Thinking sustainably

The university already does well in many realms. Forgues proudly says that 85 per cent of faculty and staff take some form of sustainable transportation, as do 91 per cent of students. Most of the new buildings are LEED certified and many older buildings have been updated. For instance, the Molson Building, which opened on Guy St. in 2009, features a “solar wall” that generates both heat and electricity from the sun. “We’re one of the most energy-efficient universities in Quebec,” Forgues says. 

The office is also involved with the Sustainability Action Fund, started in 2007, which is supported by student fees. This fund, in partnership with the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, embarked on a Sustainable Curriculum Project.

Faisal Shennib, MEng 10, the university’s environmental coordinator, explains that students can now look online for an inventory of sustainability-related courses. There are plans for new academic programs in sustainability, too. 

The Environmental Health and Safety team also audits garbage cans. “We’ll have volunteers suit up in lab coats, and train them as to what should go in what bin,” Shennib says. A 2013 study showed that only 17 per cent of the contents really was garbage, while the rest should have been recycled or composted; a similar distribution is found in municipal and commercial trash. 

“Coffee cups make up the largest single item that ends up in the garbage,” Forgues says, “That’s why a lot of our activities focus on coffee cups.” Five years ago cups were trash. Then student-run cafés such as Café X and The Hive started using compostable ones. A year later, Concordia’s recycling service provider looked into recycling the cups, seeing as they’re wax-lined like milk cartons. 

Although the City of Montreal’s recycling program wouldn’t find it worthwhile to recycle coffee cups, Concordia has such a concentrated amount of cafés, the independent service is able and willing to give it a go. 

Mini bins

Shennib regularly brainstorms with Concordia’s Facilities Management. Recently they reconsidered office trash bins, which often have the bag changed even when there is only a single item inside. A custodial supervisor suggested simply removing them. They came up with cute desktop bins that could then be emptied into larger containers in central locations. Students run several sustainability programs. Waste Not Want Not lets people know where the compost bins are. Then there’s the Reusable Dish Project, which rents out dishware for events. Users bring them back and use the program's industrial dishwasher or pay a small fee for the student volunteers to do the dirty work.

The Environmental Health and Safety office helps run a Sustainability Ambassador Program, recruiting students and, as of summer 2017, staff to spread the good word. They also sell through Concordia Stores notebooks made of paper that’s already been printed on one side, giving a second life to paper before recycling.

Kitchen work

Providing succour 

Walk into a basement space of the Henry F. Hall Building that looks like a subterranean garage sale, and you’re walking into two tons of diverted waste.

This Ali Baba cave is CUCCR — Concordia University Centre for Creative Reuse (cuccr.ca). Pronounced “sucker,” or more amiably, “succour,” CUCCR stems from Anna Timm-Bottos’s Concordia MA in art education in 2017. During her research she looked at similar projects in Toronto and Winnipeg and thought, “Hey, why not here?”

The concept is simple. Instead of throwing something out, internal departments and groups can arrange to donate unwanted materials. Those in the CUCCR community can drop by and take it for free. Open since March 2017, CUCCR already has some 300 members. “We set it up so you really have to touch and see the stuff,” Timm-Bottos says. “You find something that calls to you.”

The varied members range from artists looking for inspirational materials to engineers who need to build a project. One homeowner made a funky wall-to-wall floor covering with carpet scraps.

CUCCR requires members to sign out the goods so they can keep track of the weight being diverted from the waste-stream and asks users how much they believe the items might have cost. “That kind of action gets people to think about the object,” Timm-Bottos says. “Now even at home when you see something familiar that you’d just get rid of, you’ll think about what else you can do with it.”

Related links

• The Environmental Health and Safety
• Sustainable Curriculum Project
• Concordia Greenhouse
• HydroFlora Concordia
• Concordia University Centre for Creative Reuse