Travailler au Bureau du développement durable, c’est faire beaucoup de choses en même temps, découvrir le campus et rencontrer des personnes tout aussi passionnées d’environnement et de développement durable. Lors de mon premier mois dans cet emploi, j'ai rencontré les éco-ambassadeurs de l’Université d’Ottawa. Le programme d’éco-ambassadeur est créé dans le but de rendre les résidences plus écologiques. Lors de notre rencontre, elles ont eu l’idée de faire une analyse des systèmes de gestion des déchets de toutes les résidences de l’Université d’Ottawa. Cette analyse a pour but de reconnaître les problèmes liés à la gestion des déchets, leur trouver des solutions pour finalement améliorer le système en résidences. Ensembles, nous avons travaillé à mettre le projet sur pied et le 4 mars dernier nous sommes allés explorer les systèmes de gestion de déchets des résidences. Si vous habitez en résidences et que vous vous demandiez ce que nous faisions à prendre des notes et de...

Vous aimeriez avoir un mode de vie zéro-déchet pour quelques semaines… C’EST FANTASTIQUE! Cependant, cela vous paraît difficile ou même impossible? Souvenez-vous que l’objectif n’est pas d’être 100% zéro déchet pour toute la durée du défi…il s’agit simplement de vivre une expérience enrichissante : celle votre aventure vers le zéro déchet! Vous allez apprendre à quel point il peut être facile de faire le changement vers le zéro déchet pour certains items et plus difficile pour d’autres. Cette expérience changera votre mode de vie pour toujours. Je le recommande vraiment! Je l’ai fait trois fois (une fois pendant huit semaines et deux fois pendant dix semaines) et j’ai adoré chaque expérience! Puisque je l’ai déjà fait, je vais vous partager quelques trucs que j’ai acquis à travers le temps. Le plus grand défi sera ce que vous consommez quotidiennement. Vous allez devoir penser à tout ce que vous consommez durant une journée et trouvez une alternative qui ne crée pas de déchet. P...

So, you are thinking about going zero waste for a few weeks; WHICH IS ABSOLUTELY AWESOME! I know it may seem difficult and even impossible, but remember the goal here is not necessarily to be 100% waste-free for the entire challenge... it is about the experience; your journey towards zero waste. You will learn how easy (or difficult) making the switch to zero waste can be for some items. It will be an experience that will change how you think about consumption for the rest of your life. I highly recommend it. I have done it three times myself (once for 8 weeks and twice for 10 weeks), and truly enjoyed my experiences. And since I have done this before, I thought I would share some tips and advice I gathered over the years. The main challenges will be your daily consumables. You might have to stop and think about all the things you consume in a day, and figure out if these products create waste. Take for example chewing gum, is there an alternative that does not create waste? (yes...

An often forgotten dimension of sustainability is that of health. A recent survey on sustainability at uOttawa revealed that when students think about sustainability, they usually think about how it relates to the environment and forget about the the social elements, which include health. Certainly the health aspects of sustainability have been popping up in the news a lot lately, even if we don't immediately link it to the environment. Poor air quality and environmental contaminants related to floods, fires, and climate change come to mind fairly quickly, but there is a silent killer in the room and it is stress related to the environment. The recent phenomenon of climate anxiety is washing over youth like a tidal wave. A 2017 report by the American Psychological Association  suggests that worrying about climate change is having a serious impact on our mental health. And as you can imagine, the more we hear about bad things happening in our environment, the more people worr...

In our Drawing the Line series, we focus on the idea of what it would take to tackle some of the biggest sustainability issues on campus. One of the biggest questions I get is how can we eliminate disposable coffee cups on campus. Normally I tell people that there is legislation coming from the Ontario government that might actually deal with this problem. (check out the Waste Free Ontario Act ). But as the recent climate marches have highlighted, we need action now!! So let's imagine how we could eliminate coffee cups on a campus like that of uOttawa and what that might look like. Let's start with some background... FACT #1 - uOttawa has a disposable coffee cup problem. Every day, about 10,000 (yeah that's ten with three zeroes) disposable coffee cups are purchased and likely tossed on campus. The number is kind of staggering; stacked end to end, these cups would reach more than twice the height of the CN tower. When tossed into garbage bags, well.... let'...

Sometimes it can feel like a huge weight is pushing down on your chest. You hear about the impending doom of climate change but it doesn't seem like people are concerned. Every day you see people acting like it's all cool. Instagram photos from a secluded beach, or a delectable steak dinner, or a mini shopping spree... air travel, red meat, consumerism. I mean the Amazon is literally burning and all your friends are doing is wondering if you are up for a pub crawl on Friday. That feeling you are experiencing, that weight on your chest, is what people are starting to call climate anxiety. It is a recent phenomenon, although we can hardly say that anxiety is something new. What has really changed lately is the constant reporting on climate related issues. On one side, it is great that people are learning more about climate change and wanting to take action. But on the other hand, people are starting to confront the difficulty of the task at hand and it is admittedly pretty t...

 August 30th is the first and biggest pop-up  Free Store of the year. I guess the best way to explain it is like this... imagine your birthday and Christmas decided to have a coffee date, at the end of the summer, under a giant tent, just before you started your university semester... that's basically what this event is. Now whether you have been to the Free Store before or if you have never been to the Free Store, it is absolutely worth coming out to this event. Here's why... More stuff You will see more things at this event than you normally get to see at the Free Store. The event is being held under the tent in front of FSS specifically so that we can accommodate more people. At the Free Store, we can usually have about 20-30 people max inside the space at any given time. Last year when we hosted this event, we had hundreds of people at the event at any given time. We estimate over 2,000 people attended and over 5,000 kilograms of stuff was given away. More...

Part three in a three-part series brought to you by us, sharing note-worthy tips and tricks on shopping smart, reducing your textile waste footprint PLUS, how to find sustainable brands! Finding brands that are legitimately sustainable is easier than you think. Often, companies claim to have changed their business models to more sustainable, eco-friendly habits but don’t be fooled: You have to do your research! See if a particular brand follows the criteria given. WHAT TO LOOK FOR WHEN SEARCHING FOR SUSTAINABLE BRANDS So this is it, we’ve convinced you enough to join the green side.You’re not alone, Sustainable Fashion Matterz says that in 2017, the amount of Google searches for “Sustainable Fashion” had risen by over 250% from January 2017 to December 2018. But wait, how do you know if a company is truly sustainable? Follow these guidelines when evaluating the best brand for you. LEGITIMACY  Although this is rare for clothing companies, companies that do have char...

Part two in a three-part series brought to you by us, sharing note-worthy tips and tricks on shopping smart, reducing your textile waste footprint PLUS, how to find sustainable brands! According to The Canadian Encyclopedia.ca “Canada's consumption of textiles and clothing by volume is about 2% of the world's total, and Canadian mills now supply less than 50% of this amount,” That means that we are one of the largest consumers of textiles and by default, one of the largest producers of textile waste globally. Most textiles are not biodegradable which means: that ugly sweater that your Grandma gave you will probably live on forever. To combat this, we decided to compile a list of helpful tips that you can adopt into your lifestyle. REDUCE YOUR CONSUMPTION Buy only out of necessity. Meaning, buy only what you need and not what you want. Yes, that means you don’t need that same top in 3 different colours. PROPERLY DISPOSE OF UNWANTED ITEMS If you are about to donat...