The city of Rotterdam is working with IBM to become the world’s first “Smart Delta City” by collecting and analysing real-time data on the rivers, ocean, weather and mroe.
A key player in the Dutch economy and the largest port in Europe, Rotterdam aims to design and test a monitoring and forecasting system that will enable smarter water and energy management. The system will help the city use real-world, real-time information to manage its infrastructure and operations as climate change affects its dynamic and complex natural water system.
The Smart Delta system’s information portal will enable officials and professionals to more quickly and effectively respond to concerns such as flood and drought threats, safety or accessibility issues, and changes in water conditions that could harm fish and other aquatic life.
“We are committed to reducing carbon dioxide by 50 per cent and reaching a climate adaptive situation while also strengthening our region’s economic condition by 2025,” said Paula Verhoeven, director of the Rotterdam Climate Office. “To reach these goals, we have defined a holistic approach to climate change and water management, considering economic and spatial planning factors in the decision-making process. This collaboration is important to help Rotterdam evolve to a Smart Delta City.”
Over the past two years, IBM has engaged in projects worldwide to identify current and future impact on operations from changing water availability, accessibility, quality and quantities. In February 2008, the company opened the Global Center of Excellence for Water Management in the Netherlands.
“Governments and companies that don’t understand how climate changes will impact their operations will increasingly find themselves at a disadvantage,” said Sharon Nunes, vice president of Big Green Innovations at IBM. “Over the next few years, the business impact of either too much or too little water will be devastating in many parts of the world. The Smart Delta City initiative addresses the need to start thinking and acting in new ways to make our systems more efficient, productive and responsive.”
Microsoft and the European Environment Agency (EEA) today announced the updated “Eye on Earth” environmental observatory project, which will now offer data on bathing water quality.
Eye on Earth is a two-way communication platform on the environment that connects relevant scientific information with the feedback and observations of millions of citizens across Europe. With summer right around the corner, the Eye on Earth Water Watch portal has been updated with 2009 data for beach and bathing water quality across the EU. The update also includes new features to improve user interaction and feedback including user ratings and comments, pictures and live Webcam streaming.
The beach and bathing water feature can help beachgoers across Europe decide where to take their summer vacation. The application displays the latest information on bathing water quality from more than 21,000 monitoring points across Europe. For some countries, including Lithuania, Malta, Portugal, Scotland and Slovenia, the latest data is in fact from the current bathing season and could be the results of analyses sampled only days before.
Eye on Earth, first launched in 2008, allows users to search for a specific beach or zoom in on a given section of the coast or riverbank. The selected area or beach could be viewed both in street map or bird’s eye formats. A “traffic-light” evaluation (red, amber, green) of water quality based on scientific monitoring methods is complemented by similar ratings and comments reflecting the experiences of people who have visited the site.
Other new features include the ability to add pictures from beaches, further enhancing the comment function, and Webcam functionality for local authorities to link to their beach Webcam services.
“Eye on Earth is a great example of how technology has the power to help governments, business and individuals understand what is happening to our environment.” said Rob Bernard, chief environmental strategist at Microsoft. “By combining environmental data with mapping technologies, it is possible for people to see where changes are
happening. Eye on Earth provides people with information which has historically been difficult to find. With this new application, people will be more informed and be able to take appropriate actions to help ensure a cleaner environment.”
The Swedish company EcoEnergy Scandinavia and the Ukrainian government today signed an agreement to build and operate waste incineration plants in the country. The firm plans to bring in third-party investors and partners to speed up implementation of the more than €20 billion multi-year project.
The planned facilities will both help reduce waste and generate energy for Ukraine. Fourteen cities are under consideration as sites for the new plants.
EcoEnergy plans to construct and operate local plants for incineration of all sorts of waste to produce electricity, heating/cooling and biogas. It says the technology it uses will enable carbon dioxide-neutral production and operations. Facilities in the first two cities are set to begin operations in the second half of this year.
“This agreement is a part in our ambitions in directing the country toward a more environment friendly development,” said Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. “High-tech waste-to-energy plants will give us access to a renewable energy source that will be developed in a larger scale — something that will contribute to an increased independence regarding energy supply and for the country as a whole.”
“For EcoEnergy, the possibility to initiate this cooperation with the Ukranian state is an important step in the company’s development,” said Lars Guldstrand, EcoEnergy’s chairman of the board.
By transforming its waste into energy, Ukraine hopes to both manage the growing waste volumes in the country while also meeting the demand for a stable and efficient clean energy supply.
Sterecycle Ltd., a UK waste recycling technology company, today announces a £200 million expansion programme that will create 300 new jobs while reducing Britain’s dependence on landfill for the disposal of domestic and commercial refuse.
As part of the expansion programme, the company is raising £50 million in new equity capital from institutional investors and has appointed UBS as financial adviser for the fund raising.
Sterecycle plans to build and operate five new recycling plants around the UK based on its proprietary steam autoclaving technology, increasing its total capacity to handle unsorted household and commercial waste to approximately 1.5 million tonnes a year. That’s as much as the annual waste produced by a city of three million people.
The new recycling facilities, to be built over four years, will also provide local authorities with a commercially proven alternative to mass incineration of waste, a contentious local issue.
The expansion follows the successful ramp-up of processing capacity at Sterecycle’s initial autoclave waste recycling plant in Rotherham, Yorkshire — the world’s first commercial-scale facility that applies steam to separate and recycle unsorted household waste. This pioneering plant, built on a former British Steel works, commenced operations last June.
The Rotherham plant’s capacity is being increased up to 200,000 tonnes a year, following a successful planning application in January 2009. Using proprietary technology, Sterecycle’s recycling plant is able to divert 70 per cent of residual waste away from landfill, converting unsorted household waste into a variety of reusable materials and an organic compost-like material.
Demand for recycling technology and services is increasing as local authorities come under intense pressure to meet UK and European Union directives to reduce landfill use or face the threat of heavy financial penalties. In addition, the recent UK budget means that landfill tax will increase to £72 per tonne by 2013.
Since its foundation in 2003, Stercycle has raised a total of £23 million in equity finance, with funds coming from blue chip institutional investors including Goldman Sachs, Fidelity International, Impax Environmental and Ailsa3Ventures.
The use of steam, or “autoclaving,” in the waste sector has previously been relatively small-scale and limited to sterilising medical waste. Sterecycle’s clean waste treatment process “steam sterilises” the unsorted waste at low temperatures in rotating 40-foot-long sealed vessels called autoclaves, using a combination of steam and pressure, treating 25 tonnes of waste in each batch. The waste is then sorted using a series of recycling processes such as size screening, magnetic separation and infra-red.
The process is able to sterilise and recycle the steam cleaned metals and plastics, as well as convert the waste food and paper into a high-quality organic fibre (sterefibre®) that has many applications, including as a renewable energy source or as a soil enhancer for land remediation.
Currently, London produces nearly three million tonnes of organic waste, mainly from food. Nearly two-thirds of this waste is burnt in incinerators or buried in landfill, which results in greenhouse gas emissions.
Launched at a waste industry conference, the mayor’s “Foodwaste to Fuel Alliance” will bring together developers, food producers, energy companies and others key parties to provide the new infrastructure needed in London to extract fuel from the capital’s leftover food. This will provide an alternative to fossil fuels and a greener energy source for heating and powering homes as well as fuelling public transport and other vehicles.
Johnson says he wants the alliance, supported by London’s Waste and Recycling Board, to deliver five exemplar new biofuel plants in the capital by 2012. These could include anaerobic digestion plants, bio-diesel refineries, hydrogen-from-waste operations or the use of compost material for the city’s allotments.
The Waste and Recycling Board has £84 million to spend over the next three years to reduce waste and boost recycling, with £31 million earmarked for projects that will create energy. Officials say they hope the 2012 Olympic Games in London will also offer opportunities to convert food waste into energy.
“London is currently throwing away valuable food waste that could be used instead to produce an eco-fuel for businesses and homes,” Johnson said. “Whilst we can all take steps to throw less food away in the first place, it is extraordinary that we are losing this resource by simply chucking it out. I am absolutely determined to see that London’s reservoirs of used oil and mountains of leftovers are converted into a greener fuel saving millions of pounds off energy bills.”
He added, “This will also save tonnes of the climate changing gases that are damaging the planet.”
BAA, Keystone and Sainsbury’s are the first to join the Foodwaste to Fuel Alliance, and both BAA and Sainsbury’s are working with the mayor to investigate the possibility of developing anaerobic digestion facilities in and around London.
Heathrow airport alone produces around 8,000 tonnes of food waste each year and BAA wants to investigate whether it is feasible to convert this into bio-gas to generate low-carbon energy or fuel for vehicles.
“Heathrow is committed to reducing its impact on the environment,” said Emma Alexander, head of waste and water at BAA. “We have strict aims to achieve zero waste to landfill by 2020, as well as increasing recycling to 70 per cent.”
Sainsbury’s is exploring anaerobic digestion as part of a planned wider portfolio of waste facilities that will help the company deliver its “zero waste to landfill” goal.
“We began investing in waste-to-energy technology over a year ago,” said Alison Austin, Sainsbury’s environment manager. “Progress has been so quick that by the end of this summer, all of the food waste from our 500 supermarkets around the country will be connected to our Zero Food Waste to Landfill network, meaning it will be diverted from landfill and used to generate electricity.”
EarthRenew Organics Ltd. has commenced marketing of an equity private placement to raise proceeds of $50 million to $75 million (US) (PDF).
The company intends to use the net proceeds of this offering to fund the equity component of its construction of seven WasteRenew™ facilities largely in California, to support a recently-signed marketing and sales agreement. In addition, the net proceeds will fund the growth of other business development initiatives in the pipeline and will be used for general corporate purposes.
RBC Capital Markets will serve as the company’s exclusive financial advisor with respect to the private placement.
WasteRenew™ is a proprietary EarthRenew process that recycles manure, biosolids and green wastes from livestock producers, municipalities and food processing industries, and helps reduce customer costs and problems associated with their green waste disposal. The company’s first operational plant using these patented technologies is situated on a cattle feedlot near Strathmore, Alberta, processing large tonnages of manure to make patented, specialty high-value fertilisers for key customers.
Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity is calling for old mobile phones and inkjet cartridges to be recycled to help reach its new fund-raising target of £10,000.
The charity helps Great Ormond Street Hospital treat thousands of children suffering from the rarest, most complex and often life-threatening conditions every year. Over the past six years, Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity has raised nearly £100,000 through the Recycling Appeal, the charity’s programme run by Redeem plc. This has helped fund many projects including a learning laboratory, a waiting area and a lecture theatre in Weston House, the staff Education and Training centre.
In its latest appeal, Great Ormond Street seeks to raise a further £10,000 to ensure the hospital’s doctors and nurses have the cutting-edge equipment they need to provide children with world-class care.
Freepost envelopes to pop any unwanted mobile phones and inkjet cartridges into the post will be available in the June issue of Lifeline, Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity’s supporter publication. Freepost collection envelopes are also available by simply logging on to Recycling Appeal.
“We hope that by launching this fresh appeal, even more people will be encouraged to donate their old mobile phones and inkjets to ensure we can continue to support the work of Great Ormond Street Hospital,” said Stephanie Gaydon of the Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity.
“By donating your disused phones you really can make a massive difference and help Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity reach their goal and ultimately really benefit the patients and their families,” added Jamie Rae, chief executive of Redeem. “It’s a big challenge, but with an estimated 20 million phones being replaced in the UK each year, a little public effort can make a big difference to both the hospital and our environment.”
Biofuels carry a heavy water footprint, although the size of that print varies widely from crop to crop, according to new research from the Netherlands’ University of Twente.
Researchers at the university analysed 13 crops to determine the optimal production regions for each based on water consumption and climate date. Their goal was to make it easier to prevent biomass cultivation from jeopardising food production in regions where water is already in short supply.
The researchers found, for example, that it takes an average of 14,000 litres of water to produce one litre of biodiesel from rapeseed or soya. However, the water footprint for rapeseed in Western Europe is significantly smaller than in Asia. For soya, India has a large water footprint, while the figures for countries such as Italy and Paraguay are more favourable.
Jatropha, which is increasingly used for biomass production, has an even less favourable water footprint of 20,000 litres of water on average for one litre of biodiesel.
Using whole plants to generate bioelectricity, on the other hand, requires a smaller water footprint than using crops to make biofuels. Even then, however, crop footprints vary. For example, the researchers found that, when used for bioelectricity, sugar beet has by far the smallest water footprint, while jatropha is 10 times less water-efficient.
Waste management firm Biffa has appointed Ros Roca Envirotec, part of the Ros Roca Environment Group, as the technology provider for its new 80,000 tonne-per-year anaerobic digestion facility to be built at Cannock, Staffordshire.
The facility will utilise waste food to generate 4 megawatts of electricity and create a high-quality fertiliser.
Anaerobic digestion breaks down biodegradable material in the absence of oxygen, significantly reduces the volume and mass of organic waste material, and produces compost that can be used in agriculture to improve soil quality. Using anaerobic digestion as an alternative to landfill also helps avoid greenhouse gas emissions, and produces a methane-rich biogas that can be used in place of fossil fuels.
“This new facility will divert two million tonnes of waste from landfill over its estimated 25-year operational life and is evidence of Biffa’s commitment to create capacity in modern technology to transform waste into renewable energy,” said Andre Horbach, Biffa’s chief executive. “After an exhaustive evaluation of a number of technology suppliers we chose Ros Roca because of their extensive experience and proven track record throughout Europe in designing reliable and cost-effective large0scale industrial anaerobic digestion plants capable of handling a variety food and organic wastes.”
Biffa developed the UK’s first mixed biodegradable municipal waste anaerobic digestion plant in 2003. Located in Leicester, the facility generates 1.3 megawatts of renewable electricity each year.
Combined with its landfill gas operations, Biffa currently has installed capacity for the generation of 112 megawatts of renewable electricity.
The university’s David Wilson Library also was named a runner-up in the local Leicester Green Life Awards. The extension and refurbishment of the library incorporated such environmentally focused features as natural ventilation, low-flush loos, wood from sustainable sources and three types of solar panels on the roof and the louvred windows.
“it was great to see our dedicated cleaners being rewarded for all of their efforts,” said Emma Fieldhouse, environment manager. “It’s also positive to see that the Estates designers are being recognized for incorporating environmental factors into our new and refurbished buildings.”
The city of Rotterdam is working with IBM to become the world’s first “Smart Delta City” by collecting and analysing real-time data on the rivers, ocean, weather and mroe.
The Swedish company 
Sterecycle Ltd.
London Mayor Boris Johnson, today launched a major initiative to cut both landfill rates and carbon emissions by 
EarthRenew Organics Ltd. has commenced marketing of an equity private placement to raise proceeds of 
Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity is calling for old mobile phones and inkjet cartridges to be recycled to help reach its new fund-raising target of £10,000.
Biofuels carry a heavy water footprint
Waste management firm Biffa has appointed Ros Roca Envirotec, part of the Ros Roca Environment Group, as the technology provider for its new 
The