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One Planet Week – Understanding Your Eco Footprint

Published 23 February 2012 Steplight Leave a Comment
Tags: earth, eco, ecological debt day, ecological deficit, ecological footprint, ecological footprints, environment, footprints, global hectare, sustainability, sustainable living, week

I’ve been thinking about an initiative underway this week by OzGREEN (‘One Planet Week’) to motivate people toward living sustainably.

One Planet Week 2012

Many people are now familiar with the term ‘Ecological Footprint’ and the concept of needing several Earth’s worth of resources to sustain our current lifestyles. But what does this all mean?

Ecological Footprints and how they are measured

An Ecological Footprint is a measure of the resources used by a person based on their activities, lifestyle and levels of consumption. This is measured in global hectares (gha), being the amount of land and sea required to supply the resources and deal with the waste generated.

See our related blog post: Calculating Your Eco Footprint.

For most people approximately half their eco-footprint will be from food consumption, followed by energy use, transport and goods and services.

Average Ecological Footprint

The average Ecological Footprint for an Australian is about 7gha. If every one of the Earth’s 7 billion people consumed the resources that we do, it would take the biocapacity of 3 or more Earth’s to support their lifestyle. The Earth’s biocapacity is the amount of biologically productive land and sea that is available to meet humanity’s needs.

As it is now, the Earth’s population has exceeded the Earth’s ability to support our current rate of consumption. We are depleting finite resources faster than ever before.

What can we do to reduce our Ecological Footprint?

Quite a bit really, and it’s easy by taking lots of small, simple steps. The simplest and cheapest thing we can do first is to reduce the amount of waste we create in all our activities, for example:

Become energy and water efficient (a good starting point is to understand your current usage).
Become foodwise.
Choose less packaging and use reusable coffee cups, water bottles, shopping bags, etc.
Compost and wormfarm organic waste.
Walk, cycle and use public transport, carpool and consolidate car trips.

Collectively our actions add up to enormous change.

Steplight can deliver a Sustainability Workshop on this topic. See our sustainability events calendar for an upcoming workshop in Pittwater Council.

- Marta Lett

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11 tips to cut your food waste

Published 29 November 2011 Steplight 1 Comment
Tags: australia, christmas dinner, composting, food, food waste, landfill, leftovers, sustainability, waste management, waste minimisation

The festive season is just around the corner and for the next few weeks many of us will be planning a gathering or two. There are Christmas dinners, summer barbeques and New Years parties and with that – plenty of food. Last year Steplight addressed the issue of e-waste, this year we’re focusing on wasted food.

Food waste is a major issue in Australia and around the world and during the festive season this waste increases. A national poll commissioned by ‘Do something’ found that 59% of Australians admitted to wasting more food than usual over Christmas. This is a lot of waste, especially when you consider that at any other time of the year we discard up to one in every 5 shopping bags of food.

In fact about 3 million tonnes of food is driven to landfill in Australia each year. This not only wastes our money (about $616 per household per year), it also wastes resources and generates methane (a greenhouse gas more potent than CO2) as it rots away in landfill.

Food waste per person per year in Australia

Perhaps the biggest waste of all is that good food is being thrown away while others in our community will not have enough food to share with their families and friends. The good news is, if we all minimise our food waste it can add up to make a big difference and this festive season is a great time to start.

The Worldwatch Institute (USA) recently published an article addressing food waste and foodwise.com.au is a great resource for tips on how to reduce your impact. Below is a summary of some useful tips.

Shop smart

Plan out a menu and try to get an idea of how many guests to expect so that you can prepare the correct amount of food. There are a few online portion calculators such as ‘Perfect Portions’ that can help you with this.
Write out a shopping list and make sure you check for ingredients in your kitchen before you head to the shops to avoid doubling up. Make sure you stick to your list. Making a shopping list that corresponds to your menu also means you less likely to miss something which saves you from making several trips to the shops.
There are plenty of ‘2 for 1’ deals and offers at Christmas time that could lead to purchasing more than what you need. Only buy the quantity you need.
Never shop while hungry as you are more likely to make impulse buys.

Serve smaller

The look of all your delicious food presented on the dinner table can lead your guests to feast with their eyes and pile loads of food (unlikely to be finished) onto their plates. The simple solution is to use smaller plates and utensils. Guests are welcome to seconds and leftovers remain in the serving plates and are more likely to be reused.
Encourage guests to serve themselves. This reduces the amount of unwanted food on their plates.

Save leftovers

Store leftovers safely so that they can be preserved for future meals. Leftovers are also more likely to be eaten if stored in several small containers that are convenient for quick meals on the go.
Leftover meals and ingredients can also be used to make new meals. For example, Christmas eve ham and roasted vegetable leftovers can be turned into a delicious Christmas day cheesy bake.
Compost your food scraps. This will stop your food from filling landfill and will instead fill you gardens with nutrients and fertilisers – read our composting blogs for more information.
If your party is catered, donate leftovers to a food recovery program. There are several programs running throughout Australia such as ‘Oz Harvest’ that collect leftovers from catered events, restaurants and cafe’s and distribute it to those in the community that need it most. This service is usually free for the donor.
While raiding your kitchen for ingredients for your party, take note of any non-perishables that you won’t need or use and donate them to your local charity. Those few forgotten cans of food can be donated to a charity that makes up Christmas hampers for the disadvantaged during Christmas. Contact your local charity for more information.
Many options now exist to reduce food waste at a commercial level (such as OzHarvest 'food rescue')

- Alegria Alano

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Passive Cooling to reduce your dependence on Air Conditioning

Published 1 November 2011 Steplight 3 Comments
Tags: air conditioning, cooling, electricity, home cooling, low-energy building, passive cooling, passive solar building design, sustainability, sustainable building

Australian homes use up to one-third of their electricity on air conditioning. Of course, every home is different and statistics like this are merely a rough guide. If you want to understand more precisely how much your air conditioning is contributing, your best bet is to install a wireless energy monitor.

Assuming you do have air conditioning, why not consider other options to minimise electricity use without giving up your comfort?

Passive cooling is when the building ‘envelope’ and surroundings are used to cool a home instead of mechanical means. Examples include using the orientation of your home and shading to minimise heat gain from the sun as well as opening up your home to promote natural air flow.

In summer, the sun provides us with up to 1000 watts of energy per square metre. Letting the sun shine directly onto a small area in your home is like heating that area with an electric heater. So, to keep your home cool, it is essential to keep this direct sunlight out.

Priority #1 keep direct sunlight out

If you are designing or building your home it is worth considering its orientation. In summer, the sun shines at low angles (low enough to shine through windows) from the east and west. To avoid this heat gain, particularly from the hot afternoon sun, try to position living areas on the northern end of your home. Rooms such as the garage and laundry can occupy the western end of the home as they are used infrequently and can provide a heat barrier for the rest of the home.

If your home is already built and has living areas on the eastern or western sides, there are many ways to keep the sun out. Most of the sun’s heat enters homes through windows. Expensive measures like double glazing won’t actually achieve much in the way of keeping heat out (it’ll just keep it in). External shading, on the other hand, is a relatively cheap and effective solution (note: eaves do not provide adequate shading since the sun shines at low angles to the east and west).

Vertical external shading, such as external curtains, blinds and even vegetation can stop heat gain through these windows. Internal shading from curtains is not as effective as external shading. This is because the window glass still absorbs and radiates solar heat into your home.

Other approaches

Another way to keep your home cool is cross ventilation. Air movement increases evaporation which keeps us cool. Air movement also keeps the building cool, particularly in the evening when cool breezes set in. To maximise air flow, open up both ends of your home to allow for cross ventilation. Portable fans can also be used to supplement breezes particularly when the air is still.

Of course, the best approach will depend on the climate in your area and a range of other factors. For a comprehensive discussion on passive cooling options see the Your Home Technical Manual – Passive Cooling.

The following videos also provide more information on the principles of passive cooling and how to promote it in your home. They were created by the Dusseldorp Skills Forum who also collaborates with Steplight on the igreen and Y Green programs. Although these focus on building new homes, many of the ideas can be applied to existing homes.

- Alegria Alano

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Fast recycling facts

Published 13 October 2011 Steplight 1 Comment
Tags: energy, environment, sustainability, waste management

Household recycling has been a common practice since the introduction of kerbside recycling schemes in the 80’s and 90’s. Planet Ark’s National Recycling week (November 7th – 13th) is a good chance to revisit some fast facts on how, what and why we should be recycling.

Plastics

Most plastics are not biodegradable so if they end up in landfill, or worse, in our natural environment, they will persist for many years. Not all plastics are recyclable either. Those that are can be identified by a number inside a triangle of arrows that is stamped somewhere on the product. Lids should be removed because they are usually made from different plastic and need to be separated for sorting. If you are not sure what is recyclable and what isn’t, check with your local council. Here are the various symbols used for recyclable plastics.

Paper and cardboard

Paper and cardboard are some of the most widely used consumer materials so it is important to recycle as much of it as possible if we are to reduce waste. Using recycled paper and cardboard to make new products not only saves trees, it uses up to 99% less water, 50% less energy and produces 90% fewer by-products (toxic chemical waste, for example). Almost all paper and cardboard can be recycled including writing paper, packaging, envelopes with and without plastic windows, telephone books, magazine, cereal boxes, cardboard packaging, toilet rolls and Manilla folders. Some councils also allow pizza boxes (check with your local council first and don’t forget to remove food chunks). A common non-recyclable is wax-coated cardboard e.g. some fruit boxes.

Glass

Glass is infinitely recyclable and a lot of energy has gone into its production so it is a waste to have it sitting in landfill. In Australia, most glass products contain a substantial proportion of recycled glass, so your used containers can be easily re-used. Using recycled glass to produce new glass uses 75% less energy as it lowers the required production temperature.

Like other recyclables, it’s important to recycle glass correctly to maintain environmental and economic effectiveness by avoiding contamination. For example, heat treated glass can contaminate recyclable glass. Examples of heat treated glass are drink ware, ceramics, window glass and Pyrex. All contaminated batches or recycled glass are sent to landfill, so it is important to separate glass products properly before recycling. You can recycle all glass jars and glass bottles but make sure you remove lids and caps. You should scrape out large food scraps but the label can be left on. Broken glass is not recyclable, so to dispose of it properly, wrap it in some newspaper and throw it in the regular bin.

Aluminium

Aluminium is not found in its metallic state in nature – it must be manufactured from another metal using a complicated and very high-energy process. Like glass, aluminium does not degrade through the recycling process, which means it can continually be recycled. The energy costs of recycling are far less than the energy costs of producing new aluminium. Aluminium drinking cans, foil and food trays are can usually be recycled by your local council, although it is always a good idea to check. Recycled aluminium is used for vehicle parts, bicycles, boats, computers, cookware, wire and many other things. Aluminium drinking are usually recycled into aluminium sheets for new drinking cans.

To find your council’s recycling requirements and you nearest drop points for non-kerbside items visit the Recycling Near You website.

Have you calculated your ecological footprint?

Published 29 August 2011 Steplight 3 Comments
Tags: carbon footprint, earth, ecological debt day, ecological footprint, ecology, sustainability

When facing environmental issues, it can be hard to know what you can do to help as an individual. Understanding your impact on the environment is important for knowing what actions you can take to reduce the strain on our environment. A simple way of doing this is by calculating your ecological footprint.

An ecological footprint is an estimate of how much productive land is required to provide all the resources consumed (and absorb all the waste created) by an individual or group.

Your footprint is measured in units of ‘global hectares’. A global hectare is the common unit used that includes the average productivity of the world’s productive land and ocean in a given year. Your ecological footprint is usually expressed in terms of how many planets we would be needed if everyone on earth lived the way you did. Knowing your ecological footprint will help you answer the simple question of ‘how many earth’s do I need to sustain my lifestyle?’ If it is more than one, then you are using more than the earth can afford.

Take the ecological footprint quiz below to discover which areas of your life contribute most to resource consumption and learn about what you can do to reduce your ecological footprint.

Steplight has a workshop on ‘Understanding your Eco Footprint.’ Click here to find out more.

Global Footprint Network – Footprint Calculator:

Australian Conservation Foundation – Consumption Atlas:

- Alegria Alano

Steplight: sustainability programs and education

Posts Tagged 'sustainability'