Sunday, December 11, 2011

Interconnectedness and new life in a country garden


Two of the great lessons of the universe are interconnectedness with other humans, other species, and the planet itself; and care for each other, the species around us, and the planet that sustains us.  Waste, neglect, and thoughtlessness work against these universal themes.

The story of Mrs Gray's Garden is a simple one. It's basic appeal is one of interconnection in an Australian regional city, Wodonga - which, with its Twin City, Albury, straddles the Victorian-New South Wales Border and the mighty Murray River.  It shows how resources lying dormant, neglected or wasted can be reclaimed and put into service.  Mrs Gray's Garden, it is hoped, will become just one of many which will thoughtfully establish interconnectedness and contribute to the needs and the well-being of the communities in which they are situated. 

Friday, December 9, 2011

The problematic poser: who should pay for e-waste disposal

THE ARTICLE BELOW IS FROM SMART PLANET

Who should pay for e-waste disposal?

By  | December 7, 2011, 2:22 AM PST

HONG KONG — Hong Kong will soon have a facility designated for dismantling and recycling electronic products such as televisions, refrigerators and computers.
A tax will be added to the price tags of electronic products to help pay for e-waste disposal. Based on a similar tax in other cities, the cost of home appliances is expected to go up by $12 to $30.
The question now is whether consumers should pay for all of the recycling costs. Some argue that retailers and manufacturers should pay for part of it to hold accountable all involved parties.
The current proposal places the recycling fee at the retail level, and it is likely that retailers will simply charge the extra cost to consumers. This type of legislation “is not really the spirit of producer responsibility” as intended by the legislation, said Edwin Lau, general affairs director of Friends of the Earth in Hong Kong.
Lau said in over 30 jurisdictions around the world, the e-waste fee is charged to the importer, as electronic products are frequently manufactured overseas.
“Of course producers have the responsibility to contribute a small part of their earning to the annual operation cost of the e-waste recycling plant that will have our e-waste properly dismantled and recycled and reused,” Lau said.
In California, there is a $10 fee added to the price of electronic products with viewable screens, but retailers may choose to pay the fee on behalf of the consumer to make its prices more competitive. Several other U.S. states charge e-waste recycling fees to manufacturers.
Right now, about 80% of Hong Kong’s e-waste is exported to other cities and countries. Many of these areas are poor and use polluting processes that are harmful to the workers’ health. “It’s not environmentally responsible,” Lau said, “and it’s not ethical.”
Photo: Vanessa Ko
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Vanessa Ko

About Vanessa Ko

Vanessa Ko is a Hong Kong correspondent for SmartPlanet.

Thursday, December 8, 2011

Contamination: of lives, and of regulatory and tax systems


Case study one, believed to be Leigh Street, was particularly concerning.
''Twenty-two residential properties surrounding the former quarry site are contaminated with polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons [by-products of fuel burning], benzo(a)pyrene [a carcinogen found in coal tar and exhaust fumes], lead and other metals due to the quarry infill material,'' the report found.
The report said that the ''Maribyrnong City Council and the EPA have demonstrated poor due diligence and a poor duty of care'' to the residents at the site.
The report outlined a tangled bureaucratic mess for dealing with contaminated sites.
''No one entity is accountable for oversight of the effectiveness of the regulatory framework in operation.
''Further, responsibility for managing the high-risk sites has been neither clearly defined nor accepted by any entity,'' Mr Pearson found.
He called for a ''systematic and co-ordinated review of the entire regulatory framework''.
The Environment Protection Authority said it accepted the report's recommendations in full.
Maribyrnong City Council chief executive Vince Haining said within the 32 square kilometres of the municipality there were 89 former quarry sites that contain residential and industrial waste.
He said council did not ''possess the financial means'' to immediately investigate and remediate potentially contaminated sites across the municipally.
He said the council was working closely with the EPA and environmental consultants to investigate and remediate sites mentioned in the Auditor-General's report.

~~~~~

I want to draw attention to four facts:
  •  that this pollution, contamination, call it what you will is from waste, by-products of a form of resource extraction and production.  
  • that the cost of cleaning up this site and the cost of healthcare for those affected by this contamination will be borne by the ratepayers of the Maribyrnong City Council and the taxpayers of Victoria through the Victorian Government.  
  • that there is unlikely to have been any realistic cost extracted by either the Maribyrnong City Council or the Victorian Government from the business using the site to cover such contingencies
  • that there was insufficient regulation and/or monitoring to prevent this and there is no direct indication that effective regulation and/or monitoring is already in place or will be put in place to prevent such an occurrence again.
People gain prestige when they rise to elected office at whatever level of government.  People who manage government instrumentalities are well-educated and, again, acquire prestige from their appointments.  The people who have lived in these properties either suffer from afflictions obtained through the contamination or live in fear of adverse health states further down the track.  

What I am pointing out is that some people are all glory and frequently abdicate their responsibilities.  Some people are casualties and some are tax fodder.  Our society has to come to the stage where adverse affects and costs are effectively recognised and accounted for in an up-front manner.  The burden is falling adversely on people who should not be paying the price while the damages, wasters, incurrers are getting away, it would appear, scot free.

Saturday, December 3, 2011

Cooking Oil to Fuel Western Water Vehicles

Water may be its core business, but now Western Water has turned its attention to a different liquid – biodiesel fuel. The water authority has installed a new 13,000 litre biodiesel tank at the Sunbury depot, to help reduce its carbon emissions.

"Using biodiesel for all our fleet vehicles will reduce carbon emissions by more than 140 tonnes a year,” Western Water’s Managing Director, John Wilkinson, says. “The biodiesel is produced from local waste products such as used cooking oil and tallow, which would otherwise go to landfill,” he says. “This means we are not only reducing carbon emissions from our fleet, we are also putting a waste resource to good use.”

The $25,000 tank is the largest of three now installed by Western Water, with tanks already in place at depots in Gisborne and Melton. The move is part of Western Water’s Climate Change Strategy, which sets a goal of zero net carbon emissions by 2017-18.

“We have already reduced our emissions by almost 30 per cent since 2004-05, and are now aiming to hit 50 per cent by the middle of next year,” Mr Wilkinson says. “Other measures have included retro-fitting energy efficient technology at offices, depots and recycled water plants, and converting to green power,” he says.
“At the Melton Recycled Water Plant, we are capturing biogas produced in the water recycling process to generate 100 per cent renewable electricity.”

BTW, pop over here to read a warning to Sunbury and Macedon Ranges residents on the need for more water saving.

Friday, December 2, 2011

All about Coffee and Tea AND Fair Trade and Growing Your Own

Dear Fellow Gleaners,

While this post has come from the newsletter of a company, I am not promoting nor am I benefitting from this company. I do, however, like to share good stuff and that can come from anywhere.  I hope you find this as enjoyable and informative to read as I have.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Coffee Botanical drawingThe tale of how coffee was discovered is an intriguing one, apparently about 1,000 years ago in the hills of Ethiopia a goat herder found that his goats would keep him awake at night after they had been feasting on the red coffee berries.  The story goes that the goat herder shared his discovery with a local monastery and it was the monks who first brewed the beans into a hot drink. The beans were traded into Yemen where coffee culture flourished and the Arabian Peninsula became a hotbed for cafes, known as kaveh kanes.  Coffee was introduced into Europe in the 1600's and cafes quickly became popular social meeting places just as they are today. Coffee beans on tree
Coffee is vital to as many as 25 million small farmers who grow and sell the beans for a living, however as many as 500 million people are employed by the coffee industry worldwide. Coffee is the world's second most valuable commodity - oil being the first, so coffee has become more popular than ever before, coffee shops, internet cafes and the expansion of fashionable eateries that specialize in coffee see us consume 400 billion cups of coffeeevery year, there is however one drink that is more popular than coffee and that is tea.

Tea After water, tea is the most widely consumed beverage in the world. It is drunk as a hot drink that is enjoyed for its cooling and slightly bitter flavour. Camellia sinensis is a tree that will grow to 16m if left undisturbed; however it is usually pruned to waist height to make harvesting easy, the name sinensis means "native to China".  There are six different types of tea that are processed from the tea plant, white tea, yellow tea, green tea, oolong, black tea, pu-erh, the difference between them is way the leaves are processed.  The most unusual type of tea is possibly Monkey Picked Tea; the story goes that Monks trained Monkeymonkeys to gather the tips from the top of wild trees, today Monkey Picked Tea refers to the best quality Oolong tea available, it is not however picked by monkeys.  It is only the fresh new tip of the tea plant that are picked, the leaves are then wilted and bruised to promote oxidation, they then go through fermentation, fixation, sweltering, rolling, shaping, drying, aging and curing before they are packaged for the pot.  Tea bags were invented in 1907 by a merchant who wanted to distribute samples of his product; they did not take off until 1953, when Tetley launched the tea bag. Black tea is the most popular of the different types of tea and there is a culture that surrounds the brewing and serving of this well-known favourite beverage.  Black tea is usually brewed at around 99°C, since the temperature of boiling water drops with increasing altitude it is very difficult to brew black tea in high mountainous regions.  Experienced drinkers of tea insist that the tea should not be stirred while it is brewing, this does not strengthen the brew but only releases tannins in the same way that the tea bag should not be squeezed, if a stronger brew is desired use more leaf in the pot. 

 

Fair Trade & Growing Your Own

As consumers become more aware of where our money goes we face economic and Fair trade teasocial decisions every time we spend our hard earned money.  Both tea and coffee are industries that are controlled by big business that exploit local communities and their farming land, we do however have a choice to support fair trade companies such as Trade Winds , by choosing a fair trade product  you will ensure that your money is going back to support a farming community and that the farmers are being paid a fair price for their product and labour.
Coffee beans
The other option is to grow your own tea and coffee.
Here is a link to our blog describing how to produce tea at home
http://blog.daleysfruit.com.au/2011/11/tea-production-home.html
A quick and easy technique for making coffee from your home grown beans can be found in the 2009 Rare Fruit Review.
Daleys Fruit Tree Nursery
Phone: (02) 66 321 441