2010年9月9日木曜日

Sustainable Restaurants Initiative: 環境対策

I've presented the following findings:


Power point presentation in April 21st 2009

Sustainable Restaurants Initiative
Composting Kitchen Waste Program

by Takagi

As a Whitehorse resident interested in helping businesses to improve their environmental performance, I am implementing a community sustainability project through Whitehorse City Council’s Sustainable Ambassador program. This project assists businesses to reduce their environmental impact by commercially composting their organic waste. Does your business want to:


Reduce emissions!
Every week thousands of tonnes of food waste goes to landfill and emits harmful greenhouse gases
Save money!

Reduce usage of plastic garbage bags
Enhance your restaurant’s reputation
Be recognised as a sustainable business
Add value to your restaurant / facility
Environmentally friendly and sustainable attitude
Are you interested in being a model restaurant that inspires other restaurants?
If so, please contact Atsushi, Whitehorse Sustainable Ambassador on

xxxx-xxxx
Offer open only until 23rd November, 2008
Don’t miss out!



Sustainability Issue/Problem Identified:

An average 15.7kg of garbage per Australian household is sent to landfill each week, and

23.5% of this is food waste which is fully compostable.[1] If this is the known household waste, imagine how much compostable waste would be produced by restaurants. This current state of affairs that led me to believe that a change or improvement was required [1] ‘Living Smart: Reduce Waste and Save’, Western Australia Department of Planning and Infrastructure and Department of Environment and Conservation, February 2008, http://www.dpi.wa.gov.au/mediaFiles/ls_ReduceWasteSave.pdf


Reducing the enormous amount of waste that restaurants send to landfill (plastic bags and food boxes, compostable waste, and so on) each year would also greatly help in reducing carbon emissions from landfill.


Kitchen waste at restaurants could be ideally collected and made into compost or garden fertiliser. This will help reduce the amount of organic waste but might also go to the use of community gardens or backyard farmers in the Box Hill area.


Whitehorse Council's Home Composting Incentive Program* is popular, and there is a relatively new Green Waste collection, but at the moment, the council collects the general waste and recyclable plastic, metal and paper materials, there is no mandatory legislation for composting raw waste, for instance there is no raw waste rubbish collection as such.


*“invite home and other local businesses in the municipality to register for a voucher that entitles them to 25% off the purchase price for selected home composting products from participating suppliers”

http://www.whitehorse.vic.gov.au/Page/Page.asp?Page_Id=1700


- Waste adds $344m to carbon cost -

by Harvey Grennan, September 16, 2008

"The Australia Institute estimates that the Federal Government's plan to include landfill in its carbon pollution reduction scheme will cost councils $344 million a year.

This would be passed on to ratepayers in higher rates, fees and charges, the Australian Local Government Association says. The estimate is based on a figure of $20 a tonne for emissions from waste and does not include the cost of measures to adapt to or mitigate the effects of climate change."

This story was found at: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2008/09/15/1221330747969.html

Therefore, I tried to contact local restaurants’ owners introducing Composting Kitchen Waste Program in Box Hill central area.


Program participants:

Restaurants undertaking the two-month program (after discussion with Kate, we decided to have a two-month plan to more clearly measure differences in number of waste bags, etc.)

A Korean restaurant (Suit: Wine Bar) accepted the offer of the kitchen waste project. KS Environmental company has only 12 month contract so this project would be held longer than 2 months. Another Japanese restaurant showed tremendous interest to participate in the project in near future.

KS environmental is one of recycling companies which also collect raw wastes from the major facilities, such as MCG, Caulfield racing course, and Holmes Glenn Institute, etc.


Goals / Objectives of the Project:

1. Participants to take action to reduce the amount of plastic bag and compost their kitchen waste – this action to be at a lifestyle change level, and be sustainable.

2. Investigate compostable waste management options for local restaurants as a community-based behaviour change program.

The followings are the examples of barriers owners have:


Barriers to change:

Behaviour change at an industry level can often be quite difficult to start, and there might be simpler ways to recycle/compost the waste.


I contacted about 10 restaurants in total and they have never heard of kitchen waste would be recycled

using conventional rubbish bin (120 litre) instead of use of plastic bags. I thought there would be the need / opportunity for a change in a sustainability issue.

One of the restaurant owners mentioned that “When the restaurant gets very busy, we don’t have enough time to sort out the garbage”. “quicker service to the customers is first priority”, etc.

“I can’t afford it”. Many restaurants recycling / composting approaches cost much.

It would be taken care of by entities (KS Environmental) in Whitehorse district.

“It’s too hard”. Workers at restaurants are often too busy/tired to devote the time andeffort. “staff have their old habits which are hard to be changed” This can be compounded by perceptions of how difficult it can be to get waiting and kitchen staff involved in something like sorting out all the different types of raw wastes at restaurants.


The majority of restaurants’ owners was not keen on this program as after all.

“Language barrier”. When I (project initiator) approached a couple of restaurants’ owners asking for participating in the composting project, some of them asked me whether I would be able to speak Chinese. Although they’ve been operating their business for a long, they wouldn’t speak much of English language so that they were depending on their native language, Chinese so was Vietnamese owner who was elderly could not speak enough English. This language barrier seemed to be one of the obstacles for communication between project organiser and the potential participants.


Possible solutions for meeting objectives of the project:

The Community Based Social Marketing model of behaviour change – by Doug McKenzie-Mohr – will be used to meet the objectives of the project in cooperation with the Whitehorse Sustainability Strategy 2008–2013: our EcoVision.


Commitment: This will be done by signing up a “waste pledge” form owners after we reach a verbal agreement.


Prompts: I visited restaurants when I have take-aways or eat-ins. I distributed the flyer (shown before on slide) and explained about the program. I also casually had a look at their kitchens and also interviewed them so as to encourage further exploration of any issues they have.


Norms: As this particular participant, Korean restaurant’s owner, has been aware of this raw wastes initiatives in his hometown, so that he and his staff see something bigger picture of this program.


Incentives: The council could provide an award of Good practice” (sticker) which will be displayed on the restaurants’ front windows so public will be aware of waste management done by the restaurants. This would perhaps encourage the restaurants’ management policy as Cooperate Social Responsibility. This would also attract more customers who are educated and environmentally conscious.


Convenience: This is critical, and it will determine whether the program will stand

or fall. The advantages are that participants (owners) won’t have to go out of their way to be involved, and that the bins for only raw wastes are used at the restaurants.


Evaluation: The number of rubbish bags (for raw wastes) is required to be reduced or wheelie bins for raw waste collected, and most of all, behaviour change among staff at the restaurants.


Measurement tools

There will be two measurement tools, both of them repeatable:

Waste attitudes survey: a very short and simple (non-threatening) survey about

the participants’ attitudes to and understanding of kitchen waste, its potential use in food-growing, and the relevance of both to climate change in general.In order to persuade the owners, I used a merit - demerit chart which clearly shows owners of the restaurants i.e. costing, environment and value of the program (see below, table 1).


Table 1


Aspects to improve

Demerit

Merit

Costing

More than $ for

( ) x 120 litres wheelie bins

by Cleanaway, ltd

KS Environmental offers $

( ) x 120 litres wheelie bins


Black plastic bags x $50 per week?

No need to use plastic bags

Save $2400 / year


The City of Whitehorse would not offer anything for this.

The City of Whitehorse offers incentive. As CoW election approaches, they cannot promise anything further than this at this moment. However, they are looking into it from the next year. *Rubbish collectors introduce weighing bins from 2009.

Total saving: Approx $2600/year

Environment

Plastic bags = contamination

No contamination


Stays in the landfill

Biodegradable = compost

reduce the amount of waste?


Releasing gas

Not much gas = contains in the soil


Climate change = indirectly affects our countries’ crop productions, sea level and furthermore for the next generation

More environmentally friendly

Value

No value = same as usual

Higher value = Good reputation



CoW provides for this program



Publicity = Leaders / The Age newspapers = more regular customers!



Role model for other restaurants

Education for staff and customers!

Waste company’s brochure is inserted here.


Evaluation of the project:

Develop a time line (see table below for example) including all relevant activities to be carried out during the time of the project e.g:

It is necessary to avoid conducting this program during the Christmas season as the restaurants get extremely busy, so my proposed time line is as follows:

Timing Activity Objective(s)

October 6th– 10th Plan & design program; gather resources; write the project document

October 13th ~ 27th Initiate Contact of participants

Organise the rubbish bins for the restaurants and arrange the dates when they are collected by a private company. Also inspect the sites where the wastes are going to be composted.

October 17th – 27th Session follow up

December – Present (April) Some scheduled drop-ins and unscheduled phone calls and encouragement was provided over four months to fulfil the Pledge.

At the end of the four months, the restaurants re-complete “Waste Sense” survey.

Wrap up? still continuing! Final project report.


Recommendations and Suggestions:

Although only one restaurant participated in the composting kitchen waste program, I met another restaurant owner who showed interest. If this program expects a bigger scale, it is necessary that more diversified informants (Chinese and Vietnamese) to be recruited such as from Asian Business Association of Whitehorse (ABAW) and provide a city council meeting with local restaurant owners in order to introduce them to participate in this commercially composting their wastes.

Compost: all the organic food waste that gets thrown out perhaps those businesses would consider one of those large commercial eco- Bokashi bins which convert food scraps to garden fertilisers….. Council might consider offering these bins to group of participating businesses in a trial project.

CoW incorporates with Secondbite which collects unwanted edible food / ingredient from retailers, etc. thus would reduce the kitchen wastes.


If these raw materials can be composted in a regulated and organised manner, then restaurants might change their behaviour, if they can see it is beneficial for them and environment and not too difficult to do. Especially there is a rumour that heavier levy for the wastes is going to be introduced in Victoria as N.S.W has already been taxing it’s wastes.


Perhaps, we need to change our daily behaviour and utilise new technologies to reduce the wastes.


Looking forward to hearing your comments!


2010年1月13日水曜日

Incredible dust storm!ダスト・ストーム(豪)

There were dust storms in 1982 and 1994 when I was in Australia. We had another one again recently in September 2009. The storm went across from the dessert area in northern part of South Australia to Queensland state and Sydney. It was a massive one!!

Associate Professor Michael Box, from the University of NSW's School of Physics, said dust storms starting in the Lake Eyre basin at this time of year were common.

But it was far less common for the particles to travel the 1500 kilometres to the east coast, he said.

Smarter farming practices were to thank for the lack of dust storms in the past five to seven decades, Professor Tapper said.

It seems Australian dust contains more higher iron oxide so it is redder than other types of dust.

This dust storm indicated that drought was a part of contribution and reforestation or wiser farming might prevent from this incident again in the future.

reference -
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/dust-storm-unclear-if-climate-change-to-blame-20090923-g28g.html

1982年と1994年にもあった。そして、記憶にはないけど2002−3年にもあったらしい。今回のも砂嵐だった。 けど、僕の住んでいる地域では、この現象はなかった。

主に南オーストラリア州のブロークン・ヒル辺り(僕の日記にも以前投稿した地)から始まり、シドニーやブリスベンへ移動したそうだ。やっぱ、内陸部が乾燥しすぎているんだろう。いつもこのような現象はあるらしいけど、砂嵐が起こった地点からシドニーまでの距離がなんと約1500キロメートルもある。そのような距離に到達したのは希だとニューサウス・ウエールズ大学、物理学教授のマイケル・ボックスは言う。また、クイーンズ大学、気候学博士のサミュエル・マルクスは、昨年、大雨があって床上浸水や濁流などがあったところで細かな砂が形成されたし、それが乾くとこのような現象になりやすくなると言う。一万年もの間このようなことは続いている事は確かだけど、この極度の洪水や乾燥が頻繁にあると砂嵐になりやすらしい。驚くことは、今回の現象で運ばれた砂の量が、8百万トンから4千万トンほどらしい。それが、クイーンズランド州付近の海に着き、多量の植物プランクトンを発生させることにもなるらしい。それが、海の生物を多用させることにも繋がり、良い結果になることもあるそうだ。 しかし、越境してニュージーランドのクライストチャーチ付近にも影響があるらしく、山頂近くの雪には豪州からの砂が舞い落ちているらしい。まるで、日本が中国の黄砂の影響をうけているのと同じだ。

それと、自然環境を少々無視した作物生産の仕方にも問題があるのではないかなと思う。農場にまかれた過剰な化学肥料は、豪雨や砂嵐などによって失いやすいと聞く。現に、推定75000トン/時間もの農場の上層部にある栄養ある肥料がほとんどこの嵐でとばされてしまったと農家は嘆いている。農場を元の作付けできる状態にするには数年かかるらしい。これから作物収穫量が激減するのはま逃れないだろう。また、年末から来年にかけて穀物の値が上がるのだろうか?最近、ニューサウス・ウエールズ州でも雨量が激減して思ったように米が生産できなくなるかもしれないともきいた。

やはり、皆が各自そのような状況を考えて、米は無理だが?各自が庭やベランダを利用して野菜等を栽培しておくのが得策だと思う。ダスト・ストームは、気候変動が及ぼす現象として真剣に捉えなければいけないのではないか!?と誰かが僕らが言っているようにも思えるが、如何に?