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Cradle to Cradle Product Design Challenge

The Cradle to Cradle Product Design Challenge aims to engage and inspire designers and students to help design a sustainable future. In a world of limited resources, there is both challenge and great opportunity in eliminating the concept of “waste” and growing the circular economy. Designers have an essential role to play in envisioning products that are composed of sustainable and perpetually-cyclable materials, which can retain value as nutrients to fuel growing global economies.More info

Submissions open now through May 1st 2016

Get Up

Fluoridation of our water

Ingesting fluoride – a toxic fertilizer-industry by product – in drinking water for the sake of preventing tooth decay is an outdated, dangerous practice that is damaging human health and the environment.

Quite simply, the truth is out about fluoride, and the more people become informed, the less tolerance they have for this toxic drug-like substance to remain in their drinking water.

This is precisely the case in Europe, where 98 percent of countries have rejected water fluoridation either by removing it from their water supplies or never adding it to begin with.
Read more

Water use

We; couple, 2 cats, 1 dog, 4 chickens, big veggie garden and a swimming pool, use average about 450 litres of tab water per day = AU$0.68 per day. 

How much do you use?
You can find this information on your water bill. 

Genetic Roulette

Saw this documentary on Channel 44 (TV West) tonight and thought I share it with you as it's often so easy to not see what's happening:



This seminal documentary provides compelling evidence to help explain the deteriorating health of Americans, especially among children, and offers a recipe for protecting ourselves and our future.
http://geneticroulettemovie.com

What people get wrong about climate change

Got the facts on milk

Just saw the documentary "Got the facts on milk" and it's very interesting to hear how this multi billion dollar industry can make people believe that it's the most healthy thing that everyone should drink for good bones.... If you listen to the scientist you hear another story. 

Read about it or watch the whole documentary here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgzYXUMd04A

Nine in 10 trees planted by Perth councils will never mature

Reading this article I am not surprised at all. We have a huge Moreton bay fig tree in front of our house, it's the biggest tree in the street I reckon, and it delivers heaps of good mulch when dropping it's figs once or twice a year. Opposite are peppermint gums, planted a few years back, and in the front you see the matured peppermints who are there for many years, pruned to fit under the power lines.
But the miniscule tiny tree (in the red circle) is planted a year ago and is dwarfed by the huge fig, I wonder if it ever will get a decent size. It replaced a tiny tree planted a few years ago which was knocked down by a car.

They've been (and still are) cutting down big mature trees by the dozen in our area to make space for more buildings and concrete car parks. Replacing them with tiny spindly trees.
And now I read this:

More than 90 per cent of trees planted by Perth councils trying to cool hot suburbs will die before maturing, according to a leading WA arborist.
Read the article

13 November World Vasectomy Day

Concerned about the overpopulation of our planet and the effect it has on wildlife? Perhaps it's time to talk about the most effective form of male contraception.
Finally some good thinking! This growing human population is a big worry, when I was born in 1962 there were 3.1 billion people, in 2011 the 7 billion mark was hit, and now the counter is hitting 7.4 billion people any day. That's an increase of about 100 million people a year.

And we all are part of depleting this earth from resources to make our lives more interesting. Without taking enough notice of what is happening to the animal world let alone the plants and trees and what lives in the oceans. Our whole eco system is changing dramatically due to human interference. 

And it's scary to hear that China is changing its one-child policy for economic reasons with a population of 1.4 billion! And India becoming the next big industrial country with almost 1.3 billion people...

So, men who care for the environment, check out this video:

Read more about it on Treehugger
Australia's population is almost 24 million 

Lions bred for petting and hunting = big $

I am just back home from the movie launch of BLOOD LIONS in Australia. The maker,  Ian Michler,  had just arrived in Australia for the first international premiere of the film. Hosted by Donalea Patman, For the Love of Wildlife, in Fremantle and did the introduction as well answered questions at the end.  

It is amazing that this canned hunting industry can sustain and this is not only to blame on the South Africans seeing a chance to become wealthy. This has much to do with the clients; the hunters who keep on demanding, the choice of the priced lion! And the tourists who pay big dollars for petting the young cubs or walking with the 'teenager' lions. Or those who think they are paying for a good cause as it's brought as "eco tourism"; taking care of 'orphan' lion cubs for 'conservation'. 

If these clients keep on doing this there will always be a market. So we have to get the message out to stop this silly business of breeding lions for petting when they are babies (taken away from the mother between 3-10 days old!!) and then to be shot by trophy hunters and their bones sold for potions in China. 

Our great dividing range

Our Great Dividing Range is the heartland of eastern Australia. Its mountainous corridor stretches 3,600 kilometres from the tropical rainforests of Cape York, through the Alps of NSW and the ACT, to the temperate woodlands of the Grampians in western Victoria. The Range encompasses Australia’s tallest mountains, most reliable rainfall and some of our greatest biological diversity. Almost three quarters of Australians live along the inland western slopes, eastern escarpment and adjoining coastal plains.

From the carbon stored in its dense forests, to the indigenous heritage deep in its veins, to the rivers that flow from its rugged slopes and the essential climate refuge it offers our threatened species, the Range is vital to life in Australia.

Many Australians do care. Tens of thousands of Australians are calling for a Great Forests National Park to connect and protect critical habitat in the Central Highlands of Victoria. Thousands have divested their money from the banks funding Adani’s Carmichael Coal Mine in the Galilee Basin. And community backlash has seen a temporary ban instituted on coal seam gas mining in Sydney’s water catchments. 

Read more

The importance of the colour of meat trays in your supermarket.

Last week I read a message on someones Facebook page about founding out that the transperant meat trays at Woolworths being at least 5 days old and coming from Sydney to Perth, gassed for a longer shelf life. While the meat in black trays (except for those with bright marketing labels) is from the instore butcher and is only on the shelf for two days.

So I checked that this morning at our local Coles with the instore butcher while buying the fresh chicken (they only have a few fresh items left) and he confirmed this story. The gassed meat in the transperant trays comes from the Coles meat centre and are all gassed for longer shelf life. Hence the long distances they can  make.

And even the smaller supermarkets like Farmer Jacks are selling the high pressure gas packaging for their meats.

And while on the topic; There is no such thing as "No added hormones"! This is just marketing gibberich. Of course they don't add hormones to the meat while processing it, they add all kind of other stuff but your focus on the package is on the hormones; distraction!

While the animals used for this meat might be full of hormones before they started processing them, that's not told here, but you believe there are no hormones used at all.... Marketing can fool a lot of smart people into assuming.... 

So the lesson learned today: If you want to buy prepacked meat, buy the ones which are packed in store; the black trays without the fancy labels. Better, limit your meat intake and that what you buy, get high quality from the butcher. Even better, make sure the animals used for your meat had a decent life. Or become a vegetarian. 

Our Primary Forests: A Snapshot of What Remains

The pace of deforestation has accelerated so rapidly over the past 200 years that today our planet harbors only one-quarter of its original old-growth forest—i.e., forest that has never been logged or cleared.

Using detailed satellite imagery and geographic information system technology, scientists have produced moment-in-time snapshots of these remaining forested regions.

The pictures are not pretty.
Read more

Ride to work

Wednesday 14 October it's ride2work day again. 
Ride2Work encourages Australians to start riding to work and promotes commuting by bike as a regular habit and it is the largest national behaviour change program of its kind. 

Sign up to participate and get active!

Did you see those chemtrails today over Perth?

Trails left by aircraft with chemical or biological agents  sprayed at high altitudes for research purposes...
A speaker on the impact of these chemtrails on agriculture,  global warming and pollution:

Student Organisation Is Changing The Way We See Waste!

WHEN YOU ARE DONE WITH FURNITURE AND YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU, IT USUALLY ENDS UP IN THE DUMPSTER. WELL, NOT FOR ALEX FREID... More info here

The Problem Waste on college campuses balloons at the end of each academic year. For example, at the University of New Hampshire, the average 25 tons of trash per month jumped to 125 tons when students moved out in the spring. Thousands of reusable or recyclable items, including electronics containing carcinogens like lead and mercury, were sent to landfills. This is a recurring problem at universities nationwide. What’s more, it represents a fundamentally broken pattern of consumption – using Earth’s finite resources to create toxic trash that poisons people and pollutes the planet. If we don’t change course, we face resource depletion and growing toxicity in our air, soil, water, and bodies.

Or check out the Post-Landfill Action Network

Carbon tax repeal "savings"

I wonder how many people actually checked what they saved in electricity bills after the Carbon Tax Repeal?

I was doing my quarterly clean up on paperwork and came across the yellow card Synergy sent out with one of their bills. It stated that I could receive back between $46 to $122 (our average is about 10-11 units)

So I looked it up, couldn't find it until I saw this on one from October; got a meagre $5.40 back!
Wow!
That was really worth that whole Carbon Tax Repeal, isn't it???
I hope those people who didn't want the big polluters to pay are very satisfied with their 5 dollars back!

PS. There is no info available about the Carbon Tax Repeal savings on the Synergy website, the few things referring to it don't work. 

Australia's largest woodlands 'will not be protected if it prevents mining'

‘Any sort of recognition which would put constraints on mining would be absolutely devastating,’ Western Australia mining minister Bill Marmion says

Environmental recognition of the Great Western Woodlands, the largest remaining temperate woodlands in the world, will not be supported if it impinges on mining, the Western Australia mining minister, Bill Marmion, has said.

The woodlands cover 16m hectares (39m acres) from Kalgoorlie, 600km east of Perth, to Esperance and the Nullarbor Plain.

They’re home to 3,000 species of flowering plants – about 20% of all those identified in Australia – and 25% of all known eucalypt species.

But despite its ecological significance only about 12% is protected, with most falling on unallocated crown land.
Read more

LEGO GROUP TO INVEST 1 BILLION DKK BOOSTING SEARCH FOR SUSTAINABLE MATERIALS

The LEGO Group establishes LEGO Sustainable Materials Centre and expects to recruit more than 100 employees in a significant step up on the 2030 ambition of finding and implementing sustainable alternatives to current materials.

Today, the LEGO Group announces a significant investment of DKK 1 billion dedicated to research, development and implementation of new, sustainable, raw materials to manufacture LEGO® elements as well as packaging materials.

Jørgen Vig Knudstorp, CEO and President of the LEGO Group, says:
“This is a major step for the LEGO Group on our way towards achieving our 2030 ambition on sustainable materials. We have already taken important steps to reduce our carbon footprint and leave a positive impact on the planet by reducing the packaging size, by introducing FSC certified packaging and through our investment in an offshore wind farm. Now we are accelerating our focus on materials.”
Read more