NSW rural manufacturer shines with handrail lighting
A family-owned manufacturer based in the small town of Bellingen in NSW has won a prestigious US environmental lighting award sponsored by the Department of Energy (DOE). Planet Lighting’s energy-efficient design for handrails was picked out from among 126 international entries in the Next Generation Luminaries (NGL) competition. The design underwent a three-week installation and testing regime under the gaze of 12 US scientists and engineers before winning recognition in the NGL competition’s outdoor speciality lighting category.
“This award shows that even small companies like ours can compete with the world when they focus on innovation and quality,” said managing director Brett Iggulden. The design incorporates a high efficiency Light Emitting Diode (LED) handrail illumination system that can be fitted to both new and existing rails. The mini puck handrails are used to light public footpaths and staircases for around 25-30% of the energy cost of a traditional light source, with much less light pollution. The fixture has useful life of 50,000 hours.
The first US project to take up the Planet Lighting’s award winning system is a new Major League Baseball stadium under construction in Florida. The design has also been incorporated into more than 20 projects in Australia, while more than 23,000 mini-pucks have been installed in 12km of handrail on stage one of Dubai’s new subway system.
Planet Lighting will also be included in the DOE’s official guide to recommended low-energy lighting suppliers.
Story and photo sourced from: http://www.environmentalmanagementnews.net/StoryView.asp?StoryID=1109393 University research team’s pivotal role in thermal energy harvesting
University of Wollongong scientists from the Intelligent Polymer Research Institute (IPRI) are among an international team who have developed more efficient thermocells that might eventually be used for generating electrical energy from heat discarded by chemical plants, automobiles and solar cell farms.
A study published in the American Chemical Society’s journal, Nano Letters, reveals that thermo-electrochemical cells using relatively inexpensive carbon multiwalled nanotube electrodes can harvest low-grade thermal energy (temperature below 130 degrees Celsius).
One of the demonstrated thermal cells looks just like a button cell battery. However, over its lifetime this thermocell can continu¬ously generate electricity, instead of running down like a battery.
Researchers found that a threefold increase in energy conversion efficiency resulted from replacing conventional electrodes in thermocells with the carbon nanotubes electrodes.
IPRI Director, Professor Gordon Wallace, said the international team, which included researchers from the University of Texas, took advantage of the exceptional electronic, mechanical, thermal, and chemical properties of carbon nanotubes.
Professor Wallace said that efficiently harvesting the energy currently wasted in industrial plants or along pipelines could create local sources of clean energy that could in turn be used to lower costs and an organisation’s energy footprint.
Story sourced from University of Wollongong’s Innovation Campus news.
Exposed on Big Brother – bamboo flooring
Melbourne’s Style Limited (ASX: SYP) claims tohave penetrated the growing European market for sustainable flooring products after signing a Patent Licence agreement with one of the world’s largest flooring providers, Tarkett, to manufacture a new range of green flooring products using Style’s strandwoven wood technologies. The first products will be available in the market in late 2010.
Picture: Style showed off some of its bamboo flooring in the house from TV’s Big Brother.
The attractiveness of Style’s sustainable softwood product is that it is made from plantation bamboo and other low-value inputs, and is not dependent upon old-growth and native hardwoods. Previous tests by the company show inexpensive, fast-growing and replenishable timber species can be processed to produce wood floors that exceed the strength and durability of their tropical hardwood rivals – potentially saving native forests. They can also outperform laminate, vinyl and other artificial surfaces, according to the company.
For more on this story go to: http://www.environmentalmanagementnews.net/StoryView.asp?StoryID=1109401
Open that door automatically without electricity
A Japanese machinery manufacturer, Cosmotec Co., announced in June 2009 that it has developed an improved model of its automatic sliding door, the "Tsu-kai" Door (tsu-kai, meaning a door that opens just by stepping in), which operates without electricity.
Japan for Sustainability reported that the company aims to expand its business further with a new, enhanced model from 2010 onwards. The door utilises a stepboard for operation, which requires no electricity, and it is not only economical but also can be used in the event of a disaster or when the power is cut off. For the full story, visit Japan for Sustainability http://www.japanfs.org/en/pages/029762.html
Story sourced via Resource Recovery Forumwww.resourcesnotwaste.org
When the recruiter says no to that job
You had high hopes for this job. The job requirements matched your skill set perfectly. You aced your interviews. And you imagined hearing those sweet words so many of us long to hear, “You’re hired!” Instead, you received another rejection letter. Read Charles Purdy’s article “After the Recruiter Says No ” to learn how to pick yourself up after the let down.
Sourced via American Society for Quality: www.asq.org
http://hotjobs.yahoo.com/career-articles-after_the_recruiter_says_no-1161?WT.mc_id=EM4756M&WT.dcsvid=1930024308
Making shoes from Paper
Confronted with an ever-growing pile of old newspapers, Taiwanese fashion designer Colin Lin came up with the idea of using them to make shoes and tote bags for her environmentally friendly footwear company. Lin, 50, says they are now hot items in Taiwan as well as markets from the United States to Europe, finding a niche with green-minded customers who have a fondness for novelty.
Since the products were launched late last year, the firm has sold about 4,000 pairs of shoes made of recycled papers, Lin said, a fraction of its many lines of footwear. Both the shoes and tote bags are very much in line with Lin's environmentally friendly approach to business - an approach that in recent years has led her to use fish skin and raffia as replacements for leather.
"My concern is for comfort, fashion and the environment," she said.
Lin's shoes and tote bags stand out in a crowd because they are replete with the telltale Chinese characters that are printed in Taiwanese newspapers and the colourful photos and advertisements that accompany them. For more on this story and photos of the shoes go to: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120600251
Story sourced via Resource Recovery Forum www.resourcesnotwaste.org
Saving sand with recycled glass
Australia’s first car park built using recycled glass in asphaltic concrete mix has been opened in Tasmania. The partial sand replacement used 45 tonnes of Recycled Glass Sand, avoided the mining of 53 tonnes of virgin sand from southern Tasmania’s rapidly depleting natural sand reserves.
The project, which was finished two months ahead of schedule, used the recycled glass sand in the pipe bedding, concrete and asphalt in the project, with the glass used in the mix ground to a maximum of 2.36mm diameter.
The car park, which is located at the Rosny Park Tennis Club in Clarence, just outside Hobart, was developed and funded by Veolia Environmental Services, Hazell Brothers Group and the Packaging Stewardship Forum (PSF).
Clarence Mayor Jock Campbell welcomed the initiative and pointed out the need to catch up to countries such as the US, UK and New Zealand, which have for years been using recycled glass in alternative uses such as road base, asphalt and as a pipe embedment material.
“This relatively humble car park has allowed council and our partners to build a solid business case for the use of recycled glass sand in such applications,” Mayor Campbell said.
For more on this story go to the source at: http://www.environmentalmanagementnews.net/StoryView.asp?StoryID=1109375
Reducing electronic waste by slowing down
Research carried out by the Stanford Graduate School of Business shows that simply slowing down the rate of new product releases would lower the mountains of e-waste accumulating around the planet. Americans buy new cell phones every 18 months, Europeans buy them every 15 months, and the Japanese every 9 months.
Environmental-expert.com reports that global replacement rates for digital cameras range between two and three years. And U.S. businesses replace their PCs every four years. Where do most of these used products go? Directly into the trash. Indeed, in the United States alone, consumers throw away 400 million electronic products each year.
For the full story, visit Environmental-expert.com http://www.environmental-expert.com/resulteachpressrelease.aspx?cid=23745&codi=73738&loginemail=kit@residua.com&logincode=29673
Sourced via the Resource Recovery Forum: www.resourcesnotwaste.org
I&I Comment: We can think of a number of companies that would have to change their business models if new product releases (planned obsolescence?) were not as often!
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