Posted by jumperhead on May 2nd, 2008
Would Greenbang like to be a spy? You bet she would. A person can’t watch as many James Bond films as Greenbang has without hankering to serve Queen and country by travelling to exotic locations and blowing stuff up. As things go, Greenbang occasionally goes to Stockport or lets a pan boil over and for bonus points reads people’s emails over their shoulders - it’s like the Tesco No-frills version of spying.
But now Greenbang can add to her spying (and naturally, environmental) credentials with the latest invention to come out of the Palo Alto Research Centre (or PARC, if you like), funded by printing company Xerox.
By updating that old schoolyard favourite, invisible ink, PARC has come up with reusable paper. According to reports, PARC has been showing off the invention which will allow you to print something, have the ink disappear in 24 hours, and then have the paper ready to reuse.
The ink is made with photosensitive particles: when they’re hit with light, they gradually start to fade.
Apparently, you can get 100 goes out of one piece of paper. Mmmm, economic.
Posted by jumperhead on April 23rd, 2008
If Greenbang were to approach you in the street and ask if you’ve got any old pills or e-waste, what would be your response? Chances are you’d shrug your shoulders and point her in the direction of some ‘nu rave’ warehouse party in East London. That or get on the blower to the cops and report some drug-and-gadget fiend bothering you.
Over in the USA, the magnificently named Earth Protection Agency (EPA) is putting this shout out to the residents of Chicago. Though they’re not looking to ‘party’. Rather, it’s part of their Great Lakes Earth Day Challenge. The EPA reckons its “goal is to collect at least one million pounds of electronics, or ‘e-waste’, and one million pills during Earth Month to keep contaminants out of the Great Lakes.”
Says the EPA over 125 communities, organisations and businesses in the Great Lakes region are sponsoring collections while the agency is putting up $500,000 in grants to help fund 26 collections.
The EPA is asking the public to bring old electronics and expired medicines for safe disposal at Chicago’s Household Chemicals and Computer Recycling plant at Goose Island. The EPA wants to get people used to the idea of not flushing their pills down the bog, which has a serious effect on the local environment.
Says Lyman Welch, Water Quality Program manager for the Alliance for the Great Lakes:
“Flushing unwanted medicines down toilets leads to potential contamination of the Great Lakes and drinking water supplies.
“Disposing of unused and expired medicines through collection programs is a responsible step everyone can take now to prevent water pollution at the source.”
Posted by jumperhead on April 16th, 2008
If someone from the government turned up and suggested you might like to start, you know, like to start burning more stuff, you would more than likely be suspicious. You might even wonder when Constable Beadle might be about to take off his fake beard and moustache and admit you’ve been set up.
But burning more stuff is the latest stroke of eco-cleverness from Defra. Apparently, waste wood is an underused resource, according to a new report from the department, and we should all think about recovering energy from unloved logs.
Says the report:
The significant carbon and energy benefits of recovering energy from waste wood have been highlighted in a number of recent publications, including the Waste Strategy for England 2007, in which waste wood was identified as one of a number of priority materials for action, the UK Biomass Strategy and the Energy White Paper. Biomass energy generation will have an important role to play in meeting the UK share of the 20% European Union (EU) renewable energy target. It has been estimated that recovering energy from 2 million tonnes of waste wood could generate 2600GWh electricity and save 1.15 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions, with greater benefits available by recovering heat as well as power
Why all this waste? Mixing the streams apparently. The Ghostbusters would be seriously unimpressed. Here’s more:
With the majority of waste wood arisings being contaminated, the key to realising this potential is greater Waste Incineration Directive (WID) compliant combustion facilities. A number of economic measures exist, and are being strengthened, to divert waste from landfill and, in the case of waste wood, into renewable energy markets. While aggregation points and supply chains for waste wood are in their infancy, these are expected to grow (as they are already doing) with better market knowledge, greater WID compliant combustion capacity with better geographical distribution, and stronger incentives for renewable energy.
The full report is here. Oh yes it is.
Posted by jumperhead on April 10th, 2008
What do you do with your old CO2 emissions when you’ve finished with them? Put them in the garage along with all those old magazines you don’t know what to do with? Leave them in the hall for someone to trip up on? Tut.
Well, there’s now another option: recycle them into CDs and DVDs, apparently, according to The Telegraph.
According to the paper, scientists have come up with new ways to use the emissions from smokestacks to create polycarbonate plastics that can be used to make the discs.
According to the paper, Prof Müller of RWTH Aachen University in Aachen, Germany, who works at CAT Catalytic Centre research centre backed, and recently presented a paper on the tech said:
“It’s a very cheap starting material. If we can replace more expensive starting materials with CO2, then you’ll have an economic driving force. […]
“Using CO2 to create polycarbonates might not solve the total carbon dioxide problem, but it could be a significant contribution.”
Greenbang doesn’t like to appear churlish, but what happens when everyone finally shifts all their music and films to digital? Can the processes be used to create storage arrays too?
Posted by jumperhead on April 10th, 2008
Browsing the Defra site this morning, Greenbang came across a press release which revealed Department is consulting on a strategy to protect the health of honey bees.
Greenbang recommends the bees should give up smoking, cut back on the red meat and do a bit more cardiovascular exercise. Although Greenbang guesses all the flying they do probably counts for a bit. And they’re quite outdoorsy types, which Greenbang reckons is probably good too.
Like a gift that just keeps giving, Defra also revealed that it’s spanking £310 million on four projects to keep one million tonnes of rubbish out of landfill.
Here’s what Defra had to say about it:
Each of the four projects will support the local authority’s waste ambitions. All aim to reduce the overall amount of waste created and it is anticipated they all will deliver a minimum of 50% recycling rate by 2020, with some aspiring to reach 60%.
The PFI credits awarded to the four projects are:
* Barnsley, Doncaster and Rotherham Partnership - £77.4 million.
* Bradford Metropolitan District Council - £62.1 million.
* Suffolk County Council - £102 million.
* Leeds City Council - £68.6 million.
Each project will be considering the climate change impacts of its technology choice. They are all actively seeking options for Combined Heat and Power with an Energy from Waste or Mechanical Biological Treatment solution.
Posted by Greenbang on April 3rd, 2008
Forbes had this headline for the story:
“JPMorgan: Water Supply a Key Issue”
You don’t say.
You might even think there could be a wave of fear, uncertainty and doubt marketing on the way with all this climate change la-de-da.
And this just at a time when JP Morgan has bought a carbon offset company.
JP Morgan has released a report that says water is going to be a problem for companies in certain areas, as many use vast quantities and are not obliged to declare the figures.
That’s a good point.
“In many regions demand for water now outstrips renewable supplies. It is likely this gap will widen,” analyst Marc Levinson said in a note to clients. “Water pollution is getting worse in many developing economies, which exacerbates the challenge of delivering sufficient water of the required quality.”
Yet many companies provide only “general” information on water that neither qualifies nor quantifies the potential financial risks from a sudden supply disruption, said Levinson in the report, which was cowritten by six analysts.
Posted by jumperhead on March 28th, 2008
A £24 million plan to cut London’s landfill? Ken Livingstone, I presume! Yes, the avuncular London mayor is spanking the cash on getting cockneys and other London residents to keep their tat out of the ground. And what’s more, if you want to be in Ken’s recycling gang, you’re going to have to enter his Dragons Den. So to speak.
Ken, alongside the London Development Agency (LDA), is on the hunts for some waste-to-energy brains, with a panel of ” waste, energy and financial experts to deliver innovative, efficient waste and recycling facilities appropriate for London including those which use waste to create renewable energy and increase the capital’s recycling reprocessing capacity, whilst reducing reliance on landfill, boosting the local economy and reducing the transport impacts of waste”, no less.
Think you want to offer your waste reduction plan? You’ll have to explain it in a Dragons Den style environment reminiscent of the famed BBC2 show where a series of mostly flakey would-be entrepreneurs are grilled and mocked by already-are entrepreneurs in an effort to get some cash.
Says the LDA:
Nearly 7 million tonnes of commercial and industrial waste is currently produced in London each year, which is nearly double the amount that London’s households produce. Less than half of the commercial and industrial waste is recycled and the remainder is primarily disposed of to landfill, where it breaks down to produce CO2 and methane, a potent greenhouse gas. The Mayor’s London Plan sets ambitious targets to recycle or compost 70 per cent of London’s commercial and industrial waste, and to manage 85 per cent of it in London by 2020 rather than sending it to landfill in the home counties.
And says our Ken:
“There are real opportunities in London to develop technologies that treat waste as a resource, rather than relying on outdated waste disposal methods which contribute to climate change. London’s businesses and boroughs are currently choosing to bury and burn the capital’s waste - dumping it in the home counties - whilst recycling rates lag behind the rest of the UK. This funding package of £24 million from the London Development Agency will accelerate the use of cleaner, greener recycling and treatment methods that are already being effectively used in Europe.”
Posted by jumperhead on March 27th, 2008
In a recent visit to a national park, Greenbang was reminded not to pee on the plantlife. (Not that she was planning to, she hastens to add, she just stumbled across a sign bearing the prohibition against outdoor micturation). Dispose of your water carefully, the national park warned, perhaps wagging an imaginary finger as it did so.
But if you’re a pulp mill or manufacturer, getting rid of wastewater is more of a chore - you need to make it as clean as possible before returning it to the environment.
Which is probably why AqWise, a company which sells biological water filtration has notched up $3.6 million in a funding round, with capital from AHMSA Steel Israel Ltd, Elron Electronic Industries and Israel Clean Tech Ventures.
AqWise said it will use the proceeds to “grow its presence and market reach around the globe” as well as do more development work on its AGAR(R) (Attached Growth Airlift Reactor) fixed biofilm moving bed process.
Or for the layman, it’s a process that uses bacteria to filter the grim bits out of water.
Posted by jumperhead on March 24th, 2008
There’s nothing that induces green guilt like bottled water. You can make the bottle live again by refilling it and taking it to work with you, but it stares back up at you from your desk, whispering perniciously “you still bought me, didn’t you? you think tap water’s not good enough eh, Mr Big Shot? You think your itinerant thirst is more important than the environment, don’t you, you freaking eco-criminal? Shame on you! Shame!” Until you have to recycle it to stop the terrible accusations. At least, that’s what happens to Greenbang.
Perhaps that’s what happens to Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels. The man signed an order this month to cut out bottle water from all government buildings and events, after giving a thumbs-up to Seatlle’s tasty tap water and a thumbs-down to the “environmental cost of throw away plastic bottles.
Here’s more from the horse’s mouth:
“This is a matter of leading by example,” Nickels said. “The people of Seattle own one of the best water supplies in the country, every bit as good as bottled water and available at a fraction of the price. When you add up the tremendous environmental costs of disposable plastic bottles clogging our landfills, the better choice is crystal clear.”
Last year, the city spent about $58,000 for bottled water at city facilities and events. The mayor’s order would phase out city purchases of bottled water by the end of the year, while encouraging employees to switch to municipal water. It would not ban the private purchase of bottled water by city employees.
Bottled water, which costs about $8 a gallon, is about 2,400 times as expensive as tap water, which runs about one-third of one cent. In 2006 Americans bought a total of 31.2 billion liters of bottled water, requiring nearly 900,000 tons of plastic produced from fossil fuels and more than 17 million barrels of oil, not including the energy for transportation. That adds up to more than 2.5 million tons of greenhouse gases.
Greenbang thinks the mayor may now be her favourite Greg ever, beating golfer Greg Norman and To Kill a Mockingbird’s Gregory Peck.
Posted by jumperhead on March 20th, 2008
There are times in life when the carrot is called for, and other times when the stick is what does the job (if you’ve ever tried to get a dog to fetch a carrot, or served up some boiled sticks with your Sunday roast, you’ll know what Greenbang means.) Ask Recyclebank - they’ve just got $30 million of funding from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, according to venturebeat.com - and their whole business model works around the carrot principle.
It goes like this: Recyclebank tracks consumers’ recycling habits, with all the good recyclers getting credits to spend with local and national business. The better you are with your rubbish, the more you get to spend. It’s simple, but it’s devilishly smart.
And the Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers isn’t even the first company to get involved with the company this month. A couple of weeks ago, Recyclebank secured $13.1 million in Series A funding from RRE Ventures and Sigma Partners, money which will be spent expanding the company to new areas and developing “many more strategic and key partnerships”.
