A large machine shop in South Australia was looking to reduce expenses and clean up the work areas around milling machines, lathes and other ‘mess-producing’ equipment.

At the end of 1989, the KSB Group supplied the Norwegian offshore platform named Snorre A with five special pumps. The pump units have been in operation ever since. In order to maintain the pressure in the oil field, they have been pumping seawater into the oil field at high pressure for the past twenty years.

A team of South Korean scientists claim to have succeeded in producing the polymers used for everyday plastics through bioengineering, rather than through the use of fossil fuel-based chemicals. This research, which may now allow for the production of environmentally conscious plastics, is published in two papers in the journal Biotechnology and Bioengineering to mark the journal’s 50th anniversary.

EcoForum Managing Director Paul Howlett said: “EcoForum is a comprehensive, multidisciplinary event designed to provide participants with the knowledge and networks they need to solve environmental problems and build business networks across the areas of climate change, water, waste and remediation.

In November, the New Zealand Minister for Energy and Resources, Hon Gerry Brownlee, opened what is claimed to be the largest wastewater algae to biocrude oil demonstration project in the world.

Dell is shipping its Dell Inspiron Mini 10 and Mini 10v netbooks in packaging made from bamboo, a renewable material that serves as a good alternative to moulded paper pulp, foams and corrugate often used in packaging.

Crowne Plaza Terrigal recently installed the mySmart Hotel Room Control System which intelligently controls the air conditioning in each of its 199 guest rooms. The Smart Digital Thermostat is easy and intuitive to use - it uses motion sensing and door switches to detect when the room is in use. The thermostat can be used in stand-alone mode, control the room lights or integrate with the hotel’s check-in system.

Fertiliser and housing insulation are but two of the by-products produced through Sylvania Lighting Australasia’s SYLrecycle lamp recycling program.

One of the UK’s largest wastewater treatment works (WwTW) is set to become a valuable source of renewable energy. The benefits of a major upgrade at Davyhulme WwTW in Manchester include the generation of electricity from biogas and the potential to provide a sustainable source of soil improver.

The construction of Sydney Water’s new desalination plant at Kurnell, south-east of Sydney, is in full swing and is said to be on track to become operational this summer. The automation and control of this innovative project is based on Profibus technology. Endress+Hauser was selected to be one of three key members of the main automation alliance to engineer and supply all general instrumentation to the plant.

A new initiative by Sydney Water is being implemented to manage liquid trade waste.

In August this year, the KSB Group signed a framework agreement covering the supply of pumps and mixers for 52 municipal effluent treatment plants in China. The order is for a total of 335 mixers and 466 wastewater pumps of different types and sizes.

Located 40 km west of Dalby in Queensland’s Darling Downs, Origin Energy’s Darling Downs Power Station (DDPS) is a new gas-fired power station that will produce 630 MW of power when it commences operation in the first part of 2010.

Delegates at the EcoForum Conference & Exhibition in Sydney this February will hear about what is possibly the first indirect-to-potable stormwater harvesting project in Australia when presenter Chris Devitt from the drought-stricken city of Orange, New South Wales, describes how his council found a long-term, sustainable solution to a steady decline in water storage levels that had reached as low as 26.7% in August 2008.

A commercial plastic milk bottle wash and recycling facility serving communities across the whole of the South Island of New Zealand was officially opened last November. The plant was commissioned in August and is now processing 600 kg of milk bottles per hour or 100,000 bottles per day.