Greening the Federation of Students: A case study of the Bombshelter

The University of Waterloo is a multi-faceted institution. It is composed of a complex variety of people, policies, goals and practices and its facilities are small enough to achieve sustainability. Many of us learn, eat, sleep, work and interact within the university; much is possible within its boundaries. The university depends on many outside sources for food production, goods and services that are imported from all over the world. To achieve something sustainably, we must focus on “closing the loop…to become a self-contained facility that grows its own good, generates its own electricity and recycles its own waste” (Orr, 1989). In this particular project, the Bombshelter pub was the system chosen for study. We sought to examine the waste management activities of this system: where the wastes were coming from (i.e. waste generated per area and per customer), the various types of waste and possible areas where waste could be reduced… For full text, please e-mail sustainability@uwaterloo.ca