Food Gardens – Food for the Body and the Brain DIFFICULT TIMES We are living in difficult times. Money is short, jobs are scarce, and many people are looking for alternative sources of food and income. Some of us are desperately trying to keep to our sustainable living principles. Others, like UK Prime Minister, Rishi
Environmental Ponderings – 21
Floods and Drought Flood or Drought? The recent floods are still fresh in our minds and we have started receiving messages from the authorities to save water. Many people’s first reaction is to say, “make up your mind, have we got too much water or too little water?” Our Status Sadly, it is not quite
Swiss retailer rolls out ‘coffee balls’ to replace capsules
(Michael Buholzer/Keystone via AP News) https://apnews.com/article/switzerland-climate-and-environment-83cc3ee9959e48301b98d68d15693b64 BERLIN (AP) — Swiss retailer Migros said on Tuesday that it is launching a coffeemaking system designed to replace capsules that produce thousands of tons of waste worldwide each year. The cooperative said its spherical capsules — described as “coffee balls” — are fully compostable, unlike the plastic and
Climate Finance for Sustainable Agriculture
Webinar –Click here to watch the recording. From the Climate and Sustainable Investment: Newsletter 2 The South African Financial Sector ESG Analytical Services’ Project presented its first webinar on 8 June 2022. The Webinar focused on Climate Finance for Sustainable Agriculture and showcased inspiring instruments that enhance environmental and socio-economic impact focused on regenerative agriculture by
Environmental Ponderings-20
Theme – Krantzkloof – A Nature Reserve near Durban “…As we distance ourselves further from the natural world, we are increasingly surrounded by and dependent on our own inventions. We become enslaved by the constant demands of technology created to serve us…” David Suzuki David Suzuki is a Canadian academic, science broadcaster and environmental activist
Environmental Ponderings-19
People and Environmental Problems Environmental problems? Why do we have environmental problems? There is a very glib answer to this question, and that is because of people. However, it is more complicated than that because people are all different. Environmental Worldviews I clarified my thoughts when I was introduced to the concept of differing environmental
Waterlight Converts Water into Energy with its Innovative Seawater-Powered Lamp
Posted 3 May 21 By Design Indaba. From the WISA Newsletter – June 2021 An innovation designed to serve communities with no access to electricity, WaterLight makes use of an available natural resource. According to the United Nations, electricity demand is expected to increase by 70% by 2035. It’s also estimated that fossil fuel reserves will be depleted in the
SA Plastic Pact
From IWMSA Weekly Waste Digest 7 – 11 June 2021 Establishing a national database for lifecycle assessment data Recording. Prof Harro von Blottnitz and Dr Pippa Notten of UCT presented the proposal for a National Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) database. Without such a database, LCAs will be more costly (up to 3/4 times more costly and take
A revolutionary new sustainable design platform
Monday, June 14 2021 From GreenBuzz – Joel Makower If the circular economy is to scale beyond a relative handful of companies engaging in a relative handful of initiatives, it’ll need some pretty powerful tools to enable them to assess the impacts of their products across the full value chain: design, materials selection, sourcing, manufacturing,
Reforestation in a box
9 June 2021 – From Verge Weekly – GreenBiz Over the past 4.5 billion years (give or take a few hundred million) the Earth has cultivated many perfect examples of circular economy principles — including the natural patterns through which water is withdrawn from rivers, springs, streams, lakes (and so forth) through evaporation and returned
Storing water: a new integrated approach for resilient development.
WISA Newsletter 14th May 2021 The variability of rainfall and the impact of climate change on our weather patterns has combined to cause even more hardship in an already water-scarce environment like southern Africa. The correct storage of water is a vital component to ensure the safety, health and even socio-economic development of communities. There
Redefining Good Design
May 2021 -Lauren Phipps Director and Senior Analyst, Circular Economy, has written an interesting article on redefining Good Design and some of the finalists in the Ray Hope Prize for nature-inspired designers. She writes: When most people think about good design, they might think of an Eames lounge chair, an iPhone or Frank Lloyd Wright’s
Environmental Ponderings 18 – The “New Normality” – What will you make of it?
We have been pummelled in the Media by the so-called “New Normality” that appears to have emerged from Lockdowns associated with the Covid-19 Pandemic. Has it affected you? Lockdown Analysing the positive practicalities that have been experienced, I identified the following: Homebound The forced “imprisonment” of families in their homes during Lockdown levels 5 and
Should you swap plastic for aluminum packaging? It’s complicated.
By Jesse Klein Greenbiz Group. As consumer products companies hunt for more sustainable packaging options, some — notably smaller brands — are turning to aluminum as an alternative to plastic. The big draw? Aluminum is touted by some manufacturers as “infinitely recyclable,” and it certainly has a much higher recycling rate in the U.S. compared to
Environmental Ponderings-17
Lockdown, COVID-19 and Change By the time you read this column, the pain of Lockdown and COVID-19 will, hopefully, have lessened. We still have to come back to some sense of normality, whatever that is. However, that normality will be different because of the changes that we have all had to make. Human beings abhor
Safeguarding the Plastic Recycling Value Chain
WasteWise.be Recording – Oct 2020 Circulate Capital commissioned a study carried out by GA Circular to understand challenges faced by the plastics recycling industry in South and Southeast Asia during this time and the interventions needed to sustain it. Based on more than 100 interviews (recyclers, processors, aggregators, junk shops and informal sector workers), this
BS EN ISO 14046 for water footprint: Principles, requirements and guidelines
Water Quality Month is dedicated to reminding how important water resources are to humans, ecosystems and sustainable development. Having clean water is vital not only to our individual health, but collective agricultural needs, environmental sustainability and equal economic development.To celebrate Water Quality Month, BSI is exploring key water-related issues and standards including; water management and
What you need to know about water safety planning for buildings
from the BSI British Standards Institute (and BSOL British Standards On Line) Water Quality Month is dedicated to reminding how important water resources are to humans, ecosystems and sustainable development. Having clean water is vital not only to our individual health, but collective agricultural needs, environmental sustainability and equal economic development. To celebrate Water Quality
Legionella Risk Assessment Standard
What you need to know about the revised from the BSI British Standards Institute (and BSOL British Standards On Line) Legionellosis is a collective term for diseases caused by bacteria of the genus Legionella, an opportunistic pathogen which normally inhabits warm, moist or aquatic environments. Learn more about how our BS standard can support with
CLEANING OUT RAINWATER TANKS – A HEADS UP
Once the idea of installing rainwater tanks takes shape, things tend to move quite fast, in our experience. The enthusiasm of seeing the job moving is strong, particularly when the job is to be done during the rainy season when visual results come fast. One of the assumptions you need to make is that, over
Keeping Rainwater Tanks Clean
Water Tanks You have installed your rainwater tanks and you may have even connected them up with pumps to your toilets and are using rainwater for flushing purposes. So now you sit back, relax, and watch your water bill go down and do nothing further. Right? Wrong! Rainwater Think about where your rainwater comes from.
Rain Water Tank and Supply System – Case Study
Background Although there are only two of us in the house, a few years ago, we found that our potable water consumption numbers were creeping up significantly. Combining our various water uses (drinking, cooking, washing up, showering, toilet flushing, laundry, gardening, car washing and sundry cleaning), we found that we were using approximately 12 kilolitres
Going Off the Grid – How Practical Is It?
“Going off the Grid”, means, broadly, living without using the services of public or private utility companies (grids) such as electric, gas, or water, by generating and providing for one’s needs such as by using solar power, rainwater, growing your own vegetables, and composting your own waste. “Going off the Grid” completely, for most people,
Environmental Ponderings – 16
Global Footprinting – Do we know what our Impact REALLY is? Where does milk come from? A few years ago, I was working with some children in a school in Hillbrow, Johannesburg and we were discussing environment and conservation and I detected a degree of scepticism from the youngsters. I decided to test this so
Environmental Ponderings-15
“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step” Chapter 64 of the Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu Load shedding reared its ugly head again in the first quarter of 2019, the Department of Water and Sanitation is deeply concerned about where the water is coming from to supply the country’s growing
EPA SERIES: A CITIZEN’S GUIDE TO CLEANUP TECHNOLOGIES
The US Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA), as a part of its Contaminated Site Cleanup Information programmes, has produced a series of two page fact sheets which summarize clean up methods used at Superfund and other sites. The fact sheets answer six questions: – 1) What is it? 2) How does it work? 3) How
A GUIDE TO THE ASSESSMENT OF AIR QUALITY IMPACTS ON DESIGNATED NATURE CONSERVATION SITES
The Institute of Air Quality Management (IAQM) has produced the above mentioned guide downloadable here. The IAQM guidance document, the authors state, is not intended to be a primer on how to model air quality impacts but instead is intended to provide practical guidance for those air quality specialists who undertake air quality impact assessments
Ecosystems Services – what are they and why are they so important?
Ecosystems Services – what are they and why are they so important? By Arend Hoogervorst Ecosystem Services? Ecosystem services are services provided by natural capital (“Nature” or “the environment”- see Explanations below) that support life on earth and are essential to the quality of human life and the functioning of the world’s economies. For example,
GRI 306: Waste – Public Comment
The Global Sustainability Standards Board (GSSB), GRI’s independent standard setting body, is pleased to announce a 75-day public comment period for the draft of GRI 306: Waste. Running until 15 July 2019, this public comment invites feedback on the draft Standard from all stakeholders. To find out more about the draft and the public comment
Water Monitoring Data Visualisation and Graphing Solution
Carin Bosman of CBSS is currently developing software, called LEGUAAN®, that will provide a service to effortlessly turn water quality and quantity monitoring data into graphs and reports that can be understood by management and other stakeholders, including government agencies, which means environmental data becomes a valuable business- and water resource management tool. LEGUAAN® is