Sustainable tissues made from bamboo and sugarcane fibres

Tree-free No Issues tissues (Photo Julie May)

With bamboo being the fastest growing plant in the world, therefore easily replaced, and sugarcane fibre being a plentiful waste product, why not make more use of these sustainable products?

No Issues, an Australian company, is doing this by making soft, strong facial tissues out of bamboo and sugarcane fibres. Millions of trees worldwide are cut down each year for paper. No Issues is providing these sustainable paper tissues tree-free thus saving trees for our children’s children.

No Issues tissues are available in Australia at Coles, Woolworths, IGA, Foodland and Clarins.

Reference: https://www.noissues.com.au/about-us
See also: Can we replace plastic or steel with bamboo products?

One way to reduce coal & gas power could be for homeowners to join a virtual power plant

Battery management system, Reposit Power"s phone app. (One Step off the Grid)

The Australian Capital Territory already has a virtual power plant made up off consenting homeowners to share the stored solar power from their home batteries at times of peak electricity demand. This helps level out the peaks and troughs in supply and they get paid a premium rate for this shared power of A$1/kWh.

In a different way, Energy Queensland is also managing distributed renewable energy to form a virtual power plant.

Now the South Australian and the Victorian governments are providing financial support for home battery storage and virtual power plants.

The South Australia Liberal government is getting ready to finally roll out its Home Battery Scheme after confirming $180 million has been allocated for the promised installation of small-scale battery storage in 40,000 homes, as well as large-scale batteries and demand management schemes, including virtual power plants. Individual grants to up to $6,000 will be granted to help with the purchase of the batteries.

Origin Energy has revealed plans to establish what it says will be Victoria’s largest virtual power plant – a $20 million cloud-based platform that will tap around 5MW of the battery-stored solar power of up to 650 customers during periods of peak power demand.

In addition, as a result of increased interest in batteries, the German battery storage giant Sonnen has announced plans to manufacture up to 10,000 battery storage units a year at the old Holden car manufacturing site in Adelaide, confirming that there is a future for manufacturing in a state with high renewables.

Postscripts:
- Canberra Virtual Power Plant awarded top engineering honours. Reposit Power, September 19 2018.
- Ausgrid seeks to expand virtual power plant to cut back on network costs. RenewEconomy, May 22 2019.

The ACT government paves the way for electric vehicles.

Shane Rattenbury, of ACT Govt, at Birmingham's Zero Emission Vehicle Summit

With the Australian Capital Territory moving to 100% renewable electricity by 2020, it makes sense to address the next big emitter of greenhouse gases in the territory, transport. Earlier this year it released its Action Plan to accelerate the adoption of zero emissions vehicles in the ACT that will take it through to 2021.

Now the ACT Government has signed the global “Birmingham Declaration”, at Birmingham's Zero Emission Vehicle Summit, which commits stakeholders across the globe to take real steps to accelerate the move to low emission vehicles, enabling the growth of the market, and so developing innovative technological and manufacturing advances.

Key signatories include the UK, Denmark, Netherlands, France, Barbados, Poland, Italy, Portugal, United Arab Emirates, and now the ACT.

Shane Rattenbury, the ACT Minister for Climate Change and Sustainability, stated that: “With transport expected to create over 60% of the ACT’s emissions by 2020, mostly from private car use, we are strongly committed to reducing greenhouse gases by encouraging active travel, providing high quality low emissions public transport options and transitioning to zero emissions vehicles."

Under the Territory’s Transition to Zero Emissions Vehicles Action Plan, the ACT Government is committed to a number of key actions including but not limited to:

- transitioning the ACT Government’s passenger vehicles fleet to zero emissions vehicles from 2020-21

- requiring all new multi-unit and mixed-use developments to install vehicle charging infrastructure

- providing transit lane access to zero emissions vehicles until 2023

- supporting new and innovative businesses in the zero emissions vehicle sector to maximise job creation and economic development in the ACT.

Read more at:

The ACT powers ahead on electric vehicles. The Driven, September 12, 2018.

SEEREE (South East Region  of Renewable Energy Excellence: http://www.serree.org.au/knowledge/news/article/?id=the-act-powers-ahead-on-electric-vehicles

Karnataka state, India, to build world's largest solar farm.

 (Source: One Step off the Grid)

The Indian state of Karnataka now produces more renewable energy than European countries like Netherlands and Denmark. The Netherlands and Denmark produce around 7.7 GW of renewable energy whereas Karnataka has an installed capacity of 12.3 GW. Growth in renewables is to continue with Karnataka to build what will become the world’s largest solar farm of 2 GW.

Commercialising the production of compostable plastics from seafood waste

Tiger prawns Source: Sea-Ex

A team of post-graduate students from the University of Sydney comprising of a chemist, plant pathologist and business student are looking to launch a pilot study to make biodegradable strawberry packaging from waste crustacean shells and other all-natural ingredients. The students co-founded the company, Carapac, and are seeking funding for the pilot study.

A range of plastics can be made from crustacean shells, which do not biodegrade on the shelf but do when they reach soil which contains bacteria that break down the plastic. The students claim the compostable plastic improves the overall quality of the soil by releasing nutrients plus acting as a slow release nitrogen fertiliser.

Such sustainable, biodegradable plastics have huge potential to replace current single use plastics, particularly food packaging and plastic bags.

Reference: Idea for new plastics falls on fertile ground. The Weekend Australian, September 1-2, 2018 : https://www.theaustralian.com.au › business