Update: Sept 1, 2015: After tons of emails, tweets and even a song, we narrowed it down to the top 9 (cuz 9 is more efficient than 10). Vote for your favourite pre-weekend message name to turn off lights & computers! Poll open till Sept 14th.

Convenient Factoid #1: According to your government and my tenuous grasp of statistics, the “average” Canadian should consume around 2,300 calories of nourishment per day (technically kilocalories, but who wants to be told that they need to eat 2.3 million calories?).

Convenient Factoid #2: The “average” disk of fried dough and sugar at a much beloved purveyor of such goods, caffeinated beverages and other edibles contains around 247 calories (aka 247 kcal) of nourishment.  Use of statistics is still tenuous.

donut

Convenient Factoid #3: A fluorescent tube, laptop and computer monitor not set to power saving mode and left on unnecessarily all weekend wastes around nine kilowatt-hours (aka kWh for those who like acronyms).
Convenient Factoid #4: Energy is energy is energy, be it described in kilowatt-hours, kilocalories, gigajoules or good ol’ fashioned British Thermal Units.

“Logical” Conclusion #1: The “average” person could consume enough British Thermal Units of nourishment per day by eating something like nine disks of fried dough and sugar (Editors comment: please note that the Editorial Board at Talkin’ Trash does not advise, endorse, recommend, suggest or opine eating nothing but donuts all day; a well-balanced diet following Canada’s Food Guide is the way to go.  And apologies to our friends at UHN Wellness).

“Logical” Conclusion #2:  Leaving an “average” laptop, computer monitor and a single fluorescent tube on over the weekend is like throwing away more than two-dozen disks of fried dough and sugar, each and every weekend.

“Logical” Conclusion #3: If all the “average” UHNers, not to imply that anyone working at UHN is anything less than above average, leave a laptop, monitor and a single fluorescent tube on over weekends for an entire year, it’s like throwing away enough gigajoules to feed an “average” Canadian for almost 600 days…that’s three breakfasts, three lunches, three dinners and all of the balanced snackables in between tossed into the compost for almost two years!

And now that you’re hopefully hungry to save energy (and perhaps have a snackable), I’m proud to present…

UHN’s Great #NameMyTLC Contest

You’ve probably (hopefully) seen a couple of emails reminding UHNers to turn-off lights, computers and other equipment that doesn’t need to be on before heading home from the weekend.  Well, those reminders are working, so we want to give them a proper name…and we’re asking you, the decidedly unaverage UHN turner-offers of stuff, to help us come up with a catchy moniker.  It has to be catchy, it has to be family friendly (Editor’s comment: please note that “Flick Off Fridays”, and other suggestions of that ilk, have already been ixnayed by the Talkin’ Trash Editorial Board) and it has to work up people’s appetite for saving energy.

So, if you’re part of the UHN community (aka you work, research, study or volunteer at UHN…sorry rest of world) email us or reach out via the Twitter (@UHNTalkinTrash #NameMyTLC) by end of day, Monday August 31 for your chance to name UHN’s latest energy saving campaign and win an amazing power saving device.

snackably yours,

-ed