Every commuting cyclist out there should feel proud that they probably do more to “keep Melbourne moving” (to borrow a slogan) than any new freeway could. Cyclists minimise congestion or public transport crush, maximise the carrying capacity of roads, maximise the availability of parking for those who need to use it (loading, couriers, the elderly or disabled), reduce the burden on the health care system from sedentary or stress related illness, reduce the family/workplace losses from early death or illness, and reduce use of polluting fossil fuels. All while having fun on wheels!

Accessed 24/03/2009 from The Age website / Peddling priority, Clay Lucas, March 24, 2009

When the road builders start riding their bikes to work instead of driving, it’s clear something different is happening. That was confirmed yesterday with the launch of the Victorian Cycling Strategy, a $115 million Brumby Government plan to get more people cycling.

A Melbourne City Council report issued in October showed that bikes as a percentage of vehicles in the CBD between 7am and 10am had risen from just 4 per cent in 2006 to 9 per cent last year.

In suburbs such as Northcote, Brunswick and Fitzroy, up to 13 per cent of adults now ride to work.

“(Cycling) is good for your personal health. It will get your blood pressure down, it will get your cholesterol down. It also takes pressure off the public transport system and our road system,” [Premier John Brumby said at yesterday's launch of the bike plan that the new strategy aimed to boost cycling all over the state].

“Cycling is now an essential part of the transport plan,” the Premier said. “That is a big shift from where we were a decade ago, where really what funds were available to cycling were just an add-on.” Now [Premier Brumby's government] has boosted spending levels [each year on cycling] to $18 million a year.

The reaction from Bicycle Victoria to yesterday’s plan was little short of euphoric. “This is a history-making document,” said Bicycle Victoria chief executive Harry Barber. “For the first time in Australia, bike riding has been formally recognised as part of the core transport system.” The era of “discrimination” — where bike riders were lucky to get a few left-overs when roads were built — had officially ended, Barber said.

Yesterday the Premier said Victoria needed the plan to achieve success in helping more people to start getting fit, and cycling was a great way. “We are losing more people from the non-communicable diseases than we are from the communicable diseases for the first time in our history. These are all the lifestyle diseases. The best way to counter a lifestyle disease is to keep fit and to keep healthier. And you can do it walking, you can do it running, or you can do it cycling. Every one of those people who is cycling into work in the morning could be someone who is using a car, could be someone using public transport,” he said.

See the full article for more about the plan.

I though it might be timely to post about how people can keep cool on hot days.

In particular, how to keep cool without air conditioning.

Victoria’s power supplies are often stretched on scorcher days, resulting in power outages as resources find their limits or equipment is working harder than it was designed for. We need to be good citizens towards those who live in areas where air conditioning is their last resort for health – whether it be the sick, the elderly, or those living and working in hot buildings or environments. There is potential for the power you use to cause a power outage for someone who needs an electricity supply to survive.

So, how can it be done?

The key to keeping cool and healthy on hot days is to drink adequate water and let evaporation do its job. Our bodies perspire to maintain a core body temperature. Air movement over our skin dries the perspiration, and when this happens it cools us down. We need to drink more water on hot days simply because we perspire more. It’s also important to keep out of direct sunlight.

You can help your body out by:

• staying inside, or out of direct sunlight
• wearing less clothing. Wear your swimmers if you can. This helps air movement over the skin.
• putting a t-shirt in a sink to wet it with the cold tap, wring it out, and put it on.
• use a squirt bottle
• wet a bandana (or similar) and wear it around your neck or head, or simply reguarly using a damp face washer on your skin
• wet a hat or cap and put it on!
• follow your pet around. they typically can judge the coolest part of the house, such as a tiled surface to sit or lay on.
• munch on some ice
• avoid sugary drinks
• use a fan (electric or simply fan yourself) wherever possible over air con. The air movement does the trick. If you are unwell or elderly and need air con, yes use it… but in most cases a fan over moist skin does the job perfectly and uses a very small fraction of the power. Air conditioners are a big drain on our energy supplies.

In your home or workplace:

• you can use a desk fan where you are sitting working, or use a pedestal fan on oscillation to share around the air movement amongst people
• don’t sit so close to each other if you can get away with it. We radiate heat ourselves and more space means more air movement. (Try not to offend!)
• turn off all unnecessary electrical equipment. Typically electrical equipment produces some heat and switching off what isn’t being used will reduce the air temperature inside somewhat. As well as restricting use of air conditioning, switching off unused appliances also means there will be more power in the grid for those that need the supply, such as hospitals.
• relax, read a book, the paper, magazines, play a board game. Moving about will make your warmer, so just take it easy. Try activities that involve a lot of sitting about, taking your mind off the weather and reducing the electricity/appliances you are using. Books and board games don’t heat a room like your tv or computer will. Unless you are some kind of a professional athlete who’s trained to do it, don’t even contemplate sports when it’s a scorcher outside.
• open your house up to cross ventilation wherever you can. Try to catch breezes if they are around.
• shut your blinds to prevent direct sunlight entering and warming your house

Drink adequate water, but don’t go overboard. A simple test for dehydration is just whether your mouth feels dry. Sip water regularly instead of gulping it down. It’s possible to drink too much water, so just drink enough to ensure you don’t feel thirsty. Make sure you look after each other, including your pets.

A coalition of community groups, led by the Victorian Water Forum, is holding a rally to call on the Brumby government to listen to the people and provide real solutions on water, climate change and public transport. PTUA is supporting this call, and will be attending.

Come along to the front steps of Parliament in your lunch hour and stand up for better public transport and real action on climate change.

See the PTUA website for more information.

Human Powered Cycles promote and foster sustainable transport with the skill, experience and tooling to repair not replace. As well as their commercial venture and its new shop in Thornbury, there is their community bike work organisation called Community Cycles (38 Harrison Street Brunswick East). Here they coordinate the Charity Bike Project where unloved bike and bike part donations go towards providing transport for Asylum Seekers, refugees, newly arrived migrants, unemployed and homeless persons, as well as low cost transport for struggling students and concession holders. On Mondays volunteers come and help refurbish donated bikes for this project. Community Cycles (as well as Human Powered Cycles) accepts these bike donations any day they are open, so if you have a bike not being used or in disrepair, this is a good place for it.

Help them celebrate the opening of their new shop at 562 High Street, Thornbury tonight from 6pm.

Saturday, 15 November
1 pm
Federation Square
More information

One of the biggest skate competitions, as part of the Viva 2008 with world music, international food stalls and other entertainment.

Saturday 15 November 2008
11am – 6pm
Prahran Skate Park
Princes Gardens, Prahran
More information

If we look at the average water use in a Melbourne household, with an average of 200 litres per day per person during water restrictions, and an average Melbourne household having two to three people…. the water wasted waiting for taps to run hot could be 40 or 60 litres a day.

A three person Melbourne household wasting 60 litres per day this way is 22,000 litres per year.
Water usage + sewage disposal = $1.0248 / kl + $1.3392 / kl = $2.364 / kl * 22 kL = $52 per year down the drain. Also, the price of water is set to double over the next few years.

If 60 m² of your yard was gardens for growing fruit and vegetables, it would only require about 33,000 litres per year. This isn’t even taking into account grey water capture (bathroom and washing machine water) which could be 89,000 litres p.a. and/or rainwater harvesting off your roof.

Another important fact point is the greenhouse gas emissions associated with water use in Melbourne. The delivery of potable water in Melbourne means the equivalent of 0.173 tonnes of CO2 is emitted per mega litre (1 million litres). Wastewater in Melbourne is associated with the equivalent of 0.875 tonnes of CO2 emitted per megalitre.

Water wasted by running taps until they run hot is both potable and now wastewater, so the combined CO2 emissions associated with it is about 1 kg CO2 emitted per 1000 litres – all for water that was not used – the emissions were for nothing. If we look at a Melbourne household with three people, wasting 22,000 litres per year, we find that 22 kg of carbon dioxide (or if you prefer, 440 black balloons) is emitted per household each year just running taps to hot.

EcoVerta is a plumbing device that allows you to divert this cold water that usually goes down the drain to another use.

The product diverts the water at full mains pressure, using the power of the flowing water only to do this (rather than an external power source).

The manufacturers have a little demo of how this works here.

EcoVerta comes in three models: EcoVerta, EcoVerta Mixa, and EcoVerta Protecta.

The products are compatible with any hot water heater including instantaneous types.

The base model ‘EcoVerta‘ sells for around $365. It is small enough to be installed under a kitchen sink or bathroom vanity. It basically looks like a box with one pipe going into it and two others going out. The hot water supply pipe goes in, and coming out are the hot water to tap ware (where the water only comes out hot) and the other line is the recovered cold water.

This recovered cold water can be plumbed to a raised storage tank, a sprinkler, drip watering, pool (including pool heating systems) or pets. If plumbed to a storage tank, this water can be used for toilet, laundry, hand watering or drip watering systems. In rural areas the saved water can be redirected to a storage tank and with a pressure pump and water purification device, reused in the home cold water supply.

EcoVerta Mixa is the next up in the range, and sells for about $560. It is required where dual tap mixer sets are fitted. A unit can service mixer tap sets for shower, bath and hand basin. The unit can also work with dishwasher hot water supply if required. This unit is larger and typically needs to be installed in a ceiling or under the floor.

EcoVerta Protecta is the top of the range model and sells for about $730. It can be used with all tapware and encapsulates tempering valve (scalding protection) with maximum temperature of 44° water delivered as well as flow management in houses and building where other users draw water simultaneously. It is said to be suited to commercial applications.

EcoVerta products are produced by Advanced Eco Technologies Pty Ltd who are based on the Nepean Hwy, Mornington and the products are fully Australian designed and made.

These products are quite expensive, even though the base model is less expensive than competitor products like the Chili Pepper system (retails for around $470) which has a pump which enables you to recycle the water back into your cold supply (at mains pressure). If you are after a system that puts the water straight back into the cold line, check out the Chili Pepper.

Of course, there is always the less expensive option (no plumber required to install): the 9 litre bucket!

References:

• www.advecotech.com.au
• www.environmentshop.com.au
• www.citywestwater.com.au

This Sunday (26 October) there are two big events happening: the Get into Art! public art galleries open day, and the World Vegan Day Festival

Get into Art! is an annual open day of public art galleries across Victoria. This year, 41 galleries will be
participating with free activities and events on Sunday from 11am-4pm.

Some examples I’ve picked out of the Get into Art! program are:

Get Into Architecture at City Museum at Old Treasury – tours, talks and exhibits focusing on the architecture of Melbourne. Melbourne’s Old Treasury Building was designed by nineteen-year-old architect JJ Clark, and is widely regarded as the finest nineteenth century building in Australia.

• 11am Tour of Old Treasury Building
• 12noon Talk about the architect JJ Clark
• 1pm Tour of Old Treasury Building
• 2pm Curator talk – The Impermanent City
• 3pm Tour of Old Treasury Building

State Library of Victoria free tour

• 1-2pm and 3-4pm Free Library tour, including exhibition galleries and the famous dome.

Comic book jam at The Town Hall Gallery, Hawthorn and the annual Yeah Write! Zine fair at Hawthorn Town Hall including zine making workshops for both adults and children.

For the full list of program highlights, see this pdf.

Another event on Sunday is the World Vegan Day Festival, described as…

a positive celebration of being vegan: a lifestyle which includes a plant-based diet and endorses compassionate choices and sustainable consumption. It is a day for vegans, those interested in the vegan way of life and all their friends to come together and learn how to live longer, kinder and with a smaller carbon footprint.

If you’re keen to learn more about veganism, this is a great place to do just that. Running from 10am to 5pm, this is a free event. It will be held at Rosina Function Space, The Abbotsford Convent (1 St Heliers Street, Abbotsford). There are some great talks being held on the day.

For more information on these events:

• http://www.pgav.org.au/cgi-bin/viewevents.cgi?memberid=2
• Program highlights (PDF)
• World Vegan Day Festival

Opening today 4-8pm and running until Sunday (open 10-5 on Saturday and Sunday), the GO Bike expo is at the Alexandra Gardens and exhibits bicycle rides (events and destinations) and new bicycle products.

While you are there, you can complete a (free) entry form at the expo to go into the draw to win a TREK Madone 5.2 Pro road bike.

More information can be found at the Bicycle Victoria GO Bike expo page.

Showcasing the latest water saving and energy saving products available, the Save Water Save Energy expo runs from Friday the 17th until Sunday 19th October (that’s this weekend) between 10 am and 6pm each day, at the Melbourne Exhibition Centre (Clarendon Street, Southbank).

As well as being able to see demonstrations of products, and having a range of experts on hand to ask all your water and energy efficiency questions, there are a range of free seminars being held over the three days to give you insights into how we can all become more conservative with our use of resources, saving money and lightening our impact on our environment as a result. Speakers over the weekend include the Carbon Cops (from the TV series), as well as experts from various stalls at the expo. I recommend catching the morning seminar about energy efficient windows.

Clean water is our most valuable resource so we try our best not to be wasteful with it. Reducing our use of gas and electricity can mean we won’t need to build new power plants or expand existing ones, and make a shift to cleaner sources that much easier. Being thrifty in how we consume water and energy frees up resources and money for other important things. No matter if you own your own place or rent, we all can make small, inexpensive changes, that collectively add up to big things.