Last week, I was grabbing beers with an old friend and her friend that was passing through Ottawa. Matthew explained to us that he was on his way to university in a less than conventional way. He is undertaking his journey to Halifax by bike—a method which obviously interested me due to its sustainable nature. I have never been on any sort of lengthy bike ride and I asked if he would write to me about his experiences. The following describes part one of his travels. About a week ago, I left on my bike from my parents' farm in Northumberland County, Ontario, with one goal in mind: get to Halifax, Nova Scotia in 23 days. That number includes off-days in Ottawa, Montreal and Quebec City. So far, after 700 km of biking, I have made it to Montreal. Although that seems like a large distance, it is barely more than a 1/4 of my journey east. I guess a logical question would be "why did I decide to do this?"  The short answer is that last fall I traveled to Europe and in...

Summer is an amazing time of the year, complete the sunshine we crave on those cold winter days, ice cream cones, beach days, and music festivals. Every summer I find myself having to carefully budget my finances to allow myself enough disposable income to see my favourite bands play at various different music festivals across this part of the country. Every genre you can imagine finds itself on display in front of heat stroked fans, who in some cases have been camping out in tents in the rain for days taking in the sights and sounds and atmosphere of the music festival scene. Now a days there seems to be a festival every weekend, and at a growing cost to festival goers. Festivals fight to bring in the hottest bands from around the world, they set up stands to sell over priced food, and drinks, whilst preventing you from bringing in your own. They encourage you to drive, bus, train, and fly from wherever you are, to attend the best, biggest, and hippest festival of the summer....

Photo Credit: itatour.net The last leg of an epic journey took my family and me through Italy – Milano, to be specific, and then over a crazy alpine pass to Zurich, Switzerland. The small alpine towns we passed through seemed to function similarly to the sustainable glory that was St. Anton in Austria, though to a slightly lesser degree. Milano didn’t really give off the impression of being environmentally concerned; I didn’t see any recycling bins anywhere in the downtown core and surrounding streets, but to be fair, I didn’t cover much ground in my wanderings due to time restrictions. Given the sheer amount of tourist traffic, the quantity of waste that would be produced in that city would be gigantic; for the Earth’s sake, I just hope that they had some hidden recycling programs in place (however that would work). As far as Switzerland is concerned, I saw quite a few recycling stations in Zurich that broke down recyclables very specifically – namely, there were separate bins for br...

Photo Credit: guy_incognito (Flickr ) After a nice stint in Croatia, my parents, brother and I drove to our so-called “Motherland” to visit family, and eat preposterous amounts of my grandma’s cooking. I wasn’t really expecting Sarajevo to have addressed any of its ecological problems, due to the fact the standard of living is drastically lower than any of the other countries that we visited. One of the biggest problems that the city faces is the incredible amount of smog generated by the masses of poorly-maintained, past-their-prime, inefficient vehicles being driven. Many of the cars on the road spew out putrid black smoke, and when you add all of it together, it poses a severe health hazard. This effect is only amplified by the fact that Sarajevo is located in a valley, directly surrounded by mountains that trap all of this polluted air and keep it hovering above the general populace. The urban population numbers around 423,645 and the locals often joke that there are more cars tha...

Photo credit: www.rotaract.a t After an exciting meander through Austria and brief drive through Slovenia, my family and I arrived in Croatia. We went to Zagreb first and I was pleasantly surprised to find that recycling programs had been put in place, with a particular focus being placed on having the appropriate bins in parks, along beaches, and other similar, family-friendly locations. The next logical step would be to put more stations or bins in more central city locations, particularly downtown, where there is a lot of pedestrian traffic. The thing is, given the kind of general mentality that prevails in most Balkan cities, simply putting the bins in plain view isn’t going to do a whole lot. Not that this isn’t a great start, but it must be done in tandem with educating the general populace about why recycling is necessary. The public transport in the city is already very eco-friendly, as Zagreb has been connecting its many neighbourhoods with trams for years, and the supplement...

Photo credit: www.aragostahotel.com In several days, I will be departing for Europe with my family for a month, and for the first time, I really got to thinking about the effects of airplane trips on our environment. I’ve decided that this year, I will make a conscious effort to offset my trip on my return, as well as observe sustainable practices in the countries that I will be visiting. I expect to see major differences between the countries I’ll visit that are within the Euro Zone, and the countries without, but overall, I think it’s going to be an educational experience. I know that, despite the fact that recycling programs aren’t as well-developed in the Balkans, the fact is that most of their food, particularly meat, fruit and vegetables, are local, which greatly cuts down on the need for transport, saving CO2 emissions there. Countries in the Euro Zone, however, are probably a lot more aware of, and able to implement, sustainable practices, as they have the capital to organize l...