Eco. Footprint Diary

Today i will start my eco. footprint diary here are my 2 goals that i am setting and trying to achieve it is going to be hard but here are my goals:

• Not to rinse glasses before drinking from them when they have just been thouroughly washed.
• Irritate my parents into buying eco friendly bags and packaging ETC.

Kris Wilson Sustainable Architect

On Wednesday Kris Wilson the owner of Design House LTD. came and talked to our class about sustainable housing.

He taught us that:

• 50% of waste comes from architecture
• Natural is not always the best product
• Small is good
• Timber used for building houses is grown in NZ
• Concrete traps the suns heat and when the sun is gone puts out the heat
• Look at a building and orientate it towards the sun and make the most of the free heat
• Use local materials
• Steel has a longer life than timber
• Adapt to the environment not vice versa
• 100 brochures leave the same carbon footprint as 1 CD
• Pine is the most widely used for houses.

And heaps heaps more!

Kris's Website

Waikato University SIFE visit

On Tuesday some people from the SIFE project at Waikato uni. came and talked to us about sustainability and worm juice ETC.

They taught us about our earth and that if you cut an apple in to quarters (the a apple being the earth) 3 quarters are water the quarter of the quarter left is mountains and deserts ETC. and 1 32 is all we have left to grow corn and food on.

Here are some notes i took:

• Our NZ recycling is recycled in China
• It is better to buy bulk products and separate into reusable containers
• 60% of our classroom rubbish could have been recycled
• Worms hate citrus fruit and fruit skins
• NZ has 1000 closed landfills and 60 closed landfills
• Paper takes 2.5 months to disintegrate,Milk cartons take 5 years to disintegrate,tin can takes 10 years and a beer can takes 100 years.

- Theres no point having futre leaders if there is no futre to lead!

Supply and demand/ Economics

Supply and demand

There are at least there are at least two people involved in the supply and demand process.There is the supplier who supplies the goods ,there is the consumer who purchases the products.The relationship between these two people are that the consumer could not purchase the products if the supplier hadn't made them and the supplier couldn't sell the products if the consumer would not buy them.

The consumer is most likely to buy the product if it is A: cheaper or B: won an award ETC. or C: Been endorsed by a celebrity ETC. That is when the producer will increase the price and increase the quantity of goods they are producing. Also the the market effects the quantity sold as well.

Above is a supply and demand graph explaining the supply and demand.

Where the supply and demand lines meet is called the equilibrium point.

Economics is the trade ,production and consumption and of goods and services. So economics is important because without we wouldn't be able to trade and recieve each others goods and services that we must have to live.

Thanks to brainpop for some of this information.

Eco. Friendly Houses

Here are a few good websites for some information on Eco friendly houses.

NZ Eco. House: This is a few aspects of Eco. homes.

Eco. Bob: This showcases some Eco. homes that are for sale but have pictures and aspect lists ETC.

Eco. Home: A story of some people building their own Eco. home.

Eco. Plan: A plan of an Eco. House

Eco. houses usually consist of solar power so power that is powered by the suns rays on a solar panel. You can also make Eco. friendly mud bricks which are made of mud and clay made into a brick shape then left to dry so you can from walls with it. The special thing about mud bricks is that you can carve your name and leave a special mark. You cannot always get Eco. Friendly things but it is best to go with the most Eco. friendly option so even if it is not entirely good for the environment you are still helping the environment.

Limestone

I found this website about limestone and its uses ETC.

It explains about how limestone was found 37 million years ago and the value of limestone as well as where the best place is to mine for limestone and other related topics.

Here is the link.
Hope it helps with some information about limestone!!!

Is Uranium dangerous?

The M.P for the green party Keith Locke urged pacific countries to stop mining uranium as it is dangerous.

Here is his statement from the web page Radio NZ

But Keith Locke says uranium is very dangerous in any form.

“I think we should discourage Niue from allowing this form of exploration because we don’t want Pacific countries involved in uranium mining. And there’s a big controversy in Australia right now about the export of uranium to countries like China, where it might be used to make nuclear weapons.”