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Diary of a Diva Cup procrastinator

Dalhousie Gazette Staff
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By Katie Toth, Sex Columnist

It’s the first annoying day of my period and I’m doing it. I am taking the leap and purchasing a Diva Cup.
I’ve heard about Diva Cups for years now. Every time I go to the drugstore to buy more maxi pads and tampons, I always think to myself, “Damn, I should really buy one of those sometime.”
The problem is that I’m a terribly forgetful charter of my monthly painters and decorators, so they tend to just swing by my house and offer me a surprise.
For those of you who haven’t been hearing about the Diva Cup for years, let me explain. Menstrual cups such as the Diva Cup or the Keeper, are flexible cups made of silicon or rubber that you insert into your vagina to collect menstrual blood. The Diva Cup costs about $40, but each one lasts for several years.
Today is my day, though. I am going to finally stop reading about Diva Cup users, and become one. I cycle down to the local sex-and-bookstore and pick up a Diva Cup. Carpe diem! Seize the moment! Promote sustainability!
I am so excited that I have finally bought this Diva Cup that I also purchase a few reusable cloth pads for overnight use and even surprise myself with Vinnie’s Roller Coaster Charting Calendar, with about a million different stickers for heavy flow days, cramps, PMS symptoms and period predictions!
I bought stuff. So I’m sustainable. Right?
Wait. Now I actually have to use it all.
I go home and take my cup out of the box. Gosh, it looks big. And the silicone – it’s thick! I read that there are actually two models: model one for women under 30 and those who have not given birth, and model two, a larger cup, for those who have given birth or are over 30. I must have picked model two. I think to myself. Oh well, I guess I can use my last tampons and pads and go back to the store tomorrow.
My roommate asks me how I like my Diva Cup, and I tell her it’s not in because I have the wrong model. She picks up the box. It says model one in big letters, surrounded by pink. She looks at me incredulously. She says she is absolutely confident that it is the right one. But it looks so intimidating.
She takes my cup and shows me how to fold it up so that the entering end is really small for easy insertion, and offers me the suggestion that I can trim the little tail at the end a little bit so it’s smaller. “Great!” I think. Now I just have to clean it, and I’ll use it tonight. Right after I go to the library to do some homework.
After I come back from my urgent and important university education, I read the instructions on how to clean the Diva Cup. This looks hard! They suggest washing the cup with Diva Wash or unscented soap, and boiling the cup for 20 minutes. But we have guests in the kitchen making cake, and as I look at my bar of scented Irish Spring sadly, I decide to put on my pad and go to bed.
I have worn my first reusable pad overnight, and I’m so impressed with how comfortable and breathable it is that I decide to skip on the Diva Cup and wear another pad in the morning. One setback: I’m wearing a baggy pair of jeans, and when I put on my American Apparel skinnies, they quickly are pulled off due to obvious pad-ness. To be fair, I’m so bloated they would have been a painful decision anyway.
Wearing the pad has been soft and gentle, without that weird plastic feeling rubbing up against my vulva. And I’ve bought two options: one with red polka dots and one with pictures of cars!
As I put in my new pad, though, I’m left staring at the used menstrual item, wondering what the hell to do with it. Luckily I have a load of dark-coloured laundry to do, so I soak it in cold water in the sink and then throw some laundry in the wash before I go to school.
If I’m going to be washing each of my pads in a sink full of cold water individually after I use them, and doing a load of laundry, how sustainable is the reusable pad phenomenon going to be?
As I cycle home for lunch from school, I begin to see that as superior as these pads feel to regular pads, they are still pads. The bunching feeling that occurs when you’ve got an absorbent item squeezed between your vag and a bicycle seat has not, and will not, magically disappear.
Unfortunately, I’m just too busy this lunch hour to wash my Diva Cup, so I fish around my box of menstrual products for a tampon without an applicator. It’s small, so there’s less waste, right? I mean, I know that the bleached cotton and synthetic products aren’t the best thing for my vagina ever, but it’s right there and it seems so convenient.
I leave the Diva Cup hanging in its little Diva bag on a hook in the bathroom, and promise myself that I will pick it up later. I do, however, manage to make time to figure out the answer to my reusable pad query. Apparently, one tip is to have a bucket of cold water into which you can just throw your reusable pads. Then at the end of your cycle, you can throw all of them in the laundry together, and flush the cold water down the toilet. Awesome!
So, I’m on day three of my period, and I still haven’t used Diva Cup. This morning I have to wake up early, but luckily I have a new pad that dried in the laundry last night, so I scuttle with my bicycle for some coffee before a morning class.
When my roommate comes by and asks me what I’m writing about on my laptop, I say, “Um, how I keep procrastinating on using the Diva Cup?”
“It’s just hard,” I explain. “I have to actually clean it. And it’s different. And it’s a big vagina cup that looks scary. And what if I don’t clean it properly?”
“No!” she cries. “It’s so simple! You boil the water. You put it in for 20 minutes. Then you take it out! You’re ridiculous! Do it!”
My head hung with shame, I boil the cup and then take it upstairs to put in my vagina.
I even decide to be proactive. To combat my fear of the silicone, I’ll take a little bit of lube and lather it on the cup before folding it and trying to shove it in there. Horrible, horrible idea.
“My vagina! The Diva Cup just snapped and hit my cunt in the face!” I scream through the walls of the bathroom.
My roommate, a trained Diva Cup user, tells me to hold the cup tighter, so I try again. But it slips right out of my fingers and again, the folded up silicone cup slaps back into place, offering my vag a hefty beating.
“Oh god, I’m bleeding! It’s even making me bleed!”
“Katie, have you forgotten that you are on your period?” she reminds me.
Right.
I wipe off the lube and try one last time. At first, it is not the most comfortable thing ever. It requires some bearing down and some short fingernails, so that I can hold onto the cup and twist it until hear a quiet, but not painful this time, “snap”, reassuring me that this Diva will protect from unexpected leaks.
After coaxing, procrastinating and trying four other kinds of menstruation protection, I have finally managed to insert my Diva Cup on the second-last day of my period.
Making the move to sustainable, and likely better-for-you products isn’t always, the easiest. It’s easier to be all into staying with our status quo routine of spending more money on more things that are supposed to help us manage our bodies, all the while producing heaps and heaps of waste.
It’s too bad that all my procrastination and silly excuses means I don’t have a lot of time to tell you how effective it is or how comfortable at night. Come back in 28 days and find out.

Students starving for ethical food services

Dalhousie Gazette Staff
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Aaron Beale and Gwen Muir
Opinions Contributors

What is wrong with food on campus? To start, food is expensive, of low quality and inconsistent with the needs of the student body. Options for vegans or vegetarians are scant, and oftentimes the limited varieties we do have to choose from are unhealthy and unethically sourced. As students with little free time and resources, making sustainable choices often comes down to making informed consumer choices. At Dalhousie, however, lack of choice is tied to a system of corporate control.
Food contracts at Dal serve commercial interests at the expense of students. A lack of choice stems from a structure in which food service providers don’t have to compete for student customers.
Exclusivity contracts – such as those between the Dalhousie Student Union and Sodexo – allow these companies to remove themselves from levels of competition. Businesses can sell what is cheap and profitable without worrying about the consequences of students heading elsewhere. Some of these contracts are confidential. This makes it impossible for us as students to see, question or criticize these contracts. This privacy prevents us from having any say in the food that we consume.
Students pay for food on campus on top of already hefty tuition fees. Universities have become markets profit-oriented corporations can tap, and through a monopoly that warrants inflated prices and low-quality food, these companies can benefit from high-strung students who are kept on campus for long hours.
Low-income earners should not be forced to go hungry when stranded in the quad. We have the right to voice opinions about where our tuition dollars end up and whom they are supporting. We are the consumer; we deserve a say in the menus that line the Killam and Student Union Building walls and, eventually, our stomachs.
In the SUB, a building that is supposed to be owned by students, we are prevented from running our own food services and are denied the option of choice. No matter the small changes Sodexo may make toward their own environmental practices, these are ultimately short-term, band-aid and unsustainable solutions. Without any student control over the decision-making process and by disallowing competition and transparency, we are left in a limbo of incessant haggling where ‘secret’ contracts continue to be sealed beneath our noses and gaining access to relevant knowledge is a struggle. Rather than having to plea with a corporation that puts profits first, students should have the capacity to be a part of creating a sustainable food system at Dal.
And don’t let yourself be fooled: there are other options. Universities across Canada have taken steps in creating more sustainable, affordable and student-voiced food outlets on campus. The People’s Potato, a non-profit soup kitchen run at Concordia University, serves healthy, ethically sourced food to over 500 students daily. The Seasoned Spoon at Trent University is another example. Food banks at the University of British Columbia and NSCAD are run by students for students and are active in supplying local and healthy food. Most students aren’t even aware that we at Dal also have our own low-profile DSU-run food bank that lacks outreach and did not even open this September.
CAF (Campus Action on Food) is an organization working towards food justice on campus. We strive to create space for choices that are representative of student diversity and accessible to people of low income. We would like to see alternative food options on campus that are ethically manufactured, prepared and delivered. Food services should be run by and for students, before profit. But we see removing food monopolies and creating transparency as essential first steps in enabling food sustainability. Through research, outreach and action, we also hope to provoke awareness on food politics, sustainability and food services.
The SUB belongs to the students. To begin to make sustainable food decisions at Dal, we’ve first got to have the option of choice.

Aaron Beale and Gwen Muir are members of Campus Action on Food (CAF). CAF meets every Wednesday at 4:30 p.m. in the NSPIRG office on the third floor of the SUB.

Dal takes green action

Dalhousie Gazette Staff
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By Emily Rideout, Contributor

I am constantly amazed at how far the campus sustainability movement has come since I joined its ranks in 2006.
Since then I have seen the creation of the Dalhousie Office of Sustainability, the Dalhousie Student Union Sustainability Office, the Environment, Sustainability & Society program (ESS), and the flourishing of eco-oriented societies such as SustainDal, the Environmental Programs Student Society (EPSS), the Environmental Law Students Society (ELSS) and the brand spanking new ESS student society. I have seen green class projects implemented left right and center. I’ve seen green jobs popping up. I have seen students do weird and crazy things to draw your attention to the issues of climate change. And I love it all!
It’s been amazing to watch Dal get a little greener all along the spectrum, at both the highest levels of the university to the grassroots efforts of students. Considering that Dal emits 109,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide annually – the equivalent of 109,000 two-storey houses packed full of CO2, constituting a town twice the size of Truro – it’s about time.
With the creation of the Dalhousie Office of Sustainability, run by Director of Sustainability Rochelle Owen, a position that SustainDal helped create, we have seen the creation of a university sustainability policy, double-sided printing, a climate change strategy, a behavioural change program called ReThink, reductions in overnight computer energy use and a bike repair shop. Upcoming projects include $30 million worth of energy and water efficiency upgrades in the Life Sciences Centre, including solar panels.
Owens has actively sought to engage students in her work. She employs 10 students per year, providing much-needed green jobs on campus. She has also mobilized class groups to conduct campus-focused research about potential sustainability projects, many of which have been implemented.
Another high-level piece of the campus sustainability puzzle is the new ESS program offered by the College of Sustainability. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting a lot of ESS students and they are some of the passionate and engaged students I’ve met in my three-and-a-half years at Dal.
At the grassroots end of the spectrum we have a plethora of student societies and initiatives.
When I first joined SustainDal, it consisted of a group of approximately 10 students who were trying encourage the use green products and behaviours in residences such as clothes drying racks, compact fluorescent light bulbs and shorter showers.
Flash forward to 2009. SustainDal is a group of 20 dedicated students with a mailing list a mile long. We carry out more practical campaigns with broader scopes such as Muggy Mondays – free fair trade organic coffee and tea if you bring a travel mug to the SUB lobby from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m., and Tuppy Thursdays – locally sourced vegetarian food by donation if you bring your own Tupperware container and utensils to the McCain building upper lobby from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m. We make BetterSide Notebooks made from one-sided paper collected from around campus ($1 each). Last year our water committee conducted a campus-wide water fountain quality assessment that documented which fountains had the best or worst taste, degree of cleanliness, accessibility and temperature. Now facilities management is making an effort to keep the fountains cleaner so you won’t have to drink bottled water.
EPSS, ELSS and the Nova Scotia Public Interest Research Group (NSPIRG) are all up to great things as well. NSPIRG’s SeeMore Green community garden is teaching students and the public about seed germination, indoor planting and canning. Students can also help harvest vegetables from their garden. EPSS publishes the Green Perspectives Journal and ELSS co-hosts IDEALaw, a social and environmental justice conference, which will be held in February 2010.
My all-time-favourite campus sustainability demonstrations are, by far, the flash mobs that have been popping up on campus to draw attention to federal government’s inaction on climate change. Mobs to date have seen students stripping down to their bathing suits in the Killam Atrium to sing, and students ‘freezing’ in the SUB lobby to the sound of cell phone alarms, representing the federal government’s disregard for the call for emissions reductions.
Keep your eyes peeled for actions every Monday at lunchtime in the weeks leading up to the pivotal United Nations climate negotiations in Copenhagen this December.
OK, so we have the high-level pieces and the grassroots pieces. What’s missing from this picture? If you guessed action from the DSU, you’re bang-on.
In 2007, the DSU launched its sustainability office (DSUSO) – also created by SustainDal – known for its excellent Green Week every March. The office got off to a rocky start, but has made some big changes. You’ll be hearing a lot more from this office in the near future.
A recent Gazette article highlighted the fact that a comprehensive audit of Student Union Building operations has never been carried out and the DSU has never made any sustainability statements or policy that would make their operations and the SUB more sustainable. This needs to happen if Dal is really going to get green.

Emily Rideout is a member of SustainDal.

Remembering student soldiers

Dalhousie Gazette Staff
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By Jason MacGregor, Features Contributor

Dalhousie alumni have made some truly amazing accomplishments. Some have gone on to become CEOs of international companies, some have become highly respected politicians, some have made major breakthroughs in medicine, and some have become famous celebrities. As a school, we’re proud of their accomplishments, and we quickly remind others that they are Dal graduates. But one current Dal student believes we’re forgetting some of our bravest students. In the weeks leading up to Remembrance Day, he noticed something was missing.
“I planted a poppy on every plaque in the (Hicks) Building,” says Peter Patterson. “But those plaques only cover the soldiers who died in the First World War and one who died in Korea, and I think that is not a true reflection of the soldiers who died from this school.”
Nowhere on campus is there a plaque that remembers or even acknowledges the large number of Dal students who served or died during the Second World War. Just to find proof that students took part in the war effort is a task that includes searching through the school archives on the fifth floor of the Killam Memorial Library.
The names are there. Thousands of them.
In a manila folder full of brown, thin, crispy papers are the carefully scribed and typewritten Alumni News letters from that time period. The top papers are all those boring notes on alumni who recently got married or got a new job. But the tone quickly changes. The lists of marriages are soon replaced with lists of Dal alumni who were on active service, wounded, taken prisoner, missing or killed in action. In one letter from March 1943, about 1,200 names of Dalhousie students are listed.
The list describes what most students had studied, the years they were at Dal and their position in the military. But for some, it also describes their fate. One man, who had studied science and engineering, was reported missing after he was shot down during a night flight into enemy territory. For official purposes, he was presumed dead in April 1943.
Patterson, who holds a Masters of Business Administration from Dalhousie, returned to university this year to upgrade his GPA to up his chances of getting into medical school. But this topic is personal to him because he is also an army reservist.
“I joined because of that outdated notion of queen and country,” says Patterson in the HMCS Wardroom at the University of King’s College. “It’s a belief that I should stand up to defend our parliamentary democracy should it be threatened.”
Ironically, a portrait of a much younger Queen Elizabeth II watches us from behind the bar.  Scattered throughout the room are black and white pictures of Canadian warships from the Second World War. King’s College still honours its role from that era when the navy used the school as a “stone frigate,” an academy for naval officers.
At the end of each November, officers and seamen from the HMCS Sackville parade in front of the Arts and Academic Building and attend a church service in respect of King’s College’s war efforts so many decades ago.
Dalhousie, too, made a large contribution to the war effort on campus. In the archives are examples of how the Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps used Shirreff Hall as a residence in the summer of 1942. Like King’s College, an officer-training course was set up at Dal for a short period and the National Research Council worked on “several important problems vital to the security of the Empire.”
“There’s little recognition asked from a soldier,” says Patterson. “Just some acknowledgement of what we’re prepared to do. For these (Second World War) soldiers, they paid the ultimate sacrifice for our freedoms.”
Traditionally, the Dalhousie Student Union lays a wreath in memory of Dalhousie students who served or were killed in action.
“We go to the ceremony at Grand Parade,” says Shannon Zimmerman, President of the DSU. “We also make a donation to the Poppy Fund. It depends on how many donations come in and we then add an additional amount on top of that.”
The plaques in the Hicks Building for the First World War soldiers were bought by several of the graduate classes that the soldiers belonged to. Since then, most grad classes have put their money toward different things such as building sidewalks and planting trees.
While anything memorializing Dal alumni since the First World War would need to go through the university administration, says Zimmerman, she’s not opposed to the idea and to spreading awareness around campus.
Just how much emotion is still behind Remembrance Day? Has it become a mechanical ritual of our culture?
Several of the poppies that Patterson placed over the First World War plaques were snatched, insulting the reason he placed them there.
“I’m not comfortable being in uniform around campus,” he says. “Some of it may have to do with ignorance – just not being aware.”
Dal students and alumni involved with the military have served in Afghanistan, are there now, or will eventually go over. For the first time since the Korean War, soldiers are wholly putting their lives in danger. Not many people realize the students in their classes may have served overseas.
“At the end of (the Second World War) we said, ‘never again,’” says Chris Maxwell of the Halifax Peace Coalition. “It’s been 65 years and we are still not doing ‘never again.’ I go and memorialize (Second World War) vets and others but I have hesitations about people serving now.”
Patterson, who has served within different trades in the military since 1987, says he would go overseas. He’s currently working toward becoming a doctor so he can serve in that capacity.
“Some (joined) because they believed their country is always right,” says Maxwell. “Some people (joined) because they wanted to help people, like the rest of us, which is noble.”
A soldier himself, Patterson says he still gets a little embarrassed when people thank him in public while in uniform. However, he still enjoys the odd free coffee, he adds with a smile.
There is a whole gap of Dalhousie wartime history missing from campus, including thousands of alumni names.
“So why do we bother remembering in November?” Patterson asks. “Some of those students could have been liberal hippies who got called up to fight in the war … They had dreams and aspirations like everybody at Dal today.”

College students at high-risk for mental disorders

Dalhousie Gazette Staff
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Ashley Gaboury , CUP Central Bureau Chief

WINNIPEG (CUP) – At a time in life when mental disorders are most likely to strike, experts in the mental health field are encouraging university students to talk more openly and honestly about how they are feeling to reduce stigma and increase awareness of mental illness and the importance of positive mental health.
The Canadian Mental Health Association cites suicide as one of the leading causes of death amongst Canadian 15 to 24 years of age, second only to accidents. The youth suicide rate in Canada is the third-highest in the industrialized world.
These statistics are familiar to Dr. Stanley Kutcher, professor of psychiatry and the Sun Life Financial chair in adolescent mental health at Dalhousie University and an expert in the area of adolescent mental health.
According to Kutcher, mental disorders are the most common medical illnesses for young people and 70 per cent of mental illnesses begin before the age of 25.
“The college years are the years in a person’s life when they are at highest risk for developing a major mental disorder, simply because that’s when (mental disorders) happen,” said Kutcher.
“The age that students are heading off to university or heading off to college are exactly those years when the mental illnesses strike. They are more vulnerable because they are outside their usual social supports and away from their families,” he said.
At university, students are more liking to be faced with lifestyles of partying, heavy drinking and little sleep that can make them more vulnerable to mental illness, Kutcher said.
Tracey Peter, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Manitoba, echoed that there are dangers to mental health that are introduced with the typical student lifestyle.
“I think there is a fine line between engaging in typical student behaviour and … where all of the sudden it starts having an impact on mental health and well being.”
Peters recently conducted a study on first-year sociology students at the university with a survey of questions related to mental health and well-being.
According to Peters, there are a small number of students who aren’t doing so well  – “languishing” – and a small number who are on top of their game – “flourishing” – in terms of their well-being, while most, she said, are somewhere in the middle.
“Most students are what is called ‘moderately healthy’. They are not really languishing but they are not really flourishing either. They’re doing OK,” said Peters.
Peters said her work challenges the idea of continuum with mentally ill people at one end and mentally healthy people at the other and the idea that if you’re not ill, you’re healthy.
She said that instead, she likes to think of mental illness and mental health as two separate issues.
“You can’t just look at key indicators of mental illness and if you don’t have that, then all of a sudden you’re healthy,” said Peters,
“Obviously people who are high on mental illness are going to be low on metal health but it is possible that someone could be high on mental illness and high on mental health … If (someone with a mental illness) has a good support network, they can have some really good psychological well being (and) they can function.”
According to Peters, students can improve their mental health by increasing their social connections and having an overall awareness of how they’re feeling.
“‘Do I like myself? Do I feel good about myself? What don’t I like about myself?’ and asking those really important questions. The reality is that most of those questions you ask are things that you can change,” said Peters.
David Ness, a professor and student counsellor at the university, said his counselling office sees students daily for counselling on mental health related issues.
In fact, his office, like those at many Canadian universities, sometimes has trouble keeping up with the demand.
“We are usually full during drop-ins on a daily basis,” Ness said. “Unfortunately, it is sometimes challenging for students to get in and see us but we do our best.”
Ness said the range of difficulties presented by students is everything any therapy service would expect.
“We get students presenting with anxiety and depression, histories of trauma and abuse, people with serious thought difficulties, stress and relationship issues,” said Ness.
Peters said that students are no different than anyone else when it comes to mental health issues.
“I think students are expected to have it all together, and the reality is that a lot of students are flourishing, some students are completely falling apart and most students are somewhere in the middle,” she said. “Some days they are flourishing, some days they are languishing, and it’s important to acknowledge that.”
She stressed open and honest discussion about mental health.
“That’s the only way that we are going to reduce stigma and increase awareness because all of us are affected in some way by it.”

Moustaches take over November

Dalhousie Gazette Staff
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Tannara Yelland, The Sheaf (University of Saskatchewan)

SASKATOON (CUP) – If you see an army of moustaches this month, just remind yourself it’s for the greater good.
“Movember,” as it has grown to be called, supposedly began in 2003 when a group of friends sat drinking in Melbourne, Australia, and a discussion sprang up about bringing back the glory days of the moustache. To legitimize their dubious fashion decision the men raised money for charity in conjunction with their moustache growing.
Within a few years, the month of November had been renamed Movember by the moustache enthusiasts, and it is now currently referred to as “the month that was formerly November.” Movember’s official online headquarters, movember.com, describes Movember as “an annual month-long celebration of the moustache, highlighting men’s health issues – specifically prostate cancer.”
Matthew Eldstrom, a server at the University of Saskatchewan’s campus pub, says he originally decided to grow a moustache for selfish purposes but changed his motivation when he heard about Movember.
“It came about originally from talking with (my manager) Dan, and he told me it would increase my tips 10-fold. So originally it was selfish. Then it ballooned into realizing November was coming up, and there’s a Movember thing people do.”
From those humble beginnings Movember has become a huge event for the entire staff of Louis’ Pub at the university, and most of the men working there are participating. There is even talk of a “men of Louis’” calendar that would showcase the men and their moustaches to raise money for Movember.
While Movember appears to be growing in popularity every year, with the Canadian branch of the campaign raising four times more in 2008 than it did in 2007, some people have yet to hear about it. Eldstrom only learned about it recently from his manager.
“I always wondered if there was a guy’s prostate cancer month,” to mirror October’s role as breast cancer month, Eldstrom said. “But I never knew until Dan told me.”
The issue of men’s health is one that is often neglected for various reasons. Movember is one part of a growing move away from the stigma surrounding public discussion of men’s health. “Mo bros,” as the men growing moustaches are referred to, both raise money and talk to people about prostate cancer.
Public awareness of, and discussion about, men’s health is important to stop unnecessary casualties, especially when it comes to prostate cancer, a type that is “over 90 per cent curable if detected and treated in its earliest stages,” according to Steve Jones, the CEO of Prostate Cancer Canada.
While only men can participate in terms of growing moustaches, women who want to get involved with Movember can round up male acquaintances to participate. For their efforts, these women are known as “Mo sistas.”
In 2008 the Canadian branch of the movement raised $2.4 million, making it the largest charity event for men alone in Canadian history. All the money raised in Canada during the campaign is spent in Canada on raising awareness as well as research into prevention, detection and a cure for prostate cancer.

The art of dumpster diving

Dalhousie Gazette Staff
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By Keltie Larter, Nexus (Camosun College)

VICTORIA (CUP) – Munkey likes garbage. In fact, he likes garbage so much he spends hours each week sorting through it. And then he eats it.
Instead of going to the grocery store and spending his hard-earned money on food, Victoria native Justin “Munkey” Gilbertson waits until the store closes and then goes shopping in its dumpsters. For some, this is strange, and kind of gross. But for others, it’s a sane response to our wasteful status quo.
Wealthy countries consume things at a startling clip never before experienced. We want everything to be bigger, better, faster and easier, and we don’t seem to realize that all of that excess comes with a price. Hundreds of millions of tonnes of garbage poison the planet daily. As we consume the products of a wasteful society, those products threaten to consume us as well.
Enter a group of anti-consumerists that call themselves “freegans”. What’s a freegan? In western culture, the freegan movement began somewhere in the 1990s, although many eastern cultures have a long history of minimalist living. For example, Digambara monks in Indian culture wear no clothes, eat once a day and are strict vegetarians. The freegan movement – the word “freegan” is a combination of “free” and “vegan” – evolved out of the environmental and anti-globalization movements. Freeganism is a form of anti-consumerist lifestyle in which people try their best to limit their participation in our conventional consumerist economy.
Basically, they try not to buy things, and dumpster diving is one method freegans use to do that. Instead, they live off of what the rest of us throw away; they also barter, trade, garden, forage, use solar energy, conserve water and reuse as much as possible.
What’s the difference between a freegan and a vagrant? Freegans live free for political reasons rather than out of necessity. They believe choosing not to participate in a capitalist economy encourages a sense of social responsibility and that it discourages greed, materialism, pollution, economic competition, selfishness, and apathy. Not to mention it drastically reduces the amount of money you need to make to pay your bills every month.

There’s a Munkey in the garbage
Munkey started dumpster diving four years ago while hitchhiking through Europe.
“I originally started dumpster diving as a protest against society and the grotesque amount of waste that we produce,” says Munkey.
His first time was fairly uneventful. He and some friends hit up a couple of office-supply store dumpsters first, and then moved on to grocery store bins.
“Our biggest find (that day) was a massive box of granola bars,” says Munkey.
But he didn’t let that stop him.
“Any city takes a lot of research and talking to other divers,” he says. “Besides that I will spend upwards of four to eight hours each week looking for new dumpsters all over the city.”
These days, Munkey goes out diving a couple of times a week and is able to gather enough food to drastically reduce his grocery bill each month.
“I purchase about $10 to $20 worth of food each week, usually specialty items like flax seed oil, and other items that are rarely found in a dumpster,” says Munkey. “I save myself, my family, and my friends well over $200 per week in food costs.”
His only regret is that he can’t take everything he finds with him.
“The only two things I dislike about diving are seeing firsthand the disgusting amount of waste our societies produce, and the fact that I have to leave so much food behind,” says Munkey.

Breaking the law to get edible trash
It’s not just morsels here and there that Munkey finds in dumpsters; sometimes it’s unusually large hauls of free food. And, every now and then, a motherload.
“In one night I found 25 kilograms of dark chocolate, a skid of orange juice, about 10 kilograms of produce, and a box of pumpkin granola.”
Food isn’t the only thing to be had in dumpsters. Munkey’s finds have also entered the realm of the high-tech.
“I’ve found TVs, DVD players, iPods, laptops, desktop computers, countless books, enough furniture to furnish a new flat 10 times over, at least five bicycles (all in great condition) enough bike parts to construct 10 new bikes to give to people in need, bike wagons, and basically all my camping gear, including my tent, sleeping bag, sleeping mat, cooking equipment, lights.”
“My best friend even found a bag with 367 silver American dollars behind a collector’s shop,” continues Munkey. “Seriously, if they produce it, you can find it in a dumpster.”
Dumpster diving is considered illegal in Canada, however, and a diver caught doing so can be arrested and charged with theft and/or trespassing. In order to avoid trouble, Munkey goes out diving either late at night or in the wee hours of the morning.
“I’ve been hassled by police,” he says. “You’ll usually have more hassle from shop clerks and managers.”
But if you do get caught, Munkey says it’s all in how you handle the situation.
“It’s important to remember to always keep your cool and be as respectful as possible,” says Munkey. “Don’t give them an excuse to lock the dumpsters.”

Living off the waste of a wasteful society
Munkey doesn’t just dumpster dive for personal gain. The money he saves on groceries means he doesn’t need to work a 40-hour week, and can spend time doing volunteer work instead.
“I volunteer at least 30 hours a week,” he says, including for Food Not Bombs and various vegan and animal-rights organizations.
And when the volunteer shifts are over and it’s time to get started on a long night’s work jumping in the trash, Munkey can be found rustling through the rubbish with a smile on his face.
“I love the giddy feeling I get when opening up a lid and not knowing what you are going to see,” he says.
Despite the stigma attached to being someone who eats out of dumpsters, Munkey’s family has remained supportive.
“My parents and family are more than happy that I dive and will eat any meal I prepare for them with dumpstered food,” says Munkey. “My brother was recently converted from an, ‘Ewww, that’s disgusting’ pessimist to a diver.”
But not everyone is as understanding. John Denys, psychology student at Camosun College in Victoria, says eating out of a garbage can is something he would never consider doing.
“I would definitely never go dumpster diving. I’m not that desperate for food and it’s gross and dirty,” says Denys.
Munkey says this is a common reaction.
“We are born into a society that tells us from birth an activity like this is disgusting and something only hobos would do. Dumpster divers are seen as parasites feeding off the good people of society; the same people who will gladly pay over $100 for the same food I will go around back and pull from the garbage. People think it’s ethical to put food behind a lock and key and demonize those who cannot afford to pay for it, and most divers are fighting those ideas.”
And Munkey is proud to be one of them.
“Always remember that food is a right,” says Munkey, “not a privilege.”

Using a painful past for future hope

Dalhousie Gazette Staff
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By Lucy Scholey, Assistant News Editor

Lessons from the Holocaust should help de-escalate today’s civil conflicts and prevent future genocides.
That’s the message one event at Holocaust Education Week hoped to convey.
“After the Holocaust, the world looked back and said, ‘Never again,’” said speaker Simin Fahandej. “(But) we’re sitting here today, in the year 2009, and we’re still talking about some things that are going on today.”
Fahandej, University of King’s College student and native of Iran, was one of three speakers at the Nov. 3 public discussion, “Genocide Past and Present.” It was one of many sessions at Holocaust Education Week. The fifth-annual event is hosted by the Atlantic Jewish Council and includes speakers and films related to the Holocaust. The Nov. 3 lecture related the Holocaust to modern-day conflicts like the persecution of the Baha’i in Iran and the civil war in Darfur, Sudan.
“We try to raise awareness so it doesn’t happen again and it doesn’t escalate to the way it did with the Holocaust by giving the Baha’i living in Iran a voice and by giving the people who are living in Darfur a voice,” says Director of Community Engagement of the Atlantic Jewish Council, Edna LeVine.
Local Holocaust survivor Helena Jockel set the tone by recounting her time spent in Auschwitz and other concentration camps.
“The indignity of their dying was so terrible, I cannot express it in words,” Jockel says of the deaths of schoolchildren and her family. Nearly 50 people, filling the room at a house on Inglis Street, listened intently to her story. It’s one that Hockel has shared often since she emigrated from the former Czechoslovakia 20 years ago. She gives talks multiple times a year.
LeVine says silence helped perpetuate the Holocaust.
“What we do know about the Holocaust is it didn’t occur overnight,” she says. “It was a continuous hatred and a continuous prejudice over a long period of time … the people remained silent and the people did nothing when they heard and they witnessed the hatred. They did absolutely nothing. That allowed it to continue and result in the Holocaust where millions died.”
Fahandej agrees and says that sharing stories like hers and Hockel’s is important to preventing similar incidents.
“One of the ways of stopping this is by informing and by talking about it,” she said during her speech.
Fahandej and her family fled Iran in 1999. They are members of the Baha’i faith, the largest religious minority in Iran, and Fahandej says her family felt threatened. According to Iran’s constitution, religious freedom is only granted to Shia Muslims. This means non-Muslim Iranians like the Baha’i struggle with finding employment and higher education according to Human Rights Watch, an independent human rights advocacy group.
Darfur has also suffered a civil war that many characterise as genocide. The conflict in the ethnically-diverse Sudanese province erupted in 2003 between groups of black Africans and Arabs. The Sudan Liberation Army and the Justice and Equality Movement accused the government of oppressing black Africans. It is unclear whether the Sudanese government is working with the Arab Janjaweed militia, a rebel group that is currently killing mass numbers of black Africans. The war has caused nearly 300,000 deaths, according to United Nations figures. But the UN says it cannot be labelled as genocide.
Members of Students Taking Action Now in Darfur (STAND) say more action is needed in war-torn countries.
STAND is an organization that raises awareness about the civil conflict. Through advocacy and activism, STAND calls on the government to take action in Darfur.
“It really makes you feel bewildered at the state of the world and the state of humanity … that things like this still go on,” said Dalhousie’s STAND co-chair Tara MacDougall.
Arielle Goldschlager, another STAND co-chair, added that there’s still room for change. Fahandej and Hockel have proven that, she says.
“It’s important … to keep the hope … They’ve done that and we need to do the same.”

Cleaning up consumerism

Dalhousie Gazette Staff
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By Rebecca Spence, Staff Contributor

Haligonians better get on their green, organic cotton, party pants. The first annual Atlantic Eco-Expo will make its debut this weekend – Nov. 21 and Nov. 22 – at Exhibition Park.
Organized by two Dalhousie students, Casey Binkley and Jordan Ekers, the event promises to be an exciting ride. Over 90 companies have signed on to showcase everything from solar panels, to hybrid vehicles, to reusable diapers at the expo.
A major attraction will be an exhibit called “Ocean’s Wild,” which takes kids through a 60-foot-long inflatable whale to teach them about wildlife marine conservation.
There will also be an eco-fashion show featuring local designers and fair trade materials, guest speakers including Peter Corbyn – a chief architect of the One Million Acts of Green challenge – and a cooking demonstration using local produce, presented by The Wooden Monkey.
“The whole green spectrum will be out there,” says Ekers, 22.
There will even be an electric Segway scooter featured at the event for people to try out.
“They’re sweet,” says Binkley. “It’s one of my favourites.”
Ekers is currently finishing up his commerce degree while Binkley, 23, is set to graduate with a degree in management. The pair met back in their first year and became roommates the year after that. Last year, Binkley approached Ekers about helping him organizing an expo for his special events planning class.
“We had to both realize that we were serious about it because it’s been a massive undertaking,” says Ekers. “We’ve literally poured the last 10 to 11 months of our lives and 40-plus hours a week into this.”
Binkley and Ekers sat down and spent “three weeks to a month” writing out a business plan, and then presented it to Binkley’s professor for approval. After speaking to mentors, including each of their fathers, who have backgrounds in business, the two determined the exhibition was something they wanted to pursue on a long-term basis.
“We each got credit for it, but it’s become much larger than that,” says Ekers.
According to Binkley, there have been successful sustainable business exhibitions in Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, Ottawa and all across the U.S. He says an expo was organized in Halifax about three years ago, but since then the green movement has become much more widespread.
“Consumers are becoming more attracted to organizations that are providing green products and services,” he says. “There was a gap in the market and good timing for us to come in.”
Binkley and Ekers started their company in January 2009. By May they had worked out enough logistics to be in a position to sell booths.
“It took a little while to get the ball rolling,” says Ekers. “Especially in terms of our website. We built one and then we wanted to redevelop it and we just wanted to make our image perfect before getting it out there.”
By fall, Binkley and Ekers got used to waking up at 7:30 a.m. every day to answer the mass of business e-mails that had accumulated overnight, spending six to seven hours soliciting on the phone and having up to three meetings a day.
“It’s all about staying on top of everything,” says Binkley. “New stuff comes up every day.”
He admits that juggling everything has “been a bit wild.”
“Some weeks your calendar is just so booked with meetings you don’t know what to do,” he says.
Despite the challenges and demands, both Binkley and Ekers believe that their efforts have paid off. Their initial goal was to attract 100 exhibitors, and they’ve managed to organize just a few shy of that number.
“I think that’s amazing,” says Ekers. “The Toronto show had about 130 for their first year and has a market 20 times the size. So I’m pretty happy with where we’re at right now.”
Ultimately, though, both Binkley and Ekers are proud to be able to spread awareness about the environment and sustainability.
“It’s all about education,” says Binkley. “It’s one thing to talk about sustainability and want to get in there and do your part, but how do you actually do it? Being able to show people the organizations that are working towards sustainable products and services is kind of our whole goal.”
Binkley and Ekers will be giving tickets away to students across the HRM in exchange for used cell phones, rechargeable batteries and printer cartridges.
“We’re gonna have to be the ones who have to deal with the consequenes caused by older generations,” says Ekers. “We have to engage the youth in this and make them interested in it.”

Ecological Footprints – Pick Pockwock, not Pepsi

Dalhousie Gazette Staff
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By Dalhousie Gazette Staff

If someone offered to pour you a glass of water, you’d accept right? But what if they asked you for $1.75 in return? I would probably tell them to go fly a kite. Last year Aquafina, the company that bottles water with the refreshing blue mountains on the label, was called out on misinformation in the labeling of their product. The Aquafina labels do not clearly state that the product is from a public water source. That’s right, folks. It’s just tap water, distributed by Pepsi. Who knew?
Most don’t think twice about buying bottled water. Maybe your parents watched too many episodes of 60 Minutes (in this case you probably weren’t allowed to go trick or treating either), maybe you come from a region without access to clean drinking water or perhaps you are simply from that “social elite” who seem to think bottled water is fashionable. The point is you’re in Halifax now. The city boasts an above-and-beyond approach to Canada’s federal water policies, according to the Halifax Regional Municipality website. So take advantage of the sweet, sweet tap water that is readily available to you from your very own tap, water fountains and sinks on campus.
Halifax water is likely some of the safest, cleanest water you will ever drink. Mayor Peter Kelly agrees.
“We have in the Halifax Regional Municipality one of the highest-calibre tap waters in the country, if not in North America, and we should celebrate that point,” he told the Truro Daily News last year.
The Halifax Regional Water Commission Environmental policy promises to “meet or surpass all legislation, regulations and other applicable requirements and continuously improve the plants’ environmental performance consistent with defined objectives, targets and industry standards.”
The HRM is doing a pretty good job of that, with a water supply that comes from the beautiful, most adorably named Pockwock Lake, northwest of Halifax. The HRM uses watershed management as part of its multi-step approach to water quality. This means protecting and improving the quality of water before it gets to the treatment plant, taking into account social, environmental and technological aspects of water treatment to provide top quality drinking water and uphold environmental responsibilities.
The environmental impacts of water bottling facilities, water extraction, and transportation are devastating, and they unnecessarily use fossil fuels with every bottle.
According to the Pacific Institute, an environment and sustainability research centre in California, bottling water uses up to 2,000 times more energy than filling up a glass from the tap.
The institute also reports that bottled water is becoming so popular in the United States that its sales have surpassed beer and milk.
Some people associate bottled water with status, buying into ridiculous marketing schemes and paying top dollar for “the champagne of table water.” But consider the impact placed on the environment and society by this simple choice – bottle or tap?
If you aren’t a converted tap water drinker by now, at least consider the cost. We are students after all.
Recommended daily intake of fluids for the average human being is between 2.2 litres for females and three litres for males. A 591 ml bottle of Aquafina from the vendors in the Student Union Building costs $1.75 – remember, it’s just tap water! To meet the daily water intake with campus bottled water, from the SUB particularly, students would need four to five bottles. This runs up a bill of about $8. Over the school year this would cost about $1550 to $1750.
Holy (fill in the blank), you may be saying to yourself right now, but never fear. As previously mentioned, the tap is here! Reusable water bottles are an affordable and logical option to bottled water. Reusable water containers can be purchased for between $1.25 for a Mountain Equiment Co-op Nalgene (don’t worry, they’re BPA-free now) to $17.95 for a stainless steel Kleen Kanteen, all of which can be found around Halifax within a 20-minute walk from campus. Even the Dalhousie bookstore sells them. Of course you could always scout out reusable mugs and bottles at your local secondhand store.
The point is that bottled water is not a sustainable way of refueling. We are throwing money at the bottled water industry, one of the fastest growing and least regulated industries on the planet.
Bottled water is far inferior to municipal water in terms of quality and healthiness. For those of you drinking bottled water for your health, get out from under your rock because there is little evidence to support the health benefits of bottled water today. Bottled water sits on store shelves for months in chemical-leaching plastic bottles. That can’t be healthy.
Get in the now, folks. Like the slap bracelet and Pogs, bottled water is on the way out. Using the tap or a fountain instead of buying bottled water is a small change Haligonians can make that will make a huge difference in sustainability on the earth’s scale. So please, consider the consequences of what you buy, where it comes from and where it is going.

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The Dalhousie Gazette is the main student publication at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. The paper first began publishing in 1868, making it the oldest continually operating student newspaper in North America followed by The Harvard Crimson and The Columbia Daily Spectator

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