For the second year in a row, I have decided to live waste free during RecycleMania. From January 29th to March 31st, I am pledging to not produce a single item that will end up in a landfill. Now that does not mean that I cannot use anything recyclable! Nonetheless I will try to keep this at a minimum by purchasing food in bulk with my reusable containers and jars whenever possible. Last year, I pledged for eight weeks, and my box of shame contained a Band-aid, a few pieces of plastic dental floss, and a piece or two of gum (I am seriously addicted to the stuff!). It was much easier than I had thought; waste-free versions of all the same products I use on a daily basis are out there, you just have to find them…and learn to cook a new thing or two!. My favourite finds were vanilla or almond extract in bulk, and compostable dental floss, which can be purchased at most organic food stores in Ottawa (Silk Floss). If you are unsure about giving it a try, I give a ‘how to live waste-...

**** Just for the edification of the reader, this post originally opened with one of the most awe-inspiring introductions ever. It was utterly captivating. It brought tears to the eyes of the assistant director. It put our entire existence on this planet into perspective. It was lost when we accidentally saved the file under the wrong extension. Easy come easy go I guess. Now let's join this blog post already in progress**** ... Now this isn’t my first job so I know that it is natural to experience a little bit of anxiety on the first day of a new job, but what I felt on my way to work my first day wasn’t anxiety but what I call enxiety. What is enxiety you may ask? Enxiety is the overwhelming feeling of fear and concern in regards to the impending doom of our environment. Enxiety can create feelings of fear over environmental degradation, helplessness in changing national and international policies on the environment, and frustration about the extent of the problem, other...

I am going to do a couple of things in this post that I promised to never do so if my words seem a little out of place, don't worry... it's not you, it's me. First, I am going to admit that my first reaction to our University's slogan, "Canada's University" was not one of ecstatic enthusiasm. The slogan was launched 10 years ago as a means to differentiate uOttawa. It was clever because the university teaches in both official languages and is located in the National Capital. But I had the reaction that most people had... "that slogan sounds a little pretentious". Well it is 10 years later and I am not a student anymore, I am a staff member. And until a little while ago, I still wasn't really sold on the University's slogan. I mean seriously, come on... what makes us so good that we get the coveted title of Canada's University? And maybe I would have kept thinking that way until... So I have been following this group called...

L’année dernière, j’ai vécu huit semaines sans produire des déchets; bien avec une minuscule boîte de ‘honte’ qui contenait quelques morceaux de soie dentaire (mi-défi, j’ai trouvé de la soie compostable) et des petits morceaux de plastique (avant que l’Université ait commencé à recyclé tous les plastiques). Cette année, je vais vivre neuf semaines sans produire de déchets (du 29 janvier au 31 mars), et je vais essayer de minimiser ma consommation en emportant mes contenants à l’épicerie pour acheter mes produits en vrac. Je dis ‘les premiers jours sont toujours les plus difficiles’ parce qu’il faut que je m’habitue de planifier tous mes repas, planifier mes visites aux épiceries, et m’assurer que j’ai fait assez de déjeuners à emporter sans déchets – Bien trop facile d’emporter une tablette déjà préparée et enveloppée! MAIS, même si je me suis fait un menu sans déchets pour la semaine, j’ai oublié d’acheter un ou deux articles…pas de tablettes granola cette semaine…il faut improv...

Recycling is the Lululemon of sustainability. It’s hip. I always get a little thrill when I toss some paper into the blue bin. But there is more to recycling than those bins. We have something called Free Stores on campus where people donate clothes, binders, books, kitchenware and much more, and then we give them away.... For FREE. Yes, that’s right, FREE! This week, I went by the Free Store to help out, and consequently walked away with a pair of rad boots, that only need a little mending on the sole, but that are sooooo comfortable. They’re like foot cocoons. If this sounds appealing, then you may be interested in participating during RecycleMania (an inter university competition in which recycling and waste production is monitored and compared to other universities in North America).  And if that's not enough, we are also hosting a Lunch and Learn on February 2nd, during which Brigitte will speak about the Live Waste Free pledge. You can sign up for a week if you w...

Jon has proposed a one-week waste free challenge for my next post. I secretly want to refuse, but my childhood shrieks to my parents of “What about the whales!” echo in my head. Instead I ask for a guide and am provided with this: http://www.sustainable.uottawa.ca/recycling.html . Realize quickly that this guide still allows for waste and ask for clarification on ‘contaminated papers’ and dental floss. Turns out floss is a plastic (good to know) and ‘contaminated papers’, which I assume also include used tissue (cleverly polite guide!), are compost. Realize the location of my city-issued compost bin is unknown to me. Decide that starting a waste free challenge at 11pm on a Sunday is not ideal as it would mean riffling through my garage in -20 to find my green bin. Also, procrastination is fun. And the week always starts on a Monday, right? Commit to waste free week. Starting tomorrow. Day 1 : Have decided to approach my waste free week by going on the offensive. If I don’t cre...

It’s a bird, it’s a plane, no, it’s a massive floating plastic island of sustainability! It has been a while since I have graced this blog with my presence- my apologies, hopefully I can make it up to you (or at least to my boss). A while ago I wrote about my Enviro class that did a mock Conference of Parties on Climate Change and mentioned that my group represented the Maldives, a small island nation that is well… doomed, in short. The inhabitants are already experiencing frequent flooding in most areas, the reserves of fresh water are dwindling and severe climatic events, etc. The result will be a population of climate refugees that will seek somewhere to go in the near future (the island is expected to be the first nation made uninhabitable by climate change because on average the elevation is only 1.5m above sea level). Our group came up with multiple solutions but my personal favourite was built off the idea that they could buy new real estate in another country and mo...

I want to make a bold statement and hopefully back it up with some observations. I think that not only is volunteering becoming more and more popular, but also that volunteering will help you succeed in life. Not only does it make you a better person, but it makes the University a better place. So why it is so hard to have a good volunteer experience. Over the past few days I have giving a couple of presentations about sustainability in various courses on campus. I have delivered presentations to a Natural Resources Management course and two introductions to Environment and Society courses (one in English and one in French). I have another course scheduled next week for Corporate Social Responsibility and last semester I presented to some environmental sciences and environmental studies courses. So why do I go and present in all these courses? Sure I sometimes like hearing my own voice, but the true reason I do it is harvest volunteers. My first year here on campus I had ab...

I enlisted in Katimavik hoping to get in right away, but I found out in July that I was on the dreaded 'waiting list'. I figured that was it; I’ll have to try again next time. And then, one day in august I decided to check my emails and found out that I got accepted into Katimavik's eco-citizenship and active life-styles. I quickly went from being so excited to being very nervous. I started thinking that I don’t know anything about being an eco-citizen! What if they judge me for not doing this "green stuff" back at home and not knowing everything about everything when it comes to the environment? When I finally calmed down (stopped thinking of the negative things) I thought well maybe I’ll learn... maybe this is something that I could bring back to my community and make a small difference. Honestly back in Prince Albert Saskatchewan there is not a whole lot of recycling or composting so most things go right to the garbage (or even, right on the groun...

There is a very famous advertising campaign that was created by Avis back in the 90s that still makes me laugh to this day. It is the "We're Number Two" campaign, celebrating the fact that Avis had become the number two provider of car rental services in the U.S. The marketing team knew that being number two wasn't as good as being number one.... but that didn't stop them. The commercials they produced showed an ecstatic group of people waving flags sporting the number two while popping bottles of Champaign. In the commercials, there were people passing out from the shear excitement of being number two. They were celebrating like it was nobody's business. That was basically what happened at our office last week. The UI GreenMetric World University Rankings for 2011 came out and the University of Ottawa was ranked number 2 in Canada and number 15 in the world. PARTY TIME!!!! And just so you know what the GreenMetric rankings are all about, "the...

Creating a greener campus takes a lot of work, and for the University of Ottawa, that has meant a lot of green campaigns. With elections coming back, it’s time to take a look back at previous green campaigns—and who's been helping push them through. The bike co-op came into effect after passing through a referendum in February 2010, creating a space on campus for bike enthusiasts to hang out, swap stories, and help each other with repairs, and also encourages and helps new cyclists. The U-Pass, a not-uncontroversial issue, has passed through two referendums to offer cheaper bus fare on OC Transpo to students, getting a few more cars off the roads and helping make travel more affordable for students living in the city. The Green Fund, another referendum measure, added a $2 fee to each student’s tuition in order to create a financing source for green projects on campus. The money helped set up the Sustainability Centre, and supports green initiatives in campus clubs and o...

About 6 months ago we posted about how the Office of Campus Sustainability and the Gee Gees are working together to recycle running shoes for the renewal of the Matt Anthony sports field .  A couple of weeks after we posted the blog, the first shipment of shoes was sent out to find a second life. Well, I am here to report to you that the second shipment was sent out just two days ago. I thought it was important to follow up on this story because I personally hate when projects get started and you never hear about them again. It sucks when a program like this is just done once and when all the cameras are gone... it dies. That's not how we like to operate here. And apparently, neither do you. This second shipment contained hundreds of pairs of shoes; the donations keep rolling in!. I think that there might have even been more shoes this time then there were in the first shipment. The company was more than happy to accept this second round. And just in ...

Photo credit: jonathan rausseo How would you like to help the environment, earn credentials, and learn some professional skills all in one week? The Centre for Global and Community Engagement (CGCS) recently approached our office with an interesting proposal, alternative study breaks. In short, take a student's boring reading week and turn it into an amazing learning experience with the end goal of making the campus more sustainable. In case you don't know who CGCE is, they are the group that operates the Community Service Learning program (you know... volunteer as part of your course work). They also run the co-curricular record and are basically a one-stop shop for volunteering on campus. So in the last little while, the CGCE got a lot of questions from students asking if there were more intense volunteering opportunities (you know.... a lot of intense volunteering in a short period of time). Then the idea was floated to do this during the reading week becau...

Photo: jonathan rausseo Happy New Year dear sustainabilitree friends! I hope you all enjoyed the two weeks off from school and enjoyed the snow! On my part, I was with my huge family in the Eastern Townships where 21 people squeezed into one country house for a week. Some would call it hell; others would say it’s sustainable. For that one week, we produced so much body heat, we had to turn the furnace down and only needed a cosy fire in the hearth in the living room after rolling in the snow. We all received wool socks and warm sweaters in our stocking anyways, so we might as well use them! Furthermore, we sure did lay off the interwebs, as there is no WIFI out there and a smartphone’s screen is small enough to write any email or Facebook stalk… painful. Also, everything is so far away that we just had to make do with what we had in the house, so gift bags were re-gifted, broken ornaments fixed and the food re-heated. Speaking of which, there was none left. We ate it ALL. What w...

Dans l’esprit de la compétition RecycloManie (qui commence au début février), je vais finalement partager la recette de mes fameux petits gâteaux au chocolat et beurre d’arachides (ils sont végétaliens!). Je vais aussi vous donner des conseils afin de les faire sans produire un seul déchet (je me prépare à vivre sans déchets pour 9 semaines). Donc, les ingrédients : 1 tasse lait soya (choisissez les sortes réfrigérés – le bouchon est presque toujours recyclable)  1 cu. thé vinaigre de pommes  3/4 tasse sucre non raffiné (en vrac aux épiceries organiques)  1/3 tasse huile de canola (en vrac aux épiceries organiques)  1 cu thé extrait de vanille (en vrac aux épiceries organiques)  1/2 cu thé extrait d’amades, ou plus d’extrait de vanille (en vrac aux épiceries organiques)  1 tasse farine à tout usage (en vrac aux épiceries organiques)  1/3 tasse poudre de cacao (en vrac aux épiceries organiques)  3/4 cu thé bicarbonate de so...

Let me start out by saying that I hate New Years resolutions. They kind of piss me off for two big reasons. First, they are almost always vague. Lose weight, be healthier, listen to more people,... seriously? None of these actually mean anything. Second, they aren't really resolutions... most people choose things that are better classified as common sense. So this year I propose GREEN resolutions that are precise and demonstrate resolve. 1. Get a reusable mug and actually use it! I know you have been told this like a thousand times but seriously.... get a mug and use it. I know it is tough to carry a clunky mug around with you everywhere but I am sure you can deal with it. Find a solution that works for you and go for it. You will save yourself about $20 to $50 bucks a year and you will be taking a chunk out of landfills. 2. Submit your homework electronically It is tricky handing things in electronically. The classic argument is that their professors won't let the...

In 2011 there were a lot of positive things going for the campus in terms of campus sustainability. Some setbacks for sure, but I would like to think more positives than negatives. Here is the whirlwind tour of what the office accomplished in 2011. CULTURE The year started on a high note with the Vision 2020 process, which included an entire pillar dedicated to becoming a more environmentally sustainable campus . Unfortunately by the end of the year the Destination 2020 plan (which was the implementation phase of the visioning exercise) had dropped campus sustainability as a priority. Another setback came with the Fair Trade Campus Certification. Brought forth by students with the uOttawa chapter of Engineers Without Borders, the certification is a program created by FairTrade Canada  to get campuses to offer more fair trade selection. The program started out very strong in the Spring but slowed down in the fall as issues related to the variety of coffees available as fai...

Not too long ago, I filled out an opinion survey on a variety of household and personal products (cleaners, hygiene, etc.). My goal was to voice my opinion about the toxicity of the average product. Last week, I received a ‘thank you for your opinion’ booklet of coupons (I am sure the Extreme Couponing people would be absolutely senseless for these ‘free X products’, ‘free Y products’, and ‘free Z products’). I noticed that several – more like 25% of them were for diabetes-related products…by this I mean different blood sugar testing machines, strips for these machines, sugar-free nutrient shakes for people suffering from diabetes, and a variety of foods marketed towards diabetics. You are suffering from type-2 diabetes when your body makes insulin, but it is not able to use it properly. It is usually caused by an unhealthy lifestyle, including lack of exercise, and eating unhealthy foods. Has it really become commonplace for the average person to be diagnosed with type-2 diabet...

Dear Canada, why do you let me down so? I can distinctly recall being in grade seven and clipping news articles about the Kyoto Protocol for a science journal. Granted, I was a HUGE geek already and adored the idea of Canada emerging as a world leader in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and saving our planet (I am pretty sure the idea involved hearts and rainbows doodled around images of trees in the margins of my notebook) but the simplified version of the protocol that a teacher explained in laymen’s terms seemed easy enough… I mean, we are a developed country with an above average standard of living and we theoretically should have been able to lower our emissions without severely compromising our growth or citizens’ lifestyles. Oh wait; there are those tar sands that we are exploiting out west- well, if it’s for the sake of progress, yes? Even with our failure at reducing our own national emissions, Canada had the opportunity to take advantage of Clean Development Mechanism...

Photo credit:  http://www.progadgetreview.com The Holiday season is around the corner, and some gifts are difficult to come by. Put aside the gift cards and boxes of chocolates. Apple has recently made apps “giftable” so that you may share the Angry Birds fun with your other iphone friends. For the environmentally conscious friend, why not the Carbon Footprint Calculator? It will help with some decisions and possibly motivate those friends to plant some trees as it calculates the number of these needed to offset their carbon footprint. Diamond Grading , an app for the occasional diamond buyer. After all, diamonds are a girl’s best friend! Others wish it could be summer year round so they may go for a sail on a December afternoon. Your budget may not let you buy him a house in the South, but the Waterski Duck should keep that friend busy on those cold days. Then for those who constantly get lost. In an effort to help them get around, the GPS coordinates may be a swee...

Photo credit: Marie-Pier Je vais faire une exception à mes principes et me permettre de CHIÂLER publiquement. Imaginez-vous que je viens de constater qu’un prof m’a enlever des points de présentation sur un travail qui était imprimer recto-verso. On m’a dit que ce n’était pas professionnel et que ça avait l’air moins propre. PARDON? Un travail professionnel doit avoir une page titre, une table des matières, être paginé, avoir un style uniforme et soigné, une structure logique, des références en bas de pages, une bibliographie, des annexes à la fin du travail… Ne pas imprimer ses feuilles recto-verso pour faire plus beau c’est une CONVENTION, non une règle. Vous savez ce que ça donne des conventions? Des institutions anachroniques comme le parlementarisme canadien. Qu’est-ce que ça peut bien leur faire que j’imprime mes travaux recto-verso? C’est déjà complètement outrageant qu’on doive imprimer à double-interligne et utiliser le double du papier nécessaire pour soi-disant ...

Photo Credit: Jonathan Rausseo Take a look at the picture. What do you notice? Nothing at first right? Just your typical everyday light switch... sitting on a window... wait, on a window? So this past week the University's Energy and Environment Engineer (Faizal) decided to try out a new piece of tech in the office. It is a wireless light switch with a piezometre activator. He did this because our office is a giant open space and we needed to divide up the lights in the area. I mean come on... this is an office full of environmentalists. Do you know how close we were to taring each other apart over having the lights on? So let me dissect this wireless light switch with a piezometre activator thingy. First, the light switch is wireless, so that means there is no need to make a giant hole in the wall and run a bunch of copper wires everywhere. This is super handy if you have to move a wall for example. Rather than pulling our the light switch and al...

Photo credit:  furniturehomedesign.com You will need: glitter, left-over ribbons, old cards and limited creativity Decorations in general around this time of year are for the majority plastic and will end up in the trash either this year or within the next five. Aim to purchase decorations that are either going to last (my family has a collection of tiny porcelain houses that we have had for as long as I can remember) or make your own decorations from materials you can recycle or compost. That’s right, compost. Trees that have been sustainably grown and harvested can be used and chipped up for your mulch in the spring or use a potted tree that you can replant in the spring. Make wreathes out of pruned branches, pinecones, etc and add some flare with ribbons (my dad enjoys throwing sumac in there) and compost them when you’re finished. I also came across an interesting blog  about creating x-mass tree balls out of aluminum cans and stars out of plastic bottles, if you are...

Photo credit: www.craftypod.com Le mois de décembre arrive bientôt, la recherche de cadeaux a probablement déjà commencée pour certains d’entre vous et est peut-être même déjà complétée pour d’autres. Offrir un présent à tous nos proches et s’assurer qu’ils l’apprécieront réellement et qu’ils s’en serviront peut s’avérer être une tâche épineuse et difficile. C’est pourquoi on voit souvent ma tante recevoir un parfum qu’elle n’utilisera jamais, grand-maman recevoir une troisième mijoteuse comprenant 2 ou 3 options quétaines de plus, notre petit-frère et ses 20 transformers/dragons/petites voitures/soldats etc. Et pour finir, papa avec son nouveau coffre d’outils complet, parce qu’il a perdu quelques tournevis dans l’ancien. Le problème, c’est que ces articles en remplacent d’autres qui auraient encore très bien pu servir et qui n’avaient pas à être changés. De plus, la pluparts de ces bidules qu’on achète sont souvent faits à l’étranger et vendus par des firmes multinationales avec ...

Photo Credit: Elise Jerrim When you really get down to it, there is no end to the amount of a green geek that you can be. Case in point, I just changed my e-mail signature to an eco friendly one. How did I do this you ask.... well, let me tell you, there is more than meets the eye when it comes to formatting for the environment. What follows is a list of the common bad practices that people make when creating their e-mail signatures. But before we get into that, I think I should mention that there are critical elements that you should always have in your email signature. So, always, always, always include your name, your title or position, and how people can contact you. That is basically all you need to have an effective signature, but to make it a green signature, avoid these common mistakes. 1. The cool picture I have noticed a lot of people ending their signatures with punchy pictures. Although these are really cool for the people who see your signature...

Photo credit: Jonathan Rausseo To recap my last blog on greenhouse gases (GHG’s) and waste: Items sent to landfill NEVER decompose, except organics; When organics decompose in a landfill, they produce methane (20X the impact of CO2); If you choose to compost 1 ton of organics, you will sequester 0.2 tons of CO2; If you choose to send that ton to a landfill, you would create 0.8 tons of CO2 Now let’s talk about uOttawa’s waste production and recycling rate; what do they mean in terms of GHG’s? Do we recycle and compost enough to cover the GHG’s emitted due to waste disposal and landfilling? Before I go on, I must say that whatever the result, nothing needs to be sent to landfill if you choose the right products – nothing will ever make entombing perfectly usable ressources in a landfill reasonable (even sequestering GHG’s!). Last year, the University sent 1082 tons of waste to the Trail rd. landfill, and 1105 tons of recyclable material (of which 98 tons were organics) to...