In our Drawing the Line series, we focus on the idea of what it would take to tackle some of the biggest sustainability issues on campus. One of the biggest questions I get is how can we eliminate disposable coffee cups on campus. Normally I tell people that there is legislation coming from the Ontario government that might actually deal with this problem. (check out the Waste Free Ontario Act ). But as the recent climate marches have highlighted, we need action now!! So let's imagine how we could eliminate coffee cups on a campus like that of uOttawa and what that might look like. Let's start with some background... FACT #1 - uOttawa has a disposable coffee cup problem. Every day, about 10,000 (yeah that's ten with three zeroes) disposable coffee cups are purchased and likely tossed on campus. The number is kind of staggering; stacked end to end, these cups would reach more than twice the height of the CN tower. When tossed into garbage bags, well.... let'...

For those who are plugged into the zeitgeist, the number 10,000 probably has a lot of significance. The 10,000 hour rule is a controversial idea that it takes 10,000 hours to master something. 10,000 steps means that you are on your way to a healthy level of fitness. At 10,000 feet you gain enough perspective to see the big picture. But I think that one of the most import things is that it is preceded by 9,999, which as we can all agree is a pretty big number. A decade ago our office came across a really startling statistic... every day on campus 6,500 disposable cups were being used. We figured out a bunch of different ways of representing what 6,500 disposable coffee cups means... if you stacked them end to end it would be 7 times the height of the peace tower, they could fill up 10 tennis courts, it is the equivalent weight of 125 basket balls... etc. For the longest time we kept talking to people about what a huge number this was. The concept that our simple little campus ...

There are about 42,000 students at the University of Ottawa. What if each of them used just one single-use cup each day? 42,000 cups to dispose of? That is a lot of waste! Yes, single-use mugs are compostable (*not the lids!), but are students actually composting them? Not really… They are being put into waste bins, or worse, into paper recycling bins. Sometimes they still have coffee in them, which contaminates the paper that was going to be recycled. Sorting properly is one thing – (if you must use a single-use coffee mug, please put it in compost!), but how about trying to kick that habit? NO, don’t get me wrong, I would never suggest going a day without coffee! I am trying to say ditch the single-use for a month, maybe even just a week – YES, use a reusable mug! Your coffee will stay warmer, you save money, and you will help create a greener campus. Did you know you get a discount if you use a reusable mug anywhere on campus ? (Between 10 and 25 cents off your hot beverag...

As part of Waste Reduction Week (October 19-25, 2015), the Office of Campus Sustainability started working on an independent art project, a photographic essay that hoped to document the lives of adherents to a growing, subversive subculture on campus known only as… “mug life”. Okay, so we set up a photo booth at Muggy Mondays, but the photos were still awesome!! Every day the campus needlessly produces over 6000 paper cups; that’s already a lot of waste, but many wind up impossible to recycle as well. “What most people don’t realize is that you can’t recycle one of those paper cups if there’s still coffee in it: if you toss it in the recycling bin and the coffee seeps into the rest of the paper, it can’t be recycled – it becomes waste”, explains Brigitte Morin, Recycling Coordinator. “That’s why it’s really important to dump the coffee out first. Most of the recycling stations on campus have a drain built in to them, below the orange “liquid” sign, for exactly that.” To enc...

Are you anxious about the new school year? Muggy Mondays has just the thing to make your Monday (and Wednesday) mornings a little bit better! Muggy Mondays offers FREE fair trade coffee, tea, and hot chocolate to anyone who brings a reusable mug. In fact, we gave out 2,289 cups last year! Believe me when I say tremendous effort and love goes into each and every cup of coffee, tea, and hot chocolate we serve. Allow me to pass along just a snapshot of the passion that goes into each mug: VOLUNTEERS Muggy Monday volunteers are small in number, but big in heart. Most of our volunteers don't even drink coffee, seriously like only a quarter of them do, but they still arrive at 7:30am to prepare everything – and they do it with a smile! Their positive attitude will cheer you up even on the darkest and coldest mornings! Interested in volunteering? E-mail us at muggymondaysclub@gmail.com COFFEE All good coffee begins with the beans! Kicking Horse Coffee roasts only the best sh...

It is that time of the year again, when millions of Canadians hold their breath, squeeze all their hopes into the pit of their stomachs, and roll up the rim to see if they win. The problem is that the only thing we are actually winning is a crappier planet. Roll up the Rim to Win has been the bane of my existence for the past decade. The University of Ottawa, like every other University, has a disposable cup problem: there are too many of them to put a fine point to it. Many, if not the majority of disposable coffee cups, are tossed directly into the garbage on campus. There is a general misconception that coffee cups are covered with so much wax that they can’t be recycled (I can’t blame anyone, what is that stuff on the inside of the cup that is super shinny and stops water from leaking out of it?). Otherwise, people understand that you can recycle them and they do just that... except that they do it while the cup is still half full of coffee. That means that the coffee so...

Let me start out by saying that I hate New Years resolutions. They kind of piss me off for two big reasons. First, they are almost always vague. Lose weight, be healthier, listen to more people,... seriously? None of these actually mean anything. Second, they aren't really resolutions... most people choose things that are better classified as common sense. So this year I propose GREEN resolutions that are precise and demonstrate resolve. 1. Get a reusable mug and actually use it! I know you have been told this like a thousand times but seriously.... get a mug and use it. I know it is tough to carry a clunky mug around with you everywhere but I am sure you can deal with it. Find a solution that works for you and go for it. You will save yourself about $20 to $50 bucks a year and you will be taking a chunk out of landfills. 2. Submit your homework electronically It is tricky handing things in electronically. The classic argument is that their professors won't let the...

Photo Credit: Jonathan Rausseo Normative behaviour is a very strange beast. It is perhaps even the ‘holy grail’ of environmental psychology. It is thought that with the right strategy, normative behavior could save the planet. Dramatic pause….. Okay, maybe this statement means nothing to you right now but give me a moment and maybe I can give this statement some impact. First we need to lay out some ground rules; some guiding principles that will help us move through this conversation quicker. You will have to take these on faith but feel free to explore them in detail later. Everyone just wants to belong. Maybe not to the mainstream, but to something that’s for sure. There are very few actual loners. Most people may actually associate some form of subculture. Think about it; geeks hang out with geeks, jocks hang out with jocks, goth hang out with goth, and gleeks hang out with gleeks. All this is not to say that there isn’t inter-click mixing, In the absence of direct peers, people wi...