The times they are a changing, and now so is recycling at uOttawa. This month you may have noticed that the signs on the recycling bins have changed. Simply put, the University of Ottawa has a new waste management contract and we have made some modifications and upgrades to the recycling system. Here is a complete run-down of the changes that affect you. Coffee cups are compostable One of the biggest changes to the recycling system is that you can now compost your coffee cups. As the compost system expands on campus, more and more disposable items on campus are being replaced with compostable ones. Take for example the compostable cutlery and carry away clam-shell containers available at most food service locations on campus. These items are more preferable to their conventional plastic counterparts. *Do remember though, coffee lids are not compostable and should be separated and placed in the trash bin. The only exception are the lids from Première Moisson, which are ...

Incredible and unfortunate, but true: Canadians are the biggest producers of municipal waste per capita in the developed world, according to a study by the Conference Board of Canada . This week is National Waste Reduction Week (from October 21st to 27th), and we’ll be making important changes to the recycling counters on campus — all 170 of them! — so that most of them will have 4 categories: Metal, Plastic, Glass  Mixed Paper Compost  Garbage.  Our aim is to divert as much waste from landfill as possible while at the same time encouraging better recycling and composting practices among students and staff. Last year we composted 70 tons of organic material through the University’s industrial composter. Hopefully, adding compost options to more of the recycling counters will increase that number quite a bit. Besides ensuring that many more recycling counters have compost options, the yellow signs that say “all plastics” will be changed to read “metal, plas...