefore will decompose and eventually, disappear (not quite, but it transforms into soil). To put it more academically: composting is a process in which organic matter is aerobically broken down into water, carbon dioxide, and some residual materials. It is Nature's way of recycling.   When food scraps and paper go to landfill they cannot properly breakdown, because they become buried and eventually run out of oxygen. Instead, they create methane (a potent greenhouse gas that is about 28 times more powerful than carbon dioxide at warming the Earth). After using public transportation and changing ...

 August 30th is the first and biggest pop-up  Free Store of the year. I guess the best way to explain it is like this... imagine your birthday and Christmas decided to have a coffee date, at the end of the summer, under a giant tent, just before you started your university semester... that's basically what this event is. Now whether you have been to the Free Store before or if you have never been to the Free Store, it is absolutely worth coming out to this event. Here's why... More stuff You will see more things at this event than you normally get to see at the Free Store. The event is being held under the tent in front of FSS specifically so that we can accommodate more people. At the Free Store, we can usually have about 20-30 people max inside the space at any given time. Last year when we hosted this event, we had hundreds of people at the event at any given time. We estimate over 2,000 people attended and over 5,000 kilograms of stuff was given away. More...

It shouldn't come as a surprise to many of you who like to cycle but bicycle parking sucks. They are the afterthought of urban design, something you add after all the important things have been considered. They are the parsley garnish on your plate, the very last thing you toss in there in the hopes it will make you look fancy. But it doesn't have to be this way. The Office of Campus Sustainability at uOttawa has just completed a full annual assessment of the bike parking spaces on campus and the results are... well they are pretty awesome. This year, an audit was conducted to determine the state of the bike racks on campus. The assessment included the number of spaces available, the proximity to a major building entrance, if they were covered, and the ease of access. These criteria were selected as measures of how attractive and effective the bike racks are to users. The report revealed that there are 58 distinct parking locations on campus, with approxima...

~ 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...

This past weekend, I was fortunate enough to participate in the IMPACT! Youth Sustainability Leadership Conference . The conference aims to help young leaders "take their next strategic step for action: to deepen their sustainability understanding, build their leadership skills, and develop or advance projects and initiatives for meaningful change." The conference demonstrated that there are no sustainable actions too big or too small: all are worthy, all are rad and all are important. Moreover, in addition to eating some delicious vegan food and meeting some other sustainably-minded individuals in the community, I got to share my zero waste journey with others. But perhaps most importantly, I learned about some other community-orientated sustainable initiatives and social entrepreneurship actions spearheaded by some very cool folks all over the city. From ethical energy to ethical brunch, here are some sustainable actions percolating across the 613, and perhaps how you ...

L’idée de tout éteindre à la maison ou en résidence en refroidit plus d’un – l’idée peut sembler angoissante pour certains, et ennuyante pour d’autres. C’est pourquoi, largement inspirés par nos recherches sur Google, nous vous présentons ici quelques suggestions pour participer à Une heure sur Terre sans vous tourner les pouces dans le noir. *N’oubliez pas qu’il est interdit d’allumer des chandelles dans les résidences de l’Université d’Ottawa; or, les chandelles traditionnelles peuvent toutefois être remplacées par une lampe de poche ou des chandelles électriques. 1. Faites un pique-nique intérieur. Étendez une couverture au sol, invitez un ami ou deux, allumez des chandelles* et régalez-vous. Il n’y a rien de mieux que de relaxer avec des amis autour d’un repas. 2. Organisez une soirée cinéma. Cette option n’est pas entièrement sans faire appel à l’électricité, mais elle peut s’en approcher. Allumez la télévision, mais éteignez tout le reste. Certains étages en résidence ...

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...

So I know a guy, well actually he is a friend. And if you need the sweet stuff, he's got you covered. Last year Vince decided to start an apiary. He did some online research, spoke to a couple of people, and decided to order up some equipment and get going. Fast forward to last week and there I am paying a visit to Vince's bees. I learned a couple of really interesting things about bees including one important thing that I didn't know: bees don't usually sting you unless you are directly in their flight path. (Also, they will attack you if you threaten them, try to kill them, or try to steal their honey, etc.) This was a profound moment for me because I have always wanted to have an apiary on campus. But of course whenever someone brings up the idea of an apiary in a dense urban space, the first thing that comes to mind is the dreaded bee sting. I watched Vince as he inspected the hive and added a bit of smoke to scare away some bees so he could open up the box...