Fêter halloween écologiquement, est-ce possible?

Source: http://www.petitgestevert.ca

Le Halloween est une fête apprécier tant par les enfants que par grands, comme nos étudiants à l’Université d’Ottawa. La dépense pour les décorations, costumes et bonbons est estimée à 55$ par personne. Ceci prouve pourquoi les ventes de bonbons et de grignotines au Canada a augmenté de 47 millions de dollars en 2007 pour donner une somme de 285 million $ (1)

Cette année je vous propose d’être économe et écologique au même temps. Comment me diriez-vous? C’est simple.

i) La décoration :

• commencer par acheter une citrouille locale et garder la chair et les graines pour faire de bons potages, muffin et tarte.
• Illuminer les citrouilles, je vous aurai proposé d’acheter les chandelles de cire ou de soja qui ne sont pas faites à base de pétrole, mais elles sont malheureusement trop couteuse pour notre maigre bugget d’étudiant. Alors, je vous propose de les illuminer avec des lampes de poches sans pile
• Lorsque Halloween se termine je composter les restes des citrouilles ici même au campus ou dans le bac de compostage de votre ville.
• Le reste des décorations, appliquer le reste de la règle des 3R : Réutilier et Recycler.

ii) Les bonbons :

• Favoriser les chocolats et bonbons équitables.
• Pourquoi pas ajouter dans le sac de surprise des bonbons de sirop d’érable pour encourager les productions locales.
• Pour minimiser les emballages des friandises, acheter vos bonbons en vrac pour ensuite les mettre tous dans un même sac, car tout type de bonbon se mélange bien!.

iii) Collecte de bonbon si vous décidez de le faire!

• Faites du porte-à-porte à pied.
• Amassez vos friandise dans une taie d’oreiller ou dans un sac réutilisable.
• Le surplus de bonbons peut être données à diverse œuvres de charité pour garnir les panier de Noel à distribuer aux familles dans le besoin.

iv) Costume :

• Faite d’une pierre deux coups ! Soyez plus original et écolo. en créant vous-même votre costume. Utiliser des vêtements de couleurs unies et décorer les avec des accessoires.
• Achter votre costume au complet d’une friperie ou bien d’une vente garage.
• Échanger vos vieux costumes avec vos amis, collègues et voisins.
• Pour le maquillage, choisissez des du maquillage non toxique et lavable.
• Après la fête d’Halloween, garder votre costume afin de l’échanger avec vos proches l’année suivante.

Équiterre a d’ailleurs créé une campagne sur le chocolat équitable, Pareil pas pareil, illustrée par une animation à la fois drôle et instructive;

***

1. Source : Statistique Canada

-amina

http://thesustainabilitree.blogspot.com/

Belated Reflections on 101 Week part II

Photo Credit: Jonathan Rausseo

So, I raved and ranted just a tiny bit in the last blog, but to be honest, I was incredibly frustrated with the way the 101 Week turned out, with regards to recycling and general respect for the milieu.

Socially, the week was a tremendous success, despite the offensively hideous weather. I believe that the reason why our 101 Week was less successful in regards to campus sustainability is the fact that the guides were not put in a position where they cared enough to act accordingly themselves, let alone influence the 101ers positively. This negative attitude began with guide training, where the individuals training the incoming guides flipped through all the slides concerning campus sustainability as though they were entirely irrelevant to the rest of the presentation.

The fact is, they’re not. If the trainers don’t care, then we have no reason to. The chain of apathy continues, and voila! Now the 101ers don’t care either. Once you’ve already dismissed the topic, it becomes exponentially harder to motivate people to actually concern themselves with it. We’ve basically tied our legs together before the race has begun.

Okay, so that’s out of my system. The fact of the matter is that we’ve taken some pretty substantial steps on campus, like the banning of bottled water and plastic bags, but these amazing things are still under the radar. In any case, progress is slow, but it’s still progress!

-vedrana

http://thesustainabilitree.blogspot.com/

Belated Reflections on 101 Week

Photo Credit: Jonathan Rausseo

New students arrived on this campus well before the start of classes to participate in 101 Week, and this was the best possible opportunity to inform them of everything that happens on this campus. As both a guide and employee of this office, I felt it necessary to make sure that the new students were aware of our bottle-free state, and that they know how to recycle on campus.

The logistics of planning 101 Week and all its events are extremely complex, as there are so many elements to consider, and often, adding on a ‘green’ element will take a back seat. The main reason is that there are a lot of students generating a lot of waste, and managing this aspect is a tremendous effort. Since the University is now officially bottled water free, water bottles have been replaced by providing large water jugs that the students can use to fill up their own reusable bottles. This cuts down on a lot of plastic being left as waste, but this isn’t the only problem. Juice in tetra packs, pop in cans, non-recyclable plastic cutlery and countless non-compostable napkins get used and thrown out, or even just left behind as litter. For the most part, it’s not even a lack of recycling that is the main concern; it’s the litter.

The week is so busy, what with everyone hustling and bustling from event to event, few people managing many hormone-driven youth (it’s the truth, and there’s no denying it), but we can’t just put a time out on caring for the space we live in. This isn’t only concerning the health of our environment, but the beauty of our campus, overall. It’s a matter of making people see what’s in front of us, and giving them a reason to care.

-vedrana

http://thesustainabilitree.blogspot.com/

Breathe Easy Everybody

Photo Credit: Jonathan Rausseo

As I sit in my office surrounded by literally over 100 plants I can't help but wonder how I got here. Co-workers pass by and constantly ask if they can have one, but I deny them any access to the precious plants. "No, these plants are for science!" I exclaim.

Let's back up. A couple of months ago I got an e-mail from Dr Scott Findlay about EVS 3101. Every year Scott teaches the course and every year he makes sure to contact the science community and ask them if we have an interesting project for his students. Every year I submit a couple of ideas and every year I never get any takers, but this year I only submitted one. I can't quite explain why but it seemed like this was the big one... the experiment that would help make a difference.

And so, this year, unlike any other year, my project was accepted. A group of three students will study the impact of indoor plants on the air quality of a classroom. I guess I should explain why I wanted to do this. As it turns out every year Faizal Sudoollah (our Energy Manager) conducts air quality surveys of all the classrooms on campus. Every class passes the test of acceptable levels of CO2, but there are always the ones that don't do as well as the others.

The thought of this always bugged me. I mean I know that not every classroom can be a monument of engineering excellence but surely we can try to do something to make the worst performing classrooms a little better. And then one day I wander across a Tedtalk by Kamal Meattle about how to grow your own fresh air. (Check out the video here) "That's it" I think to myself... "Why not just grow our own fresh air?"

The concept is simple enough, all we have to do is see if some plants can absorb enough CO2 to make the air in the classroom more comfortable. Why am I using the word comfortable? Usually when we talk about the amount of CO2 in a room we speak in terms of comfort. The amount of CO2 in a room can cause headaches, nausea, and even cause someone to lose consciousness. Therefore if the CO2 levels are too high than the room becomes uncomfortable.

Now before you start freaking out let me just say that the levels of CO2 that would cause you to have these types of reactions are really high, in fact they are almost impossible to imagine on campus. But the reason I mention this is because if we can reduce the amount of CO2 in the classrooms to about 1000 ppm (parts per million) then we can optimize student's ability to focus (and maybe do better in their course).

So that's it, this week we began our baseline testing and next week we will install the plants in our experimental classroom. If all goes well and the experiment works out the way it should, then it may be possible to make plants a standard part of every classroom. The benefit of this is that we could ventilate the room without having to use mechanical equipment. This would have the added benefit of saving energy and money.

-jon

http://thesustainabilitree.blogspot.com/

Sustainability Center Celebrates Their Grand Opening

Photo Credit: Danika Brisson's camera

Last night the SFUO’s Sustainability Center got things started with a bang. The center, which is only a couple of months old, held their first open house with the community. There was cake, and juice, and oh yes.... reusable dishes.

Opted for a whiteboard instead of a paper flip chart, the Center assembled a group of environmentally minded individuals in the Café Alt to discuss how the community would like to see the Center play a role on campus. In fact, all were invited to attend.

There were a myriad of ideas: everything from more options for vegetarians, to more assessments of how green are the SFUO businesses, to creating a blog to increase information flow for opportunities (hhhmmmm I think that at this point I feel it is my duty to at least offer this blog as a potential candidate for more helping centralize green activities).

I walked away from the meeting feeling pretty good. For years there have been a handful of environmental initiatives on campus that have all worked well in seclusion but would benefit from some cross-pollination of ideas and people. Hopefully this Center could do all that, and with a little luck maybe more.

What does the future hold for the Sustainability Center? Well I guess that question is up to the community. If you want to have your say in what happens, drop the coordinator of the Center an email. To be fair, there was actually a whole list of things mentioned at the meeting that I didn’t include in the post (including the resource center chalked full of DVDs and books). So I suggest checking out the website or going to the Sustainability Center for more info.

http://sfuo.ca/other/green/

-jon

http://thesustainabilitree.blogspot.com/

I'll Make a Title Later...

Photo Credit: Damon Chen

There are so many reasons to want to bike. I mean yeah there’s the environment, saving money and that bit of exercise. But seriously it’s just plain fun. You get to know your community on a whole different level, and get to pull some serious Kevin Lynchian urban jamming. Unfortunately though, cycling as a hobby isn’t always the easiest thing to break into.

When I started biking about a year and a half ago, I was a disaster. I didn’t even know that cyclists were supposed to obey stop signs. I couldn’t tell the difference between a derailleur and a gear cassette, and changing an inner tube was way beyond my meagre skills. My friends called me a public hazard and I had no evidence to the contrary.

Let’s be honest here, there’s a bit of a learning curve to biking, especially if you’re the first amongst your friends. There isn’t any kind of licensing to biking which is great for accessibility, but also means that there’s no one that’s really responsible for making sure new cyclists have the skills they need. That’s why a bike coop is so awesome.

For myself I got hooked up at a local bike coop that not only helped me choose a bike that was right for me (who knew that you are supposed to be able to fully extend your legs from your seat to pedal). But taught me how to refurbish my bike, and do all the minor adjustments and repairs that is crucial to bike maintenance. The bike coop was a working space. Anyone could come to use the space and tools there and learn new skills. Volunteers/staff ran workshops on safe urban biking, advanced bike repair and modification, and even did frosh bike tours of campus and nearby local hangouts.

Many of those people I met through the coop are now more than just bike acquaintances; we actually hang out and do things (although still usually on our bikes).

A bike coop for me is more than just a bike shop. It’s a place where people come together because they have a love of biking and they want to share that joy. It’s a place to meet new friends and build a community around something that is positive, fun and most of the time way faster than the bus.

-damon (the guy from CWY)

http://thesustainabilitree.blogspot.com/