Bazsux

2017. március 20., hétfő

San Diego brewery unveils beer made from 100% recycled wastewater

San Diego is aiming to to become the most environmentally sustainable city in the United States. As part of its ambitious Climate Action Plan, last year the city council unanimously approved a $3 billion initiative to recycle wastewater for drinking. Now the city is demonstrating that the pure water program can be used for just about anything, even a cold beer, by partnering with Encinitas-based craft beer maker Stone Brewery to unveil Stone Full Circle Pale Ale -- a beer made with 100 percent recycled wastewater from the city's pure water program.

"Just a great example of what this is gonna be like in terms of the future and Stone who's a huge driver of not just the craft beer industry but sustainability, that’s what our pure water program is all about," San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer said at Stone's Point Loma location last week, where city leaders gathered to sample the beer and talk up the pure water program.

The wastewater recycling plan puts purified water treated at the Point Loma Water Treatment Plant back into the freshwater system rather than the ocean -- providing a steady source of potable water to protect the water supply from drought and disruptions to water imports. The pure water program is expected to deliver 30 million gallons of recycled water a day within five years and 83 million gallons of drinking water per day when fully implemented in 2035 -- providing one-third of the city's freshwater supply.

Stone, the largest brewery in San Diego and ninth largest in the country, produced five barrels of the beer using water trucked in from the city's pure water demonstration plant in Miramar. "We like trial and we like testing and if we can help others jump on the same bandwagon, we would love to do that because it’s a great thing for the City of San Diego," said Stone Chief Operating Officer Pat Tiernan.

+ Stone Brewery

+ San Diego Water Sustainability Program

Via UPI

Images via Wikimedia and Twitter

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Students use rice husks to build affordable homes in the Philippines

Rice husks used to be considered a waste product good for nothing but fire or landfills, but now enterprising companies are beginning to realize their potential as a sustainable building material. A group of students from the Riverside’s Bourns College of Engineering at University of California used waste rice husks to manufacture termite-resistant composite boards with help from a $75,000 grant from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to develop and build affordable housing in the Philippines.

In addition to protecting rice during the growing season, rice hulls can be put to use as building material, fertilizer, insulation material or fuel. The students at Riverside's Bourns College of Engineering used it to manufacture boards ideal for building relief shelters and affordable housing.

The Husk-to-Home team developed the project by environmental engineering student Colin Eckerle who has been working on it since 2014. However, the rice husk boards last longer. The students received a two-year grant by EPA which will pay for manufacturing equipment and space and allow the team to go into full-scale production of the boards.

In the design, the rice husks—a waste product of rice milling– replace commonly used woodchips. They are a great alternative to plywood, bamboo and coconut wood. Eckerle claims the board will cost about $7 for a 4 ft. x 8 ft. board—the same as the plywood boards currently used by IDEA. A recycled high density polyethylene (HDPE), also a waste product, binds the rice husks together and provides strength and resistance to humidity.

“While it has taken a lot of trial and error to get a material that is strong and consistent enough to build homes with, we have finally reached a point where we can produce a prototype board that is comparable in terms of strength to commercially available particleboard," Eckerle said. "Our tests have shown that termites will not eat rice husk or our building material, which will increase the lifespan of the houses in the Philippines”.

+ Bourns College of Engineering

Lead photo by CIAT International Center for Tropical Agriculture via Flickr

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2017. március 6., hétfő

Zero-carbon home generates income by making more energy than it needs

The home of the future could slash your utility bills and generate enough money to help pay the mortgage. UK firm Koru Architects designed and built one such house, named the Lloyd House, that’s effectively zero-carbon and runs entirely on renewable energy. Tucked away on a quiet street in England’s East Sussex, this contemporary home generates more energy than it consumes and even brings in a net income of £2650 per year from solar photovoltaics, solar thermal, and a wood-chip biomass boiler.

Completed in 2011 as a case study, the Lloyd House is a large and contemporary three-bedroom home that only consumes around half the energy of a typical UK household thanks to its use of passive solar design, energy efficient appliances, effective insulation, and high airtightness. The home was built with mostly natural materials including sustainably sourced timber for the cladding and flooring, zinc roofing, hemp and wood-fiber insulation, recycled glass in the kitchen countertops, and lime-based natural plants. Sedum plants carpet the roof to add an additional layer of insulation and provide habitat to local insects and birds. A 4,700-liter Freewater UK Elite rainwater harvesting system collects rainwater for reuse in irrigation, the washing machine, and the dual-flush toilets.

The Lloyd House produces all the hot water it needs for domestic use and for the underfloor heating with a 6-kilowatt solar thermal system and a 10.5-kilowatt wood-pellet boiler. A twelve 340-kilowatt peak solar array provides around 3800 kilowatt-hour of electricity annually, which is more than it uses thanks to its energy-efficient measures. Excess energy is exported to the grid and, with the help of renewable heat incentive and feed-in-tariff schemes, the home brings in a net annual income of £2650 ($3,300 USD) after bills are subtracted. The house emits 93% less carbon dioxide equivalent than the average UK household.

Constructed with passive solar principles, the airtight home is oriented towards the south with large areas of glazing to take advantage of the sun’s heat and natural lighting to reduce energy demand. High-level skylights also flood the interior with natural light. In addition to the three bedrooms, the home comprises a home office, two bathrooms, living room, utility room, open plan kitchen and dining area, garage, and garden. The spacious and comfortable interior is organized into split-levels to make the most of the sloped site. “The house is expected to last around 80 years, and through its generation of clean energy it is expected to offset 41 tonnes of carbon over its life,” write the architects. “Including the replacement of the renewable energy technologies, it would take 48 years to become entirely carbon-neutral.” The project was awarded the RIBA Download Prize 2011 in the category for sustainability and serves as a source of green inspiration for the community.

+ Koru Architects

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2017. március 3., péntek

Timberland transforms recycled plastic bottles into shoes, bags

For its latest collection, Timberland is turning to the bottle—the plastic bottle, that is. The outdoor-wear maker has teamed up with Thread, a Pittsburgh, Penn.-based manufacturer of sustainable fabrics, to transform plastic bottles from the streets and canals of Haiti into a dapper collection of footwear, bags, and T-shirts. The Timberland x Thread collaboration goes "beyond environmental sustainability," according to Timberland. Not only does the partnership turn an ecological blight into a resource but it also creates social value in the form of cleaner neighborhoods and job opportunities for one of the planet's poorest nations.

“The Timberland x Thread collection is incredible proof that style and sustainability can go hand-in-hand,” Colleen Vien, director of sustainability for Timberland, said in a statement. “This collection delivers good with every fiber, not just by recycling plastic bottles that would otherwise end up littering the streets, but also by creating job opportunities and cleaner neighborhoods in Haiti.

"Consumers can feel good about pulling on their Timberland x Thread boots or backpack, and know they are making a positive impact in someone else’s life,” she added

The Timberland x Thread capsule comprises five styles of men's shoes and boots, a duffel bag and a backpack, and one T-shirt. All incorporate Thread's "Ground to Good" fabric, which the certified B Corp. spins in the United States using 50 percent post-consumer recycled polyethylene terephthalate, better known as PET.

Thread says that every yard of fabric can be traced throughout the supply chain, from bottle collection to textile creation and delivery to the manufacturer.

The "bottle to boot" process employs more than 1,300 bottle collectors, entrepreneurs, and manufacturing employees in Haiti alone.

“At Thread, we believe that dignified jobs cure poverty—and our fabric creates those jobs,” said Ian Rosenberger, founder and CEO of Thread. “Our partnership with Timberland marks a seismic shift in the fashion industry, combining Timberland’s large supply chain and loyal customer base with Thread’s responsible, transparent approach to creating premium fabrics and vital jobs in the developing world. The Timberland x Thread collection is a major step towards improving the way our clothes are made.”

+ Timberland

+ Thread

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Robots construct an art gallery in Shanghai from recycled gray bricks

Archi-Union Architects have completed an unusual art exhibition space in Shanghai with the help of robots. Created for the Chi She artist group, the building in the city’s Xuhui district was built with recycled gray-green bricks salvaged from a former building. Designed with both traditional and contemporary elements, the Chi She exhibition space features an unusual protrusion made possible with advanced digital fabrication technology.

The 200-square-meter Chi She exhibition space was built to replace a former historic building, the materials of which were salvaged and reused in the new construction. While the zigzagging roof has been raised and reconstructed from timber, the most eye-catching difference between the old and new buildings is the part of the wall above the entrance door that bulges out. The architects used a robotic masonry fabrication technique developed by Fab-Union to create the curved wall, which would have been difficult to precisely achieve with traditional means.

“The precise positioning of the integrated equipment of robotic masonry fabrication technique and the construction elaborately to the mortar and bricks by the craftsmen makes this ancient material, brick, be able to meet the requirements in the new era, and realizes the presentation of the design model consummately,” wrote the architects. “The dilapidation of these old bricks coordinated with the stretch display of the curving walls are narrating a connection between people and bricks, machines and construction, design and culture, which will be spread permanently in the shadow of external walls under the setting sun.”

+ Archi-Union Architects

Via ArchDaily

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