World’s urban waste mountain remains a growing problem

The amount of rubbish generated by city dwellers is set to rise steeply in the next two decades, with much of the increase coming in fast-growing cities in developing countries, according to a World Bank report published on Wednesday. The amount of municipal solid waste is growing fastest in China – which overtook the US as the world’s largest waste generator in 2004 – other parts of east Asia, and parts of eastern Europe and the Middle East, the report says. Growth rates for rubbish in these areas are similar to their rates for urbanisation and increases in GDP. The …

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Global Food – 2 billion tonnes of all food produced ends up as waste

As much as 2 billion tonnes of all food produced ends up as waste Institution of Mechanical Engineers calls on urgent action to prevent 50% of all food produced in the world ending up as waste 10 January 2013 A report by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers has found that as much as 50% of all food produced around the world never reaches a human stomach due to issues as varied as inadequate infrastructure and storage facilities through to overly strict sell-by dates, buy-one-get-one free offers and consumers demanding cosmetically perfect food. With UN predictions that there could be about an …

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Webinar State of Waste: relationship between landfill pricing and recycling

Australia generates 46.8 MT of waste. Despite steady increases in the rate of recovery (av. 52%), the waste generated between 2002/03 and 2008/09 grew by 40%, while population increased by only 10% (SoE Report NSW, 2013). There are more of us but we are consuming proportionally more each year per person. Waste generation has been growing at a historic average of 4-7% per year and still is. That means the amount of waste the industry has to process is doubling every ten to eighteen years. However, the good news is that we are recycling a lot more and recycling jobs …

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Independent Distributed Energy and Transport Systems

Electric Vehicles provide clean and efficient transport systems – bus, car, bike, ferry EV also can be used as mobile energy storage/backup energy storage – EV can be charged during day from solar to provide additional backup energy for peak day/night if required with smart systems ensuring energy left for travel the next day and top up power from off peak electricity. Integrated with solar they can provide zero emissions transport – plug in charging stations can be located almost anywhere with stations having their own battery storage to fast charge vehicles for increased range. Stations can be located at …

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Sustainable Renewable Energy Sources in US continue to grow

Sustainable Renewable Energy According to the latest issue of the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) “Electric Power Monthly,” with preliminary data through to June 30, 2013, renewable energy sources (i.e., biomass, geothermal, hydropower, solar, wind) provided 14.20 percent of the nation’s net electric power generation during the first half of the year. For the same period in 2012, renewables accounted for 13.57 percent of net electrical generation. Moreover, non-hydro renewables have more than tripled their output during the past decade. They now account for almost the same share of electrical generation (6.71 percent) as does conventional hydropower (7.49 percent). Ten …

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Business Imperative and Market Demand Driving Green Building Growth

  As sustainability and energy efficiency initiatives take hold around the world, firms are finding business value and opportunities from green building, including the opportunity for new environmentally responsible products, according to McGraw-Hill Construction’s latest SmartMarket Report, “World Green Building Trends – Business Benefits Driving New and Retrofit Market Opportunities in Over 60 Countries,” released today. The report, developed in partnership with United Technologies Corp. (UTC), is based on a study of global green building trends and aims to discern drivers of the green building marketplace. According to the study, firms are shifting their business toward green building, with 51 …

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World’s Largest Investors Launch Effort to Engage Global Stock Exchanges on Sustainability Reporting Standard for Companies

Sustainability advocacy group Ceres, in collaboration with BlackRock and other major institutional investors, have announced an initiative to engage global stock exchanges via the World Federation of Exchanges (WFE) on a possible uniform reporting standard for sustainability reporting by all exchange members. The launch includes specific recommendations for integrating environmental and social disclosure requirements into listing rules for companies listed on U.S. and global stock exchanges. The proposal was developed by Ceres’ Investor Network on Climate Risk (INCR) and its member-driven Investor Initiative for Sustainable Exchanges. Over 100 institutional investors from six continents helped shape the listing standards proposal. The …

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Waste Management JV to Produce Liquid Fuels from Landfill Gas

Houston, Texas based Waste Management, has formed a joint venture company to produce renewable fuels and chemicals from biogas and natural gas using smaller-scale Gas-to-Liquids (GTL) technology. Read the full article here  Waste Management JV to Produce Liquid Fuels from Landfill Gas

How do we change behaviour in a consumerist society?

By Peter Newton, Swinburne University of Technology Many Australians are happy to declare their interest in sustainability, to reducing their environmental impact. But how many of them are prepared to reduce the amount they actually consume? We recently explored whether Australian households have an “attitude-action gap” on environment and consumption. We surveyed 1200 Melbourne households, examining attitudes, intentions and opinions related to the environment and urban living. We also recorded objective data on actual household consumption of energy, water, housing space, urban travel and domestic appliances. It’s not uncommon being a material green Three lifestyle segments emerged: a majority (40.3%) …

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Climate impacts– analysing infrastructure interconnectivity and flow-on effects for Australian cities

Manidis Roberts, KPMG and The Climate Institute (TCI) collaborated to undertake an exercise to credibly identify, quantify and cost, climate impacts on city infrastructure (Melbourne) as a result of extreme heat event. We modelled the impacts on infrastructure and their interdependencies under a specified climate event. This provided a case study of the flow-on impacts of the damage to infrastructure from future climate events. We explored the interdependencies that play out between businesses and infrastructure owners and operators under future climatic conditions, such as an extreme heat, sea level rise or extreme rainfall events. The exercise identified nodes of interconnectivity …

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