Eco-design would save £900m
by David Masters
British businesses could save £900 million by incorporating eco-design into their products, a government department said today. Defra announced the potential savings as it launched a consultation today on the best ways to implement minimum energy standards and energy labelling for high street products such as washing machines, televisions, and fridges. “[Energy] standards can save our economy so much money and can save millions of tonnes of CO2 from going into the ...
Plastic bottles recycled inside Wales
by David Masters
Plastic bottles thrown out by Welsh households will no longer have to leave the country to be recycled. Recycling firm Plastic Sorting has been awarded £450,000 by the Welsh Assembly to set up a new recycling plant in Ebbw Vale. Scheduled to open in 2010, the facility will sort and clean waste plastics for re-use and recycling. Powered and heated by renewable energy, the plant will collect local rainfall for use in the ...
Employee avoids disastrous nuclear fire at Sizewell
by Alan Harten
Over 40,000 gallons of radioactive water spilled out of a 15ft crack into the open in the Sizewell A reactor back in January 2007. The radioactive water leaked out of the cracked pipe into a cooling pond. According to reports, had the leak not been caught by an attentive worker, the cooling pool which contained 5,000 uranium fuel rods may have dried out, causing the rods to spark and potentially ...
Badgers coming to a back garden near you
by Alan HartenBadgers are starting to pop up in British gardens, which is surprising given that they are normally reclusive nocturnal creatures. A survey of UK homeowners reports that one in ten householders have seen badgers in their gardens noting the popular black and white face popping out in search of food. The survey was organized by RSPB and expected to find that foxes, hedgehogs, and robins would be the main wildlife found in ...
Fuel poverty still plagues Britain
by David Masters
Over 5 million UK households continue to live in fuel poverty despite government measures to tackle the issue, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) announced this week. Recent falls in energy prices have had little impact, with the current average annual energy bill up by more than a third (36%) compared with January 2008. During 2008, energy bills rocketed by £381. Cuts to the price of energy since ...
Blackpool’s trams given £100m makeover
by David Masters
Blackpool's seafront tram system is to be given a £100 million makeover. Funding has been secured to bring the 120-year old line up to modern standards, the Department for Transport (DfT) said. Sixteen new trams, replacement track, and extra stops will speed up journey times and make the tramway accessible to more people. Transport minister Sadiq Khan unveiled the refurbishment plans this week – one of his first tasks since he was promoted ...
Ospreys return to Northumberland after 200 years
by Alan Harten
Europe’s largest manmade lake, Kielder Water in Northumberland, is home to ospreys again for the first time in over 200 years. In fact, according to the Kielder Partnership, they have not only returned to call the lake home, but are thought to have laid eggs, some of which may have hatched recently cementing the assumption that they may stay for a while. Ospreys are large birds, classified as hawks, that feed on ...
Power Predictor estimates savings from microgeneration
by David Masters
A new gadget launched last month calculates how much money a household or business could save on their energy bill by opting for solar panels or a wind turbine. Inventor Tony Hammond said the Power Predictor “takes the guesswork out of microgeneration”. The Power Predictor is left outside for a month, where it gathers data on wind and solar conditions. Users then connect the device to their PC, which uses specially designed software ...
AA tells eco-conscious commuters to car share
by David Masters
Hitchhikers fed up with standing by the roadside for hours as hundreds of cars zoom by will be heartened to discover that one in four of the passing drivers actually think about stopping to pick them up. A recent poll by the AA found that just three in four drivers would never give a hitchhiker a lift. Twenty three percent of men said they would stop if they were going in the ...
Near-extinct fish broadcast on mobile TV
by David Masters
A documentary film highlighting the plight of the world's fish stocks will launch as a mobile TV mini-series at the same time as it premières in cinemas across the world. 'The End of the Line', the first feature length documentary about the devastating impact of overfishing, will be broadcast as a reworked six-part series on the Babelgum mobile TV platform to coincide with its theatrical release. Dubbed “An Inconvenient Truth for fish”, ...
90% of fish are “fished out”
by Alan Harten
An environmentally focused documentary, 'The End of the Line', caused quite a stir before its release to the general public yesterday, which was World Ocean Day. The documentary addresses the dwindling number of wild fish in the world’s oceans, by matching hard facts about the decrease in numbers of fish with brilliant scenes of fish travelling in the bright ocean depths. According to the film's statistics, since 1989 the world’s wild fish ...
“Superhighways” announced for London’s cyclists
by David Masters
Two of London's 12 proposed Cycle Superhighways were unveiled this week by Mayor Boris Johnson. Cyclists will have priority on the two routes, which will provide “safe, direct and continuous” cycling access to central London from South Wimbledon and Barking. Transport for London (TfL) is putting together plans for a total of 12 cycle superhighways, each of which will cover a route of between 10km and 15km, and run on a combination of ...
American poor hit worst by climate change
by David Masters
Americans living in neighbourhoods with dirtier air and water – usually low income and ethnic minorities – will be the worst affected by climate change, a University of California report has revealed. The effects of climate change in the US will include increased pollution, higher food and water prices, more expensive energy bills, job losses, and damage to public health – and those living in poverty will feel these effects more ...
Fujitsu’s netbook first to score GreenTech approval
by David MastersEco-conscious gadget geeks will be relieved to discover they can finally buy a netbook without feeling guilty. The Fujitsu M2010 is the first mini-laptop to achieve PC Magazine's “GreenTech Approved” award. Most netbooks have a low energy footprint and easily meet energy consumption requirements specified by Energy Star – so they have to be extra special to achieve Greentech status. The M2010's green specialities include energy consumption 30% below the maximum specified by ...
Scotch whisky goes green
by Alan Harten
As part of a new industry focused environmental strategy, Scotch Whiskey firms pledged to reduce their reliance on fossil fuels by approximately 80% within the next forty years, which they estimate will save about 750,000 tones of carbon dioxide from being released into the air. Richard Lochhead, the Scottish Environment Secretary welcomed the announcement that will have the same result as taking about 235,000 cars off the road. Fossil fuel reliance is ...
Climate change death toll hits 300,000 per year
by David Masters
Climate change is responsible for 300,000 deaths per year, a new report by the Global Humanitarian Forum (GHF) revealed this week. The report, 'The Human Impact Report: Climate Change The Anatomy of a Silent Crisis', is the most comprehensive ever on the human impact of climate change. Research for the report found that 325 million people are already seriously affected by climate change through damage to homes, crops, and livelihoods, at a ...
Supermarkets deny responsibility for rainforest destruction
by David Masters
British supermarkets have denied being “silent partners to crime” in the destruction of the Amazon rainforest. Tesco, Morrisons, Sainsbury's, Asda, and Marks and Spencer all deny purchasing beef products from cattle raised on illegally deforested land in the Brazilian Amazon. Their denial follows a three year investigation by Greenpeace, which discovered that meat from the illegally raised cattle is “laundered” to an “unwitting global market” by being processed and packaged into convenience ...
Charles turns Dalek on Grey squirrels
by Alan Harten
With 3 million grey squirrels spread across Britain and only somewhere around 150,000 red squirrels, Prince Charles issued a statement that said the foreign grey squirrels need to be exterminated if the native British squirrels have any chance at survival. His announcement is based on the thought that grey squirrels wreck the bark on trees, spread disease, kill birds, and destroy the natural habitat of the red squirrels, leading some conservationists ...
Climate change refugees offered rental islands
by David Masters
Indonesia is offering many of its 10,000 islands to climate change refugees driven off their homeland by rising sea levels – but only if the price is right. Indonesia's maritime minister has proposed renting out islands to communities displaced by climate change. The proposals must be approved by the Indonesian government before they are implemented. Pacific Island nations are among the hardest hit by rising sea levels, with more than half of the ...
Mediterranean heat in Eastern Europe by 2050
by David Masters
By mid-century, climate change will give Poland and Hungary weather patterns similar to Spain and Sicily, the World Bank warned this week. By 2050, the two Eastern European countries will experience 37 days per year above 30 degrees Celsius, up from 22 days in 1999. The World Bank's report examined what central Asian and Eastern European countries need to do to adapt to climate change. The report warned that the effects of climate ...