Anthony's Trail: The Grundtvig Workshop on Sustainable Energy in the Domestic Sector

Anthony, a member of the Greenhouse Exec. had the opportunity to travel to Lisbon to take part in a Grundtvig workshop (http://ec.europa.eu/education/grundtvig/doc984_en.htm) organised by Portugese NGO 5elementos (the fifth element). The workshop was attended by 15 participants from all over Europe (Italy, Latvia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Lithuania and, of course, Malta) and the topic of the workshop was sustainable energy, principally in the home.

We will be posting some of the information and experiences from this workshop here, so watch this space!

To start off with here's a link (www.casamais.adene.pt) to an interactive program which allows you to calculate your house's/apartment's energy efficiency and also determine what your problem areas are and what impacts certain changes will have on your energy efficiency. The program is designed for Portugal, allowing you to choose from different regions of Portugal thus customising the environmental conditions. I suppose that selecting a region in the south of Portugal is the best way of approximating Malta's climatic conditions however maybe in the future we will have a similar programme designed for our little islands!

Learning from the Gulf of Mexico: The EP Discuss

And while ships are still battling the oils in the Gulf of Mexico, the European Parliament has been discussing the possibility of a temporary ban on new deep-water oil drilling in Europe until uniform oil-rig safety standards procedures were introduced.
But let’s put this on the back burner for a minute.

The Parliament voted in favor of, amongst others, the following:

• to develop rigorous EU-wide accident prevention policies for oil platforms
• to lower the damage threshold under the Environmental Liability Directive and to include damages caused to marine waters within its scope

*The Environmental Liability Directive ensures that the polluter pays for whatever damage to the environment his actions might have caused.

• to ensure that all seabed activities are subjected to a mandatory assessment, that the quality of EIAs is guaranteed and that hyper-hazardous activities such as seabed drilling are not permitted to proceed where an EIA indicates that risks cannot be satisfactorily mitigated
• consider compulsory EU-wide insurance schemes designed to compensate affected businesses in the event of a spill
• examine the decommissioning of existing drilling infrastructure, taking due account of existing international and national regulations in this area, and to clarify, if necessary by way of legislation, the responsibility of operators for ensuring safe removal and liability for any environmental damage resulting from the decommissioning of offshore infrastructure and any environmental damage arising from an offshore installation or drilling site after it has been decommissioned

The absolute majority of MEPs, including the Maltese, voted in favour of the above.

Turning to the moratorium discussed above, the majority of MEPs voted against the moratorium. Scottish MEPs especially welcomed the vote because the EU’s biggest oil reserves are found off the Scottish coast.

All Maltese MEPs voted in favour of the Moratorium with John Attard Montalto not voting.

A Microcosm of Junk- Freshers’ Week and the Production of Waste

The following is a PR issued during Freshers Week by Greenhouse on the matter of Junk Waste being distributed by various entities.

Greenhouse, a University students’ organisation working on sustainability issues and ethical consumption, would like to express its disappointment at the large amount of waste being generated during this year’s Freshers’ Week.

Throughout this week numerous companies pack the University quadrangle to lure students to buy their products. Day after day many of these companies and other entities hand over paper leaflets to passing students, informing them of their offers, discounts or freebies and many of these papers end up littering the quadrangle. By the end of the day, the place is filled with coloured papers flying around – a show of complete waste of resources. Paper and ink is used to produce such promotional material, only to end up discarded a couple of seconds later.



The University of Malta is seeing a resurrection of green values,with various initiatives both by a number of student organisations, trying to raise the awareness on the environmental plight, and the University administration itself. It would be commendable if this wave of environmental consciousness is reflected by a more ethical and sustainable way of organising events and activities on campus, such as Freshers’ Week. Companies promoting their products during Freshers’ Week should be prohibited from distributing promotional leaflets and should be encouraged to use other, less waste-generating methods.

Greenhouse insists that companies should put the environment and resource-use at the forefront of their day-to-day management and thus should minimise the production of short-lived resources that are converted into waste very quickly.

These companies should lead by example and together with the student organisations on campus they can promote a culture of Zero Waste.

Published on: Malta Today

Scuba & Snorkelling - Course & Clean-up

Greenhouse will be organizing an event spread over two days that will give participants a taste of the underwater world.

For those who are not certified in SCUBA diving, Greenhouse together with Watercolours Dive Centre and with the kind sponsorship of Brinc’s Biscuits will be offering a ‘Discover Scuba Diving’ (DSD) half day course on the 16^th of October. This will feature a lecture and two dives under the instruction of qualified divers. The certification at the end of the course can be used as a stepping stone to the ‘Open WaterDiver’ Course whereby the money spent for the DSD course will be deducted from the Open Water Diver course and will be accomplished through fewer dives. The normal price for this course is €60 but one can book a place with a special discounted price of €25 if booking is done through Greenhouse.

On the 17^th of October whoever undertakes the DSD course can join Greenhouse and Watercolours Dive Centre for a seabed cleanup at Valletta. One can rent the necessary equipment against a fee of €20. Certified SCUBA divers can join too. One can also come and help out using his goggle and snorkel.

Pre-booking is necessary on 99841312, or green.uom@gmail.com

  

Supported by: Watercolours Dive Centre

Sponsored by: Brinc's Biscuits Co. Ltd.

A Green Evening with the Sliema Cubs

Greenhouse members paid a visit to the Sliema Scouts headquarters to meet up with their cub scouts (all boys from the ages of 7-10) for an interesting session on waste management.

First, the cubs were given a short explanation on the three ‘Rs’ and discussed the ways in which they can Reduce, Reuse and Recycle, both in their own homes and at the Scouts’ Headquarters. The Pack of energetic cubs was then split into two teams.

One team gathered around a big basin and started making their own recycled paper; using a secret Greenhouse recipe which includes pulping used (and reused) paper. The cubs were very excited to be producing their own paper and had loads of questions to ask!

The other team started making notebooks out of used paper. Some of the cubs got quite competitive, trying to make more notebooks than their peers! They all learnt how to make the notebooks and will definitely be making some notebooks at home for their parents and siblings.