View Full Version : The MYADSL green thread
Well, besides myself there are at least a couple of other greenies on this forum (you know who you are), so I thought that it'd be a good idea to start a thread about all things environmental, and maybe spread the word to some of our less enlightened ( :p ) forumite friends.
So to start off, I'd like to post about the fridge that uses only 0.1kWh of electricity per day - that's the same as a 100W light bulb running for an hour. This guy's (http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/Conservation/chest_fridge.pdf) taken a chest freezer (makes more sense coz the cold air doesn't escape a chest freezer when you open it) and attached an external thermostat that keeps the contents at fridge (rather than freezer) temperature. The result is a fridge that only runs for 90 seconds out of every hour.
And here's one of my own stories (not exactly rocket science either) - have less kids, **** up the world less (http://www.greencars.za.net/?p=62).
dablakmark8
18-07-2007, 07:09 PM
when i read the thread heading i thought you ment like green thumbs green fingers,gardeners....my bad. is smoking weed environmentally friendlier that cigs
when i read the thread heading i thought you ment like green thumbs green fingers,gardeners....my bad. is smoking weed environmentally friendlier that cigs
Probably. Not much weed is grown in large-scale agriculture with pesticides etc.
Random717
18-07-2007, 07:42 PM
how much more electricity do normal fridges use?
Boodles
18-07-2007, 08:08 PM
Apparently you can be 'greener' by using a dishwasher, rather than washing dishes by hand.
Go figure that one. lol
I was trying to figure out if my sig contributed towards a greener lifestyle........ maybe, kinda, sorta... naaa
how much more electricity do normal fridges use?
A normal fridge uses about 0.4 kWh (http://www.helsinginenergia.fi/en/sahko/consumption_figures.html), so this one is 4 times as efficient.
Boodles
18-07-2007, 08:15 PM
You can also contribute to a greener lifestyle by drinking green food colouring.:D
The end result of that is greener sewerage which contributes to a greener.... um...... where does sewerage end up?
Paulr
18-07-2007, 08:27 PM
My pool is green, does that count? :D
PS - sorry - very off topic....
PostmanPot
18-07-2007, 09:26 PM
What do you guys think about the removal of pine plantations in the Cape?
Not sure if there are any hiker-nature lovers here? :D
Boodles
18-07-2007, 10:57 PM
Keep all your vege peelings and throw into garden/composte heap.
You'll be surprised how much less rubbish you throw out when you recycle stuff.
My little garden's a but small for a compost heap, which is why I'm gonna get one of these:
http://www.fullcycle.co.za/?viewproduct=7&vs=
Worm power!!11!
My little garden's a but small for a compost heap, which is why I'm gonna get one of these:
http://www.fullcycle.co.za/?viewproduct=7&vs=
Worm power!!11!Better to use those than to haphazardly throw bio-waste into one's garden - think of the potential rodent population explosion and resulting health issues.
antowan
19-07-2007, 08:34 AM
Brilliant thread! Nice one!
Tassidar
19-07-2007, 09:04 AM
Better to use those than to haphazardly throw bio-waste into one's garden - think of the potential rodent population explosion and resulting health issues.
Vegetable matter is OK. I have a compost heap in my garden and it causes no problems - just don't throw meat onto it.
If there is a corresponding increase in the rodent population, my cats will be very happy.
Tassidar
19-07-2007, 09:06 AM
Here's some advice:
Take public transport. For the most part, I take the train to work everyday. Until yesterday didn't drive my car for almost two weeks (I had to recharge the battery before it would work).
(DmZ)Wrecky
19-07-2007, 09:09 AM
I don't mow my lawn, hopefully this produces more O2.
Use those energy saver lightbulbs.
Tassidar
19-07-2007, 11:13 AM
Switch the temperature of your geyser down / install insulation around the geyser.
For a whole bunch of ways that you can make your life more energy efficient and less harmful to the planet, check out this article (http://www.urbansprout.co.za/global_warming_what_are_we_doing_about_it) by Urban Sprout. Urban Sprout is an excellent South African environmental blog, BTW.
For green driving tips, you can check out the "Making a difference" section of my blog :p
Also, a very very good general environmental site is Treehugger (http://www.treehugger.com/), and an awesome green tech site is EcoGeek (http://www.ecogeek.org/).
LoneGunman
19-07-2007, 03:20 PM
There's two sets of documentaries that forumites might find useful, and which can be found on the usual torrent sites.
One is a Panorama doccie about a family going seriously green for a year. Called
'Panorama - Go Green or Else (2007)'
The other, more indepth one, is a 7 part doccie about a Brit family moving into a home out in Cornwall, and rigging up their own electricity sources, veggies and animals - its called 'It's Not Easy Being Green'..
While we're at it, there's a couple of Panorama documentaries of interest-
on the growing worries over the cancer-causing properties of wi-fi 'Panorama - WiFi - A Warning Signal'
and another on TV itself - which is worth seeing if you have kids, called 'Is TV good for my kids?'
hope these help demonstrate that Green living is both (eventually) a cheaper and saner lifestyle, but a little tough at first, compared to the usual 'use up everything' approach, that SA is still operating with.
I'd also recommend Penn and Teller's Bullsh*t episode dealing with Recycling, to get a tough look at this concept..
One more news item, July 18th, dealing with something I noticed a lot in SA. Homes near industrial level power lines. This causes a variety of cancers, mostly in children - something that's been known in Europe for some time - and has now reached the point of official legal action to prevent new homes from being built near them.
See "Ban new homes near power lines, say MPs"
http://society.guardian.co.uk/health/story/0%2C%2C2128743%2C00.html
Note the mention that there's been a link found between childhood leukemia and powerlines. "The study found that those within 200 metres of power lines had a 70% increase in their chance of developing leukaemia, compared with children living more than 600 metres from a power line."
BobbyMac
19-07-2007, 04:47 PM
Apparently you can be 'greener' by using a dishwasher, rather than washing dishes by hand.
Go figure that one. lol
I was trying to figure out if my sig contributed towards a greener lifestyle........ maybe, kinda, sorta... naaa
The reasoning is simple:
A dishwasher uses only a few litres of water (mine using 17 litres per wash)
A dishwasher heats its own water, meaning you don't use water from your geyser (which eats electricity like there's no tomorrow)
A dishwasher uses less detergent, meaning less energy is spent creating detergents and packaging
BobbyMac
19-07-2007, 04:52 PM
I'm about to import Solar Roof Tiles (going through the SABS soon to get the all clear to sell them as well) - One of the complexes we're going to be building somewhere in Jozi will be using these tiles. According to our calculations the entire complex (48 townhouse units) will be entirely independent of Escom power.
I'm also investigating the possibility of manufacturing these tiles locally.
Boodles
19-07-2007, 06:20 PM
BobbyMac - 17 litres is a lot water
Your sink would only use maybe, 5 litres or so
Now, with your geyser set at 55 or 60 its not a big drain on resources. You mentioned that the dishwasher heats its own water, is it more energy efficient than heating the 5 litres for your sink?
And lastly, some dishwasher packaging consists of a box, then it contains 'tablets' of which each are individually packed in plastic. whereras the plastic squeeze thing for sink washing is just plastic.
Boodles
19-07-2007, 06:22 PM
I'm about to import Solar Roof Tiles (going through the SABS soon to get the all clear to sell them as well) - One of the complexes we're going to be building somewhere in Jozi will be using these tiles. According to our calculations the entire complex (48 townhouse units) will be entirely independent of Escom power.
I'm also investigating the possibility of manufacturing these tiles locally.
What about those dudes in Jozi, that won some innovation award for their solar panels (1 year ago or so) which are much more energy efficeient.
Do you know anything about that?
BobbyMac
19-07-2007, 06:31 PM
BobbyMac - 17 litres is a lot waterTake seventeen liters of water and see how many times you fill your sink with it.
Your sink would only use maybe, 5 litres or so
Mine holds 16L
Now, with your geyser set at 55 or 60 its not a big drain on resources. You mentioned that the dishwasher heats its own water, is it more energy efficient than heating the 5 litres for your sink?This is how a geyser works: It keeps the temperature of a lot of water (small geysers are 100 Literes, average geysers are around 150 Liters) at a constant temperature. Now, when you open your hot water tap, you run it until you get hot water. Then you run the hot water - say you use around 10 Liters here (I promise you use more) - that means the geyser is topped up with 10 liters of cold water, now instead of just heating up 10 Liters, it's heating up 100 or 150 Liters to get the temperature back up again. It may not seem much, but this constant keeping the temperature of your geyser at X degrees is what eats electricity.
A dishwasher, however, works differently, because in effect it only heats the water it uses - and it doesn't actually heat all of it either as it uses cold water (included in the 17 Liters in mine) for the rinse cycles
And lastly, some dishwasher packaging consists of a box, then it contains 'tablets' of which each are individually packed in plastic. whereras the plastic squeeze thing for sink washing is just plastic.I use that exact product, cardboard is recyclable, and the "plastic" wrapper it comes in is made from recycled plastic.
BobbyMac
19-07-2007, 06:34 PM
What about those dudes in Jozi, that won some innovation award for their solar panels (1 year ago or so) which are much more energy efficeient.
Do you know anything about that?
I know about them. Have tried to set up meetings with them but to no avail. I'm hoping to still be able to have a chat with them. I've also been thinking of making a bursary available to some smart engineering students to do some research into it for us.
My little garden's a but small for a compost heap, which is why I'm gonna get one of these:
http://www.fullcycle.co.za/?viewproduct=7&vs=
Worm power!!11!
I've got one!
The people distributing them are friends of mine, and live in Noordhoek.
They're just... impossibly green :)
LoneGunman
19-07-2007, 07:02 PM
re solar panels, given SA's sunshine levels - there's no reason why a onetime investment in a batch of solar panels for your roof, can't result in you ending up paying nothing for electricity.
No wonder there's not a lot of info freely available in the SA Media. The last thing any corporations want, is for people to 'go off the grid' and not have to pay anything for their daily/monthly/yearly electricity.
BobbyMac
19-07-2007, 07:05 PM
re solar panels, given SA's sunshine levels - there's no reason why a onetime investment in a batch of solar panels for your roof, can't result in you ending up paying nothing for electricity.
No wonder there's not a lot of info freely available in the SA Media. The last thing any corporations want, is for people to 'go off the grid' and not have to pay anything for their daily/monthly/yearly electricity.Yeah, we've been fighting with Joburg City Council to get the go ahead for the roof tiles.
LoneGunman
19-07-2007, 07:10 PM
well then if they're being cnuts (sp?) - then mebbe put the tiles in the garden or something, so one doesn't have to ask their permission? Or perhaps mounted on any walls of the house that get sun consistently all day. Worst case, divvy panels into 'morning sun collection' and 'afternoon sun collection' points?
Placed high up enough in consistent sun, it perhaps bypasses the need to ask anyone for 'permission'. One doesn't need to ask for permission for TV antennae or dishes mounted on walls, I'd guess the same is true for panels, located high up on vertical walls?
BobbyMac
19-07-2007, 07:15 PM
well then if they're being cnuts (sp?) - then mebbe put the tiles in the garden or something, so one doesn't have to ask their permission? Or perhaps mounted on any walls of the house that get sun consistently all day. Worst case, divvy panels into 'morning sun collection' and 'afternoon sun collection' points?
Placed high up enough in consistent sun, it perhaps bypasses the need to ask anyone for 'permission'. One doesn't need to ask for permission for TV antennae or dishes mounted on walls, I'd guess the same is true for panels, located high up on vertical walls?
If we can get the SABS approval on the product sorted then we won't have a problem it seems. But yeah, if we can't do that then we'll do other things.
Lycanthrope
19-07-2007, 07:59 PM
Awesome thread!!! I feel like investing in a dishwasher now >.> DAMN YOU PEOPLE! :p
A brief bit of info on solar (although I'm no expert, I've done a bit of reading). To calculate how many panels you need, you need to factor in 2 things:
1) The amount of power that the devices you connect to the panel will consume.
2) The insolation in your area. Simply put, insolation is the amount of energy a given geographic location receives per square metre from the sun. Most of South Africa has high annual insolation averages of 5-6 kWh/m² per day.
So, let's assume that you're going to run 4 40W light bulbs for 10 hours a day (or if you're smart, 14 11W CFL light bulbs for 10 hours :p ) off your solar system. That will use 1.6kWh of electricity per day.
The catch is that most silicon solar panels have an efficiency of about 16%, which means that they're only able to convert about 16% of the sun's energy that hits the panel into electricity. So in Joburg, where the average insolation is 5kWh/m²/day you'll capture 16% of that from a 1m² panel. This translates to 0.8kWh/day from that panel.
So to run your 4 40W bulbs for 10 hours a day in Joburg, you'd need 2m² of panels.
The average 4 person South African family uses about 1000kWh of electricity a month. To run such a household on solar alone would require about 40m² of panels. Of course, you'd be stupid not to use a basic solar water heater to heat your water, which would save you about 400kWh a month just on water heating. Using gas stoves, CFL bulbs etc. could bring your electrical requirements down even more... but you still need a lot of solar panels to run a household.
LoneGunman
19-07-2007, 08:59 PM
re "but you still need a lot of solar panels to run a household."
It doesn't offset the truth that, with enough solar panels, bought for a onetime payment,
one can end up reaching a point of paying NOTHING for electricity.
What does the average busy household pay each month/year in total, for electricity?
Take that figure over say 5 years. It becomes an insanely high figure as time goes by.
Whereas with some online research, and judicious buying of components - you have a
few one-time payments and then gradually,
no more money disappearing on electricity.
The solar panels eventually pay for themselves.
Whereas continuing to pay for electricity, means you gain nothing in the long term.
BTW. I noticed a cute looking bag on display somewhere here in the US, with a couple of solar
panels on it, designed to recharge ones cellphone.. will see if I can find a link..
EDIT:
Look at the BAG WITH SOLAR PANELS http://www.voltaicsystems.com/
and how about SOLAR POWERED LUGGAGE: http://www.radtech.us/Products/Voltaic.aspx
and then there's JUICE BAGS, FOLDABLE PANELS ETC http://www.rewarestore.com/product.html
I'll do my bit for the environment too
I hereby promise to start strangling hippies instead of shooting them :D
I'll do my bit for the environment too
I hereby promise to start strangling hippies instead of shooting them :D
Wuss. :o
You shot them *spit*
We must have a "MYADSL enviroment day get together" (http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php?t=70423)
Obviously I won't be attending but be sure to post the pics in the photo section ;)
:D
re "but you still need a lot of solar panels to run a household."
It doesn't offset the truth that, with enough solar panels, bought for a onetime payment,
one can end up reaching a point of paying NOTHING for electricity.
What does the average busy household pay each month/year in total, for electricity?
Take that figure over say 5 years. It becomes an insanely high figure as time goes by.
Whereas with some online research, and judicious buying of components - you have a
few one-time payments and then gradually,
no more money disappearing on electricity.
The solar panels eventually pay for themselves.
Whereas continuing to pay for electricity, means you gain nothing in the long term.
Noted, LG... still the cost of entry is rather prohibitive. I was quoted R700k to solar power my house. This (http://www.autobloggreen.com/2007/07/18/new-solar-cell-technology-is-less-efficient-but-more-cost-effect/) looks like it may drastically reduce hte cost of solar though. Plastic panels....
They're only about 6% efficient atm, but the developers are hoping to get to 10% efficiency soon. Even so, their cost per kW generated is much much lower than traditional panels.
LoneGunman
19-07-2007, 11:12 PM
Given the topic, it's useful to note what the M&G is saying
"SA to say goodbye to cheap electricity
South Africans will soon say goodbye to cheap electricity, Eskom said in its 2007 annual report released on Thursday.
"The cheap-electricity era is coming to an end, here and in all other markets," chairperson Valli Moosa warned in his message..."
http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=314452&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__business/
bwana
19-07-2007, 11:32 PM
So how many of you greenies recycle? Cans, bottles, paper, etc . . . :)
BobbyMac
19-07-2007, 11:58 PM
I'm not going to divulge the cost of the solar panel roof tiles we're looking to import, but it is only slightly more expensive than a standard roof of a house. We've been to have a look at a few similar projects in California, and what we saw convinced us that it is viable here. Bluecollar, though the cost is prohibitive with an existing house, we're building it in from the start. The tiles themselves are solar panels. Energy efficiency using this method is proven to work (in California the projects are generating enough electricity to sell back to the national grid).
The average square meters for the complex will equate to roughly 180 square meters - that's a surface area of 180 square meters of solar roof tile :) So there's certainly no shortage of power to capture.
I don't really want to divulge too much more at this point as we are trying hard to get the product into South Africa and possibly even look at manufacturing it here, but I believe it's probably even more viable in SA, especially considering that South Africa enjoys pretty much year round sun for the most part.
LoneGunman
20-07-2007, 05:45 AM
re recycling - I can do no better than refer folks to Penn and Teller's excellent program on
Recycling, in their 'Bullsh*t' series.
All recycling does is make people 'feel good'. It generally doesn't reduce the cost of items,
and actually usually uses up MORE resources, to recycle objects and products.
(It's a physics thing. Like people who propose that hydrogen fuel cars are somehow
'better' than fossil fuel cars. They forget that it takes fossil fuels to get the hydrogen
in a suitable state to be placed in the car in the first place.
All it does is hide the still increasing energy loss from the consumer. Second Law of
Thermodynamics - in essence, all energy goes from usable, to unusable.
So using extra energy to create hydrogen fuel cells to supposedly decrease fossil
fuels, will and is still causing a loss of fossil fuels. A loss of finite fossil fuels.
In the same way, 'recycling' causes an increase in garbage, as well as requires more
humans to sort and organize the various items, before expending even MORE fossil fuel
to take them to one or another bright spark's clever 'recycling plant' dedicated to
retrieving ingredients to use in other new products.
Technically, the sanest thing to do to slow down the overall energy loss, is to dig a
deep hole, and throw the garbage away. Put no new steps in place, which require
and cause more transport vehicles to be needed, more machines to be needed, more
factories to be built, more humans to run the various 'recycling' machines (and thus
more fuel needed to get the new staff to and from work) - you see what I mean?
In order to 're-use' again an already finite quantity of energy that's been used up
once, requires far more energy INPUT to achieve - and if anything, the energy
wastage and loss increases exponentially, the more bright spark ideas are created,
to 're-use' products and objects.
All of that said, I'm a BIG fan of solar power, and hydroelectric power - both requiring a onetime
'energy loss' (of finances) followed by ultimately, a genuinely self sustaining and useful contributor
to citizens. Being 'green' doesn't mean you need to be a hippie, or live by candle light, or forgo any of
the cool stuff of the 21st century.
SA has huge quantities of free energy, pouring down all day every day, for most of the year. So good luck
to those looking to come up with a simple way to grab that energy and harness it for everyone. Hope BobbyMac
gets it off the ground, one way or the other. Gonna probably have to fight the ruling vested interests in a big way,
to get it done.
Hm.... there's a very sexy new eBike on the market. /me is very tempted indeed to get one.
http://www.greencars.za.net/?p=65
LoneGunman
20-07-2007, 03:23 PM
More useful fun Green news. Especially for those lucky folks in the Cape living near nuclear reactors. :
"Childhood leukaemia rates 'higher near nuclear plants'
SIMON BAKER
RATES of leukaemia are higher in children and young people living near nuclear plants, a review of several studies has concluded.
Death rates for children aged nine and under were up to 24 per cent higher, depending on how near they lived to nuclear facilities, the report said.."
http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=1122522007
Xarog
22-07-2007, 02:24 AM
So how many of you greenies recycle? Cans, bottles, paper, etc . . . :)
I recycle my greenies (snot), does that count? :D :p
re recycling - I can do no better than refer folks to Penn and Teller's excellent program on
Recycling, in their 'Bullsh*t' series.
Oh, no no no.
All recycling does is make people 'feel good'. It generally doesn't reduce the cost of items,
and actually usually uses up MORE resources, to recycle objects and products.
It may cost more energy, but it cannot cost more natural resources.
(It's a physics thing. Like people who propose that hydrogen fuel cars are somehow 'better' than fossil fuel cars. They forget that it takes fossil fuels to get the hydrogen in a suitable state to be placed in the car in the first place.
That doesn't matter. How much energy are we getting from the sun at any given moment? Almost All non-nuclear energy can basically be traced back to energy from the sun that has been stored in various forms. The only other exception is geothermal vents, which to my knowledge, we aren't using yet.
The real question is, in using that energy, what changes are we causing to the the earth? It may indeed be more expensive, energy wise, to drive around in hydrogen cars, but on the other hand, not reversing 60 million years or so of carbon storage seems like a good thing to me.
All it does is hide the still increasing energy loss from the consumer. Second Law of Thermodynamics - in essence, all energy goes from usable, to unusable.
Yeah, and when the sun finally starts to die out, we may have to start worrying about that on a practical level.
So using extra energy to create hydrogen fuel cells to supposedly decrease fossil fuels, will and is still causing a loss of fossil fuels. A loss of finite fossil fuels.
Only if fossil fuels are being used in the creation of the hydrogen cells. I think you misunderstand the Second Law. It's talking about entropy, which is a general force in the universe. Entropy is not some magical effect that causes fossil fuels to evaporate into nothingness - it refers only to the fact that it's nearly impossible to capture all the energy when an exothermic reaction occurs.
In the same way, 'recycling' causes an increase in garbage, as well as requires more humans to sort and organize the various items, before expending even MORE fossil fuel to take them to one or another bright spark's clever 'recycling plant' dedicated to retrieving ingredients to use in other new products.
We have a practically unlimited source of energy (the sun). Our natural resources, on the other hand, are definately very limited by comparison. Priority should be given to preserving our natural resources.
Technically, the sanest thing to do to slow down the overall energy loss, is to dig a deep hole, and throw the garbage away. Put no new steps in place, which require and cause more transport vehicles to be needed, more machines to be needed, more factories to be built, more humans to run the various 'recycling' machines (and thus more fuel needed to get the new staff to and from work) - you see what I mean?
To quote P&T : Bull*****
Energy loss is irrelevant. If you can prove, on the other hand, that entropy applies to recycling goods in the form of an overall loss of materials, though, you may have a point.
In order to 're-use' again an already finite quantity of energy that's been used up once, requires far more energy INPUT to achieve
It's not about energy, it's about preserving natural resources.
- and if anything, the energy wastage and loss increases exponentially, the more bright spark ideas are created, to 're-use' products and objects.
Thank [insert deity of choice] we have a nice Sun in our neighbourhood, huh?
All of that said, I'm a BIG fan of solar power, and hydroelectric power - both requiring a onetime 'energy loss' (of finances) followed by ultimately, a genuinely self sustaining and useful contributor to citizens. Being 'green' doesn't mean you need to be a hippie, or live by candle light, or forgo any of the cool stuff of the 21st century.
Finally, something we can agree on (more or less). :)
SA has huge quantities of free energy, pouring down all day every day, for most of the year. So good luck to those looking to come up with a simple way to grab that energy and harness it for everyone. Hope BobbyMac gets it off the ground, one way or the other. Gonna probably have to fight the ruling vested interests in a big way, to get it done.
Yup.
Here's a nifty idea. Pee-cycling. (http://www.energyconversation.org/cms/node/393)
Ok, this is pretty much still vapor, but if we could start seeing these in the next few years, it would be mega-awesome.
Maglev Wind Turbines (http://magturbine.com/index.html)
BobbyMac
31-07-2007, 10:18 AM
Two graduate students at MIT's School of Architecture and Planning want to harvest the energy of human movement in urban settings, like commuters in a train station or fans at a concert.
The so-called "Crowd Farm," as envisioned by James Graham and Thaddeus Jusczyk, both M.Arch candidates, would turn the mechanical energy of people walking or jumping into a source of electricity. Their proposal took first place in the Japan-based Holcim Foundation's Sustainable Construction competition this year.
A Crowd Farm in Boston's South Station railway terminal would work like this: A responsive sub-flooring system made up of blocks that depress slightly under the force of human steps would be installed beneath the station's main lobby. The slippage of the blocks against one another as people walked would generate power through the principle of the dynamo, a device that converts the energy of motion into that of an electric current.http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/crowdfarm-0725.html
Praeses
01-08-2007, 08:11 AM
42.8% solar cell efficiency (http://news.com.com/8301-10784_3-9752692-7.html)
Me wants!
Debbie
01-08-2007, 02:34 PM
http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=315347&area=/insight/insight__economy__business/
South Africans have a bad reputation when it comes to recycling their waste. We produce 566-million tonnes of waste a year and more than 90% of South Africa’s waste is disposed of in landfill sites. Each household in South Africa generates about one tonne of waste a year.
Interestingly, South Africa recycles about 18% of the virgin plastic it uses, most of which is recovered from post-consumer waste.
But while many shopping centres have igloos for glass collection, and some supermarkets supply bins for collection of plastic shopping bags, it is not always easy to lug your recyclables in your boot to the nearest drop-off point.
That is why Justin Needham, founder of Resolution Recycling, decided to start a door-to-door recycling service.
Fresh from university, Needham was struggling to find a job when one day he realised that, apart from paper companies, almost no company was offering a residential service to collect recyclable waste. Now, at R30 a month, Jozi citizens can have a clearer environmental conscience.
“Locally the recycling industry is tiny,” said Needham. “While there are many drop-off bins where people can take their glass or tins, there are almost no companies that come and collect at your doorstep.”
In South Africa, paper is almost the only recyclable waste that is picked up from residential curbs, most notably by the paper company Mondi. Its Kerbside Paper Pick-Up collection service operates throughout the country and regularly collects unwanted magazines, newspapers and cardboard direct from homes for free.
In Cape Town another company, Oasis Recycling, provides a free collection service for 100 businesses, retrieving all recyclable material, as well as offering a service for the shredding of confidential documents. While it is looking to expand to residential areas, it is still organising its business ventures. At the moment it only offers a domestic drop-off service through a drive-in depot at its Claremont workshop.
About 1 500 families support the project monthly.
Needham believes the local market has a lot of potential and with people becoming more aware of how important recycling is, Resolution Recycling can only expand.
“I have found a niche,” he said. “No one is going door to door in residential areas to pick up recyclables.”
Resolution Recycling charges an annual collection and administration fee. It collects waste every two weeks and during a calendar year there are 26 collections. When a household subscribes to the service, it has to buy a special bin.
“The bin has been tailored to suit the recycling needs of a home through separating the paper and cartridge waste from the glass, plastic and tin waste, while keeping it all in the same bin,” said Needham. “This makes it convenient and hassle-free for the home owner.”
At townhouse complexes, apartments and flats that subscribe to the service the company performs an on-site assessment, advises on the best possible collection option and the best way of implementing it.
Needham started collecting Jo’burg citizens’ recyclable waste about seven months ago. He started out with 50 subscribers last December, but this has since grown to 1 100.
His biggest client base is found in the northern suburbs of Johannesburg, as was apparent from the large pile of award-winning red wine bottles in the glass container of the sorting site in Jeppestown, and the large amount of Woolworths milk cartons.
The company services all of Johannesburg, the East Rand and even some parts of Midrand and is getting ready to extend its operations to Centurion and Pretoria. Currently it has about three vehicles that do the collections, but another vehicle is on order. It also employs 22 permanent staff members and 35 on a rotational basis.
Needham has done no marketing -- his business has grown by word of mouth and through an email that has been doing the rounds, explaining what the service is about.
The company collects paper and cardboard, plastic, metal, glass, printer toners and inks, as well as e-waste and batteries. But Needham admits that the company’s expected turnover of R5-million a year is not generated by the R30 subscriber fee.
“We make our money mostly through reselling recyclable products,” he said. Paper is the most lucrative and also the easiest material to work with.
“The industry is run on weight and what suppliers need,” said Needham.
Paper fetches R1,30 a kilogram, but there is such an abundance of paper that it makes up the bulk of Needham’s business. Aluminium fetches a higher price at R4 a kilogram, but is harder to come by. Glass is by far the cheapest, fetching only about 30c for a kilogram, while soft plastics, particularly clear plastics, receive R2,20 a kilogram.
Needham said it took a while to start making money because he needed to invest in the right infrastructure, but that the company is now making a healthy profit.
As the business grows, he has not ruled out the prospect of the subscriber fee falling away. He is confident that, at the very least, this fee will drop as more people subscribe to the service.
“Recycling will become a cost of living,” he said.
Well, the Zonbu (http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/842/)'s been released.
Finally, after all the talk and speculation, the world has its first zero-emissions personal computer. We've been blogging about it for a while now, and I think it's safe to say that the Zonbu really is a fantastic idea. The machine runs on a Linux platform and contains no moving parts (not even a fan.) A four gig flash card is its only on-board memory.
But still, the 1.2 gigahertz processor and 512 meg of RAM are plenty to let this machine do everything you need to do. It can play music, movies, check email, and comes with the Open Office Suite. Really, 90% of users don't need anything more than this, and it consumes six times less power than a standard light bulb. Plus, it's the cheapest new PC I've ever seen, at $250 dollars.
Of course, there's a catch. In order to have any considerable storage space at all, you have to subscribe to the Zonbox service. This service provides you with free, seamless software and firmware updates, up to 100 gigs of storage space, and carbon offsets for your Zonbu usage. If you pay for two years in advance, the price of the unit goes down to $99. The cheapest plan (for 25 gigs of storage) is $12.95. But if you're switching from an older PC, you could literally save that much off your utility bill.
Handing over things like storage and maintenance to a remote location is useful for several reasons. First, you don't have to worry about hard drive crashes and data loss. Second, by consolidating information in data centers, information can be stored more cheaply and efficiently. The result is a computing experience that is simpler and cheaper for the user, and more sensitive to the environment.
Oh, and if you need one more reason, the look of the Zonbu is also completely customizable. Choose from one of a twenty skins, or upload and choose your own!
The only thing that remains to be seen: will anyone be willing to pay a subscription for their computer the same way they pay a subscription for their cell phones. Only time will tell.
Pity it wouldn't really work here in SA coz of our ****ty Internet.
drerieant
06-08-2007, 03:25 PM
Global Warming has been a hot topic in the news of late.
I just feel that there are some things that need to be said about our use of natural resources. Firstly, until 90% of the adult world wide population are properly educated we will always have a shortage of resources. An idiot will always waste. With our current population growth rate we will run out off resources soon, maybe not in my lifetime but its going to get very bad in my childrens lifetime.
We need to start looking elsewhere. The universe is a big place, there are lots of resources out there and manufacturing space thats literaly endless.
There people looking for their own space, a place to call home where no one else tells you what you can and can't do.
There are international organisations and standards inplace.
We have the technology even though it is in the hands of corporations who would hold it back for financial benefit.
We can't all stay here for very much longer, we need to start moving out, we need to start building our factories off world, we need to start use in the resources availible to us in our soloar system and we need to start doing it as one speices, one planet, one race. Mankind, Humans, Earthlings, Terrans! That is who we are, and the universe is ours for the taking.
Lycanthrope
06-08-2007, 03:37 PM
I sense a StarCraft addict near >.>
*Gets the Zerg ready for an onslaught!*
Leitmotif
06-08-2007, 03:39 PM
All hail the imperium of man.
Seriously, if the zoo hypothesis is correct, our offworld colonies are going to get whacked as soon as they're up. No-one would want us spreading.
Praeses
06-08-2007, 03:43 PM
I sense a StarCraft addict near >.>
*Gets the Zerg ready for an onslaught!*
Zergling rush ftw.
Space is a tad too expensive and impractical currently and will only become practical if places like NASA get the required funding, of which the opposite currently is in effect; they had a budget-cut not too long ago if I'm not mistaken (probably due to war).
drerieant
06-08-2007, 04:17 PM
If we sit around and wait for NASA(L) to get their act together then mankind will rot on this rock. In the original space race they went the wrong way!
The Russians were packing their backs for Mars while the Americans where perfoming publicity stunts like hitting golf balls and driving around on their moon buggy!
Their are only two reasons to go to the moon:
1> Mine resouces
2> Astronomical Observations
Space Expolration and Industrialisation cannot be left up to GB and his cronies.
The only profitable way to do this is privately, if left up to government organisations it will always be expensive. Let them regulate the industry instead of being the industry.
Calif. farm town is nation's smoggiest (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/smog_town)
ARVIN, Calif. - Lying in a rich agricultural region dotted with vineyards and orange groves, this central California community seems an unlikely place for a dubious distinction: the most polluted air in America.
Hemmed in by mountains, Arvin is the final destination for pollutants from cities as far away as San Francisco Bay, and its wheezing residents are paying the price. Many of them complain that the air smells toxic.
"It's common for people here to say, 'I'm going to the beach so I can breathe,'" said Raji Brar, a councilwoman and member of the board that oversees the San Joaquin Valley's Air Pollution Control District.
Arvin has none of the smoke-belching factories or congested freeways of cities such as Los Angeles. In fact, it produces little pollution. But the pollutants that blow in from elsewhere get trapped by the mountains, causing airborne particles to coat homes and streets and blot out views of the nearby Tehachapi range on hot summer days.
Doctors and public officials say asthma and other respiratory problems are common among the 15,000 residents who live 20 miles southeast of Bakersfield. People complain of watery eyes, dry throats and inexplicable coughs, particularly in the summer, when temperatures can climb over 100 degrees and stay there for days.
Arvin's level of ozone, the primary component in smog, exceeded the amount considered acceptable by the EPA on an average of 73 days per year between 2004 and 2006. Second on the EPA's list was the Southern California town of Crestline, at 65 days. The San Francisco Bay Area averaged just four days over the same period.
"Sometimes you go outside and can hardly breathe," said Irma Garza, 48, who has lived here most of her life. "The worst part is in the summertime you can't send your kids outside to play."
Ground-level ozone is created when car exhaust and other noxious fumes are cooked by heat and sunlight. It can trigger asthma attacks, aggravate chronic lung diseases like emphysema and bronchitis and may even reduce the immune system's ability to fight respiratory infections, according to AIRNow.gov, a Web site developed by several agencies, including the EPA, that monitors ozone levels around the country.
A 2002 study in the British medical journal The Lancet found children who breathe polluted air are more likely to develop asthma, although that conclusion has been challenged by other researchers.
Specific asthma data for Arvin is not available, but surrounding Kern County has a childhood asthma rate that far exceeds state and nation averages, with 17.5 percent of children under the age of 18 suffering from the condition. The state average is 14.8 percent, the national average 12.2 percent, according to the California Department of Health Services.
Dr. Ronnie Pasiliao, who works at Arvin's community health center, said asthma and allergies are the primary conditions he treats.
Despite the health complaints, the valley's air-quality board voted in April to extend by 11 years the region's deadline to meet federal ozone standards, saying cleaning up the air by the previous target date of 2012 was not possible. Brar, the city council member, voted against that decision.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger criticized the move when the California Air Resources Board voted in June to approve the local board's extension. A few days later, he fired the board's chairman.
The EPA is now considering the extension.
Brar and other local officials say Arvin has been neglected by smog regulators because its residents are mostly poor, Hispanic farmworkers.
Seyed Sadredin, executive director of the valley air district, denied that and said he is trying to improve the board's efforts in the town.
"Everything we've done here is for Arvin," he said. "But unfortunately, Arvin will see progress later than any other area because that's where pollution flushes out of the valley."
In the meantime, residents make small adjustments to reduce their exposure to the dirty air.
Garza's son wears a mask when mowing the lawn. Mario Moreno, 19, who works at a local pizzeria, tries to stay indoors on hot days. He remembers feeling dazed and short of breath when outside for too long in the "nasty, muggy air."
Air conditioning is a luxury many residents cannot afford, said Amalia Leal, a family advocate with the local school district. Without the skills or resources to relocate, many families are trapped in Arvin.
But her advice to parents with chronically asthmatic children is simple.
"Move," she said. "If you love your child, move."
Ana Maria Corona is doing just that. After living in Arvin for four years and being hospitalized seven times for her asthma, she and her husband are looking for a new home in Arizona.
"It's not easy for us to leave this place," she said. "But what is my future here? What is the future of my children?"
Who would have thought California :eek::rolleyes: :D
I sympathize because PMB is not far off the most polluted place in S.A :sick:
vespax
10-08-2007, 03:08 PM
Ana Maria Corona is doing just that. After living in Arvin for four years and being hospitalized seven times for her asthma, she and her husband are looking for a new home in Arizona.
And theres a problem growing bigger.
Let's all move to a drought stricken metropolis!
5 years later she will be moving because there is no water in Arizona. :confused:
*Thought I would finally chime into this thread BC. ;)
http://www.dailytech.com/Blogger+finds+Y2K+bug+in+NASA+Climate+Data/article8383.htm
Years of bad data corrected; 1998 no longer the warmest year on record
My earlier column this week detailed the work of a volunteer team to assess problems with US temperature data used for climate modeling. One of these people is Steve McIntyre, who operates the site climateaudit.org. While inspecting historical temperature graphs, he noticed a strange discontinuity, or "jump" in many locations, all occurring around the time of January, 2000.
These graphs were created by NASA's Reto Ruedy and James Hansen (who shot to fame when he accused the administration of trying to censor his views on climate change). Hansen refused to provide McKintyre with the algorithm used to generate graph data, so McKintyre reverse-engineered it. The result appeared to be a Y2K bug in the handling of the raw data.
McKintyre notified the pair of the bug; Ruedy replied and acknowledged the problem as an "oversight" that would be fixed in the next data refresh.
NASA has now silently released corrected figures, and the changes are truly astounding. The warmest year on record is now 1934. 1998 (long trumpeted by the media as record-breaking) moves to second place. 1921 takes third. In fact, 5 of the 10 warmest years on record now all occur before World War II. Anthony Watts has put the new data in chart form, along with a more detailed summary of the events.
The effect of the correction on global temperatures is minor (some 1-2% less warming than originally thought), but the effect on the U.S. global warming propaganda machine could be huge.
Then again -- maybe not. I strongly suspect this story will receive little to no attention from the mainstream media.
Major 'oops' :o
For StrongTurd:
The Tesla's li-ion battery pack's just passed a host of U.N. safety tests (http://www.greencars.za.net/?p=73).
For StrongTurd:
The Tesla's li-ion battery pack's just passed a host of U.N. safety tests (http://www.greencars.za.net/?p=73).
You miss my post? :D
*perhaps I'm on his ignore list :o*
You're not on my ignore list. Your post was interesting, here's some more info on the story:
The revised list, from NASA, does indeed put 1934 as the warmest year -- in the lower 48 contiguous members of the United State of America.
But the warmest year globally remains 2005, followed by 1998, 2002 and 2003 and 2004. And the of the 12 hottest years on record, only one -- 1990 -- does not occur in the last 12 years. (Thank you Mount Pinatubo).
Link. (http://scienceblogs.com/islandofdoubt/2007/08/1934_warmest_year_on_record_1.php)
A while back somebody mentioned a study that claimed Hummers are greener than Priuses. I've spent some time writing an article that looks critically at this claim. You can find it here (http://www.greencars.za.net/?p=74).
Lycanthrope
17-08-2007, 04:48 PM
Well written and interesting, BlueCollar - as always :D *impressed*
Here's a very interesting article about recycling (http://www.economist.com/science/tq/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9249262) in The Economist.
Studies that look at the entire life cycle of a particular material can shed light on this question in a particular case, but WRAP decided to take a broader look. It asked the Technical University of Denmark and the Danish Topic Centre on Waste to conduct a review of 55 life-cycle analyses, all of which were selected because of their rigorous methodology. The researchers then looked at more than 200 scenarios, comparing the impact of recycling with that of burying or burning particular types of waste material. They found that in 83% of all scenarios that included recycling, it was indeed better for the environment.
Handy Tip #987
If you drink Coffee by the litre as i occasionally do on a daily basis :D and it isn't instant throw the used coffe granules into soil and mix - use for new or established plants.
It has a very high nitrogen content
This looks like some very interesting new (old?) battery technology. Firefly Energy has come up with new tech for the old style lead acid batteries (as seen in normal car batteries), that makes them batteries last longer (they are more resistant to corrosion and sulfation) they are able to endure many more charge cycles and they're lighter than old-style lead acid batteries. Apparently, they are now comparable to Li-Ion batteries, but at a fraction of the price.
Interesting. (http://www.fireflyenergy.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=25&Itemid=93)
Anita Roddick dies at age 64. (http://www.thestar.com/living/Shopping/article/255167)
RIP.
Here's an awesome recycling service for those of us in JHB (and other cities soon, apparently): Resolution Recycling (http://www.resolutionrecycling.co.za/house_about.asp).
elcome to Resolution Recycling. Landfill space is at a premium at the moment and the effects of global warming are becoming more and more real. Our service allows you, the individual to actively take part in looking after our environment. Our service reduces the volume of waste being land filled daily and helps to limit the effects of global warming. We as individuals are now able to take responsibility, do our bit and have a direct effect in caring for the environment we live in.
Resolution’s residential recycling is a door to door collection service for recyclable waste.
We collect all household recyclable waste: paper & cardboard, plastic, metal, glass, batteries and cartridges.
The bin we use is a 240 litre wheelie bin. It is blue and lime green. Inside it goes all your paper, cardboard, printer cartridges, batteries, plastic, glass and metal.
There is an annual charge of R360.00 Inc Vat for the service. This covers your standard collections as well as any additional collections you may need. We will place one Resolution Recycling bin at your home at no charge however should you need a second bin there will be a cost of R350.00 ex Vat. Payment needs to be received up front in order for the bin to be delivered.
Standard collection takes place every two weeks. There are a total of 26 collections in a year for the standard two week collection.
Our service is first and foremost an environmental initiative, but we also feel that we want to give something back. Thus Resolution Recycling has set up Green Aid. Green Aid is money generated by the collected waste which gets put back into communities through projects and helps institutions such as schools and charities.
To get involved all you need to do is fill in the registration form and send it back to us. Within two weeks we will drop off your bin, together with collection schedule, recycling poster and general information about the workings of the service. We look forward to recycling with you!
They offer a similar service for offices too.
New Zealand: 90% renewable energy by 2025 (http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/news/story;jsessionid=7B16EB67728F0C1C7FDD9AD72F573A2A? id=50075)
In a speech this week, New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clarke announced New Zealand's intention to commit to 90% renewable electricity by 2025, according to a press release issued by the New Zealand government.
The country already uses 70% renewable electricity, primarily hydro- and geothermal power and will continue to increase its use of renewables over the next 20 years.
Eventually, the Prime Minister would like to see the country carbon-neutral. “I have set out the challenge to our nation to become the first truly sustainable nation on earth…to dare to aspire to be carbon neutral," Prime Minister Clarke said.
The Prime Minister also gave a brief outline of further goals, which included a 2040 target of reducing by half per capita emissions from transport and widely introducing electric vehicles. She also stated the goal of achieving a net increase in forest area of 250,000 hectares (617,000 acres) by 2020.
“The long-term benefits of becoming a sustainable nation will spread beyond our national reputation and success in business to benefit all New Zealanders,” Prime Minister Clarke added.
Further announcements will be made in the coming weeks as the government releases the New Zealand Energy Strategy, the New Zealand Energy Efficiency and Conservation Strategy and the Transport Strategy Implementation Plan. Stay tuned.
They're sure setting a good example for the rest of us.
New Zealand: 90% renewable energy by 2025 (http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/news/story;jsessionid=7B16EB67728F0C1C7FDD9AD72F573A2A? id=50075)
They're sure setting a good example for the rest of us.
Good to see. :)
Update: NASA, James Hansen, and the Politicization of Science (http://www.dailytech.com/NASA+James+Hansen+and+the+Politicization+of+Scienc e/article9061.htm)
New issues swirl around controversial NASA branch
NASA's primary climate monitoring agency is the Goddard Institute of Space Studies. Operating out of a small office at Columbia University, GISS is run by Dr. James Hansen. Official NASA climate statements come through GISS ... which means they must get by Hansen. Many other scientists and agencies make climate predictions, but Hansen's top the list for scare factor, predicting consequences considerably more dire than his colleagues.
Hansen specializes in climate "modeling" -- attempting to predict future events based on computer simulations. In 1971, Hansen wrote his first climate model, which showed the world was about to experience severe global cooling. NASA colleagues used it to warn the world that immediate action was needed to prevent catastrophe.
Most research papers are rather dry reading, written to be as unemotional as possible. Not so with Hansen's reports, whose works scream alarmism even in their titles: "Climate Catastrophe," "Can We Defuse the Global Warming Time Bomb," and "The Threat to the Planet." Hansen was most recently in the news when an amateur blogger discovered an error in his climate data, a mistake Hansen later discounted as unimportant to the "big picture" of compelling public action on climate change.
But who is James Hansen? Is he an impartial researcher seeking scientific truth? Or a political activist with an axe to grind?
In 2006, Hansen accused the Bush Administration of attempting to censor him. The issue stemmed from an email sent by a 23-year old NASA public affairs intern. It warned Hansen over repeated violations of NASA's official press policy, which requires the agency be notified prior to interviews. Hansen claimed he was being "silenced," despite delivering over 1,400 interviews in recent years, including 15 the very month he made the claim. While he admits to violating the NASA press policy, Hansen states he had a "constitutional right" to grant interviews. Hansen then began a barrage of public appearances on TV, radio and in lecture halls decrying the politicization of climate science.
Turns out he was right. Science was being politicized. By him.
A report revealed just this week, shows the 'Open Society Institute' funded Hansen to the tune of $720,000, carefully orchestrating his entire media campaign. OSI, a political group which spent $74 million in 2006 to "shape public policy," is funded by billionaire George Soros, the largest backer of Kerry's 2004 Presidential Campaign. Soros, who once declared that "removing Bush from office was the "central focus" of his life, has also given tens of millions of dollars to MoveOn.Org and other political action groups.
Certainly Soros has a right to spend his own money. But NASA officials have a responsibility to accurate, unbiased, nonpartisan science. For Hansen to secretly receive a large check from Soros, then begin making unsubstantiated claims about administrative influence on climate science is more than suspicious -- it's a clear conflict of interest.
But the issues don't stop here. Hansen received an earlier $250,000 grant from the Heinz Foundation, an organization run by Kerry's wife, which he followed by publicly endorsing Kerry. Hansen also acted as a paid consultant to Gore during the making of his global-warming film, "An Inconvenient Truth," and even personally promoted the film during an NYC event.
After the the GISS data error was revealed, Hansen finally agreed to make public the method he uses to generate "official" temperature records from the actual readings. That process has been revealed to be thousands of lines of source code, containing hundreds of arbitrary "bias" adjustments to individual sites, tossing out many readings entirely, and raising (or lowering) the actual values for others, sometimes by several degrees. Many areas with weak or no rising temperature trends are therefore given, after adjustment, a much sharper trend. A full audit of the Hansen code is currently underway, but it seems clear that Hansen has more explaining to do.
George Deutsch, the NASA intern who resigned over the censorship fallout, said he was initially warned about Hansen when starting the job, "People said ... you gotta watch that guy. He is a loose cannon; he is kind of crazy. He is difficult to work with; he is an alarmist; he exaggerates.'"
Hansen's office did not return a request from DailyTech for an interview for this article.
Not so good to see :(
:D
Cameron proposes ban on plasma TVs in green package of reforms (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=480841&in_page_id=1770)
David Cameron took a gamble today by proposing that plasma TV screens be banned as part of a green package of reforms from his Tory party.
He also firmly committed the Conservatives to anti-pollution taxes on activities like motoring and air travel.
He immediately pledged that every penny raised would be balanced by tax cuts for families, such as lower stamp duty for households that go green.
But in a speech to the London School of Economics he made clear that the case for tax rises has already been won - and that the environment will be at the heart of future Conservative tax and economic policy.
"We will raise green taxes, and use the proceeds to reduce taxes elsewhere," Mr Cameron declared in a draft of his speech.
"That is the right direction for the environment and it's the right direction for our economy. It is the best way to deliver the green growth that must be our aim."
The Tory leader's remarks come days before the publication of his party's policy making commission on quality of life and the environment.
As revealed by the Mail's sister paper the Standard last month, it will propose higher tax on flights and VAT on aviation fuel, plus taxes on gas-guzzling cars.
Further leaks pointed to proposals to ban power-hungry plasma screen TVs, inefficient fridges and other household goods and to outlaw standby switches that lead to two per cent of the UK's electricity being wasted.
The proposals have fuelled tensions in the Tory ranks between environmentalists such as Zac Goldsmith - one of the report's authors - and traditionalists such as John Redwood whose rival economic policy report called for airport expansion.
Mr Cameron used his speech to argue that future economic debate should be dominated by finding ways to curb carbon emissions without harming growth and jobs.
Well-designed green taxes could have a "double benefit" of saving the planet and paying for tax cuts to boost jobs and investment.
Attacking Labour's record, he said: "By using green taxes as extra stealth taxes, Gordon Brown has given them a bad name.
"I'm determined that the Conservative approach will be different. With my government, any new green taxes will be replacement taxes, not new stealth taxes."
He did not endorse any proposals in this week's Quality of Life report, saying only that they would be "studied carefully".
The paper is expected to recommend a Happy Planet Index to replace traditional economic growth figures. And it will urge stricter regulation of supermarkets.
One idea is for parking taxes on giant out-of-town malls to match the expense of parking in traditional town centres.
Friends of the Earth director Tony Juniper welcomed the Tory plans as "positive and practical" adding: "UK carbon dioxide emissions have risen under Labour. A new approach is urgently needed."
What do you want me to say here, Alan? LCD > Plasma anyway.
Proof that organic food is healthier. (http://www.urbansprout.co.za/proof_that_organic_really_is_better)
A £12m four-year project... has been conducting a rather unique experiment. Growing side by side is organic and conventional produce that has allowed scientists to carry out rigorous tests on the alternative foods to answer the question: is buying organic actually better for you?
The study found that organic fruit and vegetables contained as much as 40% more antioxidants, which scientists believe can cut the risk of cancer and heart disease. They also had higher levels of beneficial minerals such as iron and zinc. The differences between organic and conventional produce are apparently so marked that organic produce would help to increase the nutrient intake of people not eating the recommended five portions a day of fruit and vegetables.
vespax
20-11-2007, 11:42 AM
Hooray! I knew my extra rand or two was worth it at the till. :)
Um, Milk.
I saw on NatGeo the other night that every person needs 10 trees to filter out all the carbon dioxide that you breath out, so yesterday i planted 11 avocado trees in my yard (i'm a big oke after all :D)
But now i'm thinking... In a couple of years we're going to be knee deep in avocados (start ordering now and beat the rush!) and you'll need a hard had to walk outside :D
vespax
22-11-2007, 10:11 AM
Hey Gru,
When your yard is too full of avocados, perhaps you can go this route:
Terrapass (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TerraPass)
No hardhat required. ;)
Hey Gru,
When your yard is too full of avocados, perhaps you can go this route:
Terrapass (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TerraPass)
No hardhat required. ;)
Hell no! That's why I own a genuwine husqvarna chainsaw!
Guaranteed to make hippie treehuggers cry, or your money back! :D
vespax
22-11-2007, 12:00 PM
Hell no! That's why I own a genuwine husqvarna chainsaw!
Guaranteed to make hippie treehuggers cry, or your money back! :D
I'm not crying as long as you are cutting all those trees down on Table Mountain Gru!
Cut away! :D:D:D
I'm not crying as long as you are cutting all those trees down on Table Mountain Gru!
Cut away! :D:D:D
Are they a protected species?
vespax
23-11-2007, 09:54 AM
Nope, mostly invasive.
They need to go, and some are near Constantia Nek!
So what if they're invasive? They still filter carbon dioxide
vespax
23-11-2007, 12:47 PM
Take a walk in Cecilia Forest one day. Although nice to have large trees and some shade above you, the pines there have essentially killed the mountain side beneath them. There is very little growth under the trees, the pine needles cause the soil to be more acidic, they extract more groundwater from the mountain than fynbos does, etc.
So although they filter carbon, they are damaging the natural vegetation in an area that is very unique in the world. Not sure what the benefit of carbon filtration would be between a stand of pines and the same land area of natural veg. Would be interesting to know if there was a large increase with the pines.
Fortunately the environment is a very complex thing, and also resilient to humans in many cases with enough time passing by.
...
So to start off, I'd like to post about the fridge that uses only 0.1kWh of electricity per day - that's the same as a 100W light bulb running for an hour. This guy's (http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/Conservation/chest_fridge.pdf) taken a chest freezer (makes more sense coz the cold air doesn't escape a chest freezer when you open it) and attached an external thermostat that keeps the contents at fridge (rather than freezer) temperature. The result is a fridge that only runs for 90 seconds out of every hour...
I had to look up this thread when I saw the article on the Magnetic Refrigerator (http://got2begreen.com/magnetic-refrigerator-needs-no-electricity)
Magnetic Refrigerator Needs No Electricity
Sep 20, 2007 | Posted by Susan Suarez
Scientists at the Technical University of Denmark created a refrigerator that uses magnets to cool instead of electricity.
Although these refrigerators first prototype won’t be available till 2010, these refrigerators could easily replace existing refrigerators using a fully environmentally friendly power source and would provide an expected 60 percent higher efficiency than most standard refrigerators.
The method used involves opposing magnetic fields to increase the temperature of materials. The heat energy is transported through a non-volatile fluid (like water) and then thermodynamically reversed to a cold temperature. Scientists have already been able to cool a room from 20 degrees Celsius to 11 degrees Celsius.
Cool idea - pun intended :cool:
vespax
05-12-2007, 11:45 AM
The Pitt - Jolie bandwagon are at it again, saving the world!!! :p
The houses look small, but some interesting design features none-the-less. Wouldn't mind one of these for myself if it had 2 bedrooms and an open floor plan.
New Orleans Green Houses (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7126350.stm)
Massive developments in wind energy coming to the UK. (http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/12/wind_energy_could.php)
The Brown government is set to unveil an ambitious proposal to build 7,000 new wind turbines off Britain's coast by 2020, effectively producing enough electricity - 33 gigawatts - to power all of the country's homes.
Very exciting! I can only hope that we follow suit at some point.
BTW, the reader comments on that article are quite interesting too.
vespax
14-12-2007, 11:12 AM
Anyone know where to buy solar panels in SA? As well as an invertor and deep cell batteries. I figure the deep cells should be easy enough to get at a marine store, invertor should be obtainable around the electric shops too I suppose.
Just where does one buy a few panels?
I can recommend places up here in GP, but no clues for CT.
vespax
14-12-2007, 02:33 PM
Where in GP. Perhaps they have a branch in CPT.
Contact Chris Osborne on (012) 3355734, only problem is their offices close today.
vespax
11-01-2008, 04:19 PM
Interesting article in the NY Times about challenges facing groups in Cuba. Hopefully they get the balance right when the floods of US tourists start coming in. :rolleyes:
NY Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/25/science/25cuba.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1)
Piepalook
29-02-2008, 02:15 PM
Anyone know where to buy solar panels in SA? As well as an invertor and deep cell batteries. I figure the deep cells should be easy enough to get at a marine store, invertor should be obtainable around the electric shops too I suppose.
Just where does one buy a few panels?
Try the 4x4 accessory stores.
The 180 amp Sanyo HIT panel is available @ 4X4 Megastores
Cost about R 5000 deliveres 15 amp an hour.
To work out your requirements:
Let's say your appliance uses 2000 watts per hour to operate:
Take the 2000 divide into your system capacity, in this case 12 volt=
166.6 amps per hour.
Take 166.6 amps usage per hour, divide that into 15(this is what your panel deliveres) on a sunny day for approx 7 hours a day.
It then gives you 11.1 panels needed.
It would cost you R55 000 to run your appliance for 7 hours a day.
(The sun does not shine at night)
(The sanyo panel is the most efficient panel available)
Well I cooked my first ever meal in a solar oven yesterday.
My boss knows I'm into eco stuff so she gave me a solar oven last week. It's basically just a box with a reflective interior and a perspex lid. This one's quite a cheapie, so the inside reflective material's actually quite matt - looks like brushed aluminium.
Anyhoo. Yesterday I put together a kind of potjie thing (I've never made a potjie before), and popped the pot with the lid on inside the solar oven at 09h00. I left it in there until about 16h30, turning the oven every 2 hours or so to keep it facing directly into the sun. By the time I took it off, the potjie was perfectly cooked and very delicious I might add.
Having done it once, I think I'm going to do one every Sunday (it's the day with the best possible name for solar cooking), weather permitting.
Some thoughts on improving it by possibly reducing cooking times or being able to cook things that require hotter temps:
1) I need to buy a black cast iron pot which will reflect much less heat than the shiny stainless steel pot I used.
2) I want to try and polish up the reflectors for better reflecting.
Piepalook
10-03-2008, 02:13 PM
Well I cooked my first ever meal in a solar oven yesterday.
My boss knows I'm into eco stuff so she gave me a solar oven last week. It's basically just a box with a reflective interior and a perspex lid. This one's quite a cheapie, so the inside reflective material's actually quite matt - looks like brushed aluminium.
Anyhoo. Yesterday I put together a kind of potjie thing (I've never made a potjie before), and popped the pot with the lid on inside the solar oven at 09h00. I left it in there until about 16h30, turning the oven every 2 hours or so to keep it facing directly into the sun. By the time I took it off, the potjie was perfectly cooked and very delicious I might add.
Having done it once, I think I'm going to do one every Sunday (it's the day with the best possible name for solar cooking), weather permitting.
Some thoughts on improving it by possibly reducing cooking times or being able to cook things that require hotter temps:
1) I need to buy a black cast iron pot which will reflect much less heat than the shiny stainless steel pot I used.
2) I want to try and polish up the reflectors for better reflecting.
I saw one of those ovens a few years ago.
Nice to know it actually works.
Any idea where a person could get one?
I'm not sure, let me ask my boss. The nice thing is, I'm sure the one like I have is quite cheap.
ToxicBunny
10-03-2008, 02:36 PM
I think they're actually very cheap to construct...
I am in the process of planning ways of ridding my house of as much of the need for Eskom as possible without going overboard. Going to do solar water heaters, redo the ventilation, and contemplating automating the house to cut down the consumption drastically.
vespax
10-03-2008, 02:54 PM
My dad has one. He puts it out the back door and makes some cakes and stuff in it. He also switched his kitchen stove to gas (in a container) so as not to depend on the power utility. His gas container can last him over a year of cooking.
But yeah, solar cookers are cool. There is a way to make ice with them as well. If interested I will dig up the instructions for you.
My dad has one. He puts it out the back door and makes some cakes and stuff in it. He also switched his kitchen stove to gas (in a container) so as not to depend on the power utility. His gas container can last him over a year of cooking.
But yeah, solar cookers are cool. There is a way to make ice with them as well. If interested I will dig up the instructions for you.
Interested.
ToxicBunny
10-03-2008, 03:06 PM
/me raises hand
Also interested.
Piepalook
10-03-2008, 03:10 PM
That would be a nice thing to do!
Thank you.
vespax
10-03-2008, 04:01 PM
I'm looking around for the links to it. Do some googling on Steven Jones (ie 9/11 fame) and funnel cooker.
I'll ask my dad since he was chating to him about it awhile ago...
OK - Think I found a sufficient link at solarcooking.org.
solarcooking (http://solarcooking.org/plans/funnel.htm)
You need to use the Funnel cooker (which is cheap to make). Here is the section on the ice part.
How to Use the Solar Funnel as a Refrigerator/Cooler
A university student (Jamie Winterton) and I were the first to demonstrate that the BYU Solar Funnel Cooker can be used - at night - as a refrigerator. Here is how this is done.
The Solar Funnel Cooker is set-up just as you would during sun-light hours, with two exceptions:
1. The funnel is directed at the dark night sky. It should not "see" any buildings or even trees. (The thermal radiation from walls, trees, or even clouds will diminish the cooling effect.).
2. It helps to place 2 (two) bags around the jar instead of just one, with air spaces between the bags and between the inner bag and the jar. HDPE and ordinary polyethylene bags work well, since polyethylene is nearly transparent to infrared radiation, allowing it to escape into the "heat sink" of the dark sky.
During the day, the sun's rays are reflected onto the cooking vessel which becomes hot quickly. At night, heat from the vessel is radiated outward, towards empty space, which is very cold indeed (a "heat sink").
As a result, the cooking vessel now becomes a small refrigerator. We routinely achieve cooling of about 20º F (10º C) below ambient air temperature using this remarkably simple scheme.
In September 1999, we placed two funnels out in the evening, with double-bagged jars inside. One jar was on a block of wood and the other was suspended in the funnel using fishing line. The temperature that evening (in Provo, Utah) was 78º F. Using a Radio Shack indoor/outdoor thermometer, a BYU student (Colter Paulson) measured the temperature inside the funnel and outside in the open air. He found that the temperature of the air inside the funnel dropped quickly by about 15 degrees, as its heat was radiated upwards in the clear sky. That night, the minimum outdoor air temperature measured was 47.5 degrees - but the water in both jars had ICE. I invite others to try this, and please let me know if you get ice at 55 or even 60 degrees outside air temperature (minimum at night). A black PVC container may work even better than a black-painted jar, since PVC is a good infrared radiator - these matters are still being studied.
I would like to see the "Funnel Refrigerator" tried in desert climates, especially where freezing temperatures are rarely reached. It should be possible in this way to cheaply make ice for Hutus in Rwanda and for aborigines in Australia, without using any electricity or other modern "tricks." We are in effect bringing some of the cold of space to a little corner on earth. Please let me know how this works for you.
I'll try an get more info if I can.
The_Librarian
18-03-2008, 06:05 PM
*bump*
@ Bobbymac - any further news re the solar tiles?
ettubrute
18-03-2008, 10:01 PM
/me awaits reply with interest... :)
butc8
09-04-2008, 01:38 PM
Ok, I want to save 10% power, so I switch my geyser off in the morning and back ,on late afternoon. Anyway somebody told me that it actually wastes electricity cause it has to reheat the water.
I dont receive the electricity bill so I cant check if its saving or wasting. Whats it doing?
Edit: Today was the first day in the past two weeks where the scheduled LS didnt take place :)
I'm pretty sure this exact list of "500 prominent scientists" who deny global warming has been mentioned by some GW skeptics on this forum before, so this article gave me some lulz.
Heartland Institute gets pwned:
Curious about the Heartland Institute's list of "500 Prominent Scientists" who deny global warming, Kevin decided to contact some of the folks on the list. He put together a list of 150 email addresses...simply the addresses he found it most easy to acquire. After only 24 hours, he'd received 45 emails from angry scientists saying that they, in no way, denied anthropogenic global warming.
It turns out that the heartland institute had never told the scientists they were going on the list, nor did they check to see if these people actually had any doubts about the causes of climate change. Just a sampling of quotes from emails Kevin received:
I am horrified to find my name on such a list. I have spent the last 20 years arguing the opposite.
I have NO doubts ..the recent changes in global climate ARE man-induced. I insist that you immediately remove my name from this list since I did not give you permission to put it there.
Please remove my name. What [they] have done is totally unethical!!
http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/1618/73/
Praeses
16-05-2008, 04:26 PM
I'm pretty sure this exact list of "500 prominent scientists" who deny global warming has been mentioned by some GW skeptics on this forum before, so this article gave me some lulz.
Heartland Institute gets pwned:
http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/1618/73/
+1 :D
vodacom3g
18-05-2008, 11:48 AM
Bluecollar, and others.
Can you peeps give me a quick heads-up on the latest solar panel technology available in SA? Need to research this again for domestic use.
I did quite a bit of research about 6 years ago when I decided to build a new place but eventually decided against solar. What I did at that time was to design and implement an integrated hot water system, with a single source of hot water driving all requirements.
Currently, I'm driving this with a heat-pump and supply hot water into the building only where it's needed, i.e. if there is no movement in a certain area, there is no hot water there. This is done with a system of supply and return lines with solenoids controlled by a BMS.
Using a heat-pump gives me about 400% more efficient heating than using a geyser.
I also have an in-line UPS driving all the critical circuits. This was done (also 6 years ago), not because of load shedding, but rather to protect electronics against unstable supply or short breaks. but it helped hugely with the load-shedding we now see.
BTW, the same BMS does as much power management as possible, again only allowing power in areas with movement. It'll also do things like checking that occupants don't do silly things with heating and colling systems. (UFH, Aircons, etc.)
A few things have obviously changed over the years.
1) Efficiency of solar panels should be much better now.
2) Costs will be lower.
3) Eskom happened with all its side-effects.. :rolleyes:
So, any feedback on the latest solar technology for both hot water and electricity?
Tx!
V3G, your house sounds amazing dude. I've been very interested in heat pumps for a while now (albeit with a rather modest understanding of the workings of the things) so it's great to see somebody who's using this technology.
A question or two: Why are you now looking for a different water heating system rather than the heat pump? I'm assuming it's coz the heat pump's motor requires electricity, so when you're being 'shedded you get no hot water? Out of interest, could you describe your system a little more? I'd imagine that heat is pumped inside and then the pipes containing the heated refrigerant run into a water tank where the water's heated? Or is the hot water that you use actually the refrigerant in the heat pump system?
Anyhoo, for water heating, it's a poor idea to generate electricity from solar PV to power an electric geyser, although I'm sure you're aware of this and are planning to use the PV to drive the heat pump's motor. If you're simply looking for additional hot water capacity at home, a traditional solar water heater like a Solahoart or Suntanks system would work very nicely(there was somebofy else who posted in the SWH thread whose systems looked quite nice too, can't recall the name now though).
Regarding solar panels, I'd recommend looking at the Sanyo HIT series of panels. They boast a cell efficiency of just over 22% and a module efficiency of about 17.5%. A 205W 58V panel goes for R8600.00 ex VAT.
vodacom3g
19-05-2008, 11:59 AM
V3G, your house sounds amazing dude. I've been very interested in heat pumps for a while now (albeit with a rather modest understanding of the workings of the things) so it's great to see somebody who's using this technology.
A question or two: Why are you now looking for a different water heating system rather than the heat pump? I'm assuming it's coz the heat pump's motor requires electricity, so when you're being 'shedded you get no hot water? Out of interest, could you describe your system a little more? I'd imagine that heat is pumped inside and then the pipes containing the heated refrigerant run into a water tank where the water's heated? Or is the hot water that you use actually the refrigerant in the heat pump system?
Anyhoo, for water heating, it's a poor idea to generate electricity from solar PV to power an electric geyser, although I'm sure you're aware of this and are planning to use the PV to drive the heat pump's motor. If you're simply looking for additional hot water capacity at home, a traditional solar water heater like a Solahoart or Suntanks system would work very nicely(there was somebofy else who posted in the SWH thread whose systems looked quite nice too, can't recall the name now though).
Regarding solar panels, I'd recommend looking at the Sanyo HIT series of panels. They boast a cell efficiency of just over 22% and a module efficiency of about 17.5%. A 205W 58V panel goes for R8600.00 ex VAT.
Eskom with its 10% savings requirement (read: we stuffed up, so you must foot the bill), is forcing me to see how I can also save 10%. Which, in my case, will be difficult as I've been saving every watt I could from day 1.....
I thus want to investigate solar for 2 separate applications:
1) Solar heating of hot water to take load off the heat pump. The heat pump is a 50KW unit and draws about 13KW to generate full load, i.e. I get 4 times more energy out than what I put it! Sounds like magic! Short description of how it works (http://www.heatpumps.co.za/howitworks.htm).
If hotwater heating via solar is now more economically viable, I'll just connect a set of panels in parallel with the HP and it'll will remove that amount of load from the HP.
So that's for hotwater.
2) Electricity - I have a 45KVA, 3-phase UPS that can keep the house up for around 4 hours at full load, i.e. enough to survive load shedding. I'd like to see if I can keep the batteries charged up via solar panels.
Because I have every single plug and light on a dimmer or relay via a BMC, I can 'load-shed' the house itself if and when the batteries (or solar levels) drop.
So I see two installations, one hotwater and one electrical. Thus my questions on where to look.
Thoughts on windpower to supplement the electrical side? I probably have more wind that sun available, being high up and exposed to both the SE and NW winds.
PS. If you want to read a bit more on the technology in the house, go to the press page on http://www.omnisol.co.za. There are some nice PDF's there.
For something that is, literally, green:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/4424781/Mat-made-of-moss-stays-alive-with-the-help-of-bath-water.html
ettubrute
04-02-2009, 09:46 AM
:cool: That's neat!
Maldives planning to be carbon neutral country in 10 years (http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/16/maldives-seeks-carbon-neutrality-by-2020/)
Ocean Iron Fertilization Test Not Successful
Following up on a story we brought to you a couple of months ago, the iron fertilization project in the South Atlantic Ocean has not produced the results expected by researchers.
To recap, the project by British scientists aimed to increase the amount of carbon dioxide-absorbing algae in the ocean off of South Georgia Island by adding extra iron to the water. Ideally, the extra algae would remove a large chunk of CO2 in the atmosphere and then sink far below the surface, permanently sequestering the CO2.
As expected, great amounts of algae did bloom, but there was an unexpected glitch. Instead of the algae sinking to the bottom of the ocean, they were eaten by copepods, which were then eaten by amphipods, which meant a lot less CO2 was absorbed and sequestered than thought.
Basically, the CO2 that was removed was "almost negligible" as one researcher put it. I guess it's back to the drawing board.
I always thought this was a silly idea.
http://ecoworldly.com/2009/04/02/11-extinct-animals-that-have-been-photographed-alive/
11 extinct species captured on film.
Empire State Building Begins Huge Energy Efficiency Retrofit
http://cleantechnica.com/2009/04/06/empire-state-building-begins-huge-energy-efficiency-retrofit/
With an initial estimated project cost of $20 million and additional alternative spending in tenant installations, the Empire State Building will save $4.4 million in annual energy savings costs, repay its net extra cost in about three years.
Yet more eco-tech that makes financial sense.
Fazda
25-04-2009, 09:56 PM
Quick question. I turn the geyser on when I get up in the morning, then off again at about mid day after baths are sorted and lunch is cooked. Am I fooling myself that I am saving anything?
Quick question. I turn the geyser on when I get up in the morning, then off again at about mid day after baths are sorted and lunch is cooked. Am I fooling myself that I am saving anything?
The savings are relatively small, as when the geyser is off, the water gets cold and when you turn it on later that day it has to reheat the water from scratch.
I think turning the geyser off is only really beneficial when you turn it off for days/weeks at a time while away on holiday etc.
Fazda
25-04-2009, 10:19 PM
Thanks, that will relieve the blood pressure v/s maid story a bit....;0)
http://www.mnn.com/technology/research-innovations/blogs/boy-discovers-microbe-that-eats-plastic
It's not your average science fair when the 16-year-old winner manages to solve a global waste crisis. But such was the case at last month's May's Canadian Science Fair in Waterloo, Ontario, where Daniel Burd, a high school student at Waterloo Collegiate Institute, presented his research on microorganisms that can rapidly biodegrade plastic.
Empiricism Philosopher
17-06-2009, 10:39 AM
Lol... Ya, but that does not help much with the *real* problems hey? What if these things spread or become airborne??
Want to know more about what can and can't be recycled?
http://mybroadband.co.za/photos/showphoto.php/photo/11709/size/big/cat/500
ettubrute
03-08-2009, 08:22 PM
Have a couple of comments on the recycling list:
1. Cardboard (flattened)
Why do I have to flatten it? Are the recycle people too lazy? :p
2. Plastic and Cans, all items that say "please rinse"
Thus, you are asking us to waste water...
Better idea, for more than one reason, is to employ extra people (good!) and rinse with a reusable source of water (again good!)
With reusable source of water I mean that the recycling company could build a system like the fancy car washes, where run-off water from the process is collected, filtered and reused many times, saving the precious water resources. Combine this with a rainwater collection system, and it will hardly be necessary to use municipal water!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8338880.stm
More than a third of species assessed in a major international biodiversity study are threatened with extinction, scientists have warned.
Out of the 47,677 species in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, 17,291 were deemed to be at serious risk.
These included 21% of all known mammals, 30% of amphibians, 70% of plants and 35% of invertebrates.
Go humans! :rolleyes:
http://protectchagos.org/
Help support the momentum to create the world's largest marine reserve by signing the petition above.
Praeses
15-03-2010, 07:35 AM
Who's the best reputable shop to buy LED bulbs from? I'm looking for a 75W incandescent replacement LED bulb (E27 fitting) for a decent price.
Ask Montypython here on MyBB.
Fazda
22-07-2010, 05:34 PM
Thought you might like this...
http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/mm19/Paulcowie/07182010Siersslideshow_mainprod_affiliate91.jpg
Good news - Galapagos Islands No Longer on UNESCO List of World Heritage in Danger
At the annual meeting of the UNESCO committee for World Heritage Sites, which was held this year in Brasilia, the capital of Brazil, it was decided that Ecuador has improved the situation in the Galapagos Islands to such an extent that they need no longer be included on the List of World Heritage in Danger.
The Galapagos Islands were added to the List of World Heritage in Danger during the 2007 meeting for three reasons:
Uncontrolled human population growth,
Unregulated tourism, and
Insufficient measures to stop invasive species from entering the islands.
For the past three years, the Ecuadorian government—working in conjunction with the Galapagos National Park Service and several other governmental and non-governmental environmental groups (including foreign NGOs such as Sea Shepherd Conservation Society), have been working hard to improve the situation in the archipelago.
The following are examples of these improvements:
Illegal immigrants have been deported, and immigration control has increased.
The tourist sector is better regulating the influx of a high number of tourists each year.
Several projects are underway to minimize the transportation of invasive species on cargo and tourist boats.
Sea Shepherd Galapagos has several running projects that contribute to a better-controlled environment, such as the Police Dog Project, Radio Communications Project, Automatic Identification System (AIS) Project, and more.
http://www.seashepherd.org/news-and-media/news-100729-1.html
22% of all plant species are facing extinction:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn19515-a-fifth-of-all-wild-plant-species-face-extinction.html
:eek: