With weddings often being extravagant affairs, many couples wanting to tie the knot are looking towards making their nuptials more environmentally friendly. Weddings are generally a nightmare of hyper-consumption and produce a great deal of waste. There’s invitations, decorations, gifts, travel, clothing and the list goes on. Many of the items used at a wedding […]
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10 Eco-Friendly Winter Warmers
South Africa: In the thick of winter we’re going to want to keep warm and cosy! We’re not going to want to give up any of those winter comforts, and being conservative about using energy won’t necessarily be at the top of our list of priorities. While the temperature is still pleasant, what you may […]
Organic and Conventional Farming Methods Compete to Eliminate Weed Seeds in Soil
Weeds are hard to kill; they seem to come back no matter what steps people take to eradicate them. One reason is because of the persistence of weed seeds in the soil. Organic farming and conventional farming systems both have their methods of taking on weed seeds, but does one show better results than the […]
Eskom to Reduce Solar Water Heater Rebates at the end of April
State-owned power utility Eskom has confirmed that it would reduce the rebate level on its solar water heater (SWH) programme, which falls within energy efficiency initiatives in the Integrated Demand Management (IDM) unit. SWH supplier Selected Energy, which installs Solahart products, on Wednesday urged potential SWH customers to place orders for a system before the […]
Three ways to make nuclear power compete on the free market
This post is coauthored by Cutler Cleveland, Bruce Cooperstein, and Ida Kubiskewski. It’s a condensed version of an article in the April issue of the Solutions journal, based at the Institute for Sustainable Solutions at Portland State University. As the Japanese nuclear disaster shows, the cleanup costs after a nuclear meltdown are borne in large […]
Top 5 Misleading Green Labels
Green is big business these days and some companies are taking advantage by making their products sound eco-friendly when they really are not. It’s called “greenwashing” and it’s a growing problem. Most greenwashing terms sound attractive to eco-conscious shoppers when in reality they are vague, misleading or meaningless. A recent study showed a whopping 95 […]
Food vs. Fuel: The Debate Continues
University of Stellenbosch department of microbiology’s Professor Emile van Zyl says that the maize-for-biofuels debate has been checkmated. Grain South Africa market research senior economist Wessel Lemmer says, at present, no grains are used for biofuels and maize is still excluded from government’s biofuels policy. This, he believes, is a lost opportunity as South Africa […]
South Africa’s jobs push is putting biofuels back on the radar
Despite rising food prices and the ongoing food-versus-fuel debate, biofuels are back on the South African agenda – revived by their inclusion in an emerging economic policy framework and their perceived potential for rural job creation. The country’s New Growth Path (NGP) indicates that the renewable-energy sector, including the biofuels sector, will be used as […]
