Kurrajong Eco Fair Coming Soon

You might have seen an article in the Penrith Press this week about the Be Green eco lifestyle fair that's coming up very soon. If you are in the area on Saturday 1 September why not drop in to the fair which is being held at Kurrajong Memorial Park in Kurrajong Village between 9am and 3pm.

The fair promises tips on sustainable ways to build and renovate the home, as well as general eco lifestyle options. There will also be a series of speakers on sustainability topics including sustainable design, how to apply for government grants and how to live green and within your means.

Students from UWS will also be on hand to showcase their projects and demonstrate what they have been up to, along with workshops, food and drink stalls, entertainment and that old favourite - giveaways!

For more information visit www.kurrajong.org/begreen.

Free Tickets to Sustainable House Day 2007

Sustainable House Day is an annual event organised each year by the Australia New Zealand Solar Energy Society (ANZSES). This year the event is being held on Saturday 8 and Sunday 9 September with around 100 homes across the country opening their doors to interested people for a sticky beak!

Penrith City Council is sponsoring the event in 2007 and has 20 free tickets to give away to residents interested in visiting a local sustainable house at St. Clair (value $5). To get your free ticket contact Council on 4732 8050 or email Carmel Hamilton.

Sustainable House Day is a great opportunity to visit the homes of and speak with ordinary people who have done some extraordinary things in their homes. For owners of the local St. Clair property, Nevin and Linda (below), the day is a chance to showcase their projects and let others know just how simple it can be to live more sustainably.

Nevin and Linda's home is a standard 1978 brick veneer house that has an emphasis on low cost retrofits and DIY projects. They have installed ceiling insulation, external window shading, a 300 litre solar hot water system and a low voltage photvoltaic system to power all their lighting and some appliances. Their yard also bears testament to their sustainability efforts, and includes a permaculture garden, greenhouse, mobile chook tractor, compost system and worm farm - all together pretty inspirational stuff!

Why not pop along on Saturday 8 September between 10am and 4pm and check some of these features out for yourself?

Other homes across Western Sydney will also be opening their doors including homes located at Rooty Hill, Richmond, Glenhaven and East Kurrajong. For a detailed listing of addresses and information about theses homes email Carmel Hamilton. Tickets to all homes can be purchased at the door on the day for $5.

For more information visit the Sustainable House Day website at http://www.solarhouseday.com/.

GreenPower a Household Hit

There are a number of news stories out today about the encouraging GreenPower statistics that have just been released. It seems that Australians are switching to accredited clean GreenPower in ever increasing numbers - at a rate of about 1000 Australians per day!

Green Power is electricity that has been generated from renewable sources, like solar, wind, hydro and waste. When you subscribe to Green Power your electricity supplier will purchase the correct amount of renewable energy from one of these sources on your behalf. In theory this reduces the reliance of the NSW electricity market on cheap coal, which currently supplies more than 90% of NSWs energy needs.

The attraction of Green Power lies in the reduced greenhouse gas emissions - when coal or gas is burnt to generate electricity significant amounts of greenhouse gas emissions are generated, however with renewables the amount of these emissions is negligible.

While purchasing GreenPower does cost more it appears that more and more households and businesses are willing to pay the price (estimated to be up to $400 per year for the average household). What's more it appears that the increased uptake of GreenPower is having huge benefits, with savings of nearly 4.2 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions every year, or the equivalent of taking 930,000 cars off the road!

If you are interested in purchasing GreenPower remember to look for the accreditation label (shown above). This label means that the product your supplier is offering has been accredited by the Government as coming directly from a renewable source and that the generator complies with stringent guidelines and annual auditing.

To find out more visit http://www.greenpower.com.au/, download our fact sheet or contact your electricity supplier.

Latest Sustainability Street Newsletter Out Now

The latest newsletter from Council's Sustainability Street program is out now. Click here to download a copy.

Stories include:

• New Streets Off to a Great Start!


• Upcoming Street Dates


• First Meeting Wrap Up
  
• Meet Some of the New Locals


• Annual Gardening Australia Expo is on Again!


• Website of the Month: Sustainable Penrith Blog
  

If you would like to be added to our electronic mailing list so you can receive this newsletter automatically email Carmel Hamilton.

Water Dragon Makes New Friends

Penrith Council held their annual Open Day on Saturday 4 August, with the friendly Sustainable Penrith Water Dragon turning up to spread an important message that is close to his (her?) heart - to make Penrith a Sustainable City!

The as yet unnamed Water Dragon made a lot of new friends on the day and was a hit with folks young and old. We are hoping to run a competition to name our mascot in the next couple of months so start thinking of a great name and get ready to enter (you could always include your suggestion in a comment!).

Penrith Council has adopted the Eastern Water Dragon as our symbol for sustainability. The water dragon was chosen because it symbolises all three aspects of sustainability – environmental, social and economic health.

ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH = The Water Dragon is relatively common and lives along the banks of the creeks and waterways all over the Penrith LGA. Finding the water dragons along our waterways is a good indicator of the health of our waterways

SOCIAL HEALTH= Water dragons are also long-living, sociable animals that live together in communities.

ECONOMIC HEALTH = And finally, in Chinese mythology the water dragon is a symbol of well being and prosperity.

Wordless Wednesday

Nepean River, originally uploaded by penrithsustainabilityunit.

wordless wednesday

Streets Meet for the First Time

It's official - Mulgoa and Penrith City Garden Club are the latest Sustainability Streets in Penrith!

The first meetings of these brand new groups were held on Saturday, with a great turn out for both groups.

Mulgoa was the first street out of the blocks, meeting in the park at the top of The Straight Road. We found at the meeting that there was a lot of interest from people who lived outside of The Straight Road so we are now going to refer to the group as the Mulgoa Sustainability Street to encourage people from other streets who live in Mulgoa to come and join in. There was a lot of interest in learning more about saving energy and water from the members of the group, as well as finding suitable grant funding to apply for, so the next meetings will be covering these topics.

The members of the 'street' have decided to hold their next meeting on Saturday 25 August at Aisha's place to learn about composting, worm farming and cutting down on waste. If you are keen to come to the next meeting or find out more contact Carmel Hamilton on 4732 8050. The meeting will begin at 10:15am.

The afternoon saw Penrith City Garden Club meet in the lovely backyard of Jan and Jon Hennell at Orchard Hills for a quick sausage sizzle lunch before getting down to 'Sustainability Street' business!

A great afternoon was had by all as they found out all about Sustainability Street and mapped out a plan for the next few sessions. Their next meeting will also be held on Saturday 25 August with Janis nominating her house at Emu Plains for the session. The meeting will kick off just after 1pm. To find out more contact Carmel Hamilton on 4732 8050.

Solar Boats for Penrith

Last night (Wednesday 25 July) I was lucky enough to attend the official launch of the Adopt-A-School Solar Boat Challenge at the Log Cabin in Penrith. This is a great program that has been pulled together by the local Schools - Industry Partnership Program with support from Penrith City Council and local businesses.

Penrith Mayor, Councillor Pat Sheehy, was on hand to launch the program and congratulate the teachers from the five schools within the Penrith Local Government Area who have come on board to the program. The picture above shows the Mayor, with representatives from the Schools - Industry Partnership, SEES Pty Ltd and teachers from participating schools: Caroline Chisholm College, Cranebrook High School, Nepean High School and Penrith Anglican College.

Basically, ten local businesses have signed up to sponsor and partner a local school to participate in the upcoming Australian International Solar Boat Challenge. These local businesses have made it possible for each local school to receive a solar boat kit - absolutely FREE - that they can use to build their own solar boat to compete in the State Finals of the Solar Boat Challenge, which is being held in Penrith later this year.

The businesses will continue to mentor 'their' school while the school needs to use the Solar Boat Challenge to promote 'their' sponsor! It's a great win-win situation which means that more local kids can get involved in a great project to learn about alternative energy, design and teamwork all while, hopefully, having a great time.

To find out more about the Solar Boat Challenge and how your school can become involved visit their website http://www.solarchallenge.com.au/, download a fact sheet or contact Council's Sustainability Education Officer, Carmel Hamilton, on 02 4732 8050.

Straight Road to Sustainability

Sustainability Street in Penrith continues to grow, with our two newest streets about to get started. The Straight Road in Mulgoa and Penrith City Garden Club will hold their first meetings on Saturday 28 July and bring the total number of Sustainability Streets within the Penrith LGA to six! Who knows where it will all end - hopefully one day there will be Sustainability Street signs all over Penrith and thousands of people working together on real grass roots sustainability.

There's definitely a lot of excitement in the air with recent media articles in both the Penrith Press and Western Weekender adding to the interest. Vanessa Steele, of Blue Organics, will be working closely with both groups on the Sustainability Street project and be putting together some great workshops. Vanessa (left in the green singlet) is really looking forward to getting started and has some great ideas for practical green living.

I'm sure you will be hearing a lot more about what these two groups are up to over the coming months as they take the Sustainability Street challenge. If you are keen to find out the latest information on all of our Sustainability Streets you can sign up to receive the newsletter - just email Carmel Hamilton and provide your details. Better yet, why not come along to the Sustainability Street sessions and have some fun while you save the earth- contact Carmel for more details.

Swimmer Suffers for the Planet

When you think about the impacts you might ‘suffer’ if you were to make some changes to live more sustainably and reduce your impact on climate change they probably seem fairly inconsequential when you read about the extremes that swimmer Lewis Gordon Pugh has gone to! Suffering through shorter showers and having to deal with the inconvenience of TVs and washing machines switched off at the wall just doesn’t seem to cut it.

On July 15 Pugh undertook a world first by swimming a kilometre in the north poles freezing waters (-1.8˚C!!), and he did this to raise awareness of the effects that climate change is having on the polar ice caps and the rapid rate at which they are melting. Pugh says ‘I can’t think of a better way to show that climate change is a reality than by swimming in a place that should be totally frozen over.’

Pugh braved the water for 18 minutes and 50 seconds while he thrashed out a lazy kilometre in a pool formed in thick ice by rising global temperatures. On emerging he said “I hope my swim will inspire world leaders to take climate change seriously. The decisions which they make over the next few years will determine the biodiversity of our world.”

It’s definitely inspiring to hear of someone so committed to a cause, and his brave call to action has generated a huge amount of media highlighting the issue of climate change and the need to act now. Though, based on the number and content of articles and stories that have been appearing in the media these days about climate change, global warming and other related subjects it seems that global attention to this issue is quickly increasing in priority and becoming more mainstream.

This week's announcement by the Federal Government of their plan to introduce an emissions trading scheme by 2012 is just another sign that climate change is an issue that is not going to disappear.

So, why not be inspired by Lewis Gordon Pugh and take the time to make a few more changes for the planet – lucky for us we needn’t jump into freezing cold water to do it! Although I do hear that Greenpeace are looking for volunteers to strip off for a photo on a shrinking glacier in Switzerland in the next couple of weeks!

But seriously, there are plenty of ways you can make a difference – check out some of our fact sheets or visit the websites listed below.

Useful Websites:
1. NABERS - http://www.nabers.com.au/home.aspx
2. GreenPower - http://www.greenpower.gov.au/home.aspx
3. Energy Smart - http://www.energysmart.com.au/
4. NSW Government Climate Change - http://www.greenhouse.nsw.gov.au/
5. It's A Living Thing - http://www.itsalivingthing.net.au/
6. Australian Greenhouse Office - http://www.greenhouse.gov.au/