Category: GREEN News
Boyan Slat: The Ocean Cleanup Project
It is estimated that 6.4 tonnes of plastic enters the ocean each year. The 5 Gyres (garbage patches floating in the Oceans) contain 6 times more plastic than plankton. The Great Pacific Gyre is the size of Texas. All this plastic waste has a huge impact on wildlife. It looks like food and birds starve…
Building homes from plastic bottles
We think it’s best to avoid using plastic as much as possible. We can rather choose reusable items and compostable packaging. That said, it is a good idea to use some the waste that has been, and is unfortunately still being produced. Building homes from plastic bottles is an idea that has been used in…
South Africa Moves Towards Renewable Energy
Fantastic news for the South African green economy and the environment is that the South African government has recently approved a $5.4 billion investment in renewable energy projects, which are predicted to be capable of producing 1,400MW of solar and wind generated energy and should be up and running by 2016. Get the full story…
Food (waste) for thought
You may remember we posted an article around 6 months ago, Food Waste: Beating Bourgeois Etiquette, which raised fundamental questions about our food culture, and the values which make wasting food more socially acceptable than thrifty consumption. The Institute of Waste Management of South Africa ( IWMSA) estimates that between 12 to 14 million people…
5 Facts about Genetically Modified (GM) Maize and South Africa
Fact 1: South Africa is the only country in the world which has allowed the main staple of its diet, maize, to be genetically modified (GM). Fact 2: Around 77% of maize production in South Africa is GM. Fact 3: Elsewhere in the world GM maize is grown primarily to feed livestock globally. Fact 4:…
Shell Spoof: Live with it! iPhone app.
This brilliant spoof campaign was created by Dutch Friends of the Earth in an attempt to hold Royal Dutch Shell accountable for their continued reckless pollutionof the Niger Delta. The Live with it! iPhone app allows users to find alternative water sources if their own water supply is contaminated as well as to earn points…
Fracking the Karoo: SA says yes while EU says no!
The South African government rather disingenuously lifted it’s moratorium on fracking while at the same time a European Commission Report found fracking to be a “high risk to human health and the environment because of its potential to contaminate and deplete water resources, cause a loss of biodiversity, degrade air and land quality and trigger…
Durban waste project making (energy) waves.
Durban’s waste to energy project which produces electricity from methane has been identified as one of the world’s most exciting infrastructure projects by KPMG. The waste project run by Ethekwini Municipality and SLR consulting turns the methane gas produced by two landfill sites in Bisasar Road and Mariannhill into enough energy to power 46 000…