Category Archives: Environment

Do a Good Deed for the New Year

Posted on 10/01/2011 | Leave a comment

The New Year is traditionally a time for get rid of some old ghosts in the closet and move on to pastures new.

So as we move into 2011, how about getting rid of your old banger whilst doing a good deed for the environment and also charity?

The social enterprise website Giveacar allows you to do just that. Scrapping a car can be traditionally very bad for the environment. Only around half of all decommissioned cars are treated at authorised treatment facilities (ATFs), where cars are disposed of the many pollutants associated with cars in a safe, secure and environmental manner.

However at Giveacar, depending on the vehicle’s state of repair, it will either be disposed of in this way or sold at auction. Either way, the profits of the vehicle’s sale will be donated to a charity of the vehicle owner’s choice.

To find out more about Giveacar, please visit their website: www.giveacar.co.uk. They are able to collect any car, anywhere in the UK, at no cost to the donor. Over 250 charities are affiliated with the scheme.

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Posted in Environment, Recycling

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Top 10 renewable energy technology breakthroughs in 2010

Posted on 30/12/2010 | Leave a comment
Published by EcoFriend
on Wednesday, 29 December 2010
 

With our planet in a desperate need of new eco-friendly energy generating systems, researchers over the globe have been working hard to develop systems that can power the world of the future in a sustainable fashion.
The year 2010 saw some great breakthroughs in the field of renewable energy technology, which when fully developed, could help create a better world. Here we have compiled a list of 10 such breakthroughs that are bound to have a significant impact in the future.

MIT’s Concentrated Solar Funnel …

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Posted in Eco products, Environment, Green energy

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Wind turbines and high-tech smart meters win in GE challenge

Posted on 28/11/2010 | Leave a comment
Published on EcoSeed posted on Monday, November 22, 2010, by Oliver M. Bayani
 
Four months and 4,000 entries into G.E.’s much-touted Ecomagination challenge, where it promised financial support of $200 million into new ideas for targeted categories, it has come up with a total of 17 high-tech companies that it said it will fund.

 

The G.E. Ecomagination Challenge: Powering the Grid contest wanted to corner the best ideas mainly toward building a more efficient and economical power grid. It is part of the broader Ecomagination flagship campaign.

Five winners …

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Posted in Environment, Green energy, Wind Turbines

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Wind farm manufacturing deal signed

Posted on 13/11/2010 | Leave a comment
Reprinted from Low Carbon Economy posted on 02 November 2010
 
A deal has been signed to construct components for one of the world’s largest offshore wind farms in Wales, safeguarding over 300 jobs. 

Burntisland Fabrications Limited entered into a £12 million contract with RWE npower renewables to design and construct two substations for the Gwynt y Mor Offshore Wind Farm.
Some 350 jobs are expected to be safeguarded by the contract, at the Fife-based company’s BiFab Methil plant. Work on the substation platforms is due to be completed in March 2012, with installation expected to take place the following month.

Further work on structures which will be used to secure the platforms to the seabed will take place at the BiFab Arnish facility at Stornoway, Isle of Lewis, securing a further 40 jobs.

First minister Alex Salmond welcomed the news. “Together with our huge natural renewables resource, Scotland has decades of offshore energy engineering expertise that can play a key role in meeting our renewable energy and carbon reduction targets,” he added.

The world’s largest offshore windfarm – Thanet – was opened off the south coast of the UK by Vattenfall in September.

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Posted in Environment, Green energy, Wind Turbines

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Upcoming Eco Expo Asia

Posted on 14/10/2010 | Leave a comment
Published by Renewable Energy Magazine
on 11 October 2010
 
The latest innovations in renewable energy, energy efficiency, natural resource protection and eco-friendly products will share center stage at the Eco Expo Asia, 3-6 November, in Hong Kong.

The event, now in its second year, is organized by the Hong Kong Trade Development Council and Messe Frankfurt (HK) Ltd., and is quickly becoming Asia’s leading environmental protection fair.

In 2009, the inaugural expo played host to over 200 exhibitors and was attended by visitors from over 100 countries.

“Eco Expo Asia brings …

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Greener home can be healthier too, says Hemingway

Posted on 14/10/2010 | Leave a comment
Published by Chicago Tribune
By Leslie Mann, Special to Tribune Newspapers on October 12, 2010
 
Whether we live in Hollywood, Calif., or Hollywood, Fla., we all want the same thing — health, says actress and author Mariel Hemingway.

The granddaughter of writer Ernest Hemingway found fame in the early ’80s for her movie roles. But in the past few years, she’s become well known as an advocate for healthy, green living. Currently, she’s working with the non-profit organization Healthy Child Healthy World and eco-friendly countertop-maker Cambria to promote healthy choices in the home. Our lifestyle decisions, she says, do not always contribute to good health. “We say we want faster and easier lives, but the result is slower and sadder because of foods and products we use.”

Health-focused home …

This is an interesting how things are changing.

Not so long time ago most of us wouldn’t even had a single thought about ‘green’ home to live in and now the health side of living in an eco house becomes important. I hope for it to turn into standard because it will benefit us all. I’m a strong evangelist of building eco-friendly, healthy, self-sustainable with 0-carbon footprint houses.

My wish is for every person living on the planet to have an eco-friendly house but being more realistic – lets have them everywhere where someone can benefit from having one. At the time of writing, my first port of call is the UK 🙂

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Posted in Eco build, Environment

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Breakthrough eco-friendly product launched

Posted on 13/09/2010 | Leave a comment
Published on Indian Weekender NZ
By Dev Nadkarni
 

Auckland construction products manufacturer Cemix has launched a revolutionary new product – blended concrete mix that contains 50% recycled materials without compromising performance.

The product, called Envirocrete, is a first for New Zealand and was launched in Auckland last week. The development of the product is an attempt to reduce the huge volume of 163,000 tonnes of concrete dumped in New Zealand landfills each year.

According to recent Auckland City Council statistics, building and construction waste makes up 17% of the 3.2 million tonnes of refuse dumped in New Zealand landfills annually.

Read more HERE

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Sustainability is big business

Posted on 28/08/2010 | Leave a comment

Good example to follow.

By Saifur Rahman, Business Editor, Published on GulfNews.com

Prabissh Thomas is an ordinary man, with extra-ordinary talent. But you wouldn’t know until you talk to him for at least an hour — that is the time it took me to realise a bit about him.

Five years ago, he started a business in Dubai under the name of Green Energy LLC with a mere Dh10,000, in a 100 square foot office. It was a one-man show, like most start-ups.
But his company was in a different kind of business — sustainable solar and renewable energy — a field that very few thought had such growth potential in the oil-rich Gulf region.
“Back then it was a totally new area, especially in the Gulf,” Thomas says of the business’ start. “That’s where the potential for growth in green energy products lies.”
Read the whole article HERE

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Posted in Environment, Green energy, Solar energy

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Eco-friendly boutique online

Posted on 27/08/2010 | Leave a comment
By Maire McMahon and published on The Post and Courier
Thursday, August 26, 2010

Sara Manucy is an environmental enthusiast and outdoorswoman. When she is not working for Charleston Naturally, the Charleston native can be found biking, sailing or walking her 10-year-old golden retriever mix, Honey.

Manucy met Charleston Naturally founder Sharon Harvey at the Serenity Now yoga studio in Mount Pleasant. After discovering their common love for Charleston, eco-friendly products and the outdoors, the Charleston Naturally team was born. Work on the business started in June 2009, and it began operations in January.
Read more HERE

Very interesting and well designed shop they are running. Well, it is not that simple, it is rather more an exclusive store with eco-friendly products for babes, brides, home/garden and pets as well as for body (I presume women) pampering.

I must admit I found some stuff for men too 🙂

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Posted in Eco products, Environment, Green living

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Semiconductor Giant Pushes Millions Into Solar, LED Arena

Posted on 19/08/2010 | Leave a comment
An interesting approach to conserving environment.
I think the time has come for all of us and businesses to follow. We cannot afford anymore such devastating ignorance eating our planet. Please, pull-up your heads off the sand, look around and make a move.

POSTED BY: Dave Levitan / Wed, August 11, 2010 on IEEE Spectrum Energywise

One of the biggest semiconductor manufacturers in the world, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, is pushing its chips into the middle in another field: solar power and LED manufacturing.

Hsinchu-based TSMC announced that along with plans for new semiconductor foundries, they will spend more than $100 million on a LED manufacturing line and $218 million on a thin film photovoltaic construction facility. This comes a year after the company announced their intentions to move into these green tech fields, and follows on the heels of a number of business moves aimed at centering them in the push for solar and LED fields. …

Continue reading HERE

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Posted in Eco products, Environment