You can smell it in the air. The snow is melting, birds are signing, and before you know it, the very first buds will burst forth from the trees! SPRING IS HERE! Okay, maybe we aren't quite there yet but it certainly is time to start thinking about your garden. Devoted fans of our office already know that we offer community garden plots through a partnership with the SFUO and OPIRG. The plots are first come, first serve and I would be remiss if I didn't tell you to book a space right now if you want one. But this isn't a post about our community gardens, well not exactly. This summer, the Office of Campus Sustainability, will be conducting an agricultural demonstration project. We are hoping to prove that we can grow food on campus that could be sold on campus. At the same time we are also hoping to create a new green space. But rather than telling you what we are trying to do, how about I just show you what we have in mind. Now, there is no way that we are...

There aren't very many times in anyone's academic life that they will have the opportunity to make sweeping changes to the make-up of their campus. How often have you had the opportunity to say where there should be more gardens, if a street should be lined with trees or not, or even where cars should and shouldn't be allowed to go? On March 10 and 11th, the campus community at the University of Ottawa will have that chance! Facilities Service at the University is on the verge of completing the latest iteration of the campus master plan. For those of you that aren't familiar with what that means, a master plan is a planning document that indicates what development the University would like to undertake in the near future. Urban Strategies Inc , a design firm operating in Toronto, has helped create a new development strategy for uOttawa. This plan was created in consultation with many groups and individuals from around the campus community. They are currently in ...

A bunch of friends have shared the K-Cup horror movie with me recently. I getting the feeling that K-Cups are making people feel a little helpless. I mean great coffee that's prepared perfectly every time.... vs huge waste generation that is, in its own little way, killing the planet. I recently embarked on the Waste Bucket Challenge . I was challenged by our 2014 Free Store coordinators and I have been trying to reduce my waste consumption for the past couple of weeks. I think that one of the only things keeping me going is the fact that I recycle my K-Cups. That's right, they can actually be recycled. I think that the first thing you need to know is that my office is equipped with a Keurig coffee maker. When the machine appeared in our space three years ago, I wasn't crazy about the amount of waste it produced; nevertheless, the machine grew in popularity in my office until eventually everyone was getting their coffee from the machine (sadly, even me). At f...

photo credit: http://www.temporausch.com/01/ Over the Christmas holidays, I spent a little over two weeks in England with my Grannie, the first time I had been without my family. This time around, I found myself experiencing a lot of her to day to day life and I was very impressed (and a little shocked) with all the things she did to cut down on waste. We often think of our grandparents generation as sustainability illiterate. Car-loving, climate skeptics who don’t know what recycling is, right?  I am pleased and a little alarmed to report that, rather, we should be taking our environmental tips from Grandma and Grandpa. One of my fondest memories of my Grandad is, on Christmas Day, waiting in anticipation, with a gift of mine at the ready, as Grandad painstakingly removed every piece of tape on his gift and carefully removed the paper, ready to use next Christmas. At the time, it was a strange and uncalled for delay to our Christmas proceedings, but now I can see what ...

It’s happened… I have fallen down the waste reduction rabbit hole. I am not necessarily proud of this but digging through my household trash has become a nightly routine, a mission to properly sort any and all misplaced recycling and compost! I’ve seen and smelled it all, yet I continue to do it because, in my heart of hearts I know that although I am just one person, my waste has a large environmental impact. The average Canadian produces 2.7 kg of waste every day! To me, that represents a whole lot of stuff that doesn’t necessarily have to end up in a landfill. This year, as part of Recylemania, a group of brave crusaders will set out on a clandestine operation to properly sort waste on campus! A year ago, had you told me that burrowing through bags of trash would be an eye opening experience; I would not have believed you. Having performed waste audits I can tell you that digging through garbage is FASCINATING! Not only have I learned how to properly dispose of my items (an...

C’est arrivé…. J’ai finalement perdu la tête. Creuser dans les poubelles de ma maison est devenue une routine du soir. J’en suis pas nécessairement fière mais le tout est une mission pour bien trier tout le composte et le recyclage mal placé! J’ai tout vu et senti mais je continue à le faire puisque je sais au fond de mon cœur que même si je ne suis qu’une personne, mes déchets ont un grand impact environnemental. En moyenne chaque Canadien produit 2.7 kg de déchets par jour! Pour moi, ceci représente beaucoup de choses qui n’ont pas nécessairement besoin de se retrouver dans un dépotoir. Cette année pendant Recyclomanie, un groupe de champions courageux seront en mission clandestine pour trier les déchets du campus! L’année dernière, si on m’avait dit que fouiller dans les déchets serait une expérience enrichissante, je ne vous aurais jamais cru. Par contre ayant eu la chance de prendre part à des contrôles de déchets je peux vous dire que les déchets c’est FASCINANT! Je n’ai...

De ces temps-ci, les organismes génétiquement modifiés (OGM) et nos systèmes alimentaires sont un sujet chaud et il y a beaucoup d’information flottant, comment clarifier le tout? En Novembre, l’Université St. Paul a joué l’hôte pour le symposium d’OGM d’Ottawa. En l’honneur de cette occasion, nos amis au laboratoire d’études interdisciplinaires sur l’alimentation (LISF) ont organisé une présentation spéciale à propos des OGM et les régulations Canadiennes. C’est quoi un OGM?  Pour comprendre les OGM il faut d’abord faire un survol pour comprendre l’ADN. Imaginez l’ADN comme le plan maître de tous ce qui est dans notre corps. L’ADN contient le code pour arranger les acides aminés qui créent les protéines dont nous nous servons dans diverse réactions ou pour former différent tissues et membranes. Les tout est une science relativement nouvelle mais qui a fait beaucoup de chemin, surtout depuis le projet du génome humain (qui a séquencé tout le génome humain et identifiés les g...

Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and our food systems are hot topics nowadays and there is a lot of information floating around out there. This past November, St Paul’s University played host for Ottawa’s GMO symposium. As part of this event, our friends at the Interdisciplinary Food Lab (LEILA) hosted a special guest lecture about GMOs and related regulations in Canada. What is a GMO? To understand GMOs we need to look at DNA. Think of DNA as the blueprint for everything in our body. DNA holds the code for arranging amino acids, which create proteins, which we use for different reactions or to form different tissues and membranes. Although this is still a relatively new science, it has come a long way in part because of the Human Genome Project (in which the whole human genome was mapped and the genes responsible for coding specific proteins were identified). When an organism is genetically modified we cut and paste DNA from another organism into the original organism’s...

Bon, alors je ne veux pas trop exagérer mais nous avons peut-être commencé un phénomène mondial connu sous le nom de la Gratuiterie. Oui, vous connaissez tous la Gratuiterie et vous savez peut-être même son histoire d’origine (sinon, consultez ce blogue). Mais une chaîne d’évènements nous excite ici, au Bureau du Développement durable. Premièrement, nous avons commencés en disant que c’était une affaire internationale. Alors voici comment le tout s’est produit; quelques étudiants arrivent à uOttawa et ADORENT la Gratuiterie, ils quittent Ottawa mais ne peuvent pas se défaire du merveilleux principe de la Gratuiterie. Donc, ils ouvrent une Gratuiterie quelque part d’autre. C’est ce qui s’est produit au Québec, à Hong Kong et en France où au-dessus d’une douzaine de Gratuiteries ont pris racine. Nous étions déjà au courant pour quelques-unes de ses Gratuiteries. À Grenoble, le Gratuiterie a été créé par une étudiante internationale qui a rapporté l’idée avec elle en France. La Gr...

Now I don't want to blow things out of proportion but we may have accidentally started a world wide phenomenon known as the Free Store . Yes you all know that Free Store, and you might even know how the Free Store got started (if not, here is a blog post from a little while back). But there have been some new developments that are really kind of getting us excited over at the Office of Campus Sustainability. First, I eluded to a world wide thing. So the story goes like this; a few people come to uOttawa and love the Free Store, they leave Ottawa but can't shake the awesomeness of the store and so they start their own Free Stores somewhere else. That's basically what happened in Quebec, France, and Hong Kong, where up to a dozen Free Stores are now taking root. Some of these Free Stores we knew about. The Free Store in Grenoble was created by an international student who wanted to bring the Free Store to France. The Free Store at the CÉGEP of Beauce-Appalaches was ...

Ever lose one of your favorite shoes and feel like it’s a shame to throw out the other one? Well you don’t have to! That lonely shoe can be recycled and made into fences, cutting boards, watering cans, and even benches. This is all done through a company called TerraCycle. They take many products that you would normally throw out and make them into something new. What I have been doing with the Office of Campus Sustainability for the past three days is cutting up people’s old shoes that have been donated to the Free Store . The shoes that don’t have a partner or are all worn out are cut so they can better fit in the box to send to TerraCycle , where they will turn them into new park benches. Cutting them up effectively doubles the amount of shoes that can fit in a box to be shipped. TerraCycle even makes it easy for you to send products to them by having pre-paid shipping labels that that be printed of their website. When they receive the product you have shipped them in the ...

Que faites-vous quand une de vos (nombreuses) paires de chaussures ne vous plait plus? Bien sûr, vous la donnez à la Gratuiterie, et quelqu’un d’autre pourra les utiliser! Mais imaginez, vous vous réveillez un matin, et une de vos chaussures a disparu, ou en tout cas vous ne la trouvez plus. Surement un écureuil ou un lutin qui passait par là… Ou bien autre scenario : vos chaussures sont très abimées après les avoir usées jusqu’au bout. Vous vous dites que vous ne pouvez pas les donner à la Gratuiterie , parce que personne ne va vouloir une chaussure toute seule ou des chaussures très abimées qui ne les protège pas du froid par exemple. Que faire alors? Pas de panique, Terracycle est la! Terracycle est une entreprise créée en 2001 par un étudiant de Princeton, dont le projet est d’éliminer le concept de déchets, surtout concernant des produits que nous considérons normalement comme non-recyclables (comme les chaussures par exemple!). Cette entreprise propose donc des programm...