Yearly Archives: 2016

Trent is cleaner, greener

Painted and costumed in their college colours, hundreds of first-year Trent University students will soon cap off Orientation Week with this year’s version of the loud and proud Great Race.

A recycling relay is one of the events.

“Students love it,” says Shelley Strain, Trent’s sustainability co-ordinator. “Upper-year students tell me they remember it.”

For the relay Strain puts together a miniature version of one of the dozens of recycling stations found on Trent’s campus. Team members run to the mini-station, a piece of cardboard, plastic or some other recyclable item in hand. They have to read the directions and figure out which receptacle it goes in.

“Invariably people coming from a different municipality will get something wrong, but they’re going to fight tooth and nail that they are right, because it’s right in Hamilton, or wherever they come from. Which is exactly the point,” Strain says.

“It really highlights the differences in the systems and then you get more people paying attention to adjusting to how we do things here.”

It matters that Trent students understand how recycling works on campus, and in Peterborough. Just over 1,500 of them will live in residences this year. Total enrolment is nearly 8,000.

Orientation Week is a tailor-made opportunity for Strain to make new students aware of their role in fashioning an eco-friendly campus. Waste diversion is her main theme.

Friendly reminders and hands-on lessons start the day students arrive. They have packing materials, cardboard boxes and other waste to get rid of. Volunteers show them where each college’s main recycling station is (outdoors, at the rear of the building) and explain what goes where.

Composting is also explained early and often.

“Something that is unique to Trent is that we compost on campus,” Strain says. “Whatever we produce on campus we are able to compost on campus.”

The 37 tonnes of compost produced last year was also used on campus, primarily in gardens.

Trent’s composting facility will be one stop on an eco-tour that is also part of orientation week.

“That’s more of a get-to-know-your campus initiative, but we put a green spin on it. We show them: ‘This is where your compost goes. It’s not for naught, we are actually doing something with it.'” Strain says.

“It’s important for people to see that.”

Another tour stop is the renovated P.S.B. Wilson athletics building. The spacious addition, which includes the coffee shop where we are doing our interview, was designed and built to a

LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Silver standard. The Life and Health Sciences building is LEED Gold.

First-year students also get an explanation of a blue box program run by Community Living volunteers. Anyone can toss used printer cartridges or obsolete cell phones into a blue box to be collected by the volunteers, taken to the mail room for packaging and sent off to be recycled.

Community Living receives a small donation in return for each recycled item.

Strain put together the partnership with Community Living in 2008, shortly after she left her position as Peterborough County’s education and training officer to take on the newly created sustainability co-ordinator job at Trent.

“Second life notebooks” are another aspect of the partnership. Community Living volunteers bind paper that has been used on only one side into notebooks and hand them out to students to use as scrap paper.

A behind-the-scenes program students will be exposed to is the school’s Energy Performance Contract. Swapping out old lights for LEDs and incorporating efficient new boilers in the heating and cooling system will help reduce annual energy costs by $1.5 million.

But pointing students toward better recycling and reuse habits is the biggest opportunity to get them involved in sustainability progress. Strain believes that is true whether students live on campus or off.

“I think people’s approach and behaviour and choices probably dictate much more how much waste they generate than where they live does,” she says.

“They have a great opportunity. We just help them realize it.”

This is one of a series of articles commissioned and paid for by Sustainable Peterborough and published in partnership with The Peterborough Examiner. By Jim Hendry, Peterborough Examiner, original article published Saturday, August 27, 2016.

The more renewable the better at local utility

Every little bit helps.

And in terms of greenhouse gases sent spewing into the atmosphere when electricity is produced, a little bit in relative terms adds up to big load of carbon.

When I asked John Wynsma, vice-president of generation for the city-owned Peterborough Utilities Group (PUG), how much the utility was reducing greenhouse gas output by generating electricity from renewable sources he responded with an insider’s view of the reality of climate change.

The short version: About half the greenhouse gases we deal with in Ontario drift up from the north-eastern United States. About a third are produced by cars, trucks and other means of transportation and 15 per cent by industry. That leaves only eight per cent coming from power generation.

The message: Renewable electricity sources are helpful but electric cars and trucks that run on natural gas are the way to make a difference.

But then he ran the numbers. And it turns out that over the past eight years as it developed into a major player among municipal electricity generation companies, PUG has also made a difference.

The utility has produced 650,000 megawatt hours (MWh) of renewable electricity. The effect has been a CO2 reduction of just under 51,000 metric tonnes. That’s like taking 10,000 cars off the road for a year.

That result has come by focusing primarily on two methods of renewable “green” energy production: hydro dams that use the power of river water and solar energy.

Wynsma was recruited by PUG eight years ago with a mandate to build up the generation side. Ironically, as a private consultant back in the 1990s he prepared the proposal that Trent University used to get licence approval for what today is the Robert G. Lake dam and generating station just north of the university.

Originally known as the Trent Rapids project, it wasn’t built until 2008. By then Wynsma would be running the generation side at PUG and his division would partner with Trent to bring it to life.

When he arrived the utility had one hydro generation station, the London St. dam, and generated six MW of electricity. Since then it has partnered with Trent on two more run-of-the-river dams, bought a hydro dam in Campbellford and added a second site at London St.

Two smaller dams will be developed at Lock 24 and Buckhorn over the next two years and a second Campbellford dam will be taken over in 2018.

On the solar side there are the 10 MW Lily Lake solar farm that opened in 2011 and rooftop projects on the Kinsmen Arena in Peterborough and Asphodel-Norwood Community Centre that will be on line shortly. Twenty 500 KW solar projects will be built in the Apsley-Bancroft area next year.

All told, PUG has a current generating capacity of 36 MW.

When all the new projects are producing “we’re going to be very close to 60 megawatts,” Wynsma says, “so we’re very excited about that.”

Energy Ottawa is the only municipally owned utility in Ontario with more generation capacity.

The impetus for expanding PUG’s generation stable was economic. Larry Doran, a former PUG president who hired Wynsma, looked at the prices being paid for renewable energy and saw a business opportunity.

It was a good call. PUG now pays the city a dividend of $5.5 million a year with $3.1 million coming from generation.

“I can see those dividends from our company going up, quite nicely, over time,” Wynsma says.

Growth has also meant job creation. When he came there was one full time operating manager for London St. Now the division has 16 full-time staff, all of them in good-paying technical and management jobs.

And he sees another opportunity for green job creation, although this time not for people, at the Lily Lake solar farm.

“If I have one thing I’d like to do, which we saw in Europe, is to put some sheep on it,” Wynsma says.

Sheep trimming grass while sun-power flows into the grid. It’s where the past meets the future in electrical generation.

This is one of a series of articles commissioned and paid for by Sustainable Peterborough and published in partnership with The Peterborough Examiner. By Jim Hendry, Peterborough Examiner, original article published Saturday, August 13, 2016.

Rainwater reservoir helps Robinson Place stay green

Homes with a rain barrel connected to the downspout are fairly common today, saving up nature’s own water source for use watering gardens and washing cars.

But 20 years ago a rain barrel was a sign that whoever lived there was on the cutting edge of eco-awareness.

So to with Robinson Place, the massive but elegantly designed building at Water and Charlotte streets commonly referred to as “the MNR office.”

When it opened 20 years ago Robinson Place had a hidden resource down in the basement: a 35,000-litre rainwater tank, equivalent to a 24-by-12-foot swimming pool, eight feet deep.

Water from the tank is used to flush toilets. A seven-storey, 350,000-sq.-ft. building that provides office space to more than 1,000 provincial government employees has a lot of toilets.

David Burns didn’t know about the rainwater system when he signed on as building manager at Robinson Place. Nor was he aware of the large natural area, waterfall and vegetable garden tucked away on the Otonabee River side of the building.

Burns works for CBRE GCS Canada, a property management company hired by the province. Robinson Place is the largest of several buildings he is responsible for in Peterborough and area and his own office is there.

Designed as the provincial headquarters of the Ministry of Natural Resources (now Natural Resources and Forestry), it was originally used solely by MNR. Today it also has offices for six other ministries.

In eco terms, the building’s defining accomplishment is achieving LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Platinum status two years ago. Most LEED Platinum buildings were built with the exacting standard in mind. Robinson Place is one of just 12 in Canada to qualify in the “existing building operations and maintenance” category, and the first government building.

Technical upgrades that pushed the building into the platinum circle included magnetic bearings in the compressors of huge cold water “chillers” that drive the air conditioning system. Using a magnetic field instead of mechanical shafts reduced energy use, Burns explains.

Across the board, energy consumption has been reduced by 31% over the past decade, he says. Aggressive recycling promotion has steadily increased the rate of diverting waste from the city/county landfill site. In 2012 the diversion rate was 62%; for 2015 it was 77%.

Features like the vegetable garden also contribute to LEED success, Burns says. We walk from the bright, sunny lobby out to a rear stone courtyard. Off to the right is a gate, latched but not locked, in a tall fence covered with vegetation.

Inside the garden area, roughly the size of large backyard, we sit at one of several picnic benches. It’s a natural area without trimmed grass or landscaping. Seven raised vegetable planters, each six feet by four feet, are the most noticeable feature.

The planters overflow with tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, melons, lettuce, spinach, onions, beets and carrots. Burns and 10 to 20 others who work at Robinson Place and tend the gardens each summer deliver their harvest to the nearby Lighthouse Community Centre at St. John’s Anglican Church.

Another hidden resource that contributes to the “green” aspect of Robinson Place is a bicycle parking area in the underground garage.

“We have a very high percentage of staff that bicycle to work,” Burns says, “in the range of 80 to 100 bicyclists.” Several garage parking spaces were converted to bike racks and a bicycle repair station.

The vegetable garden sits on top of the parking garage entrance. We go back out the gate and stroll alongside the waterfall, which more closely resembles a gently descending set of rapids. The quiet burble of tumbling water makes for a soothing little oasis.

It’s a popular lunchtime retreat, one that Burns and many of the building’s workers appreciate.

“I have people come up here from Toronto, consultants, and they say, ‘Oh my God, I wish I worked here.’ And I say, ‘Sorry, you can’t, because I am.’”

Employers take note: good, green design can help attract, and keep, good people.

This is one of a series of articles commissioned and paid for by Sustainable Peterborough and published in partnership with The Peterborough Examiner. By Jim Hendry, Peterborough Examiner, original article published Saturday, July 30, 2016.

Creating sustainable attitudes at Camp Kawartha Environmental Centre

Jacob Rodenburg is looking out the large, south-facing central window of the Camp Kawartha Environmental Centre, an innovative zero-carbon building that can still claim some environmental “one-and-only” features seven years after it opened.

While those features make the building a showcase for green construction techniques, they are just packaging for the real purpose of the centre.

Rodenburg and the centre’s staff want to help develop a generation of environmentally aware citizens who feel comfortable with nature and protective of it. It’s all about stewardship, he says, and with funding from the Ontario Trillium Foundation and research help from Trent University the recently put together an action plan for achieving that goal – Pathway to Stewardship: A Framework for Children and Youth.

“It’s a vision of how we as a community can sponsor stewardship together . . . it’s a co-ordinated effort involving schools and parents and everybody to foster stewardship,” Rodenburg says.

“We make the argument that kids are born biophiic, which means they are born loving nature. And there is a little window of time there, where if they have direct exposure on a regular basis then they tend to cultivate that love. But if they don’t, then the window shuts.” That window is opening in front us and we’re are about to get tossed out. Where we’re standing has become the middle of a song circle for 30 children enrolled in the Environmental Centre’s day camp.

Craig Brant, the centre manager, has his guitar ready and good-naturedly shoos us away. The interview moves outside.

The centre is on an acre of land on Pioneer Rd. at the south edge of Trent University. Trent provided the site at no cost, along with access to 200 acres of university owned natural space criss-crossed with trails.

It’s an offshoot of Camp Kawartha, a non-profit summer camp and year-round outdoor education facility on Clear Lake. Rodenburg is the executive director at Camp Kawartha. The Environment Centre was built by Fleming College students under the direction of Chris Magwood, Canada’s foremost straw bale construction expert who was a Fleming instructor at the time. Principal funding came from the Gainey Family Foundation.

Partnering with Trent was important, Rodenburg says, because of the link to its school of education. Teaching future teachers how to instill respect for the environment in their students is a key component of the centre’s mission.

“Student teachers come here, they learn about some of the techniques and strategies for environmental education. They even learn about sustainable living. And then those same students do a practicum, implementing some of the things they learned,” Rodenburg says.

“Then they get a certificate from both Trent and Camp Kawartha saying you’re an eco-mentor, go forth and take environmental education into the schools.”

There are also 30-odd programs students from elementary school to university can take at the centre during the school year. The programs are tailored to mesh with the school curriculum, not just science but history, leadership, recreation and the arts.

Home life is equally important for turning young children into lifelong environmental stewards, Rodenburg says.

“The average kid these days tend to spend around seven-and-a-half hours a day in front of a screen. They are more apt to be able to name 100 corporate logos than be able to identify five things in nature.”

Parents can change that dynamic, Rodenburg suggests. Take children to the many green spaces in and around Peterborough. Create a planter box and grow some flowers and vegetables. Get a humming bird feeder. Put together a nature table that changes with the seasons. Kids can fill it up with what they find outdoors.

“And how you speak about nature is really important too,” he says. “A lot of parents will say, ‘Oh, yuck, put that down, that’s dirty.'” So what are you saying? Are you saying that nature’s dirty? If you start using the language of appreciation, and even of love and respect, that can mean a lot.”

Buildings, however sustainable, eventually crumble. Attitudes can last for generations.

This is one of a series of articles commissioned and paid for by Sustainable Peterborough and published in partnership with The Peterborough Examiner. By Jim Hendry, Peterborough Examiner, original article published Saturday, July 16, 2016.