Friday 26 September 2008

The day humanity starts eating the planet

On September 23, humanity will have used up all the resources nature will provide this year, according to the latest data from Global Footprint Network. Just like any company, nature has a budget - it can only produce so many resources and absorb so much waste each year. The problem is, our demand on nature's services is exceeding what it can provide.

Click here for more...

We are family

Here is a blog opposed to the whole eco-town project.

Eco town dwellers may be monitored for green habits

Residents of the planned eco towns in England could face strict monitoring of their travel habits, home insulation and even wasted food, to ensure they are truly living a "green" lifestyle.

Experts advising the government on its plans to build up to 10 eco towns by 2020, yesterday called for ministers to toughen environmental standards for the developments with monitoring to ensure their carbon footprint is three times smaller than the British average. Click here for more...

Thursday 25 September 2008

Inside Out - on BBC iPlayer

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00dqp0p

So what did the Beeb make of the Aldingbourne Three? A few days left to watch!

What makes an Eco-Town?

The report, What makes an eco-town?, produced jointly by the BioRegional Development Group and CABE, defines an eco-town as a place designed to make it easy for residents to reduce their ecological footprint by two thirds and their carbon dioxide emissions by 80 per cent below 1990 levels.

The report proposes features of places designed for living within ecological limits. These include generous space to grow food; ample tree canopy cover; attractive alternatives to shopping as the default leisure activity; and substantial reduction in car dependency. It provides clear criteria and practical guidance on how the sustainability of settlements can be monitored and tested.

Click here for more info and to download...

Wednesday 24 September 2008

Eco-town protesters light beacon

Final signatures for a petition against plans to build a West Sussex eco-town are being collected, as protesters prepare to light a community beacon. The government has named the former Ford airfield, near Arundel, and surrounding farmland as a possible site for 5,000 homes. Ford is one of 15 sites in England originally shortlisted for the 10 new eco-towns. Two have since dropped out. Click here for more...

Meanwhile an environmental pressure group has called for plans for an eco-town to be reconsidered. Click here...

No mention of Eco-Towns this year..?

Gordon Brown presented his Labour Party Conference speech yesterday, which consisted of 6,703 words. You can read it here in full on the BBC website. I did a quick count of how many times Eco-Towns were mentioned. Zero, zilch, not a sausage, bugger all! What does this mean for his flawed Eco-Town scheme?

Here is a reminder of what he had to say on September 24th 2007 - "And for the first time in nearly half a century we will show the imagination to build new towns - eco-towns with low and zero carbon homes. And today because of the response we have received we are announcing that instead of just 5 new eco towns, we will now aim for ten eco towns - building thousands of new homes in every region of the country."

Monday 22 September 2008

So where will the power come from now!

http://www.westsussex.gov.uk/ccm/content/your-council/news-room/press-releases/2008/2008-09/turning-rubbish-into-a-resource--west-sussex-to-use-the-latest-technology.en

WSCC have decided to locate their Material Resource Centre at Warnham, near Horsham. Thus WSCC now have no plans for an "incinerator" at Ford.

The Centre at Warnham will deal with all the West Sussex waste that currently goes to landfill. It is actually also where the current landfill waste goes, so the traffic patterns in the future will be exactly the same as now.

One of the "outputs" from the new plant will be "waste derived fuel (WDF)", which will then need to be sold to produce energy or otherwise disposed-of. Biffa, the contractors, currently have 2 potential customers for energy-from-waste in the Horsham area - one a housing development, and the other an industrial park. Also, the WDF will become available with effect from 2011, so by the time that a Ford Eco-Town energy-from-waste plant could come on-stream, Biffa and WSCC should have long-established constomers already on board.

The result of all this is that FAVG will not have access to the WSCC waste stream, and it will not in any case be coming to Ford. Also, if FAVG want WDF then they will need to "import" it (with all the obvious unsustainable transport implications), and the output from the Biffa plant will not necessarily be available to them.