Trials promise a new era of solar cells that are printed like money.

The Southern Hemisphere’s largest water recycling project is using a community grants program to help grassroots organisations deliver environmental programs in South East Queensland.

A scale model of a wave-energy device is being tested at Southampton University, UK. Its inventors believe the device may provide a practical way of producing low-cost electricity from the energy in sea waves.

In a continent where the evaporation rate is typically four times more than the average annual rainfall — which is declining in any case — limiting the loss of water from farm and station storages is becoming a priority, according to a report released by the Desert Knowledge CRC. The study looks at several of the new methods for lowering evaporation — floating blankets, shade cloth, floating modules and thin layers of a chemical to ‘seal’ the surface.

An alternative to a flat-rate waste collection service is one in which households are charged per unit of waste they produce. This technical paper, written by Dr Joe Pickin of Hyder Consulting, discusses a case study in Melbourne that studied the effect of unit pricing of household garbage. Did it improve welfare, reduce garbage, or neither?

Melbourne-based food rescue charity FareShare has estimated in a new report that it will save 620 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions in 2008–09 as a result of its waste reduction efforts. The charity turns surplus food donated from businesses, including food wholesalers and catering companies, into healthy meals for people in Melbourne who are hungry and homeless.

The Australian government released the Climate Change White Paper on 15 December 2008 — Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme: Australia's Low Pollution Future. This follows on from the green paper released in July and is the final design. The design still includes an emission trading mechanism which will start on July 2010 but the emission reduction target has been reduced to an unconditional cut of 5% of 2000 level by 2020. Despite the lower target, generous compensation plans and free pollution permits are being handed out, leaving little money left for energy efficiency measures.

The Environmental Biotechnology CRC (EBCRC) research team led by Dr Belinda Ferrari has collaborated with the Cryptosporidium Reference Laboratory in the UK to validate their real-time screening tool for Cryptosporidium detection using FISH (Fluorescent in situ Hybridisation). Current technologies take up to 15 hours to do the equivalent test.

The Southern Ocean slows the rate of greenhouse warming by removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and storing it in the ocean. But previous studies raised the alarm by suggesting the Southern Ocean carbon sink is now ’saturated‘ and no longer able to keep pace with increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Sims Recycling Solutions has opened what it claims is the first automated e-recycling plant in the Southern Hemisphere. 

Networking solutions company Netgear has launched a new recycling program in Australia that gives its customers a quick and easy way to dispose of their old networking equipment, free of charge.

The idea of mimicking desert plants and animals from around the world and tapping into their secrets to develop a green economy was presented at the Desert Knowledge Symposium in Alice Springs this month.

Bilexys is the winner of the UQ Business School’s $100,000 Enterprize business plan competition with its invention of a highly efficient wastewater treatment technology that uses bacteria as catalysts to remove dissolved organics from wastewater.

 Australia’s urban water industry is set to provide an infrastructure boom for the economy over the next decade as the industry completes its $30 billion investment program in new sources of water.

The worldwide steel industry could see waste problems turned into profit using innovative eco-friendly technologies developed by engineers in Australia.