Keen on reducing water pollution, Philadelphia is busy making plans to turn building roofs green. After having inked a deal with the state environment officials lately, the Philadelphia City Water Department will begin work on green roofs, absorptive pavements and extended park spaces in the city, that will help contain the flow of water and prevent water pollution to quite a commendable extent. Besides cleaning up Philadelphian water streams, the project will add a touch of green to the city too, making it a better place to live in.
Starbucks has gotten itself involved in some pretty green initiatives before in an attempt to decrease the amount to of waste plastic cups it produces on an annual basis. The caffeinated chain has gone on a cup-saving spree, promoting the use of coffee mugs across its stores lately. Along with the Ministry of Environment, Starbucks Coffee Korea will have about 350 of its stores participate in a campaign for promotion of mug use. Customers who opt to use a mug instead of a disposable cup will also be given a free drip matt from the 1st of June.
The Greenpeace Organization has been around for a while now and has sure learned their ways around spreading green messages to the masses. Environment conservation activists who’ve been putting every effort into saving the planet earth from an ecological breakdown, the guys at Greenpeace split up into two groups to bring some green to the city of Chicago. One group scaled a 450 foot coal plant and dropped down a banner from the top of a bridge in an attempt to stop a coal-filled barge from sailing. In the second event, a group of Greenpeace activists emblazoned a smokestack with the words “Quit Coal”.
A few years ago, Google pulled out a fat wad of cash to purchase a Finnish paper mill, which now, plays home to a state-of-the-art data center. What makes this one different is the way it keeps cool and calm. The search engine giant is making use of sea water to cool this data center down, using a quarter-mile of seawater tunnels, previously used by the paper mill. The challenge faced however is corrosion issues. Sea-water is known to corrode just about every metal it lays its hands on. Currently, Google is busy working on ways to desalinize the water as much as needed and at the same time reduce the impact caused by this data center on the surroundings.
The coal power station in Tarong, Australia, is all set to cut down on the pollution it emits using an algae system from OriginOil. The plant by Australian firm MBD Energy will hook on to a system that will capture flue-gas emitted from the coal-fired power station with the help of a bio-based carbon capture storage device. Using the captured Co2, the micro-algae reproduce more algae biomass which can then be put to use for fuel and plastic manufacturing. Currently, the system will be used on a test basis at the one hectare site and if it does manage to prove its worth, MBD Energy will hook it on to a larger 80 hector site in future.
Although Mother Nature hasn’t been kind to them, Japan knows what good credit and a nuclear free eco-system can bring. In a continuing effort to cut down their carbon footprints further, Japan is soon going to begin a “universal solar panel initiative” for all their structures in the tine frame of 20 years.
Wadebridge, Cornwall, is now a stride closer to achieving its goal of being the first solar powered town in the UK. Solar panels are slowly spreading across the Wadebridge area. Currently, 10 solar systems have already been installed and the town aims to have 1MW of solar generation capacity installed by 2012 and 7MW by the year 2015! A non-profit organization, the Wadebridge Renewable Energy Network (WREN), is busy setting up solar panels on the roofs of homes, collecting a feed-in tariff for the same, which will then be used for the community fund.
With garbage piles forever increasing, companies around the globe are looking for greener alternatives to their products. We’ve had green cups come by from Starbucks before. PepsiCo, in yet another green initiative, has five recyclable and compostable cups on offer for food service customers in the U.S. The cups are ideal for restaurant, theme park, stadium and college use, while selecting the type of cup depends completely on the type of local recycling and composting disposal facilities. The green cups come with fully recyclable clear plastic caps too.
Toys and electronic retailer, Toys ‘R’ Us has decided to quit playing around with the usually-polluting forms of energy, opting to go green instead with solar panels on the roof of its facility in Flanders. Located in suburban Flanders, New Jersey, the firm plans to cover up about 70% of its entire facility roof with solar panels in the near future. The project will generate around 5.38-megawatts of clean and green energy from the sun and will be one of the largest rooftop solar installations in the whole of Northern America. With the roof spanning across 32 acres, 20 acres (869,294 square feet) of the roof will be covered with solar panels.
Spirituality requires a touch of eco-friendliness too. A Baptist congregation in Washington thinks prays to be best answered when powered by solar energy. The Florida Avenue Baptist Church recently hooked on a bunch of solar panels on the roof of the church to soak in the sun’s and power up using solar energy. The 10-kilowatt uses 44 solar panels arranged on the church’s flat roof put into place by Washington-based Volt Energy. That’s not all. Pastor Earl Trent Jr. also went ahead to state that the church has set up its own Green Ministry to help encourage and educate the people at large in regards to renewable energy, energy efficiency, electric vehicles and sustainable agriculture.
