sustainability – Michmutters

Tag: sustainability

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Australia

Rural ecovillage harvests timber from nearby forest, with houses made from recycled materials

A man standing in a garden, with a mudbrick house in background

In the Fryers Forest, around 50 kilometers south of Bendigo, one group of residents isn’t feeling the rising cost of living as hard as most.

Hamish MacCallum is one of 30 people who live in a rural ecovillage, nestled in the forest in Fryerstown.

Standing in the kitchen of the house he built himself, he proudly explains the kitchen bench was a cypress tree that fell on a local farmer’s property during last year’s storms.

“[It’s about] taking a waste product, a fallen down tree, and turning it into something beautiful,” he says.

“The whole kitchen is recycled.

A man standing in kitchen, kitchen made from timber
A lot of the kitchen cupboards came from someone else’s kitchen.(ABC Central Victoria: Shannon Schubert )

“All the cupboards and drawers, everything came from other kitchens that had been pulled out.”

There’s no heater inside, with the firewood stove in the kitchen emitting more than enough heat to warm the house.

“That’s only been running now for about half an hour,” Mr MacCallum says at 10am.

“It’s generating our hot water and providing us with an oven and a stovetop for cooking on as well.”

A man putting firewood into an oven
Powered by firewood, the house’s stove and oven generates hot water and cooks the family’s meals.(ABC Central Victoria: Shannon Schubert)

Mr MacCallum estimates his power bills are a third of the price of the average family’s electricity bills.

“I’m spending $150 on electricity for three months for the two households,” he says.

“It’s $100 a year for the gas bill.”

The bushfire management consultant and landscape designer put a huge amount of thought into designing and creating the house, with insulation and solar passive design a main priority.

“With a solar passive design, it’s using the sun to heat or cool the house by including or excluding it at particular times of year,” he says.

What looks like a cabin, with wood and roof of foyer room made from wood
The entrance to the houses, also a mudroom, was made from recycled wood, including old furniture.(ABC Central Victoria: Shannon Schubert)

Timber from surrounding forest

Mr MacCallum has become an expert at reusing and recycling.

The house is made from 50 per cent recycled and reused materials, most of which were locally sourced.

On the verandah, two pieces of wooden ‘bush poles’ were eleven trees on this block of land.

A photo of the front door
The two wooden poles were trees on this block of land, which used to be a quarry.(ABC Central Victoria: Shannon Schubert)

Other pieces of wood were collected and stored from unexpected places.

“A lot of the timber came from a timber furniture maker who decided to give up his profession and sell it all on,” he says.

In the Fryers Forest eco-village, residents do forestry work, harvesting timber from the forest around them.

“Our expense is the time we spend collecting the wood from the forest, when we’ve done some tree thinning,” Mr MacCallum says.

A picture of the middle wall of the house, which is mud brick, bordered by wood from trees
The mud brick wall, made from milled timber from the site, collects heat in winter and cool air in summer.(ABC Central Victoria: Shannon Schubert)

“Always when we’re doing forestry, we get the highest value out of the timber as possible.

“Each season, we cut enough to provide the whole village with enough firewood to last them a season.

“The firewood [for the stove] is just a good solid day’s labor and a few days of forestry [work].”

A photo of a wooden frame of a house, when straw was being added as insulation
Some of the materials used for insulation include straw and wool.(Supplied: Hamish MacCallum )

Mr MacCallum refers to the concrete floor as a ‘thermal mass’ which holds the heat and keeps the house warm in winter and cool during summer.

In the middle of the house, a mud brick wall has the same function.

“It stores the cool over the summer and the heat over the winter and then releases it back into the household so you can wake up in the morning without any heating and the house will still be warm,” he says.

“The eaves that overhang the north side of the house, where most of the windows are, stop the sun coming into the house.”

Sharing food eliminates waste

Mr MacCallum’s family shares the house with another family, with two separate living quarters under the one roof.

Their efforts to live sustainably, with as little waste as possible, mean sharing a bathroom, laundry and food.

“A part of our strategy is to buy in bulk foods and to store in a big freezer,” he says.

“I might go hunting and harvest a lot of meat and then store the meat, the fat and the bones … make bone broth or render the fat down into lard or tallow and use that for cooking.”

A man watering a conservatory garden with a hose.
The conservatory stays hot and is able to mimic a tropical climate, for optimal growth conditions.(ABC Central Victoria: Shannon Schubert)

He’s also committed to growing his own fruit and vegetables.

“80 per cent of our fruit and veg can come from [the garden] here,” he says.

But recently Mr MacCallum has been sourcing more of his produce from his local market, rather than his own garden.

“I help him [the seller] pack up and we get to take home a whole heap of fruit and vegetables,” he says.

“Sometimes that means that I’ve got to spend hours or preserving that produce.

“[Sometimes] that’s a few months’ worth of passata bottled and stored in an afternoon.”

Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume.
Hamish MacCallum has built his house using 50 percent second hand materials(ABC Central Victoria: Shannon Schubert)

Built to withstand bushfire

Mr MacCallum has spent years teaching others how to retrofit their houses for bushfire safety, so it was always going to be front of mind in designing and building his own eco-friendly house.

“I wanted to demonstrate how landscapes can reduce bushfire risk and be productive at the same time and beautiful at the same time as well,” he says.

Everything in his yard was planted for bushfire mitigation.

Fruit trees border his backyard, providing a heat shield against the fire front.

“The fruit tree hedge, also protected by the stone wall from radiant heat, acts as a heat and ember filter, as well as wind protection for the fruit and vegetable garden,” he says.

It may have taken years to build, and countless tutorials and tradesmen to help him learn new skills, but Mr MacCallum was never going to shy away from the challenge of living as sustainably and efficiently as possible.

“I wanted to take a piece of degraded land and turn it back into something beautiful and productive,” he says.

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Categories
Business

How Lytton, a Canadian village razed by wildfire, is wrestling with climate-proofing its future

A middle-aged woman wearing a blue hard hat and orange hi-vis vest looks at burnt debris on a small concrete housing block.

A year after a wildfire destroyed the western Canadian village of Lytton, residents, municipal leaders and the provincial government are grappling with the slow and costly reality of future-proofing a community against climate change.

The remote village sits at the confluence of the Fraser and Thompson rivers in the high, dry mountains of interior British Columbia, making it a bullseye for fires and landslides. In June 2021, 90 per cent of Lytton’s structures burned down, a day after the village recorded Canada’s hottest-ever temperature.

Now officials have a unique opportunity to rebuild an entire community from scratch using fire-safe materials and energy-efficient building standards.

However, long-term disaster mitigation plans and net-zero ambitions are running up against the realities of human impatience and reimbursement limits from insurers. Burnt-out residents — many still living in temporary accommodation — want to rebuild their homes and get on with their lives.

“There’s a distinct difference between what would be ideal and what’s realistic,” said Tricia Thorpe, 61, who lost her home in the fire.

A middle-aged couple stand in a patchy front yard in front of a basic white brick building with a blue roof.
Tricia Thorpe and her husband, Don Glasgow, stand outside their new home.(Reuters: Jennifer Gauthier)

“I don’t think anybody has a problem with building fire-smart, but they’re trying to build a model village. They’re talking about solar [panel] sidewalks.”

The risk of destructive weather is rising as climate change intensifies, sharpening the focus on how communities build.

Insured damage for severe weather events across Canada hit $C2.1 billion ($2.34 billion) last year, according to the Insurance Bureau of Canada, including $C102 million for the Lytton fire.

Since 1983, Canadian insurers have averaged about $C934 million a year in severe weather-related losses.

Catastrophic losses from severe weather in Canada

The wrangling over how to restore Lytton highlights the messy reality of climate adaptation, and what costs and delays people are willing to endure to cut carbon emissions and mitigate their fire risk.

In the 300-person village, some lofty ambitions have already been shelved in favor of a faster rebuild.

Lytton’s council wanted to adopt building by-laws that require net-zero-emissions homes, but scaled that back to lower energy-efficiency standards after residents pushed back.

The village also considered burying all its power lines to reduce fire risk, a three-year process, but is now installing temporary overhead lines to get the job done in nine months.

A small white brick building with a blue roof sits on the edge of a mountainside surrounded by charred black trees.
Tricia Thorpe’s home, north of Lytton. The village sits in the high, dry mountains of interior British Columbia, making it a bullseye for fires and landslides.(Reuters: Jennifer Gauthier)

“At times, I get frustrated with the lack of knowledge and the fact that residents think we’re trying to make it impossible for them to rebuild,” Lytton Mayor Jan Polderman said.

“We could become a first-generation model for net-zero.”

Mr Polderman said the solar panel sidewalks — reinforced solar panels in place of pavements on the town’s sidewalks — and wind energy could power street lights and municipal buildings.

breaking new ground

In the 13 months since the fire, little progress has been made on restoration, with only a quarter of properties cleared of ash and debris.

The local council is still finalizing fire-safety building by-laws it says will be the most comprehensive ever developed in Canada and make Lytton the best-protected community in the country.

Those new by-laws — based on expertise from Canada’s National Research Council on developing communities in wildfire-prone regions — cover everything from building materials to landscaping and maintenance to what can be stored on properties.

Small piles of construction material sits among burned patches of ground on concrete housing blocks.
The remains of homes and businesses a year after a wildfire destroyed 90 per cent of the buildings in Lytton.(Reuters: Jennifer Gauthier)

Finalizing the by-laws and community consultation has taken months.

“I’m sure if we’d just said, ‘Let’s get people back in their homes ASAP’ it would have been faster, but then we might be in the same situation in a few years’ time,” said Kelsey Winter, the chair of the BC FireSmart Committee, a provincial organization leading community engagement in Lytton.

“It’s taking longer than many people wanted, but Lytton is breaking new ground.”

Other complications have dogged the recovery. Record-breaking floods in November washed out local highways, which were also intermittently closed over the winter for avalanche control.

In addition, the village sits within the Nlaka’pamux First Nation territory and residents require archaeological surveys to check for Indigenous artifacts before rebuilding. The Lytton First Nation, part of the Nlaka’pamux, also lost dozens of homes in the 2021 fire.

The limits of insurance

Around 60 per cent of Lytton residents were uninsured or under-insured, leading to delays in debris removal as residents and insurers grappled with who should pay. In March, the province said it would provide $C18.4 million to cover debris removal, archaeological surveys and soil remediation.

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Categories
Business

Winemakers embrace corks again thanks to sustainability push

A bottle of red wine with a colourful label and a cork sticking out.

In news that will strike fear into the heart of anyone who has struggled with a corkscrew, the traditional wine closure — cork — is making a comeback.

While screw caps have dominated the Australian wine industry for decades, a new generation of winemakers is going old school.

Noah Ward is a brand ambassador at Unico Zelo, which produces wines in South Australia’s Adelaide Hills.

He said making wine more sustainable was behind the push to put corks back into bottles.

“You can’t grow a screw cap. It’s a finite resource that you have to mine … but you can grow cork trees til the cows come home,” Mr Ward said.

“There’s also that little plastic polymer that’s not necessarily good for the planet [because it] won’t biodegrade very well.”

Mr Ward said in addition to its environmental benefits, corks also helped wines develop more naturally.

A man pours a glass of red wine at a dimly lit wooden bar, an orange wine is in the foreground.
Unico Zelo brand ambassador Noah Ward says he knows of about 50 winemakers of his generation who were using cork.(Supplied: Unico Zelo)

“Our business started in the 2010s, which was a pretty big shift in the wine industry with the emergence of natural wine or lo-fi wine, minimal intervention, wine. Most of the producers of that ilk were using corks or other products like that ,” he said.

“There are things that screw caps can do better than corks, they can keep wine protected from oxygen for a long period of time, so they can age a lot longer.

“But I like to see a wine develop quicker, so I can actually drink it [sooner rather] than wait 25 years for my semillon to finally get to that point where it’s not extremely high in acid.”

Why did corks fall out of fashion?

General manager Dan Simmons of Australian cork manufacturer Vinocor said the change came about because of a chemical called trichloroanisole or TCA.

“The term is ‘corked’,” he said.

“TCA can make the wine smell like wet cardboard—it basically ruins the wine.

“Back in the 90s, around 5 per cent of wines were being tainted by this chemical compound.”

In response to this, Mr Simmons said Australian wine producers started shifting to screw caps in the early 2000s.

“The cork industry went from supplying nearly all of the market to a position where probably only 10 per cent of the market was filled with cork,” he said.

Then in 2004 Diam created a solution.

“They took some technology that was used by the coffee industry to remove caffeine from coffee beans and adapted that to the cork industry to remove TCA and other flavour-modifying molecules,” Mr Simmons said.

“It also solved the other problem of bottle variation because the Diam cork is actually granulated cork, and then it’s put back together. So they’re very consistent as it removed the problem of random oxidisation.”

But the local industry had moved on.

Three corks on a white background.
The Diam cork is made from granulated offcuts, pieced together with a carbon-based glue.(Supplied: Vinocor)

Mr Simmons said while cork was experiencing a resurgence, making up about 15 per cent of closures of Australian wines, more companies needed to use it to make recycling programs effective.

“The secondary uses are immense,” he said.

“[Cork is in] the soles of shoes, in building products, and sporting goods such as the inside of cricket balls.”

Mr Simmons said Vinocor hoped to work with competitors to encourage the use of corks more widely.

“Sustainability is very important for the wine industry. We’re signatories to the Australian packaging covenant, so we need to find ways to make sure that our packaging products are recyclable or compostable,” he said.

“Certainly in other markets around the world, like in America and in Europe, collecting corks for recycling is just normal practice because they have the critical mass.”

A wine bottle with a cork and glasses on the back of a white ute
Unico Zelo lists packaging materials, such as corks and palettes, in online marketplaces or donates them to local kindergartens.(Supplied: Unico Zelo)

not corkscrew? No problem

Mr Ward said once consumers understood the benefits of cork, they were on board.

But ensuring they had the tools to open wines with this closure had been a challenge.

Last year Unico Zelo even ran a “sabre off” competition calling for customers to share videos on social media of them cutting open wine bottles.

A glass of white wine next to a cork on a corkscrew
The raw material of cork is taken from a cork oak, with the tree able to be harvested up to 15 times during its life.(Supplied: Vinocor)

“One of my favorite things in the world is trying to MacGyver open a bottle of wine,” Mr Ward said.

“You can even open wine with a shoe, I’ve done that a few times before, you can get tricky with drills… you can even use a spatula.”

“But I think now it’s becoming one of those things where if you’re into wine and you start buying stuff from interesting small producers you’re going to have to spend 10 bucks to buy a corkscrew.”

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Categories
Australia

Dreams turn to ashes for Eco Inn on Victoria’s off-grid French Island

Blazing fire at night time with remains of a large chimney and walls around it in collapsed state.

The nights are dark on French Island.

Once the handful of tourists heads back to the mainland this patch of land feels even more isolated.

French Island is little more than 60 kilometers south of Melbourne and yet most Melburnians would never have heard of it.

Residents live off the grid here and love the seclusion.

Car headlights sporadically light up the back roads and on a clear night the stars sparkle.

It made the fire that burned on the morning of April 2 this year, it seemed even brighter. The flames leapt from the kitchen of the Eco Inn as the smoke alarm let out its constant shrill.

Two story eco lodge with large green lawns and people sat on the veranda
French Island Eco Inn in its former glory before the fire.(Supplied: Phil Bock)

Phil and Yuko Bock stumbled from their bedroom where they slept, but the smoke pushed them back. They jumped from a second-floor window to escape.

Their beloved dog Sammy never made it out.

Four accommodation cottages just meters from the main homestead also burned to the ground. The guests escaped uninjured, but everything was gone.

Phil and Yuko had struggled during the endless Victorian COVID lockdowns with no paying visitors, and they had suspended their insurance.

They’d spent a decade building up their business and in one night it was all gone.

Man, woman and white and black dog sitting closely together and smiling outdoors.
Eco Inn owners Phil and Yuko Bock and their beloved dog, Sammy, who they lost in the fire.(Supplied: Phil Bock)

“Losing our home, business, and beloved dog to a fire is a tragedy that we will remember forever,” Phil says.

“But the thoughtfulness of our small local community and past guests has kept us hopeful. It really is appreciated and reminds us how lucky we are to live here.

“We may be geographically isolated and considered socially disadvantaged, but being part of a small community is like no other when it matters the most.”

Phil and Yuko have moved into a small holiday cottage that remains on the property, the only building spared by the fire.

Our Back Roads team stayed at the Eco Inn during our shoot just a few months earlier.

You won’t see them in our program on air, but they were our welcoming hosts, our companions, and our snooker challengers late into the evenings, and I wanted to share their story.

The fire not only gutted their livelihoods but left a community reeling. A Go Fund Me page has been set up to help them.

A close-knit and resourceful community

When a Back Roads team arrives in small-town destinations, we’re immediately welcomed.

French Island was no different, although some were anxious that the spotlight of a Back Roads TV crew might spoil the privacy they clung to.

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The island is twice the size of its neighbour, Phillip Island, but happily dodges the daily tourist-enticing penguin parades to the south.

Unlike Phillip Island, French Island has no bitumen, no council, no rates, and no bridge.

The barge fits just two cars for the 15-minute trip from Corinella on the Victorian mainland to the landmass north of Phillip Island.

Terry, the barge pilot, calls us “Bituminites”, just like all the other visitors who take for granted the sealed motorways of our daily drives.

The permanent population numbers not much more than 100: an idiosyncratic mix of rich and poor, famous and anonymous, worldly and parochial.

But they are inextricably linked by a chosen lifestyle that has one foot in the past and one eye on the future.

An environmental vineyard is gaining a name for itself among wine connoisseurs.

Locals live self-sufficiently with the help of wind and solar power and banks of batteries to keep their homes and small businesses thriving.

More than two-thirds of the island is a national park.

A koala hugging a branch in the nook of a tree.
There are more koalas on French Island than people.(ABC Back Roads: Campbell Miller)

What’s missing here is what makes this place so special — no foxes, black rats, or kangaroos. No possums or wallabies.

That enables many other species to thrive, almost too well, judging by the koala population under the active control of Parks Victoria.

One of everything is enough for French Islanders

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Categories
US

Here’s how the Inflation Reduction Act’s rebates and tax credits for heat pumps and solar can lower your energy bill

Here's how the Inflation Reduction Act's rebates and tax credits for heat pumps and solar can lower your energy bill

It’s not the prettiest, or even most fulfilling, part of upgrading a home. But more energy-efficient heating, cooling, power and water usage can net savings that really adds up for household budgets and for doing right by the planet.

Congressional action this weekend and into next week looks to return more incentives, mostly via tax credits and rebates, to the pockets of homeowners who opt for energy-efficient choices, replacing fossil-fuel furnaces, boilers, water heaters and stoves with high-efficiency electric options that can be powered by renewable energy.

Read: Senate passes Democrats’ big healthcare, climate and tax package after marathon session

Of course, more of the nation’s electricity grid, currently run on natural gas NG00,
-2.15%,
along with lingering coal, and expanding wind and solar ICLN,
+0.76%,
will have to be powered by renewable energy for home upgrades to be truly green. But, alternatives are rising in use, and home efficiency has long been considered a good place to start.

The bill, a long-fought and greatly-downsized Democrat-crafted spending bill now known as the Inflation Reduction Act, includes rebates or a tax break for qualifying consumers who add efficient heat pumps (which, despite their name, move cold air around too ), rooftop solar, electric HVAC and electric water heaters.

The IRA was passed Sunday in the Senate and now makes its way to the House next week, where it is expected to be approved by a narrow majority for Democrats in that chamber. The Republicans who have opposed the bill have done so based on disagreements, they say, with the level of spending, but also because some support US oil and gas production on the grounds of cost savings and global security. And Democrats did agree to a future look at expediting environmental approvals for fossil fuels and clean energy.

“American families need relief from Democrat policies that attack American energy, send utility bills soaring and drive up prices RB00,

at the pump,” said Sen. Barrasso, a Republican of Wyoming who is a ranking member on the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.

Climate Nexus, an advocacy group, says a survey has shown 67% of voters support providing tax credits and other incentives to homeowners, landlords and businesses to purchase appliances that don’t use fossil fuels (such as electric water heaters, heat pumps, and electric induction cooktops).

What’s in the Inflation Reduction Act for home energy?

The legislation provides for $9 billion in total energy rebates, including the $4.28 billion High-Efficiency Electric Home Rebate Program, which returns a rebate of up to $8,000 to install heat pumps that can both heat and cool homes, and a rebate up to $1,750 for a heat-pump water heater. Homeowners might also qualify for up to $840 to offset the cost of a heat-pump clothes dryer or an electric stove, such as a high-efficiency induction range.

Read: Gas stoves targeted as US congressman alleges consumer watchdog has sat on decades of worrisome health data

and: More and more right-leaning Americans worry about climate change, but aren’t ready to give up gas stoves

Many homes will need their electrical panels upgraded before getting new appliances, and the program offers up to a $4,000 rebate toward that initial step.

“A household with an efficient electric heat pump for space heating and cooling, a heat pump water heater, one electric vehicle and solar panels would save $1,800 a year,” says Jamal Lewis and team, writing a brief on the legislation for the organization Rewiring America.

“These savings will be reflected in lower monthly energy bills, reduced bill
volatility and a lessening of disproportionately high energy burdens within disadvantaged communities,” Lewis said. “Importantly, these savings add up — so much so that if a household invests their energy bill savings from electrifying their home appliances, these savings will grow to over $30,000 after 10 years and $140,000 after 25 years (assuming an 8% annual return). ”

There are also funds in the IRA to be claimed for smaller actions: a rebate of up to $1,600 to insulate and seal a house, and a rebate of up to $2,500 for improvements to electrical wiring.

The program, to be administered at the state level, will run through Sept. 30, 2031, and homeowners would be able to collect a maximum of $14,000 in total rebates. To qualify, household income cannot exceed 150% of the area median income.

For homeowners who do not qualify for the rebates, the IRA provides for a tax credit of up to $2,000 to install heat pumps. And, installing an induction stove or new windows and doors, for example, qualifies for tax credits up to $1,200 a year.

What are heat pumps exactly?

Electric heat pumps, which replace a furnace, for instance, are energy efficient because they don’t create heat by burning fuels but rather move it (during the heating season) from cold outdoors to warm indoors. The downsides can include upfront costs and their suitability for all regions.

Still, over its lifetime, electric heat pumps generally offer the cheapest way to cleanly heat and cool single-family homes in all but the coldest parts of the US in coming decades, according to recent research from the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE). In very cold places, the analysis finds, electric heat pumps with an alternative fuel backup for frigid periods minimize costs.

“Our findings are good news for consumers and for the climate. Electric heat pumps, which heat and cool, are the cheapest clean heating option for many houses, especially now that we have cold-climate models,” says Steven Nadel, report coauthor and ACEEE’s executive director.

Cold-climate models, an advance in the technology, operate efficiently at temperatures as low as 5°F. Their energy costs, however, are minimized if an alternative fuel backup kicks in when it gets colder than 5°F for long periods.

EPA Energy Star program

EPA Energy Star program

The analysis finds that higher-income households are more likely to minimize costs with electric heat pumps, because they have newer—and more likely, single-family—homes with air-conditioning and improved energy efficiency.

The group backs congressional help for low- and moderate-income households, whose homes are often the most difficult to decarbonize. Notably, ACEEE calls for help to reduce the costs of ductless electric mini-split heat pumps in multifamily buildings.

And what about solar?

The legislation revives a 30% tax credit for installing residential solar panels and extends the program until Dec. 31, 2034.

The tax credit would decline to 26% for solar panels put into service after Dec. 31, 2032 and before Jan. 1, 2034.

What’s more, homeowners who install solar battery systems with at least three kilowatt-hours of capacity would also qualify for the tax credit.

The heating-and-cooling provisions are in addition to tax credits of up to $7,500 for the purchase of a new electric vehicle TSLA,
-6.63%

F,
-0.46%
and $4,000 for lower- and middle-income families who purchase a used EV. Early versions of this spending bill included help for e-bikes, but they are excluded in the final. Read more about those EV incentives.

Other programs

Homeowners can look beyond federal programs.

Safak Yucel, assistant professor of operations management at Georgetown University, who studies government policies relating to renewable energy and carbon emissions, said legislative uncertainty given the long slog to get this bill passed, and the risk that executive action is challenged in the courts, means that state and city incentives, and those offered by utilities, may make homeowners more assured.

“A lot of state governments, a lot of cities, they offer quite lucrative deals,” he said. “When it comes to rooftop solar, for example, Massachusetts comes to mind, which is not necessarily the sunniest of states, right, but they have quite a significant adoption of rooftop solar panels thanks to these state-level policies. I think as consumers look forward, they are more likely to see even broader involvement from state governments.”

Website EcoWatch, for instance, allows users to search by zip zode and ranks solar-friendly states.

Will incentives nudge consumer buy-in?

Broadly speaking, the new bill is meant to return more green technology manufacturing back to the US by tagging $60 billion to accelerate domestic production of solar panels, wind turbines and batteries, as well as support the critical minerals processing that are a must-have for the batteries that power EVs and help households leverage their solar power.

More domestic production could help alleviate the supply-chain issues that have hobbled markets during the COVID-19 recovery, and it could create more jobs, all of which is seen helping Americans “green up” their homes and businesses at a lower cost historically, bill proposers argue.

Biden has said the US will work to align with most major economies in the world, hitting net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, and at least halving current emissions as soon as 2030.

“Electrification will play a crucial role in decarbonizing homes, but the transition will happen slowly as long as inexpensive fossil fuels are widely available,” says Lyla Fadali, an ACEEE senior researcher.

Targeting manufacturing changes can also trickle down to consumers.

“Rather than focusing on whether or not a consumer will buy into the product at this point, what we’re seeing is that the consumers’ hand is sort of going to be pushed over a certain amount of time because so many manufacturers and producers are incentivized to build more solar, more EVs and so on,” said Shannon Christensen, an attorney and a tax and accounting specialist editor with Thomson Reuters Checkpoint, an online research platform.

“When gasoline-powered vehicles came into popularity in the beginning, nobody wanted to switch from their horse and buggy. It took quite some time to get consumers at that time to go over into that new technology. And I think we’re seeing the exact same thing,” Christensen said. “But the technology is getting good enough. And Congress has made it available to lower-income folks and through tax credits. I think that you’re going to see a [demand] shift, and I think it will rise quickly.”

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Categories
Australia

Thrifty school-formal theme as students borrow, swap and op shop for outfits in name of sustainable fashion

Two young women dressed beautifully for their formal

Can you imagine wearing the same suit your dad wore for his 21st birthday to your formal school?

In regional Victoria, some students have borrowed, swapped and op-shopped to make a statement about fast fashion and climate change.

After missing out on many school-age rites of passage through the pandemic, one school put on a dance with a difference.

Year 11 Emmanuel College students trawled through op shops, their parents’ and grandparents’ wardrobes, and swapped outfits for their first-ever Recycled Dance.

The thrifty theme invented by the students was also about tackling fast fashion, a growing threat to the environment.

A group of girls dressed well in formal gear, from recycled shops.
Students trawled through op shops and their parents’ wardrobes, and swapped outfits.(Supplied)

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Categories
Business

Can you recycle old make-up packaging? Here’s what’s happening in the $8 billion industry that creates tonnes of waste

Can you recycle old make-up packaging? Here's what's happening in the $8 billion industry that creates tonnes of waste

Australians spend billions of dollars on beauty products every year, but the leftover packaging mostly ends up in landfill.

It’s estimated that more than 10,000 tonnes of cosmetic waste goes to landfill every year in Australia, because make-up products aren’t generally accepted in kerbside recycling.

That’s because they are too small to be sorted at a regular facility and often contain complex and mixed materials as well as remnant product, which makes them tricky to recycle alongside regular glass and plastics.

So what should you be doing with your old make-up and perfumes?

What are companies doing?

More Australian and international beauty brands and retailers are now offering take-back schemes where you can return used beauty products in-store so they can be recycled.

The products, including skin cream tubes, plastic and metal eyeshadow palettes, foundation and fragrance bottles are sorted into different waste streams like glass, metal, soft and hard plastics.

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