Environment – Page 2 – Things Are Good

Using Dirt From Tunnels to Build New Stuff

picture of a tunnelling machine

Digging a subway means cutting through a lot of dirt, but what to do with it? This is the question that has troubled many construction sites throughout the years and depending on where you’re digging dirt you have different options. The worst, but all too common, option is to send the dirt to a landfill as ridiculous as that sounds. When Line 2 was being built in Toronto they used the dirt to build a whole new park and that approach is becoming popular the world over. Now Toronto is building a new subway and the dirt is being used in nifty ways too.

The hallmark for all cities to get to is the standard set by Paris.

Some global jurisdictions have pushed further into circular approaches that go beyond simple reuse. In France, large volumes of soil from metro construction projects have been integrated into systems designed to keep material within the local economy. Regional operators manage large-scale soil redistribution for parks, green spaces, and land restoration, creating a coordinated soil logistics network across Paris.

Paris’s proactive initiatives like Cycle Terre, carried out between 2018 and 2021, processed suitable excavated clay from the Grand Paris Express project into compressed earth blocks and other low-carbon building materials from a factory 10 kilometres from the excavation sites. This resulted in relatively short transport times and effectively turned soil into a construction input rather than a disposal burden. Ultimately, however, the initiative failed to generate enough commercial contracts and went into liquidation.

Fish Use Doorbells in Utrecht

Fish like to go anywhere the water is good for them, and sometimes that means urban areas. In the Netherlands the city of Utrecht has installed a doorbell for the fish to get in and out of a part of the city. Yes, a doorbell. Utrecht is a city with canals (no surprise for the Netherlands) and therefore a series of dams. Usually a fish ladder is used to help fish get across barriers but in many contexts and for many fishes the ladder just doesn’t work. Thus, a delightful doorbell has been added.

An underwater camera allows people to watch a livestream of the waterway and the fish that inhabit it. This camera transmits constantly during the migration season 24 hours a day. In 2026, this season will start on 2 March. The idea is that when someone sees a fish waiting to go through, they press the doorbell. Each time someone presses the doorbell a photo is automatically taken of the fish. This allows the fish to be tracked but is also a great way for people to try and identify the fish they have seen as well as learn more about that species.

Real Time Street Level Vehicle Exhaust Emission Monitoring

small car

A team of researchers have used the NYC traffic congestion charge as a place to test out some of their hypothesis. Spoiler: the city got better and air quality improved. The research team were able to figure out how to monitor pollutants on individual streets instead of neighbourhood or city-wide levels. They used cameras and phone data to track traffic (removing personally identifiable information). Their method has increased monitoring accuracy and showed that previous pollutant monitoring solutions could vary widely by up to almost 50%

It also helps with better modelling by figuring out which transit options will reduce pollutants the most.

For one, they modeled what would happen to emissions if a certain percentage of travel demand shifted from private vehicles to buses. In another scenario, they looked at what would happen if morning and evening rush hour times were spread out a bit longer, leaving fewer vehicles on the road at once. They also modeled the effects of replacing fine-grained emissions inputs with citywide averages — finding that the rougher emissions estimates could vary widely, from ?49 percent to 25 percent of the more fine-tuned results. That underscores how seemingly small simplifications can introduce large errors into emission estimates.
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To study that, the researchers looked at what happened to vehicle traffic at intervals of two, four, six, and eight weeks after the program began. Overall, congestion pricing lowered traffic volume by about 10 percent — but there was a corresponding drop in emissions of 16-22 percent.

Cleaning Urban Air is Simple and These Cities Have Already Done it

Person riding a cargo bike while on delivery

Since 2010 19 major cities have “remarkably” reduced their pollution so much that it some people are shocked by it. The tracked pollutants have dropped by 20% or more in the cities, which include Paris, San Francisco, and Beijing. The commonality between the cities achieving a remarkable reduction in pollution is thanks to reducing cars, reducing cars that burn fossil fuels, adding green space, and ensuring that people can choose sustainable transportation options. It’s so simple that any city anywhere can follow these solution to clean their own air.

The analysis found interventions such as cycle lanes, uptake of electric cars and restrictions on polluting vehicles had helped to drive the improvements.
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“Air pollution is often presented as a problem that is too difficult to solve and one that is politically unpopular,” said Dr Gary Fuller, an air pollution scientist at Imperial College London, who was not involved in the report. “This report shows that bold policies can improve the air that we breathe.”

Local Man Allowed to Keep Garden

Biodiversity loss is a large issue around the globe and there’s a small action that everyone can take to help biodiversity survive: grow native plants. Even a small plot of land can provide a refuge for pollinators and birds that are at risk, yes small plots in an urban environment are a big help. A man in the suburban city of Mississauga was fined by the city because of the biodiversity on his lawn and he fought back and won! No anybody in the city has a clear right to provide a safe place for tiny beings.

“I felt that this is something that I could do personally, in order to address the problem of biodiversity decline and global warming,” he said.

On Tuesday, Ruck won a self-represented case against the City of Mississauga, challenging part of a weed control bylaw that prohibits growing grass over 20 centimetres and growing certain plants. Ruck was seeking $2.46 million in damages and other relief, but he was not awarded any money, according the ruling.
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Ruck says that after some time of leaving parts of his lawn uncut, weeds were growing from seeds that had blown in from the wind, in line with his goal of encouraging biodiversity and pollination.