The Home of Tom & Morven

Mike Rann has decided to desalinate water for Adelaide rather than what I believe is the more environmentally choice of recycling wastewater (i.e. effluent).  ABC News reports that a deal has been struck to build a pilot plant at Pt Stanvac.

ABC News - Pt Stavac desal plant

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Today Adelaide broke a new record for the number of consecutive days 35 degrees celcius. A news article was just released on the web about it, and I’ve archived it for downloading just below.

Record heatwave in Adelaide ABC News Broadcast

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The hot weather has been frustrating because it means if I want to do some training for my cross country mountain biking, I have to do it really early in the morning. Even then, it’s still around 30 degrees just after sunrise. I tried going riding after work at the start of the heat wave which is when I got heat stroke. At least not only have we beaten the previous 1934 record (when records first began), but we’re set to smash it!! It makes everyone’s winging worthwhile. Below is a screenshot of our official weather forecast from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology.

Did you know you can offset the damage you do everyday to the environment with your vehicle by purchasing carbon credits? Now that you know, you don’t have any excuse for not doing it other than being a cheapskate Thanks to my brother I can get away with being a cheapskate, because he just bought enough carbon credits for my motorbike to be carbon neutral until June 2008. Cheers Mike!

Check out the Carbon Neutral sticker on my windscreen, and the Carbon Neutral keyring. Very classy!

Did you know that if you live in Australia for the amount of money you can spend on a rainwater tank, for the purpose of saving the River Murray you would be better to spend the money on purchasing water rights.

My brother gave me water rights for my birthday - best present ever!

Check out waterfind.com.au and purchase yours today!

People have been knocking my reasoning lately for thinking that red meat is bad for the environement. Well, thanks to Morvie for this link because this is definitive proof that being a fussy meat eater morphing into vegeterianism is good for the environment:

http://www.greenhouse.gov.au/inventory/enduse/index.html

Scroll down to figure S2 and check out the beef!!

Some cool links:

• Adelaide Webcams
• Adelaide’s Air Quality

Today I rigged up a way of saving lots of water. Our washing machine, which although is already highly efficient with its water usage, still uses at least a couple buckets of water per wash. By taking the hose that hangs over the sink so the water goes down the sink drain, and elevating it over the tap, we can simply leave a bucket under the hose to catch water. The bucket will fill up, and overflow. The cleanest water will be left in the bucket, and this can be put on the garden. You can also catch water that you use to wash hands, and stuff like that.

It should be known however, that it’s very important to make sure you use an environmentally friendly washing powder/detergent. This is because it will eventually seep down into the water table, so it’s imperative to ensure it has a very minimal chemical content. I haven’t chosen the washing powder/detergent that we’ll use yet because I need to take this information to the supermarket, but here is the info I will use to select the most environmentally friendly detergent:

Lanfax Laundry Products Research
On the site, you will find download links to view and print two pdf’s with all the info you need on washing detergents/powders for sale in Australia, and direct comparisons.

Alternatively, download them from me:

Graphs of sodium and phosphorus in laundry detergents

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Brochure on sodium and phosphorus

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Today I also fertilised our lawn, and also applied sulphate of potash, which will make the lawn a lot more drought tolerant. I’m aiming to go for at least two weeks between watering our lawn regardless of heat waves this summer. I’ve invested time and effort into making the lawn require a lot less water in terms of quantity and frequency by increasing the depth of the root systems, through regular fertilising, weeding, and coring of the lawn.

The most beautiful thing I’ve seen this year (besides Morv!):

Ice in Switzerland

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Thanks to Arie for this.

ACF GreenHome this fortnight is encouraging readers to reduce household waste.

Did you know that putting green wastes into landfill instead of home composting, produces methane instead of carbon dioxide, and relative to the quantities, composting is 23 times less destructive to the atmosphere?

I have done my part this fortnight for this, I just filled up one of our compost bins with all the leaves around our shed, and turned the second bins contents over to get it ready for spreading around the garden.

Also, to cut down on the massive amounts of junkmail we get in the letterbox (which always goes straight to the recycle bin) I’ve registered our street address with the Australian Direct Marketing Associations “Do Not Contact” service. Marketers that participate with ADMA use this database of people to know not to bother contacting them, because they know we chuck stuff straight into the bin, so it’s a waste of their money as well as everyones resources. Whilst I was at it, I also registered our phone number to help prevent the increasing number of marketing phone calls we get!

Whilst I’m in such a green mood, I checked out the Burnside Council’s recycling guide. It has full details on everything from what we can do to prevent waste in the Burnside Council district, including the specific pdf guide to what we can put in the Burnside Council’s recycling bins. If your council doesn’t have a comprehensive website I suggest looking at this one.

Also of interest to me is I didn’t realise the Burnside Council will (unless I’ve read wrong) reimburse hundreds of dollars of expenses for installation of rainwater tanks, as far as I’ve been able to read.

As pointed out by my brother, there is an interesting video of a recycling collection truck in operation:

Thanks to Warrick for this pic. Click to enlarge.