The National Sustainability Council has used the launch of its first public report to challenge Australians from all walks of life to become involved in a national conversation about the kind of Australia we want for ourselves and future generations. [ + ]

A €4.88 million research project at Queen’s University Belfast is aiming to recover valuable materials from the estimated 5.2 tonnes of waste we generate per person each year. [ + ]

SULO Australia is known for the manufacture of mobile garbage bins (MGBs) and operates one of the largest plastic injection moulding plants in Australia. Its facility is one of the most highly automated large tonnage injection moulding plants in the country. It produces 900,000 wheelie bins a year and has delivered in excess of 10 million units into the Australian market. [ + ]

SITA Australia introduced the WastED Time program to provide waste education to primary schools. [ + ]

A breakthrough innovation, designed to purify water through the rapid removal of oily pollutants, could have major environmental benefits in the agriculture and manufacturing industries. [ + ]

The Gold Coast desalination project, owned by the government statutory authority Seqwater, was the first large-scale desalination facility on Australia’s eastern seaboard. ABB supplied a wide range of automation and power products and systems which ensure that the plant is operated at a high level of efficiency and reliability. [ + ]

Air movement specialist Fanquip is supplying its Australian-made equipment to mining, steel and energy industries specialist Corky’s Sustainable Energy - a company developing systems to offset the carbon tax liability for some of Australia’s biggest emitters of greenhouse gases. [ + ]

Re-using the by-products of fruit and cereal processing could help promote the sustainability of the food industry, as long as its overall environmental fingerprint is clearly evaluated. [ + ]

A project to push the efficiency of nanoplasmonic solar cell technology has received a $4 million grant under the Science and Industry Endowment Fund (SIEF). [ + ]

Water Services Association of Australia (WSAA) has released a tool called AdaptWater that enables water utilities to identify what infrastructure is likely to be at risk during events like floods, bushfires, high winds and heatwaves, and assess different costed adaptation options to manage that risk. [ + ]

Australian Tartaric Products (ATP) is the nation’s largest manufacturer of natural tartaric acid, which plays a key role in the chemical stability, taste and pH of wine. With no access to natural gas, the company relies on trucked-in LPG to ensure its boiler runs 24/7. [ + ]

Medium speed permanent magnet generators (MS PMGs) deliver more than 98% efficiency - the highest of any commercial wind generator design. Efficiency is also high at partial loads in low wind conditions, enabling the optimum annual production of kWh. This article spotlights the design and testing effort behind ABB’s multi-MW medium-speed and medium-voltage generator-converter package. [ + ]

Richgro is an Australian-owned family business that has been helping people tend their gardens since 1916. In mid-2009, Richgro drew up plans to install a major organic fertiliser plant on its site in Jandakot, Western Australia. However, the creation of this new plant would increase Richgro’s annual electricity bill to almost $500,000. [ + ]

The small town of Taralga, in Southeast Australia, will soon benefit from a customised water treatment system, thanks to a collaboration between Xylem and General Electric. Xylem is building the compact treatment plant in a 40-foot shipping container and will use GE membranes to supply the town’s 300 residents with high-quality drinking water. [ + ]

As discussed in the IDTechEx Research report ‘Organic Photovoltaics (OPV) 2013-2023: Technologies, Markets, Players’, organic photovoltaics, although potentially a disruptive technology, do not currently offer very high efficiency levels or lifetime and these characteristics limit their market uptake. On the other hand, OPVs can offer versatility in form factor, improved indoor performance and low capital expenditure for large-scale manufacture. In this article, Dr Harry Zervos, Senior Technology Analyst, IDTechEx, summarises some of the details of the report. [ + ]