Category: Environment

Two Aussie Schools go Green

Australia suffers a lot of droughts so it’s really good to see that at least two schools are taking steps to ensure that their water consumption is responsible.

While no longer breaking news, the endeavours of students and staff at two different Australian schools still merits attention. One school went bottled water free, whilst another became what they believe is the world’s first Carbon Neutral School.

In the first instance, a student-led initiative at Monte Santʼ Angelo Mercy College, in North Sydney will see the school install six water fountains and bottle refill stations to provide the 1,100 students with filtered tap water, so the canteen need apparently no longer supply bottled water, with all its attendant environmental woes.

The other school Oakhill College,, also in Sydney at Castle Hill spent six months completing an environment audit of its 42 hectares of facilities. The school will buy carbon offsets, while it uses the next five years to continue along it’s existing path of energy and water efficiency programs to the point it no longer requires the offsets.

Read more at Treehugger.

Green Golfing

Golf courses are notorious for their obnoxious water consumption and fuel use to keep the grounds looking artificial. A new golf course where the US Open will be played in 2015 is the environmental gem for the U.S. Golf Association (USGA).

It’s really good to see that golf courses are understanding the importance of sustainable design.

Thompson, like many other visitors, eventually discovered that the municipally owned course is a leader in the golf sustainability movement. Its 85 acres (34 hectares) of turf are covered with fescue grass, which requires less watering–half that of nonfescue courses–less mowing and smaller amounts of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. While the grass is not a good fit for every climate, it works well in northern Europe and the Pacific Northwest–although Chambers Bay decided it was too delicate to handle being trampled by golf carts. (Cue the caddy-job-creation program.)

The course also has 74 acres (30 hectares) of dunes and 91 acres (37 hectares) of bunkers, features that need almost no maintenance. “There is no irrigation, no fertilizer, no chemicals, nothing,” Larry Gilhuly, a USGA sustainability expert, says of the dunes. Plus, the sandy soil, which drains freely, allows the course to retain all storm water on-site.

Read more

Here’s more good news on green golf courses.

A Permaculture Garden Pool

Permaculture is the idea of contained sustainable agriculture that requires no external inputs – all energy and required input is generated by the permaculture system. Some enterprising people have turned their backyard swimming pool into a permaculture setup that is based around aquaculture.

Watch the video for some neat views and an explanation of the system. You can also find out more from the garden pool website.

The garden pool combines:

solar power – harnessing and storing the sun’s energy
water conservation – using less water and recycling waste water
poultry farming – raising chickens
aquaculture – raising tilapia fish
hydroponic gardening – growing fruits, veggies, & herbs without soil
organic horticulture – using natural methods to control garden pests
aquaponics – the symbiotic cultivation of produce and fish in a recirculating hydroponic environment.
biofiltration – natural water filtration method using biochemistry and duckweed.

Earth Friendly Beers

Beer is good and here at Things Are Good we do drink a lot of it. We also know that beer can be pretty intensive in water consumption and other resoruces, so I’m happy to share the news of eco-friendly brewers.

New Belgium
Located in Fort Collins, CO, right up the road from me, New Belgium may just be the pinnacle of eco-friendly beer brewing. In 1999, New Belgium became the largest private consumer of wind-powered electricity, and is an employee-owned business that prides itself on its environmental stewardship, adhering to the following creeds:

1. Lovingly care for the planet that sustains us.
2. Honor natural resources by closing the loops between waste and input.
3. Minimize the environmental impact of shipping our beer.
4. Reduce our dependence on coal-fired electricity.
5. Protect our precious Rocky Mountain water resources.
6. Focus our efforts on conservation and efficiency.
7. Support innovative technology.
8. Model joyful environmentalism through our commitment to relationships, continuous improvement, and the camaraderie and cheer of beer

They take full advantage of the more than 360 days of sunshine in Fort Collins by using UV blocking windows, sun-tubes, and light shelves; they use evaporative coolers, which condition their 55,000 square foot packaging hall with no compressors; and at their public events like their philanthropic bike festival, Tour de Fat, New Belgium celebrates bicycling as a viable form of alternative transport while a solar-powered stage provides sound for the day

We’ve looked at one of these breweries, Steam Whistle, before.

To see the rest of the brewers check out The Good Human.

Green Ways to Stay Cool in Summer Heat

The summertime can get insanely hot and it’s very tempting to turn the air conditioning on full blast – don’t. Air conditioning is notoriously bad for the environment due to the ridiculous amount of energy they consume to cool a building.

There are many other ways to stay cool over the summer that require a heck of a lot less energy.

1. Close your windows
It may seem counter-intuitive, but opening the windows will often make your home warmer, not cooler. Open your windows at night if the air outside is cooler than inside, and close them — along with blinds and shades — before the sun hits your house in the morning. This will allow cool night air to circulate, and prevent a good deal of the sun’s heat from infiltrating your living space.

You may also put houseplants — particularly larger potted trees — in front of sunny windows to absorb some of the sun’s energy. Use this method, and on all but the summer’s hottest days, you can get away without using the air conditioning at all!

2. Use fans strategically
Ceiling fans and those set right in front of you are there to keep you cool, not cool the room. But a fan in your face can help you feel dramatically cooler, even if the room temperature hardly budges. You should be able to set your air conditioner higher, at about 78 degrees, but feel much cooler by using a fan.

Enhance its effect by wetting your skin with a spray bottle, and get a near-instant cooling effect by wetting your wrists and letting the fan blow air across them.

Fans can help cool your home, particularly when used to blow cooler air indoors, usually at night. You can maximize the effect by creating a wind tunnel of sorts, with a fan blowing cool air in on one end of the house, and another blowing out on the opposite side of the house.

3. Adjust the thermostat
If you have central air controlled by a thermostat, program it to save energy by increasing the heat significantly during the day when the house is empty, and give up a couple degrees at night, too — especially on the hottest days.

You may be surprised to find that the contrast between outdoor and indoor temperatures matters as much as the absolute temperature inside your home.

Keep reading at Yahoo Green.