Have you ever had an old tennis ball that’s unusable? Maybe a dog’s gotten to it. Or maybe you just don’t have the energy for a quick game of tennis anymore. What ever the reason I’m urging you not to just toss it away with the rubbish.

In an attempt to help research and the preservation of harvest mice in Leicestershire and Rutland old tennis balls are being reused to give little homes for harvest mice.

The county council, worried about dwindling number has took it upon themselves to use hundreds of old tennis balls making a small penny sized hole for the mice to make it home sweet home.

The reason for the decrease in number is apparently due to changes in farming methods leading to the destruction of their homes.

The project is believed to be one of the biggest of its kind ever run in Leicestershire.

County Council wildlife expert, Helen O’Brien, said: “Little is known about the creatures’ current status locally so we need people to look in tall grass and fields and send in their information.

“The data will help us track numbers and tell us where we need to focus our attention to safeguard their future.”

The balls, donated by a local tennis club, are available for surveyors to distribute and monitor.

If you want to get involved why not go to the county council’s environmental resource centre in Birstall on June 14th.

The headlines recently have been heavily dominated by the doom and gloom surrounding the inevitable cuts the Government are enforcing. I am happy to inform every one of some positive cuts; the Carbon Trust has shown that different kinds of cuts are being made by publicly-funded organisations.

Since 2001 the Carbon Trust has worked with a massive variety of public sector organisations from hospitals and schools to fire and police stations, from central government to local authority, nothing has escaped their notice.

From 2001, the 3,000 public organisations that been working with the Trust have together made savings of over £650m and also cut CO2 emissions by 6.5 million tones.

The Trust has already identified a number of other projects which will help save the environment as well as public money; they believe they could save up to £3bn and also help remove 34 million tones of CO2.

Richard Rugg, Head of Public Sector at the Carbon Trust, said:
“The UK public sector has shown impressive leadership in recent years in tackling carbon emissions and bringing down energy use.

“It is especially encouraging to see that, along with greater levels of knowledge and skills, we are also seeing a steady increase in ambition.

“A few years ago, organisations graduating from our public sector carbon management programmes aimed, on average, to cut their carbon emissions by 12% over five years, now they are aiming for 30%.”

Worries have been raised that amongst all the confusion of a Liberal-Conservative coalition, the fight against climate change may take a back seat on priorities. The new Government have already had different opinions on major talking points such as nuclear power, renewable energy, airport expansion and offshore oil drilling.

These worries have not been helped by the new Climate Change Secretary Chris Huhne, who is one of the most senior Lib Dems in the Cabinet, conceding responsibility for civil nuclear energy policy to his Tory deputy, Charles Hendry, who will now submit any potential changes in legislation through Parliament.

Prime Minister, David Cameron pledged to make the coalition the “greenest government ever” and announced that all departments must cut their carbon emissions by at least 10 per cent.

Yet an investigation by The Independent on Sunday has found that, despite his commitment to “vote blue, go green”, there are many difference between the two parties across the board with relation to environmental issues.

More concerns were expressed after the Coalition agreement published last week, while they have agreed on a number of policies there have been no targets set explicitly for reducing carbon emissions.

There was a 6% difference between the Lib Dems and Conservative’s manifesto regarding UK emissions. Lib Dems pledged a 40% reduction with the conservative only committing to 34%.

The Coalition agreement supports “measure to encourage marine energy” – which is the Tories preference. The Lib Dems want an “energy mix” including 15,000 new wind turbines, the Tories are not happy about wind power and many of the leading Conservatives have opposed wind farms near their constituencies. Mr. Cameron has now decided he wants the market to decide what they feel is the best form of low-carbon technology.

While both parties are opposed to a third runway at Heathrow, the Tories haven’t ruled out the possibility of a new airport in the South-east.

The most worrying prospect, is that of offshore drilling, the Tories in the past have let it be known they support such ventures, they have committed to renew and extend exploration and exploitation of offshore oil reserves in the document “Rebuilding Security: Conservative Energy Policy for an Uncertain World”. The report also stated they hope to open the entire coastline of Britain to potential offshore drilling.

Andy Atkins, Friends of the Earth’s executive director, said: “The coalition Government must agree to cut UK emissions by at least 42 per cent by 2020. This is the minimum that scientific experts say is needed for this country to play its fair part in preventing dangerous climate change.”

According to the BBC the Liberal Democrat MP Chris Huhne is now the environment and climate change secretary in Mr. Cameron’s coalition cabinet.

The new British coalition government has yet to announce the policies that Huhne’s department will now enact, but in their manifesto the Liberal Democrats pledged to:

• Reject a new generation of nuclear power stations “based on the evidence nuclear is a far more expensive way of reducing carbon emissions than promoting energy conservation and renewable energy”.
• Block new unabated coal fired power stations.
• Set target to generate 40 per cent of electricity from renewables by 2020, rising to 100 per cent by 2050.
• Invest £400m in upgrading shipyards to support offshore wind and marine energy industry.

The Conservatives are in favour of new build nuclear, but with a Liberal Democrat MP as energy secretary it remains to be seen if the UK’s current plans to build up to ten new reactors will be enacted.

The appointment will be just one of a possible five cabinet posts that Liberal Democrat will be in power of under David Cameron’s government.

Vince Cable is expected to be responsible for business and banks.

George Osborne has also been given the post of chancellor while Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg has been given the job of deputy prime minister.

We will continue to keep you updated when we get the information.

The risks and implications from the Gibe III dam are huge and need to be considered more thoroughly. The director of the International River’s Africa Program, Terri Hathaway has said “Gibe III is the most destructive dam under construction in Africa. The project will condemn half a million of the region’s most vulnerable people to hunger and conflict”, there is a lot of truth in her predictions. The dam will help to reduce flooding and whilst on the surface this sounds like a positive effect, for many of the people living in the Lower Omo Valley this would be disastrous. 100,000 indigenous Ethiopian farmers rely on the annual floods, after which they plant seeds along the river banks fertilized by the flood waters (flood retreat cultivation). The floods also nourish land which the farmers use to graze livestock during the dry season, without this their land would all be dry and unable to sustain animals for long.  All of this contributes to the trade between the indigenous people who rely on trading left over food and livestock to trade with other tribes.  The threat of violence is thus increased as the amount of fertile land is reduced, people could turn to violence as they see their land diminishing.  The Prime Minister of Ethiopia, Meles Zenawi, has said that the dam “enables us to store water and regulate the flooding”  and though we have seen proposals to create an artificial flood in response to these issues, the plans are inadequate. Plans are to cause an artificial flood lasting ten days; however the natural floods build up over several months before reaching its peak. Surely it is naïve to think that an artificial flood of such a dramatically smaller time period would reach all areas and have the same affect as a flood which has been building up for months. Whilst it could be said that some effort is being made to rectify these problems, it is certainly safe to say that not enough is being done.  The reservoir itself will cause a number of problems, including the increased threat of mosquitoes carrying malaria who will look to the 150 km reservoir as a breeding ground.

Repercussions of the Ethiopian dam will reverberate down to Kenya, mainly affecting Lake Turkana and those that rely on the lake for their resources.  The Omo River’s flow into the Lake Turkana will be seriously reduced leading to a drop in the river by 10 meters. Particularly as it as been predicted that the reservoir will take approximately two years to fill, cutting the inflow from River Omo to Lake Turkana by 50 %.  This reduction will also lead to an increased salinity making the water undrinkable; affecting many of the inhabitants of the lake, including hundreds of species unique to Lake Turkana, in turn harming the fishing industry and the 100,000 local people depending on the source of fish.  

Surely it is impossible to deny that Dam Gibe III will distress thousands of lives as the evidence is impressive.  However, it seems that the Prime Minister of Ethiopia still denies the ruthless implications the dam means for life in both Ethiopia and Kenya, in fact he is quoted to have rejected fears that some 500,000 people could see their livelihoods destroyed.  It seems that the proof against his allegation is insurmountable whilst the evidence his own scientists have provided is weak and half hearted at best.  Whilst the Ethiopian government should not abandon the dam altogether, after all the money that has been poured into the project it would be a shame to see it wasted, work should be brought to a stop until the government can come with plausible and effective answers to all the problems they have so far refused to recognize. Mihert Debeba, head of Electricity Corporation is quoted saying “Should we stay in darkness?” The answer is no, however much more planning and research was needed before the Government through money, time and effort into this dam.  The need for electricity is undeniable, the need for the Omo river to continue its natural path so that the indigenous peoples of the Lower Omo Valley can carry on with their lives with as little disruption as possible is paramount.

To show your support please visit:
http://www.internationalrivers.org
http://www.stopgibe3.org

The BuilderScrap team have come up with a fun construction/environment related quiz, see how you get on, answers will be published on the site next week!

1) For every tonne of household waste how much do commercial, industrial and construction businesses produce?
a. Another 2 tonnes
b. Another 6 tonnes
c. Another 15 tonnes

2) What are the most environmentally unfriendly construction materials?
a. Concrete
b. PVC based products
c. Bricks

3) How many lego bricks were needed for James May’s full lego house?
a. 6.7 million
b. 5.4 million
c. 3.2 million

4) Which animals have been discovered to predict earthquakes?
a. Cats
b. Toads
c. Rats

5) How many tonnes of ice are falling into the sea every year?
a. 2 ½ million
b. 250 million
c. 250 billion

6) What building material did the Romans invent?
a. Bricks
b. Copper Piping
c. Concrete

7) WWF estimated that how many people switched their lights off as part of their campaign during Earth Hour?
a. 600,000
b. 4 Million
c. 1 Billion

8 ) Match the following famous architectural landmarks with the correct names

i. Kuwait Towers
ii. Arc de Triomph
iii. Petronas Towers
iiii. Constantine’s Arch

9) What radical idea have the Chinese planned for their landfill sites?
a. Spraying landfill sites with deodorant
b. Giant fans pointing away from the cities
c. Face masks to be given out free of charge

10) What legendary computer game character was spotted on Saturn’s moon Minas?
a. Lara Croft
b. Mario
c. Pac-Man

Have fun and keep an eye out for the answers next week!

The majority of respondents (79%) lived in a household with a car, with 43% having one car, 28% two cars, and 8% three or more cars. These findings are consistent with previous research carried out by the Energy Saving Trust in February 2008 (tracker survey) and by the Defra survey in 2007. Of those who lived in a household with a car, 83% said they were a driver.

Drivers were asked a series of follow-up questions about how much they drove personally and the type of car they normally used. Responses to these questions are summarised in Table 29 compared with the equivalent findings from the 2008 Energy Saving Trust tracker survey.

A little more than a third (37%) of drivers drove less than 5,000 miles per year, while slightly fewer than one quarter (22%) said they drove 5,000 – 7,999 miles. Around one in five (18%) said they drove 8,000 – 10,999 miles per year with a similar proportion (21%) saying they drove 11,000 miles or more. There have been changes in the distances people report driving per year – with an increase in those driving less than 5,000 miles from 25% in February 2008 to 37% in 2009 and a decrease in those driving between 11,000 and 15,999 miles per year, from 15% in 2009 to 10% in 2009.

Respondents who drove were asked what size engine the car they drove the majority of the time had. One half (50%) normally drove a car with a 1.5 – 2.0 litre engine. Just over one third (37%) of drivers normally drove a car with an engine of less than 1.5 litres and a smaller proportion (11%) said they normally drove a car with an engine of more than 2.0 litres. These data are broadly consistent with figures from 2008.

The majority (70%) of drivers drove a car with a petrol engine the majority of the time, with just over a quarter (29%) driving a car with a diesel engine. A very small proportion of drivers (1%) said they normally drove a car with a LPG, hybrid, electric or other type of engine. These data are consistent with figures from 2008.

Here at BuilderScrap.com we’re looking at respondents’ purchases of appliances and whether being “Energy Saving Recommended‟ had been a factor in purchases. The purpose of this the BuilderScrap blog isn’t just to help you guys save on construction costs, but to help home owners make informed decisions relating to the environment.

Respondents were presented with a list of seven household appliances and asked which, if any, they had bought in the last twelve months. As shown in Table 12, a third (32%) of respondents had bought at least one of these appliances, with the most common purchases being a washing machine (15%), fridge-freezer (9%) or a dishwasher (8%). It was less common for respondents to have purchased a tumble dryer (6%), fridge (5%), freezer (3%) or washer-dryer (2%).

A similar question was asked on the Energy Saving Trust tracker survey in August 2007. Where comparisons are possible the proportion who had bought each appliance in the last twelve months was fairly consistent, although there had been a small, but statistically significant decrease in the proportion of respondents who had bought a fridge-freezer.

We think that’s because its been really cold!

Lets look at the priority people feel the Government should place on the environment compared with other issues. All respondents were asked to say what they thought were the most important issues the Government should be dealing with. This question was asked unprompted – respondents‟ spontaneous answers were coded to a list of options which were not seen by the respondent. Respondents were able to give as many answers as they liked. Table 5 below summarises responses to the question compared with responses from the 2007 Defra survey.

Perceptions of governement issues

The economy was the most frequently mentioned issue for this question with more than half (57%) of all respondents selecting this as an important issue for the Government. The proportion of respondents mentioning this as an important issue had increased very considerably from 8% in 2007. This was followed by unemployment, mentioned by 37% of respondents (up from 9% in 2007) and then the “Environment / Pollution‟, mentioned by 35% of all respondents (up from 20% in 2007).

Overall this makes the “Environment / Pollution‟ the third most frequently cited response to the question (it was the fourth in 2007), with more respondents mentioning this as an important issue for the Government than crime. It is also worth noting that the proportion of people who mentioned at least one issue related to the environment (including public transport) as being important had increased from 26% in 2007 to 41% in 2009.
It should be noted that while relatively few respondents mentioned global warming / climate change, or energy use / fuel efficiency / alternative fuels, it is probable that many respondents were thinking about these issues when they said the environment / pollution. As this question was unprompted, it is not possible to say what specific aspect of the environment respondents were thinking about.

None of the three responses given most frequently in 2007 were in the top three responses in 2009 – in 2007 they were crime (mentioned by 49% of respondents and now down to 32% in 2009), health / social services (46% down to 26% in 2009), and education (35% down to 24% in 2009).

Here at BuilderScrap.com we meet people who work for Builders Merchants and in Construction all the time…. It’s time for our own quick poll.

We’ve found that interesting abstact from a BASF article on Eco-Efficiency Analysis;

Life without chemicals would be inconceivable, but the potential risks and impacts to the environment associated with chemical production and chemical products are viewed critically. Eco-efficiency analysis considers the economic and life cycle environmental effects of a product or process, giving these equal weighting. The major elements of the environmental assessment include primary energy use, raw materials utilisation, emissions to all media, toxicity, safety risk, and land use. The relevance of each environmental category and also for the economic versus the environmental impacts is evaluated using national emissions and economic data. The eco-efficiency analysis method of BASF is briefly presented, and results from three applications to chemical processes and products are summarised. Through these applications, the eco-efficiency analyses mostly confirm the 12 Principles listed in Anastas and Zimmerman (Environ. Sci. Technol. 2003, 37 (5), 94A), with the exception that, in one application, production systems based on bio-based feedstocks were not the most eco-efficient as compared to those based on fossil resources. Over 180 eco-efficiency analyses have been conducted at BASF, and their results have been used to support strategic decision-making, marketing, research and development, and communication with external parties. Eco-efficiency analysis, as one important strategy and success factor in sustainable development, will continue to be a very strong operational tool at BASF.

It’s very interesting to BuilderScrap.com that generally and to stress not just in BASF’S case that environmental considerations are offset against raw data. Co-efficiency analysis including; primary energy use, raw materials utilisation, emissions to all media, toxicity, safety risk, and land use to name but a few.  To us this still indicates the environmental impact may not be the primary focus when balanced against cost, and life-cycle analysis.