Je trouve que les gens ne sont pas nécessairement conscients de l’impact qu’à leur production de déchets personnelle sur l’environnement. Oui, c’est vrai, la plus part des gens recyclent parce qu’ils ont appris que c’est la bonne chose à faire (ce qui est formidable!) et que nous épargnons beaucoup d’énergie et ressources lors de la production d’un article recyclé (bonus!).  Mais j’ai souvent le sentiment que les gens agissent comme si le « mouvement » du recyclage est un peu passé. J’utilise des exemples d’étudiants qui ne veulent plus travailler sur des initiatives de recyclage dans leurs écoles (le recyclage est une initiative des années 90’!); ou des personnes qui croient réellement que l’article qu’il ou elle recycle n’aura pas d’impact direct sur l’environnement. Ils se disent : ‘Qu’est-ce que ça fait si je ne recycle pas cette bouteille?’ Ou ‘C’est juste UNE pelure de fruit!’.  Bien, j’ai des nouvelles pour vous! Cette bouteille et cette pelure ont un impact di...

Photo credit: Jonathan Rausseo Hi, my name is Katherine and I am a cycling addict. I bike to school/work every day of the week, rain or shine, though I much prefer the shine. During the summer, I could proudly wear my tight biking shorts, biking shirt and red helmet and zoom through the Gatineau Park like a pro. Now that the temperature ranges between -2 and -10 (at 7 am and 6 pm), those shorts have joined my bikini and sun hat and out came the long johns and gloves. As much as I felt somewhat attractive this summer, now I feel like a duly padded snow(wo)man: I wear a breathable jacket with long johns, uber warm gloves, a wool scarf and a pink tuque. I could deal with the whole thing until I had to add a tuque under my helmet. I’m toasty warm going down les Allumettières, but I sure hope I don’t meet anyone I know. By the time I reach campus (12 km later), I have a runny nose, a frozen tushy (and yet sweaty armpits) and only a secure bike storage standing between my hot coffe...

Photo Credit:  www.privilegedclub.com All of last week and most of this week, several employees at the University of Ottawa have been peeling old gum off all those exam tables that will be placed in the gyms. That is disgusting! You mean to tell me that people cannot wait until they are done their exam and throw out their gum? Then some of those people complain that everything is expensive, or that there is not enough money for those things that they care about at the University…well, maybe if staff weren’t forced to waste over seven days of work to peel off every single piece of gum off of thousands of exam tables, these funds could be used on those things that they care so much about!  Let’s break that down: four to five people for over 7 days of work…about $ 6,000+. What’s worse; imagine that you had to spend over 50 long hours scratching at old gum on the backs of tables, or cleaning up a mess in residences (you cannot even imagine the worst of them)… any volunte...

My dear, old French teacher in high school would pointedly announce periodically throughout the semesters, during which he taught 15, 16 and 17 year olds. Mind you, I have another old high school teacher who recently quoted K. Vonnegut on Facebook, “True terror is to wake up and discover your high school class is running the country.” Mixed messages- but they motivated this blog. Recently, my Environmental Approaches to Geographical Issues course had a mock United Nations Framework Convention on Climatic Change - the class was divided into groups and each was assigned a country to represent in a Conference of Parties to discuss possible mitigation and adaptation policies that were previously set out in a “University of Ottawa Accords 2011”. I’m sure some of you have experienced similar simulations, especially if you are in a political sciencey program of study, but this was my first “debate-style” presentation. I want to congratulate all of the students that took part in the mo...

Absolutely amazing! I just had to talk about these four Kamloops, BC-based youth who have chosen to take the challenge of living waste free for one whole year. Inspirés par le projet Clean Bin (The clean bin project: http://www.cleanbinmovie.com/ ), ils se sont promis de vivre sans magasinage, articles matériels, ni le luxe des emballages jetables. How many of you (at the age of 18) would have thought that living waste-free for a year was possible? Ça ne m’aurait même pas traversé l’esprit à 18 ans! Almost a year ago, Marie-Pierre and I pledged to live waste-free for two months, which was a wonderful learning experience. Je planifie déjà mon prochain défi de vivre sans déchets lors de la compétition RecycloManie 2012 (devrais-je prolongée mon défi à 10-12 semaines?) Anyone interested in joining me? (I am just saying if these four champs can do it for a year; what’s one or two months?) Check out their blog at: http://nottrashyreport.blogspot.com and encourage them to keep going. V...

Photo credit: Marie-Pier Demers Je viens de manger mon tout dernier bonbon d’Halloween. mmm. Trop vieille vous dites? Bien sûr. J’ai franchi, il y a longtemps, l’âge acceptable pour passer l’Halloween. Cependant, il existe un évènement absolument génial qui m’offre la parfaite excuse pour me déguiser et faire du porte à porte chaque 31 octobre. Trick or Eat, ça vous dit quelque chose? Le but de Trick or Eat est de redéfinir l’Halloween pour les plus grands en une collecte de denrées non-périssables pour les banques alimentaires. Des milliers d’étudiants y participent chaque année dans des centaines de villes en Amérique de Nord. Cette fois-ci, au lieu d’aider la Banque Alimentaire de la FÉUO , j’ai décidé d’aider celle de mon quartier. Mon copain, ma sœur, des amis de longue comme de courte date et même un « Couch Surfer » Australien ce sont joint à mon équipe. Sous le pseudonyme de « Dead Samaritains » nous avons fait le tour des rues de Westboro déguisés en zombies sanguinai...

WARNING: about to geek out really hard. Beware. It is already pretty impressive when I get to explain to people what I do here at the Sustainability Office on Campus. I can rave for hours about how great it is to be working in a field that is legitimately connected to my field of study- how applicable what I learn in the classroom is to my some of the projects I am working on here at the office. Beware, I am about to go on one of those tangents… concerning the Sustainable Development Committee (SUDCOM) at the University of Ottawa. The committee is comprised of three faculty, five admin staff, two students, and two community members and its role is to provide advice and insight to uOttawa’s Administrative Committee on matters related to best practices and socially responsible behaviour. This boils down to being a committee of persons who seek to make our campus green. The first meeting took place during reading week and went really well—luckily for myself, being that I had s...

Photo credit: Jonathan Rausseo I love Halloween with a passion. I plan my costume months in advance, coordinate with my boyfriend so that we can make an awesome duet. Last year we dressed up as Cesar and Cleopatra, along with bronzer and sandals (yes, it was cold). This year, we are dressing up as the Queen of Hearts and the Mad Hatter from Alice in Wonderland. We ransacked our wardrobes and hit the local Value Village and found that awesome costumes could easily be made from scratch: I wore a long red skirt I had made for a costume a few years ago, went all out on the blue eye shadow and heart-shaped lips, taped hearts to my skirt, wore a tiara I had from my birthday party and made a staff with a stick and cardboard hearts. Pretty simple, eh? It took some time to assemble everything, but those pre-made, plastic wrapped costumes just don’t do it for me. Partially because the fabric is really cheap and practically rips looking at it, but also because I’ll only wear the trashy li...

Photo credit: Jonathan Rausseo About 3 years ago the Brige (our waste diversion coordinator) found out that we use about 6,500 disposable coffee mugs on campus every day. If we stacked those mugs end to end, those mugs would be 7 times higher than the Peace Tower of the parliament building. Stacked side to side that would be enough coffee cups to cover ten tennis courts. Now it has been a couple of years since we checked up on the number of disposable coffee mugs used on campus daily but the odds are that this number has gone up. So what's the solution? How can we get people to use fewer disposable mugs? First thing to do is to flip the question on it's head. Why would people want to use a disposable mug? Well it turns out that there are many reasons. For one, all the disposable mugs are branded. That means there is an associated status that goes along with the cup. You know... that really expensive logo that indicates that you are better than all those other doops that...

Photo credit: Jonathan Rausseo       Pour ceux qui n’ont pas encore remarqué, la cafétéria du centre universitaire a maintenant une nouvelle station de recyclage pour les matières résiduelles comportant, composte, tous les plastiques, métal et verre et papier mixte. À première vue, ces quatre divisions semblent assez simples pour le tri des déchets, mais les choses se compliquent quand ont voient que beaucoup de produits vendu par la cafeteria sont servis dans des contenant composés de composés et souvent recouverts d’autres composés… Bref, c’est mêlant et on ne sait pas où mettre tout ça. Solution facile adoptée par certains, la simple et conventionnelle poubelle. Après avoir remarqué que la pluparts des étudiants n’utilisaient pas la station correctement, soit par paresse ou par inadvertance, nous nous sommes dit, bin pourquoi pas les aider. Alors, vêtus de nos suit blanc, nous sommes partis remédier au problème en aidant les gens avec leurs déchets.  La ...

Photo credit: Marie Yassa The day has finally arrived. The mother of all recycling counters is now up and fully operational in the UCU Cafeteria. And if things work out the way they are supposed to, this could be a game changer for recycling on campus. So let me give you a little insight as to how things used to be. The cafeteria use to house about 8 small recycling counters that were scattered around the space. There have been problems for years with contamination, and this was further compounded by the fact that the cafeteria is likely the single largest source of waste production on campus. So what have we done to change the situation and make it better? All the bins are now centralized into one location with a MEGA counter. This helps concentrate our resources, requires fewer materials (bins), makes it easier for staff to clean up, and liberates more space in the caf. The counter has much larger bins that take more waste. This means that there will b...

Photo credit:  http://www.foodincmovie.com/ Aujourd’hui, un de nos participants Katimavik m’a posé une excellente question : ‘Qu’est-ce qui est mieux : de la nourriture biologique (organique) ou locale?’ Dans l’intérêt de ce blog, j’essaierai de donner une réponse hyper-courte et simple. The use of pesticides and chemical fertilizers has a terrible impact on the environment, as well as the health of people working on the farm and of course people consuming the end product. Pesticides have a long list of negative health effects: the organophosphates and carbamates affect the nervous system, others can irritate the skin or eyes, some pesticides could be carcinogens, and others have been found to affect the hormone or endocrine system in the body. Pesticides can also harm local flora and fauna such as bees and birds. Moreover, chemical fertilizers usually make their way into local rivers and lakes, fertilizing blooms of algae that deplete oxygen and create a “dead zone” (no oxy...

A couple of days ago I left an interesting picture up on my Facebook page. You can check out the picture for yourself but it made me and countless others giggle hysterically. Of course that was minutes before I took a leisurely walk through the campus to go get something to eat... Yeah, so what I found was this party poster blasted all over the campus. And to my utter dismay, someone had taken the time to douchingly tape these posters to the trees on campus. Yes, tape.... super thick packing tape. They went around the tree three times. So this makes me think back to a conversation I had with our campus groundskeeper a couple of years ago. Benoit and I had a nice talk about how many trees die on campus because of the negligence of the people around us. Every year there are people that break branches off of trees to pretend that they are wands; or strip the leaves from the trees to keep as souvenirs; or even damage the bark of the trees to hang posters and banners. ...

This post should have been put up last week but I guess I got lazy. So as the story goes, last week I ran into an old friend of mine who posed the simple question, "Should we have an occupy uOttawa protest on campus?" This got me thinking... There are a lot of people much smarter than me out there right now to define what the OCCUPY movement is all about. Well this is my take. In 2008, president Obama took office and there was so much optimism for this that he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize just based on HOPE. But as the years roll by many people have noticed that not much has changed and it doesn't seem likely that much will change in the near future. As each election passes, the candidates are somehow less and less appealing. In fact, Ontario's recent election drew was a record low turn out. Unlike most people, I don't blame anyone for the low turn out. Some people will make the very real statement that, "there are people dying in other countri...

photo credit: electrictreehouse.com In the same idea as Extreme Couponing, an American reality show where people go completely insane, digging out coupon pamphlets out of recycling bins, collecting them in binders and then hitting the local grocery store for a 4 hour shopping adventure. They bring their children and spouse and come out of there with 6 shopping carts of random stuff (hand sanitizer, shampoo, tissue, canned goods, gatorade) and only pay about 40$. Yay for accessibility! But wait, there are still starving people out there. Oh…right! Hand sanitizer isn’t edible. Now Verizon is offering phones for a penny IF you sign up for a two-year contract. Sorry folks, this offer only works in the United States. Again, yay for accessibility! But also nay for encouraging over-consumerism.  It’s nice to have the latest technology, check emails faster than the speed of light and to telepathically communicate with your gadgets. I may not be a technology crazed person, which...

Photo credit: Jonathan Rausseo While preparing dinner this Sunday October the 16 th , take a minute to think about where that food came from. Were any of your ingredients local? Fair-trade? Did it come from your freezer, ready to be nuked in the microwave? This Sunday is World Food Day, a day to recognize the intricacies of our global food production system and more importantly- your place within it. It seems odd to contemplate where every last ingredient in your meal came from, how it was produced, who grew it, how long it was transported for, and what it cost you, but you should try it. Hell, try for even for half your meal’s worth of ingredients and you would be surprised. Thinking back to the last meal I prepared, vegetarian chilli, it seems impossible to recall off the top of my head where the ingredients were produced. I know that the tomatoes were from Canada, as were the beans…but where on earth was my fake beef, the spices, etc. made? The intentions of World Foo...

Photo credit: Jonathan Rausseo Les sacs réutilisables se voient de plus en plus utilisés dans les supermarchés et dans les magasins de tout genre. Le problème des sacs de plastiques n’est pas totalement réglée mais, la population le comprend et commence à prendre les mesures en conséquence. La prochaine étape ne serait-elle pas les tasses jetables vendues un peu partout. On peut déjà voir la tendance commencer à tourner en faveur des tasses réutilisables comme par exemple, certains kiosques réduisent le prix du café si l’on apporte sa propre tasse. Ou encore, à chaque lundi sur le campus, on offre du café équitable, chocolat chaud, et thé à quiconque apportant une tasse réutilisable. Ce programme existe depuis quelques années et incite les gens à apporter leur propre tasse et à acheter des produits équitables. Cela me semble simple et intéressant mais, on peut voir tout le monde acheter un café Tim Horton ou whatever dans une tasse jetable quand le kiosque a café gratuit se tr...

Photo credit:  http://www.newspapergrl.com Someday I will be reclined in a psychologist’s lounge chair rhyming off coordinates and datums because I will have finally gone crazy from all the mapping projects I get myself into. Sigh, until then I have found myself a new task for maps on campus. Foursquare: a tool that allows users to explore their surroundings and discover new places. If you use Facebook , you may have noticed that you have a few friends that are constantly “checking-in” to random spots including restaurants, clubs, school buildings, etc. Personally, my phone is not legit enough to handle such applications but I can appreciate the GPS technology used by the program and apparently still get assigned the task of taking advantage of the sustainable capabilities of the service. You may recall me ranting this summer about mapping sustainable transportation on campus and my upcoming accessibility mapping projects- this is a continuation of green mapping and invo...

 Photo credit: Jonathan Rausseo Want to try a social experiment that will only take a moment but that could have a major impact on how you experience the campus? Cool, okay.... here we go. Close your eyes and try to walk around the campus. It is not as easy as you might think. You will likely fumble around a little bit. You will likely take very cautious steps. And you might even freak out a little when you get to an actual intersection with cars that could hit you. Of course this is an experiment to make you realize how difficult it is for someone with visual impairments to navigate the campus. But if you really want to make it fair, you should go to a part of the City you have never been to and try out this little experiment. Because, actually, you already know the campus and have constructed a visual map in your mind of where everything is... By the way, don't actually try this experiment unless you are with someone. I don't want anyone to get hurt. No le...

Photo credit: art.com So it seems that with the passing of generations we have lost something special... the ability to sew. The reason why I am bring thins up right now is two fold. First, my grandmother just handed down to me her mother's sewing machine. I am really excited about this because it means that I now have something in my possession that has been in my family for 4 generations. The machine is a turn of the century Singer and is peddle powered (enviro swoon). My biggest regret is that I don't actually have a picture of it to put into this post, but I will get one. The second reason for this topic is the recent addition of EcoEquitable to the Free Store line-up. This past week the ladies of EcoEquitable were working furiously to alter clothing at the Free Store. I was really happy to see this for a couple of reasons. Of course it makes sense to repair and alter clothing. Back in the day, even before my time, clothing was super expensive. The thought of re...

Photo credit: I don't know... probably LOL cats... cause the only thing the world really needs are more cats on the internet It could just be me but there is something about September that just completely drains my energy; blame it on school starting up again or the lack of routine that comes from not working full-time but I just want to sleep and sleep and Zzzz. Maybe it is that I am not eating as much vegetables and fruits because my garden is coming to a close which makes me horrified at what may happen to my energy levels as winter comes. SOLUTION! Fear not fellow students, I have discovered (okay, rediscovered) a magical method for getting our summer fruits and veggies in the cold winter months. Even better, these fruits and veggies could be local! I sense your doubt through the computer screen but bear with me. Pretend it is winter, you go to the grocery store and pay ridiculous amounts for fresh produce and cringe as it rings through the cash and squirm silently as...

Photo credit: www.gorbould.com “So, do you compost?” I asked as I was visiting my future apartment building in Gatineau. “LOL. Can you imagine how much trouble that would give me? And the complaints about the smell? No. We don’t compost here.” Said the facility’s manager minutes before I signed a one-year lease with him. Great. Now I’m going to have to either carry my compost all the way back to campus for a 45 minute walk every morning OR walk the streets at night in my shady neighborhood looking for a compost bin to take my kitchen leftovers. Did you know that 80% of your waste is either recyclable or compostable? My family of 4 sends 1 single half-filled garbage bag to the curb every week along with 2 bins of recyclables and a big green bin of compost. It bothers me tremendously that cities have yet to figure out a way to normalize and facilitate composting practices in multi-level buildings. Let’s face it. Building owners might never make the effort until given a...

Photo credit: Jonathan Rausseo Another semester means another edition of Muggy Mondays. For those of you not in the know, Muggy Mondays is a waste reduction initiative targeted at behavioural modification with respects to habitual use of reusable containers by applying a reward mechanism. Simply said, on Mondays we give away free coffee if you have a reusable mug. And not just coffee, hot chocolate and tea too. Muggy Mondays is originally a program that was introduced at uOttawa by Green Campus. Technically we ... borrowed the idea from the University of Guelph (shout out to my green peeps at the UofG sustainability office). It has been running on campus now for 6 years if I recall correctly. The concept of free coffee isn't anything new. Many groups use free coffee as a means to pull people in. The trick with Muggy Mondays is that there are no strings attached (with the exception of having your own mug). The condition component of this program is simple.... good things happen whe...

Photo cresdit: Jonathan Rausseo I am going to fold big concepts together here so please bare with me. Concept #1 - Living Laboratory I've talked about this before but a little refresher is in order. The Living Laboratory is a concept that places the University campus at the center of unique learning experiences. These learning experiences typically happen outside of the classroom and can be structured or unstructured. Concept#2 - Biodiversity zone A Biodiversity zone is at it's heart an area with a higher variation the the number of organisms. Simply put, more living things in a given space. So if I take these two concepts and bring them together then what we get is the Biodiversity Garden for the University of Ottawa. The concept of this project would be to create a small garden on campus with a disproportionately high amount of biodiversity. This would create a space that would not only increase the number of species on campus, it would also create a space where students in t...

Photo credit: EcoEquitable Le Bureau du développement durable est fier d’annoncer son partenariat avec Éco Équitable Lors de votre prochaine visite à la Gratuiterie, vous remarquerez qu’il y a un groupe de femmes qui offre des retouches et réparations de vêtements tels qu’un rebord et une réparation de sac ou fermeture-éclair. Ces femmes travaillent pour l’organisation Éco Équitable, et elles seront sur place lors de chaque Gratuiterie organisée par le bureau cette année. Établie en 2002, EcoÉquitable Inc . est une compagnie caritative enregistrée qui offre un emploi temporaire et un entraînement de développement des compétences à travers une petite échelle de recyclage des tissus. Leur mission est de permettre aux travailleurs immigrants et aux femmes sous-employées de devenir financièrement indépendant tout en réduisant la quantité de déchets dangereux dans notre société Les nouveau canadiens, surtout les femmes immigrantes, font face à plusieurs obstacles dans leur recherche d’emplo...

photo credit: Jonathan Rausseo Car Free Day is just around the corner and once again the argument has made its way to my doorstep... "Can we really ban all the cars on campus? Won't people freak out?" Yes, people will freak out and maybe that is the point. But in a world where I have to be realistic... no, we cannot ban all cars on campus. Here are a couple of pretty important reasons why. Some people have legitimate mobility issues and we have a pretty big campus. Sometimes a CAR is the only real solution Deliveries need to happen... enough said Sometimes big things need to be moved around and that takes a vehicle. BUT, I secretly do believe that we can have a car free campus and here are some solutions to the problems listed above. There are legitimate mobility issues and on many other campuses there are building linkages and a designated transit system to assist movement around the campus. So by building linkages I am talking about hallways that connect buildings toget...