Fashion with Passion

Click on picture to enlarge or check website to see what's going on in Sydney during the next green drinks there.

Do you think this cloths swap meet would be an idea for the green drinks in Perth as well? Maybe as an 'extra Perth Green Drinks' in Kings park, like a little swap market... Let me know if you are interested.

Donate your old mobile phones to help build specialised youth cancer centres

Check it out on this website.

The rocketing price of water

Water scarcity means prices will be set to rise, write Ben Cubby and Erik Jensen.

The year is 2050, and Sydney is dry. Climate change has ravaged the city and battles are fought around one of the only functioning water filtration plants.

Household water bills are spiralling upwards as states struggle to expand desalination and recycling. Further rises are predicted.

Of the 59 main water utilities in urban Australia, 53 increased residential water bills in the 2008-09 financial year, according to the National Water Commission's performance audit.
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Abrolhos sea lion freed from fishing line

Wildlife officers have warned that discarded fishing line is a serious threat to precious marine life, after an Australian sea lion got itself tangled up in fishing line near Rat Island in the Houtman-Abrolhos Islands.

Lobster fishermen and Department of Fisheries officers kept track of the 50kg female sea lion and notified wildlife officers from the Department of Environment and Conservation of its location.

It was freed yesterday, after officers found the animal on an island and removed the fishing line.
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Just sit for a while on Cottesloe beach and count the amount of seaguls with missing parts or fishing line still dangling from what's left from a foot...

The Green Network - lunch

More info on the website

A Tiny Apartment Transforms into 24 Rooms

In Hong Kong, because of the space, apartments are small and expensive. Gary Chang, an architect, decided to design a 344 sq. ft. apartment to be able to change into 24 different designs, all by just sliding panels and walls. He calls this the "Domestic Transformer."

Launch Pad entries now extended until 10 May

Click on picture to enlarge
Designers, you now have until MONDAY 10 MAY to submit your furniture, lighting or object prototype into the 2010 Launch Pad program, so take this opportunity to gain some exposure, win prizes and take the next step in your design career.

Entry is easy – just jump online to view the entry form and requirements here.

'Toxic sofa' customers to receive up to 20 million

Thousands of people got 'burned' after sitting on a leather sofa imported by the UK postorder company Argos and a few other furniture companies from China. The sofa's were covered with a toxic chemical to stop the leather going mouldy.

Night

Scare denial on GM

LOBBYISTS against genetically modified canola have denied resorting to scare tactics to make farmers planting GM canola in WA this season reveal their location.

The WA Farmers Federation hopes there will be no retribution for farmers choosing to plant the new crop.

Seed producers Monsanto had 850 farmers across WA attend an accreditation course this year to learn more about the crop, with 400 signing licences to grow GM canola.

Monsanto spokeswoman Keryn McLean said about 30,000ha of GM canola would be planted in WA this year, with 6000ha in the Avon region, but she could not reveal the number or location of farmers.
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If GM is so "safe" then why aren't the crops locations divulged? It is almost as if the farmers choosing to grow GM are embarrassed!

Cradle to Cradle > simplified

Watch the video

Went 'verge shopping' again this morning in search for some nice plant pots and whatever I fancy or can use and was stunned again by the amount and quality of stuff people throw away as well as by the amount of e-waste on the verge in Nedlands...

We, designers, engineers, architects and everyone else who is at the start of the creating process, have to pay far more attention to this problem to prevent the amount of waste going to landfill!

Cradle to Cradle Design

Architect William McDonough calls for remaking the way we make things by transforming human industry through ecologically intelligent design. He argues that the current industrial system that "takes, makes and wastes" can become a creator of goods and services that generate ecological, social and economic value.

India has more mobile phones than toilets - UN report

FAR more people in India have access to a mobile phone than to a toilet, according to a UN study on how to improve sanitation levels globally.

India's mobile subscribers totalled 563.73 million at the last count, enough to serve nearly half of the country's 1.2 billion population. But just 366 million people - around a third of the population - had access to proper sanitation in 2008, said the study published by the United Nations University, a UN think-tank.

"It is a tragic irony to think in India, a country now wealthy enough that roughly half of the people own phones," so many people "cannot afford the basic necessity and dignity of a toilet," said UN University director Zafar Adeel.
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Plastic vortex wreaks havoc on marine life

The plastic vortex of the Northern Pacific is where much of the non-biodegradable rubbish from everyday life ends up.

The giant floating rubbish patch is a large accumulation of debris swirling within one of the largest and most remote ecosystems on the planet in the North Pacific Gyre.

For many years, its existence was unknown and when it was first discovered in 2000, marine researchers were shocked.

But over the past two years a group of marine scientists and activists have been measuring the scale of the vortex and looking for ways to control it.

They call themselves Project Kaisei, and one of the coordinators, Doug Woodring, is in Australia to raise awareness about the problem.
Read article and watch the news video

Project Kaisei Appeal

Watch also the other video's from Project Kaisei:
Project Kaisei Science Team: Researching the Plastic Vortex
Project Kaisei Scripps Oceanography North Pacific Gyre

Hotel offers 'cycle for your supper' deal

A Danish hotel is pioneering a pedal-power electricity generation scheme it hopes will catch on in other countries.

The Crowne Plaza Copenhagen Towers, 15 minutes from the center of the Danish capital and five minutes from Scandinavia's main airport, is installing two exercise bicycles hooked up to generators.

Guests will be invited to jump on and start pedaling -- and if they produce enough electricity they will be given a free meal.
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For shopaholics

A guide to eco-chic shopping

As the world of fashion takes a reality check on the state of the planet, Natasha Silva-Jelly presents a guide to the best in eco-chic.

In the lightning-fast, churn-and-burn world of planet fashion, what's hot and what's not changes practically every nanosecond.
Read article and scroll down to see what some of the big names do.

Rockingham is named WA's cleanest beach

ROCKINGHAM has won West Australia's cleanest beach award for 2010.

Environment Minister Donna Faragher made the announcement today.

The Clean Beach Awards, organised by Keep Australia Beautiful WA and Surf Life Saving WA, aimed to encourage the care, protection and management of WA’s coastal regions.

Mrs Faragher said Rockingham Beach’s victory was testament to the City of Rockingham’s commitment to making it user friendly, while also protecting the environment.
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Ethical fashion hits big time with German takeover

PARIS (AFP) - Green fair-trade fashion looks set to slip out out of the closet as one of the world's top trade fair organisers, Germany's Messe Frankfurt, takes over the Paris-based "Ethical Fashion Show."

While the market for ethical fashion is far more dynamic in Britain, where there is a fiercer emphasis on dressing different, Paris's Ethical Fashion Show is currently the world's largest event spotlighting eco and fair-trade fashion.

Held once a year, the burgeoning show has grown from 20 designers at its inaugural 2004 edition to 90 last year, from all of the world's continents.

Every one of the designs displayed at the four-day event is made with either environmental or social concerns at heart, the makers committing to a charter to respect working conditions, protect the environment, and preserve traditional skills.
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Money might soon grow on trees

A dollar value might soon be put on Adelaide's city trees.

The City Council has voted to consider adopting a formula used in Melbourne which has valued some trees there at more than $200,000.

Councillor Anne Moran says she hopes it can lead to fewer trees being felled.

"For instance, in the situation when the government removed 59 trees on Port Road to put the tramline extension but then said but we're planting 'x' number of thousand, you may actually be removing a very small number of trees at a very high cost to the environment," she said.

"What Melbourne's done is quantify that value and given these trees a replacement value.

"If a developer wants to chop a tree down that has been valued at a $100,000-plus we can say well 'OK, but you've got to plant a $100,000-plus worth of trees to replace that'."
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I can only hope that councils in Perth will adopt this plan!!!

Fertilise wise to save rivers

Every gardener dreams of a healthy garden full of lush green plants but the wrong fertilising regime can be damaging not only for your plants but also for our waterways.

Swan River Trust's Wendy Yorke said with excess nutrients one of the main causes of algal blooms in our rivers, over-fertilising of home gardens was a big issue.

April showers bring on flowers

"Poor gardening practices can lead to excess nutrients like phosphorus and nitrogen flowing into rivers through drains and groundwater run-off," she said. Luckily there are various ways for home gardeners to reduce their impact.
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Counting stuff

Early March I was counting bicycles in the city of Perth and tonight I was counting Black Cockatoos at Graylands reserve.

The Super Tuesday bicycle count went fine, on my way up to the city I already counted 49 cyclists, and that was before 7am! On my spot; corner of Barrack and Wellington Street, I counted 287 cyclists between 7 and 9am.

But the Great Cocky Count was a bit disappointing... I was there a bit after five to settle myself on one of the benches with paper and pen, ready to count. Waiting for the cockatoo call... And waiting... and waiting. I've seen lots of raven, lorikeets, corellas, magpies and spotted several wattle birds and magpie larks, even a ringneck and I heard several kookaburras up in the trees but not one black cockatoos showed up...
So I went home with an empty sheet...

Urban mail hubs to replace home letterboxes

DOOR-to-door postal services on the nation's urban fringe face extinction as Australia Post prepares to roll out fully-automated community mail centres.

An investigation by The Sunday Mail found that Australia Post has already earmarked parts of southeast Queensland and western Sydney, the nation's top growth corridors, to install the new mail "hubs".

Residents would be alerted by SMS when mail is ready to be collected.
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Lasers could create clean nuclear energy

An Australian-led team of scientists may have found a way of creating a cheap and abundant source of clean energy through nuclear fusion.

The process could generate no radioactivity and produce little pollution.

The scientists have used computer models to simulate nuclear fusion without the extreme temperatures currently needed for other fusion methods.
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Big Help Mob is looking for young superheroes

Big Help Mob is a 100-strong rent-a-crowd of ordinary young guns like you. We get together to do superhuman acts of awesomeness for non-profits and communities in Perth.

One day it's planting 10 000 trees in a few hours, the next it's renovating a community centre or cleaning up a place that's been forgotten and trashed. Nothing is too big for Big Help Mob and we're not afraid to get our hands dirty... all 200 of them.

Once the hands-on mission is accomplished with near-lightning speed, we celebrate with enormous, ridiculous flash mobs in public, using our superpowers to draw attention to good causes that need it.

To complete our first mission, Big Help Mob needs two types of superheroes: Captains and Sidekicks. From now until 5pm on the 19th of April we are calling all potential Captains: The hero who can help, guide and instruct their own team of Sidekicks to kick-ass and change Perth for the better. Could you be a cape-wearing, do-gooding Captain or a sidekick?

Check it out at: bighelpmob.org

Second Perth Green Drinks of the year

Setting up the speakers and people gathering in the lecture room.

The people from Central Institute of Technology; Jamie is explaining the solar panels which will be installed on Central's roof this Thursday.

Janet Grogan from the GM free consumers network gave a very interesting talk about GM

Rod Griffith from Sustainable WA facilitates an interactive exercise to start mapping the sustainability networks in WA.













Which continues downstairs while everyone enjoys a green drink and some nice food, hopefully GM free!


If you want to see what GM can damage watch this video about the gigantic bio-tech corporation Monsanto who is dominating the world market of GM.

Betacup Design Competition Launches!

Core77 is the proud media sponsor of Betacup, a design competition in search of a solution to the rampant wastage of unrecyclable paper coffee cups.

The competition is running on the Jovoto open innovation platform, and Starbucks is sponsoring as part of its aim to serve 100 percent of its coffee in reusable or recyclable cups by 2015.

The winning concept will receive $10,000 so get involved!

Betacup from the betacup on Vimeo.

IKEA breaks new ground

Recent days have seen Ikea, the world's leading furniture retailer, raising the bar for sustainability in the business sector, through the launch of a groundbreaking initiative.

The Never Ending List is Ikea's ongoing, global commitment to becoming a more sustainable organisation, and comprises nearly 100 business and product-related initiatives aimed at areas where the company can make an impact. These cover products and materials, suppliers, energy and transport, and community involvement.

The move corroborates newly released Newspoll research commissioned by Ikea that found nearly three quarters of Australians consider the environment when making purchasing decisions. Meanwhile, around 50 per cent are likely to be influenced by a company's social and environmental practises.

"Whether the changes we make are small, like using off cuts from quilts to stuff pillows or making bowls from natural resources like bamboo and banana fibre; to more significant changes including store design, waste management, increasing our commitment to our social partners Unicef, Save the Children and WWF, or extending our flat pack offering, our never ending list is our long-term commitment to do more."
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‘Ten Principles of Good Design’

According to Dieter Rams, the ten mandatory requirements for a good design are as follows:

- Good design is innovative.
- Good design makes a product useful.
- Good design is aesthetic.
- Good design makes a product understandable.
- Good design is unobtrusive.
- Good design is honest.
- Good design is long-lasting.
- Good design is thorough down to the last detail.
- Good design is environmentally friendly.
- Good design is as little design as possible.

Storm fails to boost Perth dams

The Water Corporation says Perth dams are at healthy levels despite last week's storm failing to have a significant impact.

The Corporation's Clare Lugar says dams are more than 39 per cent full at 243 gigalitres.

She says there was not much run-off from the storm.

"About 100-million litres fell into the dams and that's really only what fell directly into the catchment or over the catchment.

"So, we didn't get very much run off unfortunately because at this time of the year the catchments are just so dry."
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Ban plastic bags: Labor

The WA Labor Party has drafted a bill banning plastic bags.

Labor's Environment spokeswoman Sally Talbot says such a move would have strong public support.

"The time has well and truly come, the public is sick of seeing the litter that's caused by plastic bags, they're sick of seeing the plastic bags sent to landfill, where they hang around for between 500 and a thousand years before they break down so it's high time we did something."

Victoria and South Australia have already banned plastic bags and Dr Talbot says WA should follow their lead.
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Finally! But how long will it take before it is for real??? I am pretty annoyed at the supermarket still seeing 75% of the groceries packed in plastic bags...