What makes food or materials organic?
Food or material products are certified as organic when they are grown in an environment free from artificial agro-chemicals. Instead only naturally produced fertilizers and non-chemical pest control is used.
What is Environmentally Friendly?
Environmentally friendly (also eco-friendly, nature friendly, and green) are synonyms used to refer to goods and services considered to inflict minimal or no harm on the environment.
What does biodegradable mean?
This is when a material or substance is capable of being decomposed by natural biological activity, especially by microorganisms. Biodegradable matter is generally organic material such as plant and animal matter and other substances originating from living organisms, or artificial materials that are similar enough to plant and animal matter to be put to use by microorganisms.
What is Jute?
Jute is a long, soft, shiny vegetable fibre that can be spun into coarse, strong threads. It is produced from plants in the genus Corchorus, family Tiliaceae.
Jute is one of the cheapest natural fibres and is second only to cotton in amount produced and variety of uses. Jute fibres are composed primarily of the plant materials cellulose (major component of plant fibre) and lignin (major components wood fibre).
Jute fibre is often called hessian; jute fabrics are also called hessian cloth and jute sacks are called gunny bags in some European countries. The fabric made from jute is popularly known as burlap in North America.
What is solar power?
Solar power is the result of converting sunlight into electricity. Sunlight can be converted directly into electricity using photovoltaic’s (PV), or indirectly with concentrating solar power (CSP), which normally focuses the sun’s energy to boil water which is then used to provide power.
How does water power our clocks?
In a water powered clock, water is actually used as the conducting agent that completes the electrical circuit for the clock. A slowly dissolving piece of Zinc is used as the source of energy that powers the clock. Usage life will vary depending on the amount of Zinc, which could be from months to several years.
How can Bamboo be use to make clothes?
Bamboo fibre is a cellulose fibre fabricated from natural bamboo and other additives and is made from the pulp of bamboo plants. It is not made from the fibres of the plant, but is a synthetic viscose made from bamboo cellulose. It is softer than cotton and has inherent antibacterial properties; bamboo clothing has become popular in some fashion circles.
Bamboo has gained significant popularity as a “green” fibre. Manufacturers tout the fact that bamboo can be cultivated relatively quickly, can be used as a cash crop to develop impoverished regions of the third world, and is a natural fibre (as opposed to popular synthetics like polyester) whose cultivation results in a decrease in greenhouse gases.
What is Dynamo Energy?
When you turn the handle of a ‘wind-up’ or ‘dynamo’ torch, electric energy is created and stored into the electromagnet stored in the torch.
The dynamo uses rotating coils of wire and magnetic fields to convert mechanical rotation into a pulsing direct electric current through Faraday’s law. A dynamo machine consists of a stationary structure, called the stator, which provides a constant magnetic field, and a set of rotating windings called the armature which turn within that field. On small machines the constant magnetic field may be provided by one or more permanent magnets; larger machines have the constant magnetic field provided by one or more electromagnets, which are usually called field coils.
What is a carbon footprint?
A carbon footprint is “the total set of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions caused directly and indirectly by an individual, organization, event or product”. For simplicity of reporting, it is often expressed in terms of the amount of carbon dioxide, or its equivalent of other GHGs, emitted.
The concept and name of the carbon footprint originates from the ecological footprint discussion. The carbon footprint is a subset of the ecological footprint.
An individual, nation, or organization’s carbon footprint can be measured by undertaking a GHG emissions assessment. Once the size of a carbon footprint is known, a strategy can be devised to reduce it.
The mitigation of carbon footprints through the development of alternative projects, such as solar or wind energy or reforestation, represents one way of reducing a carbon footprint and is often known as Carbon offsetting.
Why buy recycled tyre products?
Tyre recycling is the process of recycling vehicles tyres that are no longer suitable for use on vehicles due to wear or irreparable damage (such as punctures). These tyres are among the largest and most problematic sources of waste, due to the large volume produced and their durability. Those same characteristics which make waste tyres such a problem also make them one of the most re-used waste materials, as the rubber is very resilient and can be reused in other products. Approximately one tyre is discarded per person per year.
What is PET?
Polyethylene terephthalate (sometimes written poly(ethylene terephthalate)), commonly abbreviated PET, PETE, or the obsolete PETP or PET-P), is a thermoplastic polymer resin of the polyester family and is used in synthetic fibres; beverage, food and other liquid containers; thermoforming applications; and engineering resins often in combination with glass fibre.
Recycling of PET and other plastics:
Recycling of PET Bottles is the collection, sorting and processing of bottles made out of PET to reuse the material out of which they are made.
In many countries, PET plastics are coded with the resin identification code number “1” inside the universal recycling symbol, usually located on the bottom of the container.
Plastic recycling is the process of recovering scrap or waste plastics and reprocessing the material into useful products, sometimes completely different in form from their original state. For instance, this could mean melting down soft drink bottles then casting them as plastic chairs and tables.
Before recycling, plastics are sorted according to their resin identification code, a method of categorization of polymer types, which was developed by the Society of the Plastics Industry in 1988. Polyethylene terephthalate, commonly referred to as PET, for instance, has a resin code of 1.
Are there biodegradable plastics?
Yes. Hydro-biodegradable plastics (HBP) and oxo-biodegradable plastics (OBP)are two main types of biodegradable plastics in the market. Both oxo- and hydro-biodegradable plastics will first undergo chemical degradation by oxidation and hydrolysis respectively. This leads to a drastic reduction in their molecular weights and their physical disintegration. These fragments which are smaller and has lower molecular weight are then open for biodegradation.
HBP degrade and biodegrade more quickly than OBP but both are converted to carbon dioxide (CO2), water (H2O) and biomass. OBP has better physical properties and are generally easier to process for nowadays plastics processing equipment and are often less expensive than HBP.
