Photo credit: czechmatediary.com The weeks are flying by here, and somehow, the gigantic Dump&Run mountain of clothing, food, dishes and other miscellaneous items has nearly entirely been reduced to easy-to-donate boxes. There’s still some work to do yet, but we’re now heading out of the woods rather than trying to figure out how to dislodge ourselves from the brambles. This past week, I had the opportunity to mention where I work to a lot of people I know, and ended up fielding a lot of questions concerning the bottled water ban. For the most part, the response was incredibly positive; however, regardless of their responses, I found that very few of the individuals in question were adequately informed of the logic behind the ban, and the extent (in all fairness, we are still working on the latter). The students have to be informed, or, as is the custom in large groups of poorly-informed people, speculations and rumours will come to be accepted as the norm, leading to a whole host...

Hey again! Yet another week wraps up here in uOttawa’s Sustainable Development office, and man, has it ever been busy. This week, we were sorting and folding up a storm to try and get all of the diverted waste from the Dump and Run organized and ready to be donated. There’s still a lot to be done, but we are leaps and bounds farther down the line than we were on Monday. There are clothes that need folding, dishes that need washing and a whole bunch of miscellaneous items that need a purpose (once we figure out exactly what they are, mind you). Our hopes are that we’ll have everything done by the end of next week, at which point there will be photos and videos aplenty to share! It’s been a remarkable experience just seeing the sheer volume of items that we are diverting from landfills and knowing that deserving people will be getting some much-needed items to boot. At the same time, though, realizing that a lot of the stuff that’s being thrown out has never been used or worn is a bit d...

My name is Vedrana, and I’m one of the new students working for this wonderful office on campus. My first week has come to a close, and I figured I should just pop in to share my impressions of both working here and the University’s sustainable initiatives. I came into this position with only a basic knowledge of what was being done on campus, and was massively surprised to find out how little I knew! Over the course of five (well, six) days, I began to develop a much deeper understanding of what sustainability is and how I can play a part. Naturally, I bring this understanding and awareness back home to my family, in hopes of making my household more sustainable. My summer goal is to make a drastic change towards the better in my home; in addition to the initiatives I will be both spearheading and assisting with on campus itself. If all of us were to take the time to educate our families and introduce them to simple steps to reduce their carbon footprint, we’d all be better off. With...

Great news! The one sided paper notebook logo redesign competition has come to an end and we have found a winner! The lucky winner will get a $100 cash prize! Above is the winning logo! There is definitely some work to do, because we need to decide what name we will be going with for the program. If you have ideas, send them our way! As an update, the notebooks are going well! This is one great step in getting awesome notebooks sold on campus. Over the summer, we will be working more towards realising this project by September. Hopefully by 101 week, you will be able to get tons of cheap, environmentally friendly notebooks! - sarah jayne

PHOTO CREDIT: Dave Weatherall So many of you may have heard yesterday that we banned bottled water on campus. Well this an official shout-out to the students that made it possible (especially Jenna Dunsby, Sarah Jayne King, and Michelle Lamarche). But did you hear about the other official announcement about the EcoChampions? You didn’t??? Well allow me to explain. Yesterday the office of Campus Sustainability set in motion the EcoNetwork, a group of individuals (aka EcoChampions) that will spread the good word about sustainable development in their departments and units. For the Most part this is an employee program but we are tuning it up to get students involved too. So what’s the big idea and how does it work. Simple, every month we bring together all the EcoChampions on campus and have a discussion / workshop / brainstorm about how to make our campus greener. The EcoChampions are given tools – like composting bins, or computer programs – that allow them to make changes in their res...

Nous avons encore une fois dominée au concours de Recyclo Manie. Nous nous sommes placés en première place parmi les collèges et Universités Canadiennes pour les deux catégories; ‘minimisation de déchets’ et ‘Grand champion’. Sur le plan international, nous nous sommes placés en 16 e place dans la catégorie de ‘Grand champion’ et 13 e place dans la catégorie de ‘Minimisation de déchets’ parmi 267 collèges et universités en Amérique du Nord (y compris une université Indienne). L’année dernière, il y eu 204 collèges et universités en Amérique du Nord qui ont participés à la compétition Recyclo Manie ; cette année il y en eu 267. En total, la compétition a pu recruter 600 collèges et universités à participer (plusieurs parmi elles ont participés en tant qu’écoles en ‘essai’. C'est-à-dire que leur résultats ont été calculés, mais ils ne comptaient pas.) et ensemble, pendant les dix semaines de compétition, les participants ont recyclé et composté plus de 84 millions lb d’articles ! ht...