Qu’est-ce qu’une vérification de déchets ? Bien les ami(e)s, une vérification de déchets est lorsqu’on organise la collecte de déchets et recyclage (tout identifié par type et endroit ex. recyclage de papier, comptoir de recyclage devant salle 323) d’un endroit, lors d’une période de temps et que l’on évalue ce qu’il y a à l’intérieur de chaque sac. Chaque sac est ouverts et les articles sont triés et pesés par type (papier, déchets, etc.). Avec toutes les quantités notées nous pouvons calculer le taux de contamination de chaque sac, c'est-à-dire, le pourcentage des articles qui ne devraient pas être dans ce sac (ex. des déchets dans le réceptacle pour le métal/plastique/verre). On peut par la suite étudier les résultats et trouver des tendances ; Si par exemple tout le monde jette un article recyclable en particulier c’est peut-être parce que ce n’est pas bien indiqué sur les affiches ! Récemment, nous avons compléter une vérification de déchets de l’édifice Fauteux en entier, et...

A couple weeks ago we hosted a “No Idea Too Green” event to discuss the designing of a green Student Center. The new Student Center will take a couple of years to build and will be attached to the current Jock Turcot building. This building will be by students and for students, so we can make it whatever we want! At the “No Idea Too Green” event we came up with lots of great ideas of how to make our new Student Center great for both students and the ecology that we are a part of. Ideas ranged from urban aquaculture, to a living wall , to micro wind turbines. Someone even came up with an idea to create a dance floor that will harness the energy of students’ crazy dance moves . Some of the ideas were focused on improving sustainability while enhancing already existent student groups, such as creating a permanent service space for the People’s Republic of Delicious and a kitchen that would be open for anyone to use. Indoor green space could double up as a way to regulate temperatur...

Photo credit: 3s.images.com Well I've never wrote a blog before so excuse the inaccuracies of how I am suppose to come about this. I never thought I would write a blog but within minutes of arriving on the job I stumbled upon the Eco team of Ottawa U mentioning Facebook, Twitter (which I've also never done), and a plethora of other informational vectors. Maybe I should write about my agreed slavery to Jon and Brigitte, or the fact that for the passed 30 minutes I've been taking out stitches one by one of a uOttawa jacket. But all that would be unnecessary banter. Sticking to the facts, my first week has been a blast. Arriving on the scene a little later than normal because of the unforeseen sending home of the last participant, it was my job to be the replacement. Throughout the week I walked around the large campus putting signs on recycle bins, composting for the Protection building which eventually goes into this huge worm pit (actually really interesting!), and other re...

Que faisaient plus d'un milliard de personnes partout dans le monde de 20 h 30 à 21 h 30 l'année dernière le 28 mars? Ils éteignaient leurs lumières à l'appui de l'Heure pour la Terre du Fonds mondial pour la nature (FMN). En fait, plus de 10 millions de Canadiens et des milliers d'entreprises ont participé dans plus de 275 villes partout au pays dans le but de sensibiliser les gens au changement climatique. Beaucoup d'efforts conjoints seront déployés partout au pays. Par exemple, Hydro Ottawa examinera la diminution de la consommation d'électricité à Ottawa pendant cette période d'une heure. Beaucoup de points d'intérêts comme la Tour CN et la Colline du Parlement éteindront leur éclairage non essentiel. Le mot-symbole « Canada » et l'éclairage architectural des immeubles du gouvernement de l'ensemble du pays seront éteints à l'occasion de l'Heure pour la Terre. De nombreux événements ont aussi lieu à Ottawa, comme une veillée pa...

Many University of Ottawa students only make it through paper and exam season with a little help from their friend caffeine. However, at the other end of that caffeine addiction, is a coffee grower who often gets little pay for her hard work growing your coffee beans. Luckily, fair trade coffee has emerged over the years, cutting out middle men and often allowing these hardworking producers to work in better conditions and get paid prices closer to what they need to survive. While, as many international development students will tell you, fair trade is still far from the ideal and often presents a whole new set of barriers for producers, it generally ensures that a little more of your coffee dollar makes it to those who grew it. With the climate changing, the coffee equation is getting ever more complicated. Higher temperatures are affecting crops and making them flower prematurely, decreasing yield, and thus the amount of money that the producer makes. Growers are searching for creati...

Photo credit: TerraChoice website La dernière année a bourgeonné de 'publicité verte'. À l'heure actuelle, les compagnies se font la compèt' pour tenter d'être les plus 'vertes' afin d'attirer la clientèle. On se bouscule pour écrire des trucs comme 'fait de produits naturels', 'biodégradable', 'nous vous offrons un produit vert', 'nous nous soucions de l'environnement', ETC. Tous ces mots apaisants pour le consommateur peuvent être catégorisés sous une pratique que l'on appelle la 'mascarade écologique' ou le 'Greenwashing'. Terra Choice a publié son rapport intitulé ' Les six sept péchés de la mascarade écologique ' (The Six Seven Sins of Greenwashing) où vous trouverez des trucs pour ne pas vous faire avoir par les compagnies qui tentent de vendre des produits en prêchant être aussi verts que des kiwis. Vous serez surpris pour ce que vous pouvez tomber... Bonne lecture! - marie-pierre ( h...

Check out this post from an anonymous campus community forced to do a waste audit... The amount of coffee cups contaminated at Fauteux Hall, in the Faculty of Law building, is shocking and depressing. How difficult can it be to properly empty out the left-over coffee from the cups and throw them in the correct bin? It may mean nothing to you but it means the world for the person sorting out these cups. Everyone complains about the environment, but some people still don’t recycle properly on campus. Wondering what happens to your coffee cups after you are done drinking? I bet you’d say they are recycled, right?! That's true, except, many coffee cups still end up in landfills. Most coffee cups processed for recycling still have lots of coffee in them because people don’t throw out what’s left, which unfortunately contaminates the cups. The contaminated cups—where the coffee liquid has deeply penetrated the layer of the coffee cups— end up in garbage bags destined for landfills while ...

Hopefully you know where to get fair trade goods on campus. Café Alt sells fair trade coffee exclusively, Chartwells locations have at least one choice that is fair trade. T-shirts purchased through the SFUO are fair trade...Not much else is offered on campus that’s fair trade. Have you ever heard of Fair Trade Towns? It’s a campaign that essentially creates standards for a town to go entirely fair trade. There are criteria that a town must achieve, like passing a resolution at city council in support, and to using only fair trade coffee and tea at meetings and in the office. It’s then up to the businesses to offer fair trade products, and if enough do, you’re closer to becoming a fair trade town. Attract some media coverage and strike a steering committee devoted to planning for the future, and you have yourself a fair trade town. We can replicate this model on university campuses. The student union and the administration passing motions and devoting themselves to fair trade products ...

Do you see a need to eliminate the sale of bottled water on our campus? Do you still buy bottled water? Do you think it’s easy to get an entire campus to boycott bottled water? Should we stop buying it to show the university that it should not be sold on campus? I certainly boycott bottled water, and know many people who do, but that wave takes a long time to catch on. Let’s try a more proactive approach. With all of the hard work that’s gone into water fountain infrastructure and Bottled Water Free Day, and even some of the municipal water ads the city has been putting out, we are close. Spread the word, just a thought. That’s it for now. Enjoyed Bottled Water Free Day this week on Thursday, March 11. There will be tons of events including water tasting, film screenings, and important discussions. And in the evening you can join our engineers and architects for the “no idea too green” discussion on the new student centre. Check out www.bottledwaterfreeday.ca for more info -sarah jayn...

‘Starting March 2010, SunChips® bags will be made from more than 90% renewable, plant-based materials – allowing it to completely break down in a hot, active compost pile in about 14 weeks.’ About the bag It is about time! There’s way too much packaging waste that comes with the foods we eat, and most of the time this packaging is not reusable, not recyclable nor compostable. These new bags are certified through the Biodegradable Products Institute (BPI), which means that they can be composted in many waste management programs (such as the Green Bin Program). I am not sure of the City of Ottawa will accept them; information will surely become available soon. I am going to be piloting a few in our new electric composter in the next couple of weeks. The organic waste spends about six to eight weeks in our machine, and then four to six weeks maturing in a pile. According to the information on their website, the bags should be gone by the 14th week. We will keep you posted on the developm...

‘À compter de mars 2010, les sacs SunChips® seront fabriqués avec plus de 90 % de matières végétale renouvelable. Ils pourront ainsi se décomposer entièrement en plus ou moins 14 semaines lorsque placés dans un tas de compost actif à « chaud ».’ À propos du sac Je crois que c’est à peu près temps! Il y a beaucoup trop d’emballages non-réutilisable, ni recyclable ou biodégradable (compostable) qui accompagnent notre nourriture. Ces nouveaux sacs sont certifiés par le BPI (Biodegradable Products Institute), ce qui signifie que ces sacs de croustilles peuvent être récupérés aux fins de compostage dans le cadre de nombreux programmes de gestion des déchets (tels que le programme de Bac Vert). Je ne suis pas certaine si la ville d’Ottawa acceptera ces sacs dans leur nouveau système – à suivre. Je vais bientôt faire un essai (projet pilote) avec notre propre composteur électrique. Les déchets organiques passent six à huit semaines dans la machine et un autre quatre à six semaines dans une p...

Wow, things are starting to get really busy... I might even venture to say ridiculously busy. Nope, maybe we are quite there yet, but we are close. My boss predicted that 2010 would be the year of sustainability and that we would become so busy we wouldn't have time to think as we got closer and closer to the tipping point. That being said, I suppose it didn't come as a surprise when I was asked to sit in on a planning meeting for the new Student Center. For those of you not in the know, the University of Ottawa and th Student Federation have been trying to negotiate a new University Center for years. The original Jock Turcot building was designed for a campus of about 15,000 to 17,000 students and I think that we are a little beyond that right now. So recently Physical Resources Services (PRS) and the SFUO have gotten together to finally design a new center. Just as an aside I wanted to mention the whole University Center vs. Student Center thing. The new center that is planne...

From March 1st to 12th an International Campaign called the “Teach-in for Climate Justice” is taking place, during which professors at Universities in BC, Ontario, and around the world are encouraged to put aside 20 minutes of class to discuss how Climate Justice is relevant to their discipline. Climate Justice brings together people of all different backgrounds and interests to recognize that those who will be, and already are, hit hardest by anthropogenic climate change are not the same as the industrial society that created the problem. Fewer days of frozen lakes make Canadian aboriginal communities that rely on ice roads less able to transport necessary supplies; drought in Sub-Saharan Africa is exacerbating the situation in already famine stricken areas; and sea level rising will soon leave millions of Bangladeshis without a home. In much of the industrialized world we have accumulated the capital to, at least preliminarily, buffer us from the effects of climate change. True Cl...

À mes chèr·e·s cinéastes, Samedi j'ai eu la chance de passer six heures à regarder des films environnementaux. Oh que de culture! Oh que d'information! Oh quel mal de fesses! Le festival, organisé par le groupe Katimavik (des jeunes canadien·ne·s font du bénévolat pendant plusieurs mois dans différentes communautés au Canada), avait lieu à Rockland. Ils ont diffusé 12 films et de ces 12, j'en ai vu 4 que je partage avec vous. Les descriptions sont une gracieuseté du programme Katimavik **je rajouterai mes commentaires + tard; pour l'instant je vais me coucher!: 1) L’erreur boréale (1999) Réalisateurs: Richard Desjardins & Robert Monderie ||| Durée: 69 min ||| Français Alors que le silence et l'ignorance règnent en maître sur nos forêts, et malgré le discours officiel qui nous assure que le patrimoine forestier demeurera intact, ce documentaire choc soulève la question de la responsabilité collective devant la destruction d'un environnement unique au monde. L...