Regeneration Flashcards
(80 cards)
What is a transition town?
- Settlements where individuals and businesses have adopted ‘bottom up’ initiatives with the aim of making their community more sustainable and less reliable on global trade
What are some ways you can increase local sustainablitiy?
- Encouraging shopping from local businesses
- Eating from local food producers
- Campaigning against the establishment of TNC’s
What do transition towns do?
- Emphasise consumers to work together for the benefit of the community and planet
- Encouraging local business growth, and rejecting TNC’s
Mostly a European phenomenon
Tell me about the Incredible edible scheme.
- Started in Todmorden
- 400 volunteers
- International movement with initiatives in 20 countries
- Local food is grown and eaten in town - help yourself
What are the cons of local sourcing?
- Issues with ethical supplier selection
- Resistance to change
- Complacency
- Less efficient with restricted economies of sale
Tell me about Transtition town Totnes.
- Began in 2006
- Reducing dependency on fossil fuels and TNC’s
- To reduce the impact of climate change and become more ethically aware
- Economic growth is dependent on energy use
What is resilience?
- Ability of a system to withstand shock from the outside
What are the benefits of the incredible edible scheme?
- You know where you food is coming from
- Food has a lower carbon footprint (in season, and less travel distance)
- Less waste
- Less reliance on TNC’s for fresh produce
What are the Pros of local sourcing?
- Good for PR - demonstrating investment in the local community
- Good for local suppliers who benefit from serving their local community
- Easier to travel to suppliers for developments, management and site inspection purposes
- easier to satisfy local preferences and source specialised products
What is relocalisation?
- Promotes the idea of going beyond ‘localism’ - developing of political power to the local level (reducing oil dependencies and carbon emmissions)
What is regenerative development?
- Development for the public benefit of its citizens by reducing reliance on scarce resources
Which countries produce the most e-waste?
2014 stats
- Top country for e-waste per capita is Norway, and the US and China accounted for 32% of the worlds total
- Less than one sixth of all e-waste was properly recylced
- 41.8m tonnes produced
- 60% came from kitchen/laundry appliances
- 2.2m tonnes of harmful lead compounds, 4400 tonnes of CFC’s
- Large recycling potential - e.g. 300 tonnes of gold
What are some ways recycling is managed?
- National and EU targets -failure results in fines
- Smaller waste bins, less frequent collection, range of bins
- Only 9% of waste is household waste
What is the definiton of sustainability?
- Meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to satisfy their own needs
What is recycling?
- The conversion of waste into useable materials
What does a sustainable city do?
- Minimises environmental impact by: efficient use of energy, water and food, careful managment of waste, transport, and housing
What happens to non-recycled waste?
- Landfill - inexpensive, but can contaminate land and produce greenhouse gases (used to fill old quarries etc)
- Incineration - uses a lot of energy, and produces poisonous ashes and gas
- Energy recovery - the heat is used for producing energy
- Biological reprocessing - recycling of organic waste
What does recycling do?
- Reduce the use of new resources
- Reduce energy consumption
- Reduce pollution from waste
How successful is the UK at recycling?
- Recycling rate is 39% (EU target is 50%)
- Between 2000 and 2010, recycing increased by 235%
- Compost is the largest component of waste recycled
Why are recycling rates slowing down in the UK?
- Green fatigue - Many stop doing it as they feel as though they are not making a difference
- Population growth - places with shared refuse collection means recycling rates are usually low (e.g. student accom, flats), or places with elderly people
- Changes in green waste (e.g. garden waste) - there is not as much that needs to be recycled
- Types of waste - e.g more places becoming paperless means less paper being recycled, so numbers go down
What are the issues with recycling?
- High amount of energy required
- High cost
- Increases the no. waste collection vehicles on the road
- Rise for demand in recycled paper gives paper companies less of an incentive to plant new trees
- Food waste can attract vermin, and can also cause bretahing problems, and put those collecting it at risk
What is an ecological footprint?
- Comparing our use of natural resources with the planet’s ability to regenerate what we use
What is permaculture?
- An agricultural system based on natural ecosystems so that food and other agricultural products are produced so they replicate the diversity, stability and resilience of natural systems
What are some schemes a transition town can use?
- Localised food production - e.g. using unused land/gardens
- Encourage walking and cycling
- Develop alternative energy - e.g. in Totnes, they are saving to buy a wind turbine
- Local currency - to keep money in the local economy
- Skills sharing
- Involving everyone - e.g. school groups