We were able to accomplish quite a bit last year to make our campus more sustainable! Take a look at some of the awesome things that happened, from transportation, to recycling, and more. Thank you, uOttawa students, staff, and community members, for helping us make our campus as green as it can be. Record Waste Diversion Rate The University has reached a record waste diversion rate of 64.5%! That means that 64.5% of materials from the campus did not go to the landfill because we reused or recycled them. Thank you for recycling! Thank you, volunteers! This year, our amazing volunteers contributed a collective 4,220 hours towards sustainability efforts on campus. Thank you to our Free Store volunteers, Muggy Mondays volunteers, and Community Service Learning volunteers, as well as those who helped out with other events. Your contributions are very valuable and appreciated.  Introducing VeloGo bike sharing program on campus  You may have seen thes...

The times they are a changing, and now so is recycling at uOttawa. This month you may have noticed that the signs on the recycling bins have changed. Simply put, the University of Ottawa has a new waste management contract and we have made some modifications and upgrades to the recycling system. Here is a complete run-down of the changes that affect you. Coffee cups are compostable One of the biggest changes to the recycling system is that you can now compost your coffee cups. As the compost system expands on campus, more and more disposable items on campus are being replaced with compostable ones. Take for example the compostable cutlery and carry away clam-shell containers available at most food service locations on campus. These items are more preferable to their conventional plastic counterparts. *Do remember though, coffee lids are not compostable and should be separated and placed in the trash bin. The only exception are the lids from Première Moisson, which are ...

We've seen that post somewhere... "Headed to Toronto this weekend, I have a few extra seats". Sometimes people are doing this because they don't like o make ling drives alone, or because they are looking for someone to split gas money with. Either way, this is ridesharing and it is an important part of the sharing economy. Ridesharing isn't a new concept. The idea is fairly simple, a car is headed somewhere and there some empty seats... Ridesharing is the basically an option to fill those seats up. Think of it like carpooling but to another city. So if you have a car, you can offer a ride to people headed to the same place as you (and charge a small fee for the ride). Or if you want to go somewhere but don't have a ride, you can ask someone who is headed to the same place to drive you (and compensate them for their troubles). The internet is awash in "ride boards", places where you can see where people are headed or where they need a ride t...

Welcome welcome welcome! The summer is coming to an end and you are probably soaking up those last morsels of sunshine before you head to uOttawa for the academic year. Now for some of you, this is going to be your first year and there is a good chance that you will live in residences. For others, this isn't your first rodeo and you are getting ready to move into a place off campus. In either case, we have a handy guide for things you should and shouldn't pack on your way to campus this year. Thanks to the Free Store, your one stop shop on campus for all things FREE, there is a good chance that you won't have to waste valuable luggage space on these items.  This makes sense for your wallet and the environment. Hangers The Free Store has a virtually unlimited amount of hangers. How? Well a little known secret is that clothing stores have their products shipped to them with the hangers already added. It is cheaper to have workers add them at the factory...

INSTRUCTIONS TO VOLUNTEERS BEFORE THE DUMP AND RUN So listen closely, because I am only going to say this once. We have some rules to go before you get started and my job is to make sure that you are all safe and that we collect as much stuff as possible. First things first, thank you all for coming out and agreeing to help us for the 207 Dump and Run. You volunteers represent the last line of defense between us and the landfill. If we don't collect this stuff today, it will certainly be garbage tomorrow. We are systematically going to go around to each and every residence and collect all the donations, old food, and unwanted things. The majority of the stuff you collect will be left on the donation tables in the main lobby of every building. But we won't stop there. We will move into every common room, every shared kitchen, every washroom, and collect all the stuff left behind. If you run into other cleaning staff or Housing staff, do what they say. We have partnere...

For those who have their own small garden plots, me included, the growing season is just getting started. But I want my fruits and veggies now, because I am spoiled and various other reasons that we don't have to get into. So lucky for me, I am signed up for a CSA (community supported Agriculture) at the University of Ottawa. I've already covered the uOttawa Farm Basket Program in another post but here is a brief summary just in case you missed it. A CSA is at its core a special contract with a farmer. Instead of paying for fruits and vegetables at the market, you pay for them before they are planted and they are delivered to you as they are ready. You share the risk with the farmer, but you also share the savings. This is the third year that the program will operate at uOttawa with the cooperation of Health Promotions and Food Services. The reason we got involved and brought the program on campus was pure convenience. We figured that if we make healthy food easier for ...

The Office of Campus Sustainability is working to change the story when it comes to campus emissions, especially when it comes to fleet vehicles. So don't be surprised this summer if you notice the staff of uOttawa Facilities zipping around campus on bikes. I once heard a talk that emphasized the idea that if you want sustainability to stick, you need to make sure that it is making your life better. It may not seem like it a first blush, but that is exactly what this initiative is all about. So why put people on bikes? Well, there are a couple of reasons. Employees First, the employees wanted it. Although the uOttawa campus isn't huge, it is still a bit of a trek to go from one end to the other, even more so to get to the Lees campus. And there are always a few meetings at the hospital or City Hall. Having some bikes to move around more quickly makes everyone's job easier. The bikes are fixed gear for easy maintenance. They have a wooden box fixed to the back...