Renew Magazine

But there is another way.

Woodlawn Bioreactor

It’s not perfect but it’s an option that is better for the environment and can also be used to produce electricity. It’s called a bioreactor and is more than just theory: a bioreactor is currently being used to dispose of 400,000 tonnes per year of Sydney’s garbage.

Located near Goulburn in New South Wales, the Woodlawn Bioreactor is run by Veolia Environmental Services. Based on a disused open cut mine, the 6000 hectare site is currently being used to dispose of municipal waste and generate electricity. Aquaculture and horticulture facilities are in trial phases.

The site was originally a copper, lead and zinc mine with major open-cut and underground mine workings. The mine closed in 1998 and Veolia took over the lease for the site in 2004. In addition to the workings, the site is extensively degraded with large tailings dams and unvegetated areas that once housed crushers and other industrial facilities. The underground shafts are abandoned but the huge 25 million cubic metre open-cut pit is being used as the new rubbish repository.

But how does the garbage get to the Woodlawn site, 250 kilometres from Sydney? The major transport component is by train. The garbage is compacted into purpose-built shipping containers at Clyde Transfer Terminal in Sydney. Each container takes the equivalent of three garbage trucks of material. The containers are then placed on railway wagons—no less than 56 of them carrying 1500 tonnes of waste per train.

The train, hauled by three diesel locomotives, leaves Sydney early each week-day morning, arriving at the Crisps Creek Intermodal Transfer Station, near the hamlet of Tarago, at 6am. At the transfer station, built specifically for the bioreactor, large forklifts place the containers on trucks that transport the garbage to the bioreactor, about 10 kilometres away.

Read the full article in ReNew 114

For reasons I am unsure about, the church was moved in 1941 or 1942 by bullock dray to a small timber town called Brooweena, where it served as a Methodist church and the main place of worship. When the timber in the area began to deplete and there were only two parishioners left, the church was sold for removal and became part of Utopia Environmental Reserve, where it was used as a residence. The new owner carried out some minor alterations to the altar area which became a very basic kitchen and added a half-finished mezzanine floor above the kitchen area.

When we first looked at the church back in 2001 we realised it was going to take a lot of work, dedication and cash to get it to how we wanted it to be. One of the first hurdles we had to overcome was electricity as there was none connected and the nearest grid mains supply was about six kilometres away. As some of the other residences on the reserve had solar power, it became obvious that was the only way to go.

One of the first tasks was the installation of a dam on the three hectare site. In hindsight it was a great decision as it is now used for watering the garden and ensuring the veggie garden keeps producing, with lots of capacity to spare. Later we installed a solar pump on the dam to push the water up to a tank at the rear of the church. This was powered by a 12 volt pressure pump, the same as the ones used in yachts and other small boats. It did not deliver huge volumes of water but it was constant so long as the sun was shining. The overall setup was powered by two smaller solar panels with the use of a 12 amp maximiser kit—a great investment as it eliminated the need for batteries.

A new job meant I had to work overseas, so we closed up the place and headed off, dreaming of our new purchase and making plans for the refurbishment. On one of our annual leave return trips we decided to complete the mezzanine floor, which would eventually become our bedroom, and install a stair case which I purchased in kit form from a South Australian company.

Solar from India

We purchased our solar power system while living in India on a two-year work assignment. I wanted to purchase a system that would comfortably cover just about all the needs of a normal house, so I eventually purchased a system that was capable of a 3.6kW output. The system included fourteen 114 watt panels, a charge controller and a Latronics inverter. At the time, the Indian government had little or no sales tax on solar power equipment to encourage people to purchase systems, as their power generating infrastructure was inadequate to cope with the demand on the grid. We put our new solar system into storage for eighteen months until I came home to retire in March 2008.

When Professor Rob Adams, Director of City Design for the City of Melbourne, won a prize several years ago, he wanted the money to go towards a new interactive architecture project. Regional Arts Victoria, in collaboration with the City of Melbourne’s ArtPlay team, had an idea that triggered Adams’ imagination, one that could teach children the fundamentals of sustainability.

Eco-Cubby, now in its third year, teams architects with primary schools to plan a cubby house together. Adams says Eco-Cubby’s charm is in the hands-on learning process: “It’s about communication, working together, mathematics—what’s soft and bends, what’s hard and doesn’t.”

There’s an agenda here, after all, cubby houses have traditionally been places of play, not formal education, with the biggest reference to sustainability being the hard rubbish collection that the materials were collected from. However, incorporating smart cubby house design into the school curriculum is an interactive way to teach the basics of passive solar design and, from the look of it, is lots of fun.

Architect and school

Architect Lisa Brennan worked with grade four students at Yarra Road Primary School last year. Accustomed to working in her own practice and as a lecturer at Melbourne University, this was the first time her expertise was brought to younger students. The school was already advanced in environmental education, and cubby house design, with a treed area called the Sanctuary being a place for students to build their own cubby houses with found objects such as branches, rocks or discarded timber. The first class involved Lisa watching how the children play in the Sanctuary, where they have their own currency, trading in gum nuts.

Next, Lisa and the students pondered big questions such as where to locate the cubby? How to build it? And who will use it? Four possible sites were selected with students assessing each one according to size, view, northern orientation, current use, whether it is flat or sloped, treed, and a general feeling as to whether that site was where they’d want their cubby house.

A tranquil spot called the frog bog was selected over others such as the basketball court and oval. Over around a dozen sessions, Lisa and the students measured the area, drew a site plan, and discussed and workshopped ideas on sustainability and design including features that their cubby would include, building materials, and how to build the final design.

Students split into four groups to translate their drawings and ideas into a model; one to build the model, one for environmental considerations, another group to make the plasticine people that would be included in the model, and the final group to document the project.
The final dream cubby house model looks ideally suited to outdoor living, with lots of open windows and garden play area. The rainwater tank is made from a box and the pipe going from the roof to the tank is a drinking straw. Importantly the roof is sloping to ensure the solar panels get a good hit of sunshine every day. The plasticine people are made to scale and dressed in purple to replicate the student’s uniform.

Eco-cubby at festival

Models from last year’s participating schools were exhibited at ArtPlay in Melbourne as part of the Sustainable Living Festival in February. Geelong East Primary School added a wind turbine to their cubby house, while the water conservation message has remained strong post-drought, with all models including rainwater tanks; one of the more imaginative tanks was made from an old plastic wine glass more commonly used at picnics.

Geelong East Primary School noted that they learnt about renewable versus non-renewable energy sources, climate conditions, passive heating and cooling and orientation. Their clever design includes a main structure which is the winter cubby, where it’s warmer inside thanks to thermal mass capturing the sun. Underneath, accessed by ladders, is the shaded summer cubby, a place benefited by cooling breezes.

Hard to build
These imaginative models are one step from reality though: the building process. Regional Arts Victoria’s Emily Atkins says that only two cubby houses have been built, with the  emphasis being on the design and learning phase rather than a finished structure. While the backyard cubby house is relatively cheap to build, especially when out of the eye of authorities, these Eco-Cubby designs are subject to more stringent assessments when built at schools. “Surveying and building costs can be as much as $40,000,” she says, with the main expense being surveying.

Understandably, to build one of these dream cubbies requires some serious fundraising, often beyond what a cake or plant stall can deliver. The University of Melbourne Early Learning Centre opened their Eco-Cubby last spring, a recycled timber and mud brick structure that hit a bureaucratic snag or two during the building process. The kindergarten students made their own mud bricks with their parents, only to be told that the mud bricks were an irregular size, and couldn’t be used to build. Pre-made mud bricks were bought (which apparently weren’t that much different in size) and the old mud bricks used in the garden instead. The second cubby house, a chook shed cubby, is at Barham Primary School near Kerang, with plans for another at the Olive Phillips Kindergarten this year.

Emily says the results with just paper, cardboard, tins and pipe cleaners have been abstract enough. “They’ve displayed amazing ideas, especially in regards to sustainability.” She says that hearing kids say ‘it has to face north so that it warms the house and that’s passive ecology’ is proof enough of the program’s success.

Back in 2008 we chronicled the efforts of a New Zealand couple who managed to go an entire year without producing any more than a few fistfuls of rubbish (see ReNew 103). It was no mean feat and after a frugal year of making their own well, everything, the couple were escalated to expert heights of self-sufficiency.

After 365 long days of growing their own food, baking their own muesli bars, mixing their own toothpaste and generally avoiding everything that comes wrapped in anything not recyclable or compostable, the couple have become rubbish-free enthusiasts to this day.

Lucky for us, Matthew and Waveney have created a personal website to share all their savvy tips on just how they did it, and continue to do it still! If you’re feeling a little guilty about all those disposable water bottles and plastic shopping bags, their website is certainly worth a look-in.

Rubbishfree.co.nz has an A – Z index of common household products, and offers handy solutions on how to avoid the packaging associated with them. And they really have thought of everything, from replacements to all that Blu-Tac destined for landfill, to the best places to buy eco-friendly deodorant and even explaining how the most avid potato chip addicts can satisfy their foil-wrapped cravings!

Matthew and Waveney love people asking them tricky questions and handle them with the utmost wit and decorum, even offering rubbish-free solutions for the slightly more fraught with complications areas of contraception and toilet paper. It really makes for an interesting read!

Also on the website is an online store where you can order some nifty things like environmental toothbrushes and biodegradable dental floss. Simple solutions to help all of us achieve a life with less rubbish in it!

www.rubbishfree.co.nz

So why would you bother salvaging a VCR? And wouldn’t it take hours to pull it apart to get the good bits? Well the answers are, respectively: lots of reasons and no. And contrary to what you might expect, the best bits are mechanical rather than electronic. The trick with salvaging VCRs is to quickly pull the thing apart, sort and keep the good bits and then get rid of the rest.

Here’s a typical starting point. This is what you might call a medium-age VCR. Older ones are better and heavy older ones are better again!

Why is this? The heavier a VCR, the better the quality of salvageable components inside. In fact, to go to extremes, the ancient U-matic video tape machines weigh an incredible amount (some can barely be lifted) and inside you’ll find engineering that is fantastic, including solenoids and switches.

On the other hand, a super lightweight VCR has generally less of everything you might want. However, any VCR is worth picking up for its parts. At the very least you should get a useful motor and a few other goodies.

First the pallet needs to be deconstructed. A trusty hammer and jemmy bar are all you need but try to keep the slats in as good a condition as possible. An easy way to decide the size of the planter box is to leave the length of the box as the original length of the pallet, making its width half the original length. The reason for this is it makes measuring and cutting simple, as you are only ever halving the length of the slats.

Constructing the side plates was simply a matter of nailing (or screwing) the long horizontal slats onto three vertical supports for the long sides and two supports on the short sides.

Construction of the base is exactly the same but you need to make the base plate roughly 40mm (four times the slat thickness) wider than the short sides. The reason for this is that when the sides and base come together, the vertical sides need to sit on the base for support, rather than being suspended next to it. If the short sides and base plate are the same width then this will not be possible.