Environmental company Planet Ark and print cartridge recylcer, Close the Loop, have teamed up to recycle the 5,000 tonnes of print cartridges that are currently dumped as landfill every year in Australia. The initiative is known as Cartridges for Planet Ark and provides recycling boxes around the country to encourage people to starve landfill sites of the 34 cartridges that are thrown out, every minute. Despite the inefficiencies of recycling when compared to re-use, the printer companies backing the initiative point out that recycling the resources in the cartridges is more environmentally friendly than throwing them out.
Author: admin
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Vertical wind turbine available for low wind situations
A vertical axis wind turbine known as the PacWind Delta II is available for small commercial operations. It produces 10 kilowatts of electricity in a small footprint and is completely silent. The turbines can be placed very close together and stacked up to five high. Eighteen months ago, Energy Matters reported that five large vertical axis turbines, each producing 5,000kilowatts, were towed to the North Sea and installed there. The Delta II is suitable for use in cities and provides electricity for the locality where it is installed, reducing the cost of building network infrastructure. It operates in wind speeds as low as ten kilometres per hour.
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Gold Coast halves water use
A combination of restrictions and consumer education have cut the use of water on Queensland’s Gold Coast from over 300 litres per person per day to less than 140. Premier Bligh, in a speech about waters critical role in Queensland politics said, “Without a doubt, the most extraordinary achievement in relation to water that we have seen in Queensland this year is the remarkable achievement of the residents of south-east Queensland.” A program entitled Target 140 helped residents shave another 30 litres a day of their water consumption. Level 5 water restrictions had already reduced consumption to 171 litres a day. 3500 workers are involved in water infrastructure projects in South East Queensland including 170 kilometers of pipeline.
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Garrett saves shark habitat
Environment minister Peter Garrett used his federal powers last week to save Grey Nurse habitat in NSW. He insisted that the NSW Environment Minister Ian McDonald place conditions on the Trap and Line Fishing Export license to protect critical shark habitat. “With fewer than 500 Grey Nurse sharks surviving in NSW waters it was important that immediate action was taken,” said Upper House Greens MP Ian Cohen.
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Political foes unite over power sell off
Unions have held stop work meetings at two electricity generation plants in the Hunter Valley in response to letters from the owner of the plants, Macquarie Generation, about its management plans following the privatisation. The Greens, the Liberal Party and the Unions all oppose the privatisation of the electricity industry for a variety of reasons. Common to all criticisms is concerns that private enterprise invests in opportunities to maximise profit, not in the long term infrastructure required to keep the electricity system running. Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union official Lorraine Usher said, “There has been no investment in base-load generation since Victoria privatised its electricity industry 12 years ago.” Investors generally build plants that can provide the highly profitable peak load power when prices are highest.