Coke goes better with water
Coca-Cola Amatil (CCA) will use its new High Bay (Northmead, Sydney) Warehouse’s 6000 m2 roof area to run a stormwater harvesting scheme. The water captured will be diverted into two underground storage tanks totalling 1.87 million litres and the project is estimated to save 9 ML of water per year.
The company has a ‘first flush’ water diverter option built into its rainwater collection system. This could be used to improve the quality of the water collected by diverting the more polluted water that initially runs off the roof and preventing it from entering the storage tanks.
The rainwater collected in one of the storage tanks will be treated and filtered to drinking water quality. The water captured in the other tank will be used to substitute water on site in processes such as flushing toilets and irrigating a council park.
The irrigation water will be filtered before being pumped through an irrigation reticulation system to landscaped areas. This system will allow all irrigation water to be supplied from on-site harvesting.
CCA has plans to extend this project to other plants and to increase the roof area used at the Northmead plant, but will first wait for the results of the Northmead project.
Nestle does it with rainwater too
More Australian food and beverage companies are turning skywards to harvest rain as an effective method of saving water. Nestlé Foods has championed the water-saving approach, which it says will save at least 5ML of water a year at one Melbourne plant and reduce its dependence on Victoria’s rapidly drying dams.
Nestlé’s Pakenham factory, located east of Melbourne, began capturing rainwater from the rooftops of three factory buildings to supplement mains water used in the factory’s cooling towers. The scheme was hatched in 2007 when the company recognised two large unused water treatment tanks could be used to harvest rainwater on the factory’s 5,500sqm roof area and then was bolstered after getting a grant from the Victorian Government’s Smart Water Fund.
 Nestlé only uses its rainwater for cooling towers, which consume 11ML of water a year and are used to freeze ready-made meals.
“Because recycled water cannot be used in food processing because of hygiene reasons, the challenge for [Nestlé’s] Water Wise team was to devise an innovative use for the rainwater collected,” said factory manager, Andrew Nooy.
“During a six-month period of low rainfall last year our project captured 1.765 million litres of water and we’re confident that during a non-drought year we can capture and save five million litres of water.”
Make a cleaning cloth by adding water to a tablet!
Pure Planet Australia is the distributer for an innovative cloth product, called Purewipes. Purewipes are a super lightweight 'tablet' that transforms almost instantly, when water is added, into a 22 x 24cm durable, all purpose re-useable cloth!
Pure Planet reports that Purewipes are made from 100% lint FREE compressed cotton, very compact and convenient. They are 100% bio-degradable, so whether you dispose of them or re-use them, they can be thrown into a compost bin with your vegetable scraps and they will break down like organic matter.....quickly back into the earth.....leaving NO harmful residues or chemicals.
Waves for energy in WA
Wave energy developer Carnegie Wave Energy (ASX:CWE) has chosen waters off Garden Island, near Fremantle, as the location for its first commercial demonstration wave project. The company has been undertaking feasibility studies on potential project sites around WA for the last 12 months, and CEO Michael Ottaviano said, “Carnegie’s project will be the first time WA’s abundant wave resource has been harnessed to produce zero-emission renewable energy”.
Subject to approvals, the commercial demonstration project will be a 5MW installation. Planning of Stage 1 began in early 2009 and will be completed in 2010. More on this project from http://www.carnegiewave.com
Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA)
Failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA) is a step-by-step approach for identifying all possible failures in a design, a manufacturing or assembly process, or a product or service.
Information sourced via American Society for Quality www.asq.org
Fast tracking Green patents
IP Australia is helping green innovators find a fast track to the marketplace by offering priority to environmentally friendly technologies in the patent application system. Being sent straight to the top of the queue could cut application processing times down from one year to less than two months.
IP Australia is the Federal Government agency responsible for granting intellectual property protection in patents, trade-marks, design and plant breeders’ rights.
A sign of things to come – 6 waste bins?
Householders could be forced to have as many as six bins and sift through every piece of rubbish under UK Government plans to increase the amount of recycling. The Daily Telegraph reported that the new "zero waste" strategy means every piece of waste that can possibly be burned, re-used, recycled or left to rot will have to be sorted and collected.
The majority of homes will have a slop bucket for food scraps alongside separate bins for glass, plastic bottles and packaging, cardboard, paper, tin, and garden waste - as well as a black bin for the small amount of rubbish that must be burned or sent to landfill. It will be up to each council how to collect waste but some will be forced to introduce a series of new bins and collection times. Councils can also impose fines of up to £500 per household if people put the wrong material in each bin.
Speaking at a "waste summit" attended by local authorities, businesses and waste disposal firms, Hilary Benn, the UK Environment Secretary, said every council will be expected to have "full recycling services" by 2020.
Is garbage the solution to tackling climate change? Converting the rubbish that fills the world's landfills into biofuel may be the answer to both the growing energy crisis and to tackling carbon emissions, claim scientists in Singapore and Switzerland. Biofuels produced from crops have proven controversial because they require an increase in crop production which has its own severe environmental costs. However, second-generation biofuels, such as cellulosic ethanol derived from processed urban waste, may offer dramatic emissions savings without the environmental catch. "Our results suggest that fuel from processed waste biomass, such as paper and cardboard, is a promising clean energy solution," said study author Associate Professor Hugh Tan of the National University of Singapore. "If developed fully this biofuel could simultaneously meet part of the world's energy needs, while also combating carbon emissions and fossil fuel dependency." Sourced from Resource Recovery Forum: www.resourcesnotwaste.org | |
Plug in and drive away car tests underway
Over the next three months staff from Victorian energy distributor SP AusNet will use plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) for their daily drive to work and for leisure. As part of a CSIRO and SP AusNet trial the PHEVs will carry a 30Ah NiMH battery, which is capable of holding a 6kWh charge, and a battery charger, to allow the cars to plug into and charge with electricity from the grid or from on-site renewable energy sources.
The road trial will collect information on how the existing PHEV technology could be employed for using the car as a large mobile battery, which can be integrated and used in the home. The PHEV technology will also be used in the home energy system of CSIRO’s Zero Emission House (AusZEH) project. Story from Environmental Management News (www.environmentalmanagementnews.net)
Light bulbs go green
On 1 September the European Union (EU) began the mandatory phase out of 100W and frosted incandescent (or old fashioned) lightbulbs.
This new legislation to cut wasted energy and high electricity bills was agreed by EU Member States last December with support of the UK.
Defra – Dept for Environment Food and Rural Affairs UK
IMD and the China climate change conundrum
Professor Jean-Pierre Lehmann from European Business School IMD reported on a recent presentationto Executive MBA classes in Shanghai by the Chinese economist Fan Gang. Fan Gang underlined that China was facing simultaneously three major transformative challenges: (1) from a closed to an open economy; (2) from a central command to a market economy; (3) from a rural “developing” economy to a fully industrialized economy. As China celebrates the 30th anniversary of its reform program, the score-card on all three of the challenges is pretty impressive.
Looking to the next decade, a fourth challenge will loom over all the others: China must transform itself from being the world’s number one emitter of carbon-dioxide to becoming a low-carbon economy and thereby meet highly daunting targets in order to prevent the worst threats of climate change.
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