The team -Alex Schoeddert, Manon Lepage, Sarah Pelletier and Vima Babooram-receiving the Sustainable Development award on April 22.
The laboratories of Science Education (Biology, Chemistry and Physics) of Campus Saint-Jean were recognized for their outstanding leadership during this past year. In the summer of 2015, the three laboratories were accredited with the highest recognition, gold standard "Green Space".
"We were accredited because of our practices and actions for sustainable development such as recycling paper, glass, plastic, using low energy consumption instruments, decreasing electricity consumption, minimizing the use of chemical products, reducing the use of hazardous materials, etc." The Director of Laboratories at CSJ, Sarah Pelletier enumerates.
When examining the application of CSJ, the Office of Sustainability highlighted that the chemistry labs stood out from the lot because of their active use of green techniques including the removal of dichloromethane in the teaching laboratories, or the use of carbon dioxide as environmental extraction technique.
The Office of Sustainability has also recommended the low cost innovative design put in place at CSJ to recycle the water used to cool down chemical reactions. This system works with gravity and connects four stations. Thanks to a pump, the water used returns to the initial tank and is reused. "Before installing this recycling system, we used to waste thousands of litres of water a year," says Sarah Pelletier, estimating the waste at 7200 litres of water per year.
Mrs. Pelletier wishes to acknowledge her collaborators- Babooram Vima, Acting Director of laboratories in 2015; Manon Lepage, coordinator of laboratories; Mariana Borja, Chemistry lab technician; Micheline Forgues, Biology lab technician; and Alex Schoeddert, student- who through their work, the laboratories became certified.