Australian town in 'world-first' bottled water ban

(AFP) -26th Sept 2009

SYDNEY — An Australian town pulled all bottled water from its shelves Saturday and replaced it with refillable bottles in what is believed to be a world-first ban.

Hundreds of people marched through the picturesque rural town of Bundanoon to mark the first day of its bottled water ban by unveiling a series of new public drinking fountains, said campaign spokesman John Dee.

Shopkeepers ceremoniously removed the last bottles of water from their shelves and replaced them with reusable bottles that can be filled from fountains inside the town's shops or at water stations in the street.

"Every bottle today was taken off the shelf and out of the fridges so you can only now buy refillable bottles in shops in Bundanoon," Dee told AFP.

The tiny town, two hours south of Sydney, voted in July to ban bottled water after a drinks company moved to tap into a local aquifer for its bottled water business.

"In the process of the campaign against that the local people became educated about the environmental impact of bottled water," said Dee.

"A local retailer came up with this idea of well why don't we do something about that and actually stop selling the bottled water and it got a favourable reaction," he said.

Dee said the 2,000-person town had made international headlines with their bid, which he hoped would spur communities across the world to action.

"Whilst our politicians grapple with the enormity of dealing with climate change what Bundanoon shows is that at the very local level we can sometimes do things that can surprise ourselves, in terms of our ability to bring about real and measurable change that has a real benefit for the environment," he said.

The cash savings only made the project more compelling, he added.

"I think that's why this campaign is doing so well, because we're saying to people you can save money and save the environment at the same time," said Dee. "The alternative doesn't have a sexy brand, doesn't have pictures of mountain streams on the front of it, it comes out of your tap."

Activists say bottling water causes unnecessary use of plastics and fuel for transport. A New South Wales study found that in 2006, the industry was responsible for releasing 60,000 tonnes of gases blamed for global warming.

Article from AFP, taken from : http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hZlHknsnA1Yhe-ZMnEDsF9w9U5qQ

Tips on how to study Chapter 7, 8 and for EOY

Dear Gentlemen,

1) Definitions of important concepts (a summary usually can be found at the last few pages of the chapter)

2) Playback questions in your textbook are good guiding questions to re-cap what you should know from the chapter.

3) Case Studies are important.

4) Maps, Figures and Diagrams found in the textbook should be studied and familiarized.

Cheers, Miss Zheng

Chapter 8: Water Supply (Intro)

Dear Gentlemen,

Here's the video I showed in class to introduce you to the topic on Water Supply. You will realize as we go through this chapter that water supply of the world is facing constraints just like land supply. You will also realize that a lot of factors contributing to the high demand for water(mainly high population growth/numbers in the world) and constraints are similar to what we have studied in the chapter of land supply.

Similarly, just like how we devise ways to increase land supply, humans have also devised ways to increase water supply, either by increasing price of water, creating more water sources or conservation, very similar methods/strategies we have learnt in the chapter on land supply.

As you start preparing for your end of the year examinations, see how you can study smart and interlink these two chapters together.

Chapter 7:Responses to rising demand for land (Increasing supply of land and Conservation)

Hi guys,

Here is a re-cap on the last bit of Chapter 7: Responses to rising demand for land

Besides, increasing the price, which I have touched about on the concept of Price mechanism, below are the two other ways to meet the rising demand for land.

Increasing the supply of land:

1) Land Clearance: Clearing forests and demolishing buildings

2) Land Reclamation: Landfill method, Empoldering, reclaiming derelict land

3)Maximising existing landuse: Maxmising urban landuse (mixing urban landuse and high density building)

Mixing urban landuse (examples: Sengkang and Jurong)

High density building

Conservation of land

1) Nature parks, wetlands or in general other green spaces.

Oil threat to Australia wildlife By Phil Mercer BBC News, Sydney

Hi guys,

As you all did Worksheet 6.2 and one of the headlines was about oil spill and the question asked about its impact, below is an article on BBC news about a oil spill from a rig in the Timor sea affecting the waters around Australia (which you can see here, it is a problem transcending all 3 scales: local (Timor Sea), regional(Timor Sea and other waters around Australia, global:affecting endangered marine animals and species that are of the world). Help to clear the slick came from the regions, specifically an emergency rig from Singapore.

Do read the article and gain some insight.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Photo credits: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8252982.stm

Conservationists believe that, in its rush to exploit abundant natural resources, Australia risks inflicting irreparable damage on its fragile environment.

Environmentalists have warned that an oil slick caused by an accident on a rig in the Timor Sea is threatening wildlife in Australian waters.

Oil has been flowing from the West Atlas platform for three weeks.

Safety authorities have been using chemicals to try to break up the spill but warn it could be at least two more weeks before the leak is plugged.
Up to 400 barrels of oil per day have been pouring into the Timor Sea to Australia's north.

An emergency rig has arrived from Singapore to repair the damage and aircraft and boats have been dousing the slick with dispersants

Fragile environment

The Australian Maritime Safety Authority has said that this has helped to contain the spread of oil, the bulk of which remains around the drilling platform thanks, in part, to benign weather conditions.

Officials have stated that the slick is about 170km (100 miles) from the Australian coast.

Environmental groups believe the contamination poses a significant threat to wildlife and is heading towards land.

Piers Verstegen, from the Conservation Council of Western Australia, says the spill - off the north coast of the Kimberley region where whales congregate - is an ecological disaster.

"Humpback whales, an endangered species, go to that area and that region to calf and give birth and this oil spill is happening just off the Kimberley coast," Mr Verstegen said.

"The oil, as far as we are aware, is travelling towards the Kimberley coastline but it is definitely affecting areas that are used by these whales and dolphins."
Fishermen have reported seeing endangered flatback turtles covered in oil.

There have also been claims that fish and sea-snakes have been poisoned.


From:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8252982.stm

Agriculture pioneer Borlaug dies

Photo credits:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8253005.stm

Norman Borlaug, the man known as the father of the Green Revolution in agriculture, has died in the US state of Texas aged 95.

Prof Borlaug won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 for agricultural innovation and the development of high-yield crops.

The Green Revolution helped world food production more than double between 1960 and 1990 with Asia, Africa and Latin America in particular benefiting.

The Nobel Institute said he had helped save hundreds of millions of lives.

Prof Borlaug died late on Saturday evening at his home in Dallas from complications with cancer, said a spokesperson for Texas A&M University, where he had worked.

'A better place'

In the early 1960s Prof Borlaug realised that creating short-stemmed varieties would leave food plants more energy for growing larger heads of grain.

His high-yield, disease-resistant dwarf wheat quickly boosted harvests in Latin America, and his techniques were particularly successful in South Asia, where famine was widespread.

Analysts believe the Green Revolution helped avert a worldwide famine in the late 20th century.

A close friend of Prof Borlaug at Texas A&M, Dr Ed Runge, told Associated Press news agency: "He has probably done more and is known by fewer people than anybody that has done that much... He made the world a better place."

The Nobel prize presentation said Prof Borlaug "more than any other single person of his age... has helped to provide bread for a hungry world". Prof Borlaug continued his work into his 90s.

At a conference in the Philippines in 2006 he said: "We still have a large number of miserable, hungry people and this contributes to world instability.
"Human misery is explosive, and you better not forget that."

Norman Borlaug was born in Iowa in 1914.
He studied at the University of Minnesota and later worked for DuPont and the Rockefeller Foundation.

He set up his wheat and maize centre in 1963 to train scientists.
Prof Borlaug was awarded the highest US civilian award, the Congressional Gold Medal, in 2007.

from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8253005.stm, 13 September 2009

Chaper 7: Effectiveness of Land Reclamation

Hi guys,

Countries that are small like Singapore or where it is mainly made up of lowlands, below the sea level like the Netherlands, land reclamation is a popular solution to the limited land supply the country has. However, land reclamation is not all rosy and good, there are costs that the country have to bear when they embark on land reclamation and limitations to land reclamation itself.

They are:

1) Limitations on the current technology

2)Cost of reclaiming deeper waters

3)Availability of sand for reclamation

4)National territory boundaries (Law of the Sea)

5)Negative impacts on the environment:destruction of natural habitats and sedimentation

Sedimentation is a form of water pollution and I mentioned in class it affects especially the corals found in the sea, I questioned in class if there were corals found in Singapore and many of you said yes. Unlike the beautiful corals of myriad colours of other countries such as Malaysia, the Maldives or Australia, Singapore's corals are usually dull and brownish in colour. This is mainly due to the high sedimentation in Singapore waters that restrict certain growth of aquatic plants that produce the sugars which gives off the pretty colours that you see.

Below are the two videos that I showed about sedimentation and the corals found at Pulau Hantu. enjoy!

Effect of Sedimentation

Pulau Hantu

Below is a map of the areas where you can find corals in Singapore and the type of corals you can find.

Below is another video about the marine life and corals of Singapore, with better colours..enjoy!

Chaper 7: Land Reclamation ( 3 methods)

In class, I have gone through with you that land reclamation is the creation of dry land from an area covered by water. Land reclamation can also refer to the process of recovering land that is damaged and abandoned and making it usable again.

There are three major methods that for land reclamation:

1)Landfill: create land by draining waterlogged areas such as swamps and marshes and filling them with material like sand to form dry land.

2) Empoldering: method of creating land from the sea through the use of polders.

3) Reclaiming derelict land:

-->Poor farming practices:

1) Through usage of fertilizers.

2) Letting the land lie fallow.

-->Mining activities:

1)Spoil banks have to be levelled

2)Mining pools filled.

3)Chemicals can be introduced to treat acidic soil

4)Vegetation planted to prevent soil erosion.