You might not know this but when you decide to go bottled water free, you get a lot of criticism from big corporations. More specifically, bottled water companies, who by the way love to send tonnes of letters about why you need to reconsider your decision. So at uOttawa we get lots of these letters. Some nice, some bad, some threatening, some completely incomprehensible. I thought I would let everyone see what it is like when we get one of these letters and how I like to handle them. I personally believe that water should never be denied to people how need it. I is essential to our lives and to our way of life. And don't get me wrong, I do believe that there is a time and place for bottled water and that it does have some very important and very critical applications. I understand big corporations need to eek out a living as well, but sometimes you have to draw a line. As a recovering science student, one of the things I really hate is when people toss a study at you and say...

I had a scare a while back in the form of a mysterious phone call... Background: I never get calls at work, mostly because I have a strong distaste for talking on the phone and do all my contacting by email or in person but also because I don’t have a work extension nor a phone plan on my cell (hell, I still have a 519 number from home). This equalled my terror when Jon’s voice floated over the cubicle wall to inform me that someone was on the phone for me. In fact, I thought he was joking. Answering the phone, I had my wavering, stranger voice on to hear a man inquire about a report I had written on Water Fountains on campus. I relaxed a little as he explained that he worked for the Green Education Council of Canada and was interested in setting up a meeting between myself and their CEO to discuss post bottled water ban tactics. ASLDFHEJFKGHY^N%$%[insert excitement here] It just seemed like a great opportunity to showcase the University’s progress as a bottled water free camp...

(water fountain at the University of Ottawa) So last week was World Water Day and I have to ask a question, what did you do to celebrate? I know what you are thinking, "World Water Day... Are you serious?" You know, on a level I definitely feel you. Sure, water is super important, but come on... why not start celebrating air, or sunlight, or language? We are pretty spoiled here in Canada when it comes to a lot of things and I think that water is at the top of that list. We so take it for granted that it is basically forgotten that people used to have to take staggered showers not even a century ago. We hear about things like drought in the Prairies, but it is an alien concept to most of us. If you want to flush a toilet, you don't even think twice. If you need water to drink, you go to a tap or buy it at a store. The idea that there was simply no more water does not compute in our minds. The one beautiful thing about water is that we still recognize that it is v...

Photo credit: Jonathan Rausseo So it turns out that I got a lot of questions from my last post about just how much water we use on campus. We I didn't mention the total amount because I figured everyone would know once the annual report was published. 611,044 cubic meters of water. That's how much we consume on campus every year. This averages out to 1.7 Million litres of water every day. A lot of people have a tough time visualizing this, hence the little picture up above. If you can imagine a cube of water that is 12 meters long, by 12 meters deep, by 12 meters high... that's how much water we use daily. The average person is just under 2 meters tall. The big culprits on campus for water consumption are basically exactly who you would expect. Research equipment - Aquatic tanks, chemistry experiments, and so forth really gobble up the water. But this is a tough category to calm when you consider that fact that the University's bread and butter is research. Luck...

Photo credit: http://www.foundshit.com/water-fountain-squirrel/ If only water fountains were everywhere…then there’d be no need for bottles. In any case, this last week, I performed the Water Fountain Assessment. I used emphatic caps to reinforce the importance of this process. What the assessment entailed was the inspection of each and every single fountain on campus and taking down information about the water pressure, temperature, taste, general fountain appearance, accessibility and availability of goosenecks. After hydrating to an unnecessary extent, these numbers were all inputted to be analyzed and compared with last year’s assessments. I am pleased to announce that there has definitely been a lot of progress, most of it being as a result of the massive construction undertakings on campus. The fact of the matter is, there is still a lot of work to be done to upgrade the fountain infrastructure at uOttawa to a satisfactory level, especially now that we’ve banned the sales of bott...