GetGreen Water Saving & Conservation » environment

Notebook Magazine – Stopping Food Waste in Australia

Luke — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 03:34:29 +0000

Every year, each Australian throws away 145 kg of food. As a nation, that is over $5 billion worth of food items. For every 5 bags of groceries a person buys a week, 1 of those goes straight in the rubbish bin. That's almost 20% of the food Australians purchase. In Victoria and South Australia, 40% of what people throw out is food. In Sydney, the statistics are even more alarming - 50% of bin contents are food waste.

It is for this reason that Notebook: magazine has teamed up with Planet Ark founder, Jon Dee, to launch the Stop Food Waste! campaign in its September issue. The purpose of this campaign is to raise awareness and serve up the practicalities of dealing with an issue that has global and personal, financial implications.

"Food waste in this country is an environmental and financial disaster," says Notebook: magazine Editor Caroline Roessler. "In an economic climate of rising fuel costs and interest rates, not to mention disastrous food shortages in the Third World and the enormous environmental implications, throwing away good food seems like utter madness."

Please check out the STOP FOOD WASTE website to learn more about this issue and post your ideas on how Australians can minimize the amount of food that is wasted.

Sustainablility Living Calendar

Luke — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 06:13:36 +0000

If you're interested in heading along to sustainability focused events in your region then head over to the Sustainable Living Calendar website. The Sustainable Living Calendar highlights events and activities across Australia which inspire, promote and celebrate sustainable living.

Click on a link below to see view the events in your state:

Reduce Green House Gasses – Print less PDF’s

Luke — Wed, 21 May 2008 01:31:51 +0000

PDF documents are a great way to save paper, save trees and also save water, but only if you don't print them. The GreenPDF.com website has been setup to “educate the public on the environmental impact of printing PDF documents.”

To help save trees, save water and in turn help reduce greenhouse gasses, the website provides a method for uploading a PDF file to add a JavaScript-based environmental awareness notice to your document. Then when someone opens your document, a little message will pop up asking them to be mindful of the glabal warming impact of chopping down trees.

If you're unsure how to create PDFs from your documents so you can use this service, check out this print to PDF tutorial. You can download a free pdf converter here.

Environmental Education and Training in Sustainability.

Luke — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 00:58:15 +0000

Good to see that there's organisations out there dedicated to educating young and old about the importance of sustainability.� The Gould Group conduct environmental education and sustainability programs and projects for schools, businesses and the community.� Check out The Gould Group website for details.

Bribing the kids to save water and energy

Luke — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 02:45:33 +0000

A recent article in The Age outlines how one family has discovered a novel way to save water and electricity in the home, bribe the kids! If the electricity and water usage in GREEN challenge entrant Jill Forwards household decreases, the kids get a pocket money bonus. What a great way to make children more aware of their actions and help the environment.

Wouldn't it be great if our electricity and water usage could be tracked automatically and electronically.� Households could join a nationwide competition to reduce water usage and electricity consumption. � Schools could compete against schools and businesses against businesses.� Surely this kind of competition would drive households and organisations to invest in green technology and products such as solar hot water, rainwater tanks, and Compact Fluorescent Globes.

Run your car on water

Luke — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 11:28:46 +0000

Now I haven't checked the validity of the manual at the end of the following link, so download at your own peril. This manual apparently shows you how to build a simplistic, and affordable hydrogen fuel system for your car. It will show you how to convert you existing vehicle to hydrogen fuel cell power without making any drastic changes to you vehicle mechanics.

So here it is, run your car on water, but do it efficiently eh!

Ten’s Cool Aid raises awareness

Luke — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 04:56:37 +0000

If you're anywhere near as scared as I am about the future of our planet then you may have given up the usual Sunday night movie to tune into Ten's Cool Aid - the national carbon test� program.
Now I may be a little cynical about Ten cashing in on the whole Inconvenient Truth bandwagon, but when all's said and done, any exposure that raises awareness on the global warming issue is a good one.

As Dr Karl said last night, "You learn something new everyday", and here are a couple of little chestnuts I learned during the 2 hour program that I'd never really thought of.� Once you read them, it's pretty bloody obvious, but sometimes I guess out of sight is out of mind:

Your hot water system is one of the greatest energy uses in the home, besides the fridge. Look at switching to solar and make sure your hot water pipes are insulated.
Halogen lights use as much as 60 watts per globe. There are fluro replacements for halogen downlights available from the Neco online store.
Buy local beers - the importation of foreign products contributes massively to carbon emissions.� If you're not a CUB fan there's plenty of good local brews, just to name a few.� For that matter, buy local full stop - as if you needed another excuse.
Upgrade you appliances, apparently newer ones don't use as much energy when in standby mode. Failing this, switch them off at the wall.

It's not rocket science, but the more we save energy and save water, the better off our planer will be.