Comme vous l'avez peut-être entendu, l'Université d'Ottawa a été couronnée championne canadienne de la RecycloManie pour une 6e victoire d'affilée. Cette année, nous avons franchi une étape importante quant à notre taux de détournement, notre taux de réacheminement des déchets plafonnant invariablement à 60%. Toutefois, cette article n'a pas pour objectif de vanter nos réalisations, mais de mettre à l'honneur les lauréats de notre concours « Engagement à vivre sans déchets » . Cette année nous n'avons pas un seul gagnant, car c'est plutôt l'ensemble de l'équipe de la Promotion de la santé et de la nutrition de l'Université d'Ottawa qui se mérite le titre. Félicitations! C'est grâce à vos efforts et bien d'autres que l'Université d'Ottawa deviendra un campus sans déchet. Voici l'article du blog de l'équipe gagnante. Vivre « sans déchets » n'a pas été l'aspect le plus difficile de notre engagement en...

I was listening to the radio the other day and some talk show host mentioned this "new fad for fresh and local food". I kind of didn't even notice it at first, but then I started thinking about it. New fad? Fresh food is a new fad, like people would gladly purchase old and artificial food instead? And local food? I would imagine for the majority of human history, the bulk of anyone's diet was local food. Well, I guess if this new fad is making its way around the globe than I might as well tell you how you can jump on the band wagon too. Most of this information is specific to the University of Ottawa but this kind of stuff can be done any where. 1. Join the Good Food Box or a CSA The Good Food Box is a basically a wholesale buying club for fresh food. Similar to a CSA (community supported agriculture), you need only purchase a box and one or more local farmers fills up your box with delicious goodies. The box is delivered to the campus (or even right to your ...

As you may or may not have heard, the University of Ottawa is again the Canadian Champions of RecycleMania. This marks the 6th straight victory for the uOttawa and a milestone in terms of our diversion rate (we are closing in on the elusive 60% diversion rate). But this is not a blog post to brag about our accomplishments, this is a post to honour the winners of our "Pledge to Live Waste Free" contest. This year's winner is in fact not one person, but the entire uOttawa Health Promotion's Nutrition Team. Congratulations! Only with your efforts can uOttawa truly become a waste free campus. Here is the blog post from the winning team. Living "waste free" was not the most difficult aspect of taking the Recyclemania Pledge. When there was something that had to be "thrown away," there were remarkably few things that did not fit into the any of the recycling categories found widespread on campus: Plastic, Metal and Glass, Compost, and Mixed Pap...

The University of Ottawa recently announced that construction is beginning on the Tabaret / Grand Allée project. Essentially, the whole project is an extension of the Grand Allée (or the Grand Alley in English but no one really calls it that). There are a lot of good things about the project and a few sad things about it too. A recent article in the uOttawa Gazette spoke about the "makeover" of the space and some of the features. But I feel that more should be done to explain some of the details about the project. In fact, the project is more of a restoration than a makeover. So here is our contribution to what is happening in front of Tabaret. As it stands right now, the Grand Allée extends from the FSS tower all the way to Laurier. This new segment would include the other side of the street betweet Tabaret and Academic Hall, essentially bringing the space in front of Tabaret to the same standards as the rest of the Grand Allée. And it kind of needed it, I mean ...

Each spring, I end up looking at my wardrobe in complete desolation.  I never know how to dress when the weather gets too warm to wear my winter coat and boots, but not warm enough yet to wear my favorite summer dresses and skirts.  Adds to my desperation when I sort through my stuff and find clothes that I haven’t worn in years… So this year I decided to see things differently.  Rather than keeping all of my old clothes, I decided to bring everything I didn’t want anymore to the Free Store.  And over there, I was able to find some great pieces that could easily be paired with accessories and basic pieces that I already owned in order to create new and fun outfits.  With the help of other students working and volunteering with the Office of Campus Sustainability, I was able to organize a photoshoot to show you where a little creativity can take you. As the weather gets warmer, sweaters often get pushed over to the top shelf of the closet, never to be seen...

A little while ago I was working at an information table for sustainability and so I had to gather information about the cool research we do here on campus. I asked a whole lot of uOttawa professors about their research regarding sustainable development, and I thought that the coolest out of all of them was that of Professor Robert Delatolla’s. What is so incredibly neat about Professor Delatolla’s research is that he uses miniature spaceships. Sold yet? These honeycomb pasta like plastic thingies are mini-houses for bacteria that clean waste water. MBBRs (Moving Bed Biofilm Reactors – BUT FEAR NOT: you won’t need to remember this) are little bits of plastic that are designed to allow bacteria to grow in a community called a biofilm. These biofilms, or bacterial communities, filter the sludge in water by removing ammonia and nitrates. There are a couple of reasons why I think this particular project is brilliant. We are using what bacteria use against us against them – muahah...

Bonjour, je m’appelle Frédérique, j’ai 22 ans et… je suis étudiante coop. Lorsque j’ai choisi d’ajouter l’option coop à mes études, c’était dans le but de découvrir.  Découvrir le monde du travail, découvrir mes forces, mes faiblesses et mes goûts, découvrir ce à quoi je pourrais être utile plus tard…car je dois avouer que mon avenir professionnel était (et est encore) très flou dans ma tête.  Je crois tout de même en avoir appris bien plus sur moi-même et sur le monde qui m’entoure en quelques mois de stage que je ne l’aurais fait en 4 ans de Bac. J’en suis présentement à mon deuxième stage, que j’effectue au Bureau du développement durable, après avoir passé quelques mois à la Faculté des sciences sociales.  En fait, c’est en travaillant à la FSS que j’ai découvert les initiatives du Bureau du développement durable (notamment les Matinées caféinées et la Gratuiterie).  J’ai été impressionnée et charmée par les activités et l’engagement du Bureau. Lorsque j...

Nous rencontrons une abondance de produits chimiques dans notre vie quotidienne. Certains, comme l'oxygène et l'eau, sont essentiels à la vie humaine, alors que d'autres, comme le monoxyde de carbone, sont toxiques. Mais où tracer la limite entre les produits chimiques toxiques et ceux qui sont sans danger? Qu’est qui rend une substance toxique? Simplement dit, une substance est considérée comme toxique lorsqu’elle contribue à une réaction nocive pour l’organisme. Cette conséquence nocive peut être une réaction réversible comme l’irritation cutanée ou peut être beaucoup plus sérieuse comme la mort. Une des catégories de substances les plus dangereuses pour la santé humaine est celle des dioxines. L’Organisation mondiale de la santé définit les dioxines comme étant « … un groupe de composés chimiquement apparentés qui sont des polluants organiques persistants dans l’environnement. » Les dioxines sont des sous-produits dans de nombreux processus comme l’incinération...

Every day, an untold amount of garbage makes it to the landfill in Ottawa. And every day, hundreds of people in need go without many of the very items that are filling those Ottawa landfills. Sometimes when I think about the whole thing it seems like a cruel joke, an utter disaster of resource management. But not every day is like this... This past February, the Office of Campus Sustainability teamed up the the Centre for Global and Community Engagement for an Alternative Student Break placement. Seven volunteers came into our offices and set about the task of making sure that overflowing landfills and people in need were a thing of the past. They decided to rewrite the ending of what happens to clothes, household goods, and electronics here in the City of Ottawa. Essentially, the volunteer group spent the week learning about sustainability issues, especially things related to waste management. Then the volunteers started creating inventories and calling up every local charity...

Well kids, we have finally done it. We are officially a Fair Trade Campus ! Some of you may be thinking that we already were a fair trade campus, you noticed the signs that appeared early this school year in the SFUO businesses and Chartwell food outlets, your coffee had a lingering aftertaste of something that could only be described as “dark roasted, earthy tones of justice for farmers”, or maybe you have just seen a girl wandering around taking photos of fair trade signage and awkwardly explaining to the café employees that she was given permission to photograph them (if you ever want to cause a ruckus, show up at a food outlet with a camera and a clipboard) but one way or another- we are now recognized as a fair trade campus by FairTrade Canada . This involved a lot of work over the past few years and I would like to give a well-deserved shout out to the Engineers Without Borders who have supported the movement the entire time, to Chartwells for being absolutely accommodatin...

I am very happy to say that the University of Ottawa is again in the top tier of universities in the world when it comes to being a sustainable institution. ( UI Green Metric World University Ranking ) This goes out to the rabble-rousers that stocked the shelves of the Free Store even though it was impossible to ever keep them full for more than 5 minutes; to the caffeine junkies that gave away free coffee to the masses in order keep garbage out our the landfills; to the cyclists that couldn't say no to one more ride even if it was in the rain; to the paper pushers who still got the information out without having to knock down a tree to do it; to the residence herders who would always share green tips with their flock even if it meant being called a tree-huger; to the organics smugglers who would stuff old apple cores into their pockets because they couldn't stomach tossing good compost into a dirty garbage bin; to the white-collar hippies who believe that the ...

Tip of the hat to the uOttawa Gazette who recently published an article about some of the great services student should try out on campus . Of course one of the services featured was our very own Muggy Mondays, a volunteer initiative that serves free coffee to students who bring their own mug. Well we were so inspired by this article that we decided to pay tribute to it by listing our own 4 services students should try on campus.... sustainability style. 1. Muggy Mondays Of course this service was already covered in the Gazette article but I also wanted to mention the Fair Trade angle. Muggy Mondays strives to ensure that everything they offer that can be Fair Trade, is in fact Fair Trade. That means the coffee, the tea, the hot chocolate, and even the sugar. By the way, Muggy  Mondays prides themselves on their excellent coffee and only gets the best stuff, which is why they procure their coffee from Cafe Alt. Website 2. Free Store I mean the name basically speaks for ...

Green Weeks is wrapping up on campus and for those of you who don't know, Green Weeks is a great initiative put on by the SFUO to celebrate all things green at the University of Ottawa. Every year it is a little different but it is always a sweet mix of education, art, and turning things around for this little planet we call home. This year, the Office of Campus contributed to two events. One was the " Imagine a Sustainable Campus " speakers panel (which I blogged about last time). The other was the "Sew you think you can mend" workshop, a workshop designed to teach you the basics about mending, patching, and repairing your clothes. I really have to hand it to Francine, Alex, Frederique, and all the others that made the workshop possible. It really was an intimate and informative affair. Participants were taught the basics of sewing and how to use a sewing machine. Then they were provided with their very own sewing kits so they could try out their new fo...

Have you ever heard of a 100 visioning session? The concept is quite popular in planning circles and is very easy to do. Imagine a city, a town, or in this case a campus.... now tell me what you think you would like it to look like in 100 years from now. At first the idea seems a like strange. I don't know what anything will look like in 100 years and I am willing to bet you probably don't either. But in a beautiful way, that is the point. In 100 years anything is possible right? My personal dream is to remodel the uOttawa campus into a forest campus, kind of like what it is like when you visit a national park. Gigantic old growth trees reaching up into the sky; small nooks for students to study and for staff to have their lunch; the sound of birds songs echoing between the branches. Maybe some of the trees could be tapped for sap in the winter and we could make our own special brand of uOttawa maple syrup. Who knows, maybe we could even have study spaces in the form of...

So 2013 has come and gone, but not without some pretty cool sustainability things happening at the University of Ottawa. The year started out with some great news about uOttawa being recognized as the 14th most sustainable university in the world by the UI Green Metric World University Rankings . This was some welcome news after all the hard work that was accomplished by the staff and volunteers at the Office of Campus Sustainability . The Food Services contract was up for renewal and this year marked the first year under a new contract that required much more stringent adherence to sustainable practices. This includes more local food, more recycling, and more promotion about green products, just to name a few. This led to two interesting initiatives in 2013. The first was the push to donate more food to charities rather than throwing it out. The second was the push to become a Fair Trade campus , thereby rendering all the non franchised coffee on campus Fair Trade Certifie...