Posts Tagged ‘Victoria’
Dialysis Project Saves Lives and Water
Posted in Models, Research by Kate Archdeacon on July 19th, 2010
Source: Smart Water Fund
Image: Bill Peckham CC 3.0
One of Australia’s largest providers of dialysis, North West Dialysis Service (NWDS) is set to save up to 1.68 megalitres of water a year per site through an innovative water recycling system. A Smart Water Fund grant enabled NWDS to investigate a system that captures clean reject water generated during the dialysis procedure for reuse in a number of its facilities. This water would otherwise go directly to sewer.
“We’ve worked with 23 of our sites to find beneficial uses for waste water that also have an acceptable project payback timeframe,” said James Gerrish, NWDS Business Activity Coordinator and Project Manager. “Instead of going straight to sewer, it’s possible to use the water for toilet flushing in health care facilities, as wash down water, in air- conditioning cooling towers and to water gardens in regional facilities. For example our Wodonga site could rescue six litres of water per minute during dialysis and use it for toilet flusher tanks or cooling towers,” Mr Gerrish said. “This equates to 1.68 megalitres of water a year – that’s enough to half-fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool.”
A key aspect of the project’s success has been to determine the quality of the reject water and ensure water use demand matches the consistent quantities of water produced during dialysis. “Many regional dialysis centres are co-located with aged care facilities in regions with tough water restrictions,” Mr Gerrish said. “While demand for irrigation water fluctuates throughout the year, these sites place a high value on this water use as they see the therapeutic and aesthetic value of maintaining their gardens.”
In addition to saving millions of litres of clean water a year, a key project outcome will be the development of a dialysis water reuse handbook for dialysis providers across Australia. NWDS project sites will also receive a detailed individual site report and an overall project report enabling benchmarking with similar facilities.
Part of Melbourne Health, NWDS, provides haemodialysis (blood filtration) for approximately 580 Victorians with kidney failure at 30 centres and 150 homes. NWDS dialysis units range from regional and rural healthcare centres to metropolitan dialysis services, including the Royal Melbourne Hospital.
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Donated Water Revives Unique Murray Wetland
Posted in Movements by Kate Archdeacon on May 17th, 2010
Source: Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF)
The 400 million litres of water purchased by the Australian Conservation Foundation with donations from people from all over the country has started to flow into the Hattah Lakes wetlands in northern Victoria. ACF’s Just Add Water initiative, launched on 15 March, aimed to raise enough money to purchase 200 million litres of water for Hattah. But the response from the public was so big that within two weeks ACF doubled its target. The 400 million litres was purchased on the water market and now it is flowing into the wetlands.
“It’s a thrill to see the water flowing back into this wetland which has not had a major flood since 1996″, said ACF’s Dr Paul Sinclair. “Wetlands filter our water and provide feeding and breeding sites for many fish and bird species. Environmental watering like this is necessary because too much water has been taken out of the Murray-Darling over too many decades, mostly for irrigated agriculture. In fact, 90 per cent of wetlands in the Murray-Darling Basin have already been lost. Today’s event shows how people power can help revive a thirsty wetland. It also sends a powerful message to the Water Minister, Senator Penny Wong, that she should expand the Federal Government’s program of buying water and return it to the desperately dry rivers and wetlands of the Murray-Darling Basin.”
The water is being delivered to Hattah Lakes through the Victorian Government’s environmental watering program in partnership with Parks Victoria and the Mallee Catchment Management Authority. Remote cameras have been installed to film the lakes filling over the next three months. Footage can be viewed at: www.justaddwater.org.au.
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Jobs for the Future Economy
Posted in Policies by Kate Archdeacon on May 12th, 2010
Source: Sustainable Living Space
Jobs Future Economy – Victoria’s Action Plan for Green Jobs sets out actions across Government to secure jobs in a low carbon economy. These actions support jobs growth and will improve environmental outcomes. They are designed to build resilience in our economy, maximise investment, facilitate regional development, and encourage businesses, families and communities to reduce their energy and water consumption. This Action Plan outlines what we can do right now to facilitate green investment and secure jobs for the long-term. It provides incentives to accelerate innovation and the uptake of green technologies, and signals how we will build the green skills needed in our workforce – providing our children with skills for the new economy.
3rd Victorian Sustainable Development Conference
Posted in Events by Kate Archdeacon on April 23rd, 2010
The 3rd Victorian Sustainable Development Conference will be held on May 25-26, 2010 at Zinc, Federation Square, Melbourne.
The Conference will be solution-oriented, bringing together key decision-makers from the private and public sectors, industry leaders, local government, scientists, conservationists and others to discuss ways in which to achieve real and lasting change in areas such as:
- Water
- Waste and resource recovery
- Energy efficiency
- Climate change response
- Planning and urban design
- Land remediation
- Air quality
- Human health
- Sustainable workplaces
2010 Premier’s Sustainability Awards
Posted in Seeking by Kate Archdeacon on January 12th, 2010
The 2010 Premier’s Sustainability Awards recognise and reward Victorian businesses, institutions, communities and individuals that demonstrate outstanding leadership and contribute to a more sustainable future for our state. Sustainable organisations do things better, smarter and more productively while reducing their everyday environmental impacts. Rise to the challenge of change acknowledges that becoming sustainable is not an easy task for business, government and community, but is a necessary one. The theme celebrates those that have chosen to act now rather than to deem it too difficult and provides inspiration and motivation for others to tackle the hurdles of climate change.
The eight award categories for 2010 are: large business, small business, community, products or services, built environment, local government, state government, tertiary education. The Premier’s Recognition Award will also be awarded to the standoutwinner of the eight award categories.
Key Dates and Deadlines
* Entry open – 10 November 2009
* Information sessions - 11 December 2009 and 28 January 2010
* Entries close – 5pm Wednesday 10 February 2010
Seeking your feedback – A Green ‘New Deal’ for Victoria?
Posted in Models by Devin Maeztri on May 13th, 2009
A community response to the recession – a Green ‘New Deal’ for Victoria?
This is a proposal for a collaborative and integrated response to the triple crunch of recession, climate change, and peak oil.
A recent poll (1) suggests that while Australians appreciate the bonuses they are getting from the federal government, they are not convinced that they are the way to find our way out of economic recession. Instead they believe that we should be investing in infrastructure.
But there is also a deeper dimension at play here. We are not just facing one crisis. Australia, in common, with the rest of the global economy, is facing a triple crunch of recession, accelerating climate change, and growing energy costs and insecurity. These overlapping phenomena threaten to develop into a ‘perfect storm’, the like of which has not been seen since the Great Depression.
As jobs are lost at an increasing rate, decisive and visionary action by the state and federal governments is needed to guide us through this gathering storm and to take advantage of the opportunities that these unprecedented events present to us.
It is available at: A Green New Deal for Victoria and Friends of the Earth Melbourne
We would appreciate feedback by monday May 18 to allow us to incorporate it into the final report.
(1) ‘Mind and Mood’ report, Ipsos MacKay, April 2009 Read the rest of this entry »
The Victorian State of the Environment Report
Posted in Research by Ferne Edwards on December 11th, 2008
A crucial document – the Victorian State of the Environment Report – was released last week. Find below an abstract of the editorial from The Age. You can also download the report here.
Victoria, a state in dangerous environmental decline
Editorial, The Age, December 5, 2008
SO MANY official reports come and go that they can disappear with little trace. Indeed, governments are often guilty of filing reports away, to be buried under the flood of recommendations into the too-hard basket. That cannot be allowed to happen with the inaugural Victorian State of the Environment Report released yesterday by Sustainability Commissioner Ian McPhail. The findings are simply too critical for our future wellbeing to be ignored by Victorians, whether they be Government ministers or members of the public.
The first report to tackle the full dimensions of Victoria’s environmental issues should jolt us all into taking stock of our way of life. It comprehensively outlines how unsustainable this has become: “If everyone lived liked Victorians, almost four planets would be needed.” Rampant consumption outpaces efficiency gains such as recycling: 60 per cent of waste is now diverted from landfill, but total waste output per person doubled between 1993 and 2006. “We simply cannot continue to maintain our standard of living through the gradual and continued degradation of the natural environment,” Dr McPhail warns.
Paddock to plate
Posted in Research by Maeztri on November 13th, 2008
This abstract was recently listed on Australian Policy Online. To see the original document visit Paddock to plate: food, farming and Victoria’s progress towards sustainability
Paddock to plate: food, farming and Victoria’s progress towards sustainability
Andrew Campbell / Australian Conservation Foundation
Posted: 28-10-2008
This study explores the future of the Victorian food and farming system in a rapidly changing and more demanding world, focusing on the period between now and 2020. It explores ideas and tries to anticipate and imagine the sorts of activities and investments that will be needed if Victoria is to equip its food and farming system to produce more healthy foods, more sustainably, in a much more difficult climate, while consuming less water, nutrients and energy. In contemplating the future, we are in a mental dance between fate and desire. We know that ‘whats coming at us will generate all sorts of possibilities and constraints. For the Victorian food system, such macro forces include the environmental, human health and policy drivers discussed below, and the basket of forces and trends that are captured under globalisation; including market forces and the progress of technology. NB This file is a large (7MB) PDF.
To read the full document visit Paddock to plate: food, farming and Victoria’s progress towards sustainability.