Wasted food is world's third-biggest carbon emitter after China and US: UN

With starving people in the world, this is truly a waste!

Posted Wed 11 Sep 2013

The food the world wastes accounts for more greenhouse gas emissions than any country except for China and the United States, according to a United Nations report.

It says every year about a third of all food for human consumption, around 1.3 billion tonnes, is wasted, along with all the energy, water and chemicals needed to produce it and dispose of it. Almost 30 per cent of the world's farmland, and a volume of water equivalent to the annual discharge of Europe's River Volga, are in effect being used in vain.

In its Food Wastage Footprint report, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) estimated the carbon footprint of wasted food was equivalent to 3.3 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide per year. If it were a country, it would be the world's third biggest emitter after China and the US, suggesting that more efficient food use could contribute substantially to global efforts to cut greenhouse gases to limit global warming.

In the industrialised world, much of the waste comes from consumers buying too much and throwing away what they do not eat. In developing countries, it is mainly the result of inefficient farming and a lack of proper storage facilities.

"Food wastage reduction would not only avoid pressure on scarce natural resources but also decrease the need to raise food production by 60 per cent in order to meet the 2050 population demand," the FAO said.

The FAO estimated the cost of the wasted food, excluding fish and seafood, around $US750 billion a year, based on producer prices.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-09-11/un-says-wasted-food-is-third-biggest-carbon-emitter/4952126

Importance of Forests

“Forests provide natural filtration and storage systems that supply an estimated 75 percent of usable water globally (nearly 2/3 of the water supply in the U.S.).  One study estimates the value of water regulation and supply at $2.3 trillion globally.”

Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) through the Arbor Day Foundation. 

Gene Dempsey, City Forester

Office of Sustainability

Office - (954) 828-5785  Fax - (954) 828-4745

GDempsey@fortlauderdale.gov

‘Flushable’ personal wipes clog sewer systems, utilities say

Being 'green' and sustainable means using less and less disposable products.  It's amazing the problems City Utilities run into due to the wrong items being disposed of down the toilets.  It looks like from this article, the safest thing to flush is still just old-fashion toilet paper. 

Sewer agencies across the country say the rapidly growing use of moistened "personal" wipes is clogging pipes and jamming pumps.

By Katherine Shaver   (edited by Gene)

The Washington Post

WASHINGTON — Next time you go to toss that "flushable" wipe in the toilet, you might want to consider a request from your sewer utility: Don't.

Sewer agencies across the country say the rapidly growing use of moistened "personal" wipes — used most often by potty-training toddlers and people seeking what's advertised as a more "thorough" cleaning than toilet paper — are clogging pipes and jamming pumps.

Utilities struggling with aging infrastructure have wrestled for years with the problem of "ragging" — when baby wipes, dental floss, paper towels and other items not designed for flushing entangle sewer pumps.

The latest menace, officials say, is that wipes and other products, including pop-off scrubbers on toilet-cleaning wands, are increasingly being marketed as "flushable." Even ever-thickening, super-soft toilet paper is worrisome because it takes longer to disintegrate, some say.

"Just because you can flush it doesn't mean you should," said I.J. Hudson, a spokesman for the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission, which handles sewage for 1.8 million Maryland residents in Montgomery and Prince George's counties.

The result: Utility officials say crews needed for sewer maintenance and repairs are being deployed instead to wipes patrol.

The commission has spent more than $1 million to install heavy-duty grinders to shred wipes and other debris before they reach pumps on the way to the treatment plant, Hudson said. Officials with the District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority say that more than 500 staff hours have been devoted in the past 12 months to removing stuck wipes and repairing broken equipment.

The wipes also contribute to blockages that cause sewage to overflow into streams and back up into basements.

This summer, a 15-ton glob of wipes and hardened cooking grease the size of a bus — and nicknamed "Fatberg" by the Brits — was discovered in a London sewer pipe after residents complained of toilets that would not flush.

Feds investigating

What constitutes "flushable" might soon get federal oversight. Officials of the wastewater industry and wipe manufacturers say the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) recently asked for data as part of an investigation into the "flushable" label.

Wipe manufacturers say they are trying to reduce wear and tear on sewer systems and septic tanks. A trade group, the Association of the Nonwoven Fabrics Industry, is forming a technical work group with utility officials to sort through differences over how wipes should be tested for flushability and how quickly they should be required to break apart.

They also suggest making "Do Not Flush" logos — an encircled person and toilet with a slash — more prominent on those that do not pass the tests but are commonly used in bathrooms.

Dave Rousse, president of the fabrics group, said the primary problem lies with people flushing paper towels, baby wipes and other products not advertised — or designed — for toilets.  Rousse said. "We agree we need to label products appropriately and educate the public to flush responsibly — to look for and obey disposal instructions."

Standard in dispute

Utility officials say one of the manufacturers' key tests for wipes marketed as "flushable" does not mimic real-life sewer systems. The "slosh box" test requires that at least one-quarter of a wipe agitated in water be broken into pieces small enough to pass through a small sieve within three hours. However, utility officials say wipes can reach a pump within a couple of minutes. Moreover, many sewer systems move sewage primarily via downhill gravity and are not nearly as hard on the wipes as the agitation test, utility officials say.

Manufacturers disagree, saying their newly streamlined tests ensure that wipes marketed as "flushable" are safe for sewer and septic systems.

Utility officials say they need to resolve the differences soon.

Sales of consumer wipes are predicted to grow by about 6 percent annually for the next five years, he said.

For the whole article - http://seattletimes.com/html/nationworld/2021778688_wipesclogxml.html

Gene Dempsey, City Forester

Office of Sustainability

Office - (954) 828-5785  Fax - (954) 828-4745

GDempsey@fortlauderdale.gov

Prototype project on Auburn campus saves water, feeds beautiful rain garden

I’m sure universities across the country are doing similar projects but this article gives me the chance to promote both sustainability and my alma mater.

Prototype project on Auburn campus saves water, feeds beautiful rain garden

— By Jourdan Cooper and Mike Clardy, Office of Communications & Marketing

Stormwater runoff in urban areas has long had detrimental effects on the environment as buildings and pavement prevent rainwater from filtering into the ground the way it does in a forest or natural field. In an urban setting, the water runs off into storm drains, collecting pollutants on its way downstream. On the Auburn University campus, the water flows into Parkerson Mill Creek, on to Mobile Bay and ultimately into the Gulf of Mexico.

Pulling together funding from Auburn's Facilities Management and a Parkerson Mill Creek grant, a team of Auburn experts has developed a way to mimic that natural infiltration process. On a shop building adjacent to Dudley Hall, rainwater is collected through a draining system and flows to a 1,000-gallon cistern. The overflow water is diverted to a neighboring rain garden, where it collects and seeps slowly into the ground.

"The rain garden is an interesting pilot project that introduces students to best practices in water conservation and stormwater management," said Dan King, assistant vice president for Facilities Management. "Achieving a sustainable campus environment will likely require many small-scale projects like this."

Charlene LeBleu, associate professor of landscape architecture in the College of Architecture, Design and Construction, led a team of students in designing the project and selecting the plants that thrive in a rain garden environment. Building science students built the conveyance system that carries the water from the cistern to the garden.

"We want to work toward disconnecting more downspouts on campus so we can have more water infiltration," said LeBleu. "When water infiltrates, it raises the level of our stream water and you don't get flash floods after a hard rain."

Over the next three years, the team will monitor the chemical analysis of the roof water, particularly the level of nitrates in the water, and measure the infiltration of the water through the rain garden. They also will see which plants grow the best and how effective rain gardens are in clay-type soil.

Water collected in the cisterns can be used for many things other than the garden.

"We don't have to use expensive city water to irrigate plants, so if we've got cisterns, that water can be used to water the landscape," said Mike Kensler, director of the Office of Sustainability and co-developer of the Dudley Hall project. "It's free water basically, and in some places it can be used to flush toilets, water plants, really anything except drinking water."

Similar projects have been built at Auburn's Southeastern Raptor Center and Donald E. Davis Arboretum.

http://ocm.auburn.edu/featured_story/rainwater.html#.UjdjATy9LCR

Gene Dempsey, City Forester

Office of Sustainability

Office - (954) 828-5785  Fax - (954) 828-4745

GDempsey@fortlauderdale.gov

Shifting Gears: Hilton Head Embraces Bicycles

Resort Community Recognized for Bike-Friendly Byways

By Joanna Nadeau
Audubon International

Summer is the perfect time to get away from it all, and for many vacationers that means getting away from traffic jams and smog, in particular. So, it's no surprise that an oceanfront resort town would make traffic reduction a major priority.

At its summer peak, Hilton Head Island, S.C., draws 50,000 vehicles a day to its normally quiet, green streets. So, the town has been constructing and promoting bike paths as a way to minimize the air pollution and congestion caused by the sharp increase in summertime traffic. With 60 miles of public bike paths and a total of 108 miles of multiple-use trails on the island, most of Hilton Head’s major sights and activity centers are now accessible by bike – whether you prefer beach cruiser, road bike, or hybrid. Biking has caught on in this beach community, and with 20,000 bikes available to rent from local outfitters, both residents and visitors alike are finding it more convenient to get around the island on two wheels rather than four. (read more)

Friday Funny

Keep calm: Your iPhone does not use more energy than your refrigerator

With all the talk about the new iPhones, here’s a mythbuster!

Derek Markham
Technology / Gadgets
August 26, 2013

The internet was buzzing last week with the release of a report that made some pretty big claims, including the startling statement that an iPhone uses more energy each year than a refrigerator.

But a closer look at the data behind the report reveals that not only are there too many variables in smartphone data use to accurately make a blanket statement like that, but that the figures used in the calculations may be dubious as well.

When the headlines of articles about the report, "The Cloud Begins With Coal," began flying around the web, the claim that the ubiquitous smartphone and the infrastructure behind them were responsible for large amounts of electrical consumption seemed just far-out enough to be true, and a number of news sites just ran with it and shared it with their readers, without fact-checking it or questioning the claims, especially this one:

“Reduced to personal terms, although charging up a single tablet or smart phone requires a negligible amount of electricity, using either to watch an hour of video weekly consumes annually more electricity in the remote networks than two new refrigerators use in a year." (emphasis added)

But the story caught the eye of Jonathan Koomey, Ph.D., a Research Fellow at the Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance at Stanford University, who found it to be riddled with errors and false assumptions and rebutted the conclusions from the paper in a piece at Think Progress.

"Mark Mills created headlines in the past week by claiming that all the power needed to bring data to the iPhone, plus all the related energy to manufacture it and the related network equipment, makes it responsible for as much electricity as two refrigerators. A more careful analysis confirms that Mr. Mills has overestimated the electricity associated with an iPhone by at least a factor of 18." – Koomey

Koomey goes into quite a bit of detail on the background of the issue, from the complexity in determining the energy demand of smartphones and their effect on cell or data networks, to the errors he's found in Mill's previous claims of high energy consumption for handheld devices.

[Neither Mills nor Koomey include figures for the direct electrical demand for powering smartphones, or the electrical use for the data centers or networks, as they are considered to be relatively small when compared to the other factors.]

In his piece, Koomey dissects the claims made by Mills, adding a fair amount of necessary background on the issue of calculating the energy use attributed to a smartphone and the demand it puts on the networks they connect to. He then goes on with his own detailed analysis of the issue, following a parallel path to Mills, but with a different conclusion, one which calls into question the media's ability to report sensibly on technical issues.

"The big story here is why the media is paying any attention to this report at all. Mr. Mills proved more than a decade ago that he is not a reliable source on the issue of electricity used by information technology, and his recent work simply confirms this. Unfortunately, it also confirms what seems to be an inability of most media outlets to report sensibly about technical topics, in part because of the pressure to generate attention-getting headlines, regardless of their veracity." – Koomey

Read the entire piece here: Does Your iPhone Use As Much Electricity As A New Refrigerator? Not Even Close.

http://www.treehugger.com/gadgets/keep-calm-your-iphone-does-not-use-more-energy-your-refrigerator.html