Eco-motorbikes on the way

Eco-motorbikes on the way

Updated: 09:10, Monday July 27, 2009

A San Francisco startup is on a mission to give the world motorcycles that are fast and sexy, yet green.

Mission Motors hopes to produce the fastest all-electric powered production motorcycle, capable of topping out 240km.

Despite the luxury $US68,000 ($A83,625) price, company co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Forrest North believes Mission One will draw the attention of motorcycle aficionados because it offers a different riding experience.

'Consumers want performance,' North said. 'We're not trying to offer something that's a compromise to people, (that) you have to change your lifestyle to green. We're saying this is more exciting than the last motorcycle you had, and it's green.'

The Mission One resembles a standard sport bike, but instead of petrol, it runs on lithium ion batteries. It's being built from the ground up with sustainable components, North said.

The bike is designed to travel 240 km on one charge and recharge quickly. It's designed for urban commuters and weekend riders, North said.

Reusable plastic could be making you sick

health risk'

Updated: 05:12, Thursday July 16, 2009

Your eco-friendly shopping bag could be making you sick, a study says. But before you make the switch back to plastic, you might want to consider the source.

An alarming 15-page paper, published on the website for Canada's Environment and Plastics Industry Council, concluded that re-usable grocery bags are 'a breeding ground for bacteria and pose a public health risk' due to high counts of yeast, moulds and bacteria.

The potential hazards include 'food poisoning ... bacterial boils, allergic reactions, triggering of asthma attacks, and ear infections,' according to the paper.

Plastic shopping bags, on the other hand, may have turned the ocean into a garbage dump, but they're 'more hygienic than re-usables,' EPIC said.

Droplets leaking from bloody meat can, indeed, transfer from one surface to another. And folded bags can create a moist environment that helps bacteria grow.

But if you start worrying about getting an ear infection from your shopping bag, you're being paranoid, said Harley Rotbart, a professor of microbiology and pediatric infectious diseases at the University of Colorado School of Medicine.

He called the study 'a classic middle school science fair experiment where swabs are taken to random surfaces and, shockingly, germs are found on those surfaces.'

The bottom line: 'Germs are everywhere, and under certain circumstances, germs on surfaces can cause human infections,' Rotbart said.

'Commonsense has to prevail. Disgusting re-usable bags should be washed in hot water (and bleach).'

Don't forget to wash your hands.

Bottled Water Banned

Bundy votes on bottled water ban

THE Southern Highlands village of Bundanoon is poised to become the first town in Australia, and quite possibly the world, to ban commercially bottled water.

A town meeting tonight - bearing the almost irresistible slogan "Bundy on tap" - will ask for a formal show of hands on the proposed ban.

All Bundy's shops have supported a ban, agreeing to lose over-the-counter income in order to combat the hefty carbon footprint associated with bottling water and trucking it around the state.

"It's also a moral thing, in that it has just been such a wonderful marketing job by the beverage industry, selling people something they can have for free," said Huw Kingston, who owns a combined cafe and bike shop in the town.

Beverage companies truthfully maintain that bottled water is a healthier alternative to fizzy soft drinks. But the plastic bottles are made from crude oil and most are thrown away rather than being refilled.

In 2006 the bottled water industry caused the release of 60,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas, a study by the NSW Department of Environment and Climate Change found. Since then sales have increased; last year Australians spent about $500 million on bottled water, a 10 per cent increase on the previous year.

Jon Dee, director of the environment group Do Something!, says the campaign is similar to the decision to ban plastic bags in Coles Bay, Tasmania, in 2003.

"The community reaction in Coles Bay was very good, and I hope that if people do see the benefits of having free filtered-water fountains in Bundanoon, then they will go for the alternative." Under the proposed ban, filtered-water fountains will be installed on the main street so people can fill bottles free.

Other places in Australia and overseas have discouraged the sale of bottled water, but Bundanoon is thought to be the first to move towards an outright ban.

The catalyst was a proposal by the Sydney company Norlex Holdings to build a water extraction plant in the town. It was initially turned down after sustained objections from residents, but Norlex appealed, and the case is before the NSW Land and Environment Court.

"The idea of them taking water here, trucking it up to Sydney and bringing it back in bottles to be sold in shops at 300 times the tap price is a bit strange," said Mr Kingston, who has organised support for the ban over several months. He said there was no way to enforce it - "the water police won't be involved" - but shopkeepers were united.

Peter Stewart, owner of the local newsagency, said he would lose $1600 a year in gross sales but was willing to back the ban.

Prius drivers put foot down over car's performance

BUYERS of hybrid cars aren't as concerned about the environment as they would like us to believe, according to the maker of the world's most popular brand.

At the launch of the new Toyota Prius in Sydney yesterday, the car's chief engineer, Akihiko Otsuka, admitted the company had opted for a bigger, more powerful engine because customers had demanded it.

Mr Otsuka said the car, which remains the most fuel-efficient in Australia, could have been designed to use less fuel than the 3.9 litres per 100 kilometres it achieves. "However, customers told us they wanted more performance," he said.

The car, which has a power button that allows drivers to sacrifice fuel economy for better acceleration, is 20 per cent more powerful than its predecessor and 10 per cent more fuel efficient.

But it is no longer the clear leader in fuel efficiency: the diesel version of BMW's new Mini uses the same amount of fuel, and Ford's Fiesta Econetic model, due towards the end of the year, will use less.

European car makers, who have long claimed the Prius is more a marketing triumph than an engineering breakthrough, argue that diesel engines are as efficient as hybrids.

Toyota says diesels produce more carbon dioxide. The Prius produces 89 grams of carbon dioxide a kilometre, compared with the Mini's 104 grams.

The Prius has a number of new environmental tricks up its sleeve, including solar panels attached to the sunroof and interior plastics made from plants rather than petroleum-based chemicals.

In Australia, Toyota plans to launch eight new hybrids in the next four years, including a locally built Camry hybrid next year.

Scientists makes meat from poo

Eating Poo - Is this the next environmental innovation?

The livestock industry is responsible for around 18 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, due largely in part to emission of methane from the animals. But researchers in Japan may have a solution - that may be a little difficult to stomach.

What he calls "sh*t burger", scientist Mitsuyuki Ikeda Environmental Assessment Center in Okayama was part of the development team that first found a way to turn human excrement into a meat substitute back in 1993.

The process involves extracting proteins from the solids in sewage and then mixing it with soya and flavouring it with steak sauce derivative. The final product is high in protein with a similar texture, consistency and taste to beef.

"The sewage department wants to show citizens that sewage isn't really such a dangerous and dirty thing, that it can be recycled into something useful," Ikeda had told reporters. Due to expensive research costs, the meat substitute is priced around 10 to 20 times higher than regular meat, and the project had no commercial aims.

Original Source: wurstundfleisch.wordpress.com

Documentary - The Fabulous Story of Poop

Story taken from www.thegreenpages.com.au (great mag, check it out!)