As you all know the University of Ottawa is the new recipient of what appears to be the first mechanical composter in an Ontario university setting. That’s right... ici on compost! So here’s the low down. A mechanical composter is exactly what it sounds like, a composter that mechanically composts its contents. This is different from most other composters which are typically simple wind row systems. Mechanical composting systems are typically in-vessel systems (i.e. inside a big tube) that rotate periodically. This is a good time to add a side note. In case you wanted to know, the process of composting is very rudimentary. You take organic waste, you add oxygen, and there you have it. Composting is actually a ridiculously easy process, the goal is really just to try to keep to the bacteria in the garbage alive and they will take care of the rest. So the university’s new composter rotates the waste inside of it every hour to keep feeding oxygen into the system. Two weeks later the organ...

Picture from www.greencleaningmatters.co.u k Most people dread using those old, ineffective “hot air hand-cookers” found everywhere, but there’s a new wave of energy-efficient high-speed hand dryers on the rise. Keeping in mind, uOttawa stocks 100% post-consumer recycled paper towels, which of the two is really faster, cheaper and more environmentally friendly? Physical Resources Services hired me for the summer and asked me to figure out the answer to this question. In our analysis, we evaluated a range of electric hand dryers and compared them to using paper towels. The results named the “Jet Towel” as the best alternative hand dryer. Designed by Mitsubishi Electric in Japan, it’s a time-tested effective high-speed hand dryer. Unlike conventional convection hand dryers, the Jet Towel uses a high speed curtain of air to “scrape” excess water off your hands. Now, considering the resources associated with using the Jet Towel or paper towel, it is in fact more ecological to use the...

Image uploaded from the EVO blog ( check it out ) I may have titled this blog with a little bit of a misleading statement; technically the plant isn’t newly open for business, it has been open for business for quite a while but trust me... this is kind of new. Now the second thing that I should address before I really get into this is the notion of a negawatt (what is it and why should you care). Well a negawatt is a concept that has been floating around for a bit of time now, but only as a whisper really. The idea is simple. A watt is a unit of power; 15 watts is what it takes to run your typical compact fluorescent light bulb. Now at the University we use thousands and thousands of lights so we don’t deal with watts, we deal with megawatts (a million watts). Now take that concept and flip it on its head. Rather than generating energy, say a megawatt of energy, a negawatt does the opposite, it removes a megawatt of energy. And that’s the deal right there; negawatts are the amount ...

Un contenant à emporté avec le compost? Absolument! L’Université d’Ottawa est maintenant la première institution postsecondaire parmi les autres en Ontario à se procurer sa propre machine à compost électrique. De plus, nous devançons la Ville d’Ottawa, qui planifie lancer son système de collectes organiques d’ici le printemps prochain. Tandis que à cet automne (2009), nous mettrons notre de compostage en marche en commençant par la foire alimentaire au Centre universitaire. D'ailleurs, notre fournisseur de services alimentaires, Chartwells, a accepté de convertir tous ses contenants à emporter, tasses et coutellerie jetables à des contenants à emporter, tasses et coutellerie compostables ! Brigitte Morin, Coordonnatrice du recyclage et du réacheminement des déchets : bmorin@uottawa.ca www.durable.uottawa.ca ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Is that a take-out container with compost? Absolutely! The University of ...

Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is to not stop questioning. -Albert Einstein J’ai participé au colloque de World Changing Careers (WCC) à l’Université de la Colombie-Britannique du 23 au 27 juillet 2009. Des étudiants, des chefs d’entreprise, des éducateurs, le gouvernement, des ONG et des professionnels de tous les domaines se sont réunis à Vancouver. Ce colloque a donné les outils nécessaires pour poursuivre une carrière en durabilité et comment intégrer les idées de pointe afin d'effectuer une différence positive. Nous avons recueilli une gamme d’idées à travers diverses discussions de groupes, discours principaux et ateliers sur la façon de reconfigurer les systèmes de notre société pour répondre aux besoins futurs de notre génération. Avec ce symposium, nous sommes arrivés à réaliser que n’importe quelle carrière, que ça soit en affaire, éducation, agriculture, médias ou encore plus, peuvent facilement intégrer la durabili...

Photo from re-char.com Whether or not you’re a fan of free market capitalism, there are a few basic assumptions you are following on a regular basis. You know that money makes the world go ‘round and that the economy is a sometimes volatile but very necessary force in our current system. You don’t have to agree with this. I’m going to try not to give an economics lesson (without my economics texts I’ll probably fudge something ) but I think we can work off a few simple concepts that relate to the environment and how it can react to an economic system that seems, pretty plainly, not to care about it.When a corporation acts, it acts in the interest of capital, and almost never in the interest of the environment. This idea will become a more detailed blog post later. So the title of this entry is Carbon Offsetting. Let’s talk about that. Apparently, this whole economy talk is where things like carbon offsetting come in. As we know, carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas which contributes ...

Little by little things do change, even on campus. Indeed the day is coming when there will no longer be any cars on campus at all. The University of Ottawa is slowly but surely becoming a pedestrian campus. You may have noticed that there have been a few new additions to the campus lately, in the form of large square concrete flower beds. The first instinct is to assume that these concrete containers are part of an initiative to keep the campus beautiful, and undeniably you would be right. The planters are filled with wonderfully colourful plants that do serve to beautify the campus... but there is more to them. Emboldened by his new post as University Ground Keeper, Benoit has been working hard to keep the campus beautiful. And one of the ways to accomplish this is to impede the ruin of grass and plants by eliminating the flow of cars that continuously trample them. The concrete planters have been strategically deployed on campus to reduce the movement of cars on campus in pl...

So as we bring this little journey about recycling bins comes to an end it would be foolish of me to not mention all the hidden green elements of our bins. I often find that people respect things more when they know a little something about it. Aside from the basic elements that I discussed about our bins, I want to share some fun tidbits. I called this entry green to the core for a reason. When the bins were being designed my supervisor asked, “What are the bins going to be made out of?” He thought that it was important that if we try to be greener than we should really be greener. The design team agreed and so we specified FSC wood. We also specified that all the glues used be non-toxic. We actually toyed around with the idea of using recycled ceramics for the counter-tops except... it would have added hundreds of dollars to the price of the bins. While designing the bins we asked the good people of sanitary services how we could make these bins so that they would be more helpfully f...

Vous avez sûrement remarqué, lorsque vous faites votre épicerie, les nombreux produits à emballage de couleurs nature avec les noms « vert », « organique » et « biologique ». Il semble que c’est de plus en plus populaire de nos jours. Évidemment, les entreprises ont toujours connus à bien s’adapter aux besoins des consommateurs et les gens ressentent le besoin de protéger leur santé, leur famille et l’environnement. Certains croient pouvoir réaliser ceci en achetant toute une gamme de ces produits « verts ». Cependant, pouvons-nous avoir confiance dans nos achats? TerraChoice a fait une étude fascinante pour identifier les produits qui sont victimes de « lavage vert » ( http://sinsofgreenwashing.org/ ). Selon cette firme de marketing environnementale d’Ottawa, le « lavage vert » est « le fait de tromper les consommateurs à propos des pratiques environnementales d’une entreprise ou des avantages environnementaux d’un produit ou service. » Ainsi, comment pouvons –nous distinguer le bon ...

For this next instalment I am going to focus on yet another form of convenience, one size fits all. The concept of one-stop shopping is nothing new. Why wouldn’t you want to concentrate as many activities as possible into a single functional space? That was the driving principle behind the new recycling centers; one stop shopping for recycling on campus. We really wanted to do this for many reasons; mostly for efficiency of resources and the ability to increase the amount of waste captured. So the goal was to create the most multi-purposed recycling station in one location. This meant that the first thing that we had to do was marry the waste and recycling systems. Two different disposal locations means too many mitigating factors. What if the recycling bin is a little further than the waste bin? What if one of the waste bin gets moved away? Well… people are likely going to put the wrong things in the wrong bins. Now if we squish all the bins into one station, not only do we eliminate ...

L’activité « Déposez et dégagez » est un programme en résidence, où, à la fin de l’année, nous procédons à la collecte d’articles non-voulus des étudiants. Ces articles sont par la suite triés, et envoyés à des organismes en manque de biens matériaux particuliers. Cette année, grâce à l’activité « Déposez et dégagez » nous avons évité de jeter et de gaspiller 1,7 tonnes de vêtements, d’articles de cuisine, de livres, de fournitures de bureau, etc. (objets donnés à des organismes ainsi qu’à la communauté universitaire). Ce chiffre correspond à tout l’acide citrique produit sur la Terre l’année dernière, ou au poids d’un tracteur mini-CAT ! Merci à tous ceux et celles qui nous ont aidés, soit par leur temps, en prêtant de l’espace, ou par un don. Ce ne serait pas possible sans vous ! The “Dump and Run” is a program where, at the end of the year, we collect items that students in residences no longer want. These are then sorted, and donated to specific charities in need of specific items....

I mentioned in a previous post that recycling is a question of convenience. This isn’t the case all the time but I am willing to bet that you aren’t even aware of a tenth of the waste decisions you make in your daily life. When I was a kid in grade school a group of older students from some random high school came into my class to give a presentation about recycling. The details are fuzzy now but I do recall that when I got home that night I pestered my mom about recycling and how important it is. “Police should force everyone to recycle” I declared to my mother as I half-scowled at her for not having a recycling bin in our apartment. What I didn’t understand is that not only did my mother come from a different generation with different mentalities and norms about recycling, but also that we lived in an apartment building and recycling was not offered. What never dawned on me at that age and likely still evades many people today is that recycling is a matter of convenience plain and si...

Congrats Uottawa! Since the introduction of the Recycling Program in 1990, our waste numbers have plunged, while our recycling numbers have escalated. For the very first time, in the school year 2008-2009, we are officially recycling as much as we are wasting. What’s more, this doesn’t include our electronic wastes programs, wood pallet recycling programs, and other special recycling programs. Also, our total consumption has diminished by more than 30% since 1987; however, we still produce enough waste to fill the Desmarais building three times over. With the arrival of our new electric composter just a month away (we will be the first university in Ontario to purchase our very own electric composter!), and a great promotional plan for the year, we will surely hit our 60% waste diversion target in the coming year or so. Félicitations Uottawa! Depuis l’introduction du Recyclage sur campus en 1990, notre taux de production de déchets est en déclin, pendant que notre taux de recyclage es...

Nous ne réalisons pas jusqu’à quel point une conférence peut laisser une grande empreinte écologique! Des bouteilles d’eau pour chaque personne inscrite, des déchets à l’excès, des cadeaux promotionnels inutiles et de la paperasserie à l’infini…. Quel gaspillage! Ayant au plus de 5 000 recherchistes et scientifiques qui viendront à l’Université d’Ottawa pour le 77e Congrès de l’Acfas, la décision a été prise : il y aura un comité de développement durable! Mais comment organiser un congrès vert? Nous pourrions toucher à beaucoup de petits détails, mais divisons cette grande tâche selon différentes catégories : Papier Utiliser du papier recyclable à pourcentage élevé de fibres recyclées après consommation pour tout matériel imprimé (affiches, le programme, etc.). Fournir aux participants des blocs-notes de papier imprimé au verso. Encourager tous les gens impliqués de réduire la consommation de papier. Communications Inscription électronique. Communication quotidienne et «conseils verts...

This week we’ve finally started weighing the donations at the dump and run. We should have most everything weighed and donated (or kept for the free store) by the end of next week. How exciting! But seriously, let’s talk about consumption. In my last post, I talked about free stuff, and how much get’s thrown out on a regular basis, that is COMPLETELY reusable. Sometimes, it takes simple reuse. Have a glass jar from spaghetti sauce? Instead of throwing it out or recycling it, wash it and use it as a container or a drinking glass. Have a plastic yogurt container? Use it for dry bulk goods in your pantry, or for painting. Mesh onion bags are really great for washing dishes. The most important step in all of this? Think about whether or not you really need any given item BEFORE you buy it. Those strawberries in the supermarket that come from California? Well, you can decide if you really want that extra plastic packaging and the pesticides, and all the costs (monetary, environmental, and ...