Green Prophet

Algae Biofuel To Send Astronauts to Space? Israel’s Seambiotic Partners With NASA

Karin Kloosterman — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 05:13:55 PDT

Algae could be a viable source of biofuel if it can be produced efficiently. Read our recent story on Algaenesis. Now Seambiotic, an Israeli company that develops marine microalgae for the nutraceutical and biofuel industries, has just announced that it will work with the NASA Glenn Research Center to develop an on-going collaborative R&D program for optimization of open-pond microalgae growth processes.

Under the Agreement, NASA Glenn and Seambiotic USA will work together to improve production processes and to study and qualify algae oil from alternative species and production processes as candidate aviation fuel at NASA’s test facilities.

“Under a Space Act Agreement, NASA is partnering with Seambiotic USA to model growth processes for microalgae for use as aviation biofuel feedstock,” said Prof. Ami Ben-Amotz, Chief Scientific adviser to Seambiotic.

“The goal of the agreement is to make use of NASA’s expertise in large-scale computational modeling and combine it with Seambiotic’s biological process modeling to make advances in biomass process cost reduction.”

The NASA research center is one of NASA’s 10 field centers, with the resources for developing cutting-edge technologies and advancing scientific research that address NASA’s mission to pioneer the future in space exploration, scientific discovery and aeronautics research.

Working in partnership with government, industry and academia, the center serves to maintain the U.S. economy’s global leadership while benefiting the lives of people around the world.

Seambiotic was founded in 2003 to grow and process marine microalgae for the nutraceutical and biofuel industries. Its research efforts include a pilot study at an Israeli Electric Corporation power station near the city Ashkelon, Israel, where various species of marine microalgae have been successfully cultivated using the power station’s CO2 emissions released directly from their smokestacks; the microalgae are in turn used as feedstock for biofuel.

Seambiotic technology reduces the cost of microalgae production significantly while lowering global warming by reducing industrial CO2 emissions. The company is currently in transition from the pilot plant stage to large scale industrial algae cultivation and production.

More on algae for biofuel:

[image via pahudson]

New Israel Fund Starts Tackling Environmental Issues

Karen Chernick — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 01:46:47 PDT

The New Israel Fund (NIF) has been the leading organization committed to democratic change, social justice, and equality in Israel since 1979. Having been active in these fields for 30 years, it is now expanding its reach to environmental matters and becoming a partner in the Green Environment Fund.

The NIF explains on its reasons for joining the green cause on its website:

“Israelis have long had to balance growth with preservation of the country’s ancient archaeological treasures, as well as developing both industry and agriculture in an arid landscape where water is precious and scarce. Today, environmental concerns in Israel, as in the rest of the world, are multiplying and becoming more urgent with the passage of time.”

The Green Environment Fund – an organization at the forefront of Israel’s environmental movement and the largest funder of Israeli environmental NGOs – has many partners. Its main objective is to strengthen and professionalize Israel’s environmental movement, educate the public, and promote sustainable growth while emphasizing environmental justice.

NIF fellows and grant recipients have already been active in promoting environmental sustainability. Next week, for example, senior Ministry of Transportation officials will meet with the mayors of 11 Arab Israeli towns in order to present public transportation plans for the towns. The plan was initiated by an NIF grantee, Kayan (Being): The Feminist Organization for Women in Arab Society.

Read more about other Israeli environmental organizations::

The Jewish Funders Network Earmark $1.5 Million Green Ones for Israel’s Environment – Apply Now!

JGooders.com Raise Money and Spirits for Green Jewish Groups

Green Action Events: The SAHA Project Takes Off

Water Shortage Boosts Israeli Wine Production

Daniella Cheslow — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 23:00:56 PDT

Nestled into the Jerusalem Hills, Kibbutz Tzuba has decided to scrap its apple orchards and grow more grapes to save on water during the current crisis.

According to the Jerusalem Post, Tzuba once grew kiwis that guzzled an outrageous 1,000 cubic meters of water per dunam (dunam=1/4 acre). Then the farm switched to apples, which take 750, and has finally settled on grapes, which sip a modest 200 cubic meters. The new vineyards will spread over 145 dunams and will expand Tzuba’s already strong wine lineup with eight new varieties.

For some background, read Green Prophet stories on the dire regional water shortage and efforts to cope in Israel, Syria, and the Palestinian Authority.

Tzuba’s story is a gradual reality check that speaks for the larger picture of Israeli farms. The kiwi growing era is an emblem for when the country’s water managers built massive projects to irrigate fields in the Negev, growing fruit that was more suited to Ecuador than to the arid Middle East. Over time, Israel has realized there are limits to human intervention. Tzuba’s newest crop has been grown in the Middle East for thousands of years and unsurprisingly makes the fewest demands. If necessary, grapes can also be grown without water. Tzuba’s wine is a deeper level of locally grown.

Image credit: Jerusalem Post

IDF Says Birds, Not Guns in Northern Reserve

Daniella Cheslow — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 07:17:03 PDT

According to Haaretz, the Israeli army has decided to limit its activities in the Hermon Mountain nature preserve in the country’s North to give local animals and flowers a break.

We’ve written on these pages about the IDF’s bleak environmental record and its previous attempts to go green. A Hermon park ranger told Haaretz that the army’s move was important because in the summer, “the flowers no longer blossom and they start to dry up and spread their seeds…This is also a critical period for the animals. The reptiles, mammals, and birds who have come into this world now learn to manage on their own.”

At the end of the piece, the commander of the Hermon Brigade phrased the move in geopolitical terms:

“There’s a situation on the mountain in which two parties claim the same turf – the army and the nature preserve – and there needs to be a partnership there. There are no unilateral steps.”

Image Credit: www.padfield.com

15K Israelis Retrofit Hotrods, Cars and Trucks To Power With Propane

Maurice Picow — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 22:19:07 PDT

It’s much less expensive than regular refined gasoline, and they won’t let your car into a below ground shopping mall parking lot if you have this installation, but at least 15,000 cars and trucks in Israel have already been converted to run on liquefied propane gas, otherwise known as LPG.

From an environmental standpoint, using bottled LPG gas in your car is also much cleaner, with virtually no emissions, as compared to even unleaded gasoline.

So what’s involved with doing this and, how much does it cost? This information was revealed on a consumer magazine show with Channel 2’s roving reported Menachem Horowitz, who took his own Peugeot 407 Salon to the Gaspro garage in central Israel to have the device installed.

Gaspro’s spokesman and asst. director, Udi Tamir, said that it cost NIS 8,500 (about $2,000) to have the device installed “on any gasoline engine car, 1995 and upwards”. He said that a person “can bring his car in early in the morning and pick it up afterwards in the late afternoon.”

The device is a special kit that has high pressure hoses and gauges that send the liquefied bottled gas into the engine from a bottle or “balloon” located under the rear baggage compartment of the car (where most spare tires are today).

Ariel Oren, Asst. General Manager of Pandor Ltd, importer of the conversion kit, said there are now 50 LPG gas stations in Israel (compared to only 15 two years ago). The difference if price of LPG gas compared to 95 octane unleaded is obvious: NS 2.80 a liter compared to 6.14 (before the last price increase due to increased VAT).

“15 million people in the world now travel on bottled gas, especially in countries like Australia and the UK; and there’s no reason why Israel can’t follow their example,” Gaspro’s Udi Tamir said. So what happens when you want to sell you car and don’t want to include the LPG kit with it?

“Very simple – you simply return the car to the garage and have it removed (for much less money), and kit can then be installed on another car,” Tamir said.

While it sounds like a great idea, there are some “catches” in doing this, however, (aside from not being able to us large underground parking lots).

Dan Parminsko, a writer for Auto Magazine, said that the issue of using LP gas in cars is still being talked about in the Transport Ministry and that they could decide to increase the price of the gas to make it not worthwhile, or decide to pass legislation restricting its use.

This might be a bit difficult to do, however, since the gas the same stuff most people use in their homes (and an price increase would affect them as well) and judging from the fact that so many people already are using it.

Also, with the discovery of large natural gas fields off Israel’s shores, more and more homes – and cars – will eventually benefit from this energy source, that despite being a fossil fuel is still much cleaner than either crude oil or coal. And according to Zonk if installed correctly propane gas retrofits are no more dangerous than regular petrol.

So, it looks like more and more people will follow that old slogan “go cheaper – go gas!”

Want to convert your car to propane : read all about it on Mother Earth News.

[image via House of Sims]

A Natural Breathmint Made From Coffee?

Green Prophet Guest — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 22:04:07 PDT

We all know why coffee shops like Arcaffe, Aroma and Starbucks puts boxes of breath mints close to the cash register. Your morning latte can create a startling aroma in your mouth, strong enough to startle your co-workers too.

But intriguing new research from Tel Aviv University by renowned breath specialist Prof. Mel Rosenberg of TAU’s Sackler Faculty of Medicine finds that a coffee extract can inhibit the bacteria that lead to bad breath. New laboratory tests have shown that the extract prevents malodorous bacteria from making their presence felt — or smelt. The news has been reported by CNN:

“Everybody thinks that coffee causes bad breath,” says Prof. Rosenberg, “and it’s often true, because coffee, which has a dehydrating effect in the mouth, becomes potent when mixed with milk, and can ferment into smelly substances.”

But not always. “Contrary to our expectations, we found some components in coffee that actually inhibit bad breath,” explains Prof. Rosenberg. The findings were presented last month to members of the International Society for Breath Odor Research in Germany by Yael Gov, a researcher in Prof. Rosenberg’s laboratory.

A “taster’s choice” for stopping bad bacteria

In the laboratory, the team monitored the bacterial odor production of coffee in saliva. In the study, three different brands of coffee were tested: the Israeli brand Elite coffee, Landwer Turkish coffee, and Taster’s Choice. Prof. Rosenberg expected to demonstrate the malodor-causing effect of coffee in an in vitro saliva assay developed by Dr. Sarit Levitan in his laboratory. To his surprise, the extracts had the opposite effect.

“The lesson we learned here is one of humility,” says Prof. Rosenberg. “We expected coffee would cause bad breath, but there is something inside this magic brew that has the opposite effect.”

Prof. Rosenberg would love to isolate the bacterial-inhibiting molecule in order to reap the biggest anti-bacterial benefits from coffee. “It’s not the raw extract we will use, he says, “but an active material within it.” His latest discovery could be the foundation for an entirely new class of mouthwash, breath mints and gum.

Purified coffee extract can be added to a breath mint to stop bacteria from forming, stopping bad breath at its source, instead of masking the smell with a mint flavor.

Prof. Rosenberg is a successful scientist and inventor who has already developed a popular mouthwash sold widely in Europe, a pocket-based breath test, and an anti-odor chewing gum.

::AFTAU

More green coffee news:

Untreated Wastewater Poses Huge Threat to West Bank Palestinians

Rachel Bergstein — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 21:37:06 PDT

A report published Sunday by the Israeli human rights group B’tselem, titled, “Foul Play: Neglect of Wastweater Treatment in the West Bank” found untreated wastewater to be a major source of pollution in the West Bank.

91 million cubic meters (mcm) of wastewater is produced each year in Israeli settlements, parts of Jerusalem, and Palestinian communities, says the report (for perspective: this amount is the equivalent of 36,400 Olympic-sized pools). The majority of this sewage goes untreated, dishcarging directly into the environment, causing severe health hazards and posing a major pollution risk to the Mountain Aquifer, a key water resource for both Israelis and Palestinians.

B’tselem claims that out of 121 recognized Israeli settlements in the West Bank, not including those in East Jerusalem, only 81 are connected to wastewater treatment facilities. Many of these facilities are outdated and overburdened, meaning they are insufficient for treating the 17.5 million mcm of wastewaters these communities produce annually. This number does not include the unrecognized settlements, which are usually unconnected to sewage infrastructure and discharge an additional 5.5 mcm of waste freely into the environment.

Although B’tselem says Israel’s Ministry of Environmental Protection is aware of the problem, its enforcement of pollution laws in the settlements is lax. The report cites, for instance, that between 2000 and September 28, the MoEP took 53 enforcement measures against settlements for failure to treat wastewater, but in Israel, 230 similar measures were recorded in 2006 alone.

The report also found that Jerusalem channels another 17.5 mcm of waste into the West Bank from neighborhoods in both of the western party of the city and Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem.

Although some of this water is treated and used for irrigation on settlements in the Jordan valley, much of it flows freely, polluting both the groundwater of the Mountain Aquifer and the Dead Sea. Although the Jerusalem Municipality has proposed several proposals for wastewater treatment, none of been implemented. Partially, says B’tselem, this is because many of these plans require Palestinian cooperation, but the Palestinian Authority refuses to do so because they see such cooperation as legitimizing Israel’s control over East Jerusalem.

Palestinian communities, the report shows, produce 56 mcm of wastewater each year, constituting 62% of the total produced in the entire West Bank. 90-95% of Palestinian water is completely untreated, and there is only one functioning Palestinian wastewater treatment facility. B’tselem cites several reasons for the delay in developing wastewater treatment infrastructure in the West Bank, including lack of funding and approval for projects, reduction in foreign funding, and Israeli policies that increase difficulty or raise the cost of building such facilities.

Lastly, the report illustrates the injustice of wastewater treatment patterns, pointing out that Palestinians are disproportionately affected by wastewater pollution. Settlers are connected to Israel’s high-quality water supply system, so they enjoy access to clean water. Palestinians, however, rely on natural sources for water, so the pollution of these sources increases drinking water scarcity, contaminates crops and reduces the economic benefit of agriculture, and may ultimately diminish land fertility. B’tselem also points out that many of the settlements are built on hilltops or ridges, so their sewage flows into Palestinan communities on the slopes below, causing further pollution.

In response to B’tselem’s report, Israel’s Ministry of Environmental Protection issued a statement saying the PA has declined proposals for joint wastewater treatment infrastructure in Jerusalem: “Israel is willing to assist and cooperate with the Palestinian side in advancing solutions for the shared ecological problems, but has encountered nothing but refusal from the Palestinians.” The Ministry also called B’tselem’s statistics on legal enforcement “groundless and untrue,” insisting it only refrained from enforcement during the intifada, from 2000-2003, when movement within the West Bank was impossible.

Although B’tselem rejects the legitimacy of Israeli settlements and calls for an immediate withdrawal, the report concludes by demanding that Israel treat all settlement wastewater according to legal standards, and endorsing Israeli-Palestinian cooperation on wastewater treatment in the West Bank, even if facilities treat sewage from both settlements and Palestinian communities, because of the current severity of the problem and its impacts on Palestinians.

:: B’tselem, Ynetnews
Image: Chadica

Red-Dead Canal Announcement Stirs Controversy

Rachel Bergstein — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 20:30:38 PDT

The global contest for the Seven New Wonders of the World is not the only reason the Dead Sea is making news this week.

Last Saturday, Israeli Vice Premier Silvan Shalom announced that the World Bank agreed to finance a $1.25 billion feasibility study on the Red-Dead Canal plan. The plan, a joint venture supported by Israeli, Jordanian, and Palestinian officials, proposes a 180 kilometer (110 mile) pipeline between the Red Sea and the Dead Sea. The pipeline will transfer 200 billion cubic meters of water to the Dead Sea, half of which will be pumped to the rapidly receding body and half of which will be used in desalination projects to provide drinking water to the drought-stricken region.

The World Bank launched a Study Program in 2008, based on terms of reference the three parties introduced (but did not agree on fully), to investigate the environmental, social, and technical costs of the canal. Although the World Bank confirmed that Mr. Shalom did meet with its president, Robert Zoellick, during an official visit to Washington DC last week, it has not made an official commitment to finance the study.

Jordan was also quick to deny the Israeli official’s claim. Fayez Batayneh, Jordan’s director for the canal project, told the Jordan Times he hopes the report is true, but did not receive any official correspondence from the World Bank confirming its agreement to fund the study.

Meanwhile, Friends of the Earth Middle East (FoEME), who strongly oppose the canal, issued a statement claiming that these news reports show “politicians are using the Red Dead Canal project for their own political image and not out of concern for the Dead Sea.” (Both Mr. Shalom and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu have indicated this project is important for the advancement of the region’s “financial peace” as part of the broader regional peace agenda.)

FoEME also emphasized the fact that, although the Israeli, Jordanian, and Palestinian parties, as well as the World Bank, agreed to undertake a study of alternatives to the canal as a means of saving the Dead Sea, they have failed to launch this study or to appoint a panel of experts to oversee the integrity of the entire research project. They called on the parties to establish an Independent Alternative Study, or for the World Bank to withdraw from the project.

The Dead Sea is shrinking one meter every year, largely due to diversion of the Jordan River water for agriculture and industry. Estimates predict that if business continues as usual, it will be gone completely by 2050.

:: Ynetnews, World Bank, AFP, Jordan Times, FoEME
Image Credit: heatkernel

More on the Red-Dead Canal:
Jordan To Launch Red-Dead Canal Without Israel
Drought in Jordan Calls People to Pray for Rain and the Controversial Dead-Red Peace Canal
Strategic Solution’s Floating Gas Pipes Could Avert Red-Dead Environmental Catastrophe

Benvenisti Mourns the Forgotten Rural Heritage of Israel

Daniella Cheslow — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 08:48:37 PDT

For readers who have driven or hiked past unmarked, run-down old stone buildings in Israel, former Jerusalem Deputy Mayor Meron Benvenisti’s Sacred Landscape (University of California, 2000) will reveal a layer of Arab ghosts inside Israeli towns, cities and the countryside.

Born in 1934, Benvenisti spent his childhood accompanying his father on geographical tours of Mandatory Palestine. The elder Benvenisti traveled in order to rename the Arab features of the map with Hebrew monikers, but his son saw an enchanting world of Palestinian villages. Meticulously researched with zealous attention to detail, Sacred Landscape asks the question of how the rural Palestinian fabric within Israel’s 1948 borders ceased to exist both on land and in the minds of the Israelis who replaced it.

The first step, according to Benvenisti, was a cadre of Jewish geographers, including his father, who collected the names of towns, rivers, hills and springs and painstakingly redubbed them. Drawing from the minutes of naming committee meetings, Benvenisti reports that some names were Hebrew versions of the Arabic, some were taken from the Bible, others were named for Zionist leaders. For Benvenisti, the loss of the Arab map was tragic.

“The wealth of Arabic toponymy [place names] is astounding in its beauty, its sensitivity to the landscape, its delicacy of observation and its choice of images … The people who chose these names had no need to articulate their love for their land in vast lyrical creations or to sing songs of longing from a distant Diaspora. They expressed it by naming a piece of land the Setting of the Moon; a spring of pure water, the Blue Spring; and a picturesque village, the Charming Village.”

The new Hebrew names, however, still referred to a primarily Arab landscape until the 1948 war, during which nearly 400 villages were depopulated. Benvenisti equivocally points out the Israeli and Palestinian claims as to who began the war, and then explores its consequences. The first three villages destroyed in the war were Qastal, Talunya and Saris on the road to Jerusalem. Their residents had either helped the Arab troops who laid siege to Jerusalem, or the villagers abandoned their homes, and the Arab Legion used them as bases. Benvenisti writes up the pre-war history of Qastal, population 150:

“They inhabited about twenty-five stone houses and cultivated some 100 dunams of fruit trees, fifty dunams of olive groves, a few score dunams of vegetables and additional plots of field crops. There was no school in the village. Its single shop and coffee-house sat beside the main road to Jerusalem and were the property of an Armenian named Abu George. Most of the younger villagers had taken an active part in the Arab Revolt of 1936-39 under the command of ‘Abd al-Qadir al-Husseini and remained loyal to him in the 1948 war as well.”

The refugees left behind them intact villages, sometimes with food still in the cabinets and animals in their pens. While some Israeli leaders planned to settle immigrants in these abandoned homes, the houses often were not heated or connected to a water supply, and made for an uncomfortable first home for the thousands of immigrants from the Arab world who were settled there by the government and moved out as quickly as possible. In time, the empty houses became an uncomfortable reminder that the refugees might come home. During the 1950s and early 1960s, Jewish Agency head Yosef Weitz spearheaded an effort to demolish most of the village remains. The Arab presence was thus wiped out of Caesaria, the Achziv beach, and hundreds of other places on the Israeli map. Israeli history taught about the Crusader origins of the buildings that remained, ignoring the more recent Arab past.

Finally, Benvenisti explores what became of mosques, churches and graveyards, which were spared the devastation visited upon village houses. Most of the village cemeteries became straggly untended fields strewn with garbage. Mosques are used today as anything from stables to synagogues. Saint’s sites have been Hebraicized and appropriated.

Benvenisti is 75 and lived through the rapid Judaization of the Israeli/Palestinian geography. Although he participated in building kibbutzim on the sites of destroyed villages and served in the Israeli army, the experience of watching his neighbors disappear marked him permanently with a sense of guilt.

Although Benvenisti deals in loaded terms of ethnic cleansing that may turn off some Israel sympathizers, he also catalogs the Arab aggression towards the establishment of the Jewish state, and the ongoing tension between Arabs and Jews that simmers around the fateful events of 1948. He plumbs national documents to see what motivated the Jewish leadership to eradicate the villages, and sifts through the literature of Israel’s greatest writers to see how they handle the moral weight of the process. While he takes Palestinian geographers to task for expecting a return to individual villages long obliterated from the landscape, his largest critique is reserved for the country in which he was born:

“It is ironic that the Israelis – who have managed to thwart every attempt in the past fifty years to bring back the refugees, who altered the physical reality in a manner that ruled out any possibility of restoring the Palestinian landscape, and who have perhaps even compelled the Palestinian leadership to acquiesce to the status quo – are still hounded by the nightmare of ‘the return.’”

Readers looking for an account of why the Palestinian leadership failed in protecting the countryside will not find a total recount here. But Benvenisti offers an eye-opening look at the step-by-step process of Israel’s renaming and transforming the Palestinian landscape, colored by his own experiences as a child and later as a researcher in the villages. He portrays little-known aspects of pre-State Palestinian life, such as the Bedouins who raised water buffalo and lived in reed huts in the North. His lucid and flowing writing makes the factual historical reference read like a gripping novel. Sacred Landscape will change the way you read the Israeli landscape. It is a masterpiece that sensitively mourns a rural life forever disappeared.

(Photo from http://www.radioopensource.org)

Palestinians Support Dead Sea for Wonder of the World

Daniella Cheslow — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 07:43:44 PDT

Although the Palestinian Authority had previously opposed nominating the salty lake that borders the West Bank, Israel and Jordan as one of the Seven New Wonders of the World, Haaretz reports that as of today, the PA is on board.

The New Seven Wonders is an international Internet voting competition that seeks to raise environmental awareness of the seven most stunning natural formations on the globe. The Dead Sea was listed among 77 candidates until three days ago when the Palestinians boycotted the campaign because the Israeli side includes the Jordan Valley settler council. For a site located in multiple countries to be listed, all the countries must agree to nominate it. Now that PA President Mahmoud Abbas has pushed to participate, the Sea will be reinstated. There are six more days to vote at the Seven Wonders site.

If it will help save the Dead Sea, the contest couldn’t come sooner. The Sea’s surface area has plumetted from 1,000 sq. km.in 1950 to 650 sq. km. in 2006. The water level drops about a meter a year and leads to a dangerous sinkhole phenomenon on both sides of the shore.

In 2007, New Seven Wonders picked man-made structures including Jordan’s Petra, the Great Wall of China and Machu Picchu in Peru.

The current vote is only on natural phenomena. Other Middle Eastern sites contending include Iraq’s Mesopotamian Marshes, Saudi Arabia’s Al-Hasa Oasis and Israel’s Ein Gedi Oasis.

(Photo from http://www.ee.bgu.ac.il/~icecs04/tour2_views.html).

:: Seven Wonders site

Eco-friendly Sewage Treatment Comes to the West Bank

Michael Green — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 23:10:42 PDT

A new scheme has just got underway for Palestinians to treat their sewage waste and purifying it for agricultural use by using wetlands.

Forsaking electricity, the system instead relies on a system of man-made pools which utilise plants to assist in the organic breakdown of the sewage.

The West Bank village of Um a-Rihan, not far from Umm el-Fahm in Israel, is home to 50 families and until now has not been connected to a proper sewage system. The wetlands will not only prevent pollution to the aquifer but will also provide the village residents with purified water for their crops, reports the Jerusalem Post.

The project is being funded by the Japanese government and overseen by Israeli engineer Arnon Goren and former Tel Aviv city council member Hadas Shachnai.

It also has the blessing of the Israeli Civil Administration in the West Bank, which hopes to see it rolled out to many other Palestinian villages, and the Israeli Army is even considering using it in some of its military bases.

We’ve written earlier on the life-threatening sewage problem for the Palestinians in Gaza. And reports from the field – Green Prophet’s Rami – say the situation is grim. We’ve also written on Ayala to remediate pollution wastelands in Israel with plants. Also on wetlands and how they work to clean sewage. Maybe the new West Bank solution can be transferred to Gaza as well.

:: Jerusalem Post, Artificial swamps in the West Bank

[Photo via klynslis]

No More Crying Over Spilt Milk With AfiMilk

Karin Kloosterman — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 22:30:52 PDT

Israeli company AfiMilk has developed a new meter that can monitor milk production in real time and online, giving dairy farmers critical information about possible contamination to milk supplies.

Normally farmers would take a sample of milk from “each cow, once a month, and send that sample to the lab,” says Noa Yonish, the marcom rep of AfiMilk, based in Kibbutz Afikim near the Sea of Galilee.

Obviously such tests require a lot of manpower, and are not altogether very accurate. If there is a problem in the milk, it’s never isolated at the right time, allowing room for contamination to spread before a farmer is alerted.

Not knowing what cow is sick, and when, is another reason why farmers opt for mass injections of antibiotics, even if the entire herd isn’t ill.

The new AfiLab system, which is about the size of a baseball glove, can catch a number of problems as the milk passes from the teats to the cartons in real time.

It offers up data on individual cows, and can alert farmers of any potential health or feeding problems before they go untreated. Connected to computers, the mini testing lab not only protects a herd of dairy cows from disease outbreaks (and farmers from spilling vats of milk), it allows farmers to see if any early symptoms of illness appear in the herd, and can increase milk production efficiency, says the company.

A hit for the cheese making industry

Blood is another parameter that AfiMilk can check for, and it’s a major concern to certain populations. Under Jewish dietary law, for example, laws which are enforced in Israel and among Jewish communities in the United States, it’s prohibited to eat milk and meat products together.

The blood of a cow in milk is also a serious violation for consumers in Japan who regard it as a big no-no, explains Udi Golan the company’s product manager and US marketing manager.

But other parameters in the milk, explains Golan, such as protein levels, fat percentages and delaying factors essential to the cheese making industry, can also be viewed online using the AfiLab.

AfiMilk, which has been in the automated milking business for 32 years and now owns about one-third of the US market, is testing its AfiLab invention at Florida University and Virginia Tech University. The company expects it to go on sale next year, says Golan.

For a herd of about 2,500 cows, the system will cost between $100,000 to $200,000, depending on the price that distributors in the United States set.

AfiMilk first entered the automated milking business in 1977 when it developed a fully automated milk bottling technology, called appropriately, the First Electronic Milk Meter.

Counting every step she takes

This meter, which could measure milk conductivity and check for basic diseases in the cow, was a world first and is now the technology that large dairy companies such as Europe’s DeLaval and Westfalia, and Barmatic in the United States, base their own devices.

Today the company has thousands of customers in more than 50 countries.

Aside from the AfiLab system, AfiMilk has also developed another novel product for dairy farmers – the Pedometer, a movement monitoring system. When attached to the leg of a cow, the device can give a farmer specific information about both the cow, and the herd.

Among the parameters it can pinpoint are whether the cow is feeling comfortable, if there’s stress or sickness, or even if the cow is in heat. “When she’s in heat, she moves more,” says Yonish.

Tested during the Second Lebanon War in 2006, the dairy cows wearing the Pedometer were grazing next to a location where Israeli tanks had been firing back at Lebanon at certain regimented times of the day.

Cows reset schedules in response to stress

The stress levels of the animals were detected by the Pedometer throughout the day, says Yonish, and the cows responded to tank-fire by altering their predictable napping patterns.

“Usually cows are very systematic,” she says. But the cows responded to the stress by lying down in different hours of the day, says Yonish, and had reset their otherwise fixed schedules, to the new stressor.

Such a tool would no doubt have important applications in better understanding animal welfare and optimal conditions to provide to dairy cows for the best milk production and quality.

AfiMilk was first founded by a member of Kibbutz Afikim and remains fully owned and operated by the community. The avid and mad scientist-type inventor who developed AfiMilk’s first meter, created a number of inventions and not all are related to the farm, says Yonish.

CEO Yossi Shemer is unable to reveal the company’s financials, but it currently employs 160 people, with manufacturing being done out-of-house, in Europe and China. The outsourced equipment is assembled and tested in the Israeli kibbutz, while its latest product, the AfiLab has about 2,000 units installed at milking points in about 70 farms.

::AfiMilk website

(This story was first published on ISRAEL21c – www.israel21c.org)

More on food and agriculture:

Bactochem Barcodes Your Organic Beef With DNA Databank

Environmental Toxin Dioxin Affects Milk Production in Mice – What Does This Mean For Us Humans?

Agritech 2009 Expo In Tel Aviv Aims To Help Feed the World

Environmental Toxin Dioxin Affects Milk Production in Mice – What Does This Mean For Us Humans?

Hannah Katsman — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 04:13:17 PDT

Scientists have long known that human breast milk is high in dioxins, environmental contaminants that enter our diets when we ingest agricultural pesticides.

Researchers at the University of Rochester School of Medicine exposed pregnant mice to a dioxin known as TCDD. The results showed that TCDD “caused severe defects in mammary glanddevelopment and function. The defects were noted during the earliest days of the pregnancy, according to the study. And it is during pregnancy, that mammary glands of mammals grow and develop to prepare for nourishing the new baby. What does this mean for us humans?

In the same way that we are seeing negative effects of environmental contaminants on the human reproductive system, the new study suggests an effect on the mechanism of lactation. Scientists now suspect that exposure to a type of dioxin can affect development of mammary glands early in pregnancy, which may lead to low milk supply after birth.

High levels of dioxins in a pregnant woman’s system have the potential to cause birth defects in babies. In theory, dioxins in breastmilk can also harm babies, although studies have shown that even among populations exposed to high levels of dioxins, breastfed babies have better health and developmental outcomes than formula-fed babies.

Breastmilk contains more dioxins than cow’s milk because dioxins accumulate in animal fat and are only excreted to the fetus during pregnancy, and to the baby during lactation.

Humans are highest on the food chain, so they accumulate the dioxins from the fat of the animals they consume. This is a reason to eat organic foods, or at least to cut back on fat from meat, dairy and fish.

However, the antibodies and nutrients in breastmilk, along with the psychological benefits, far outweigh any negative effect of dioxins. Also, the baby’s exposure to dioxins is much greater in utero than while breastfeeding.

It is essential to eliminate environmental contaminants in order to keep breastmilk as pure and plentiful as it is meant to be.

More tips on greening baby:

[image via Flickr]

Israel’s Cleantech 2009 Emphasizes Water Projects and Renewable Energy

Maurice Picow — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 01:05:48 PDT

Israel’s 13th annual Cleantech exhibition on environmental technology and renewable energy projects is currently underway at the Israel Trade Fairs and Conventions Center in north Tel Aviv. You can read about innovative companies on display at the event last year, here.

This year, both water technologies and renewable energy innovations appear to be the featured categories of the two day exhibition, running through to today Tuesday June 30.

The section dealing with water technologies is one that has particular importance to Israel, as well as other countries in the region. Divided into several segments, water technologies covers instruments for analyzing, metering, monitoring, and testing of existing water resources.

Water sources, including streams and reservoirs, and underground aquifers, including the most innovative pumps and piping for retrieving water supplies and transporting it to purification facilities, and then eventually to water’s final use in residences and commercial/industrial concerns.

The latest water filtration and purification equipment will also be on display, as well as companies dealing with desalination, including the French based Veolia Environment (formerly known as Vivendi) who helped construct Israel’s largest reverse osmosis desalination facility in Ashkelon.

Another featured water resources project tracker and sponsor at the exhibition is Global Water Intelligence, a market leading analysis platform of the international water industry. GWI keeps track on water resource projects all over the world, including both desalination and recycling of waste water. More than 160 desalination projects alone are being monitored by GWI.

In addition, exhibits dealing with treatment of waste water, especially domestic “grey” waste water recycling, and purification of “black” or sewage water for use in both industry and agriculture.

Renewable energy projects, including wind, solar, biomass, geothermal, and small “hydro” generating units are on display, with solar photo-voltaic systems receiving particular attention. Some of Israel’s leading renewable energy companies have exhibits on display this year.

Another sector being featured is one dealing with the exploration and drilling for natural gas, in newly discovered gas fields in the eastern Mediterranean – especially the Tamar gas field south of Haifa.

Being developed by a firm called Noble Energy Inc, promising quantities of natural gas have already been found in the company’s Tamar # 1 well, which was drilled to a dept of more than 16,076 feet in the Levantine Basin. It is estimated that the Tamar gas field may contain more than 88 billion cubic meters of natural gas – enough to supply Israel’s energy needs for years to come.

The exhibition also has exhibits dealing with solid waste disposal and air pollution, both serious problems in Israel, causing it to lag behind many other countries in solving these environmental problems. The exhibition is a “must see” for everyone concerned about this country’s environmental future, as well as that of the rest of the world.

::Conference website

Drum Roll: Home to International Renewable Energy Agency IRENA Will Be . . . Masdar City

Karin Kloosterman — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 23:54:22 PDT

It could change the way companies make and distribute renewable energy technologies: We reported about the International Renewable Agency that convened in Sharm, Egypt this month. Today we get the news that the Abu Dhabi’s Masdar City, the world’s first carbon-neutral, will house the new Agency known as IRENA.

According to a press release issued Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, has been selected to house the secretariat of IRENA, marking the first time an international organization has chosen a Middle East city for its headquarters. The $136 million dollars in support to the agency, and $50 in incentive grants, probably didn’t make the decision a hard one to make.

IRENA will be located in Abu Dhabi’s Masdar City, supposedly the world’s first carbon-neutral, zero-waste city powered entirely by renewable energy.

In securing the location for IRENA the UAE faced stiff competition from Germany, Austria and Denmark, all recognized leaders in renewable energy.

Since the establishment of IRENA in January, the candidate nations have been locked in a hard-fought competition. However, the UAE’s ability to serve as a bridge between the developing and developed world; the allure of the world’s first carbon neutral city; and a generous commitment of financial and political support won over a significant following among member states of the new organisation.

The fact that the nation is extremely oil wealthy probably doesn’t hurt either.

“This is a great achievement for the United Arab Emirates, but more importantly it is a testament to the strength of the relationships we have established throughout our campaign.

“It was very important for us to offer IRENA a value proposition that would help the agency achieve its goals by engaging with developing and developed nations alike,” said His Highness Sheikh Abdullah Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the United Arab Emirates.

“The UAE is committed to working with each of the member countries and meeting the immediate needs of IRENA to ensure its successful launch,” added the Foreign Minister.

The UAE’s bid for IRENA’s headquarters is the first time the country has engaged in such an ambitious endeavor on the international stage.

“This has been a tremendous educational experience, and has strengthened bonds with our IRENA co-members that will allow us to collectively advance the benefits of renewable energy on all continents,” said Dr. Sultan Al Jaber, Chief Executive Officer of Masdar and a key architect of the UAE’s bid.

He added that the efforts by the UAE to encourage non-signatory nations to join IRENA not only strengthened the UAE bid but also strengthened the organization itself, which grew from 75 member states at the time of its foundation in January to over 130 countries to date.

As part of its commitment to IRENA, the UAE offered to support the agency with a grant of $136 million over a six year period, while also covering all operational costs in perpetuity.

The Abu Dhabi Fund for Development also created a special endowment of up to US $50 million annually to be used for loans in support of renewable energy projects in the developing world.

The UAE bid attracted wide spread international support by key figures, including Ban Ki Moon, Secretary General of the United Nations, Tony Blair, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Dr. Rajendra K Pachauri, Nobel laureate and Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC).

At the same time it was decided that Bonn will host IRENA’s center of technology and innovation and that in Vienna the Agency’s liaison office for cooperation with other organisations active in the field of renewables will be established.

About Masdar City

Masdar City is the most ambitious sustainable development in the world today — it will be the world’s first zero carbon, zero waste city powered entirely by renewable energy sources. Masdar City is part of Abu Dhabi’s Masdar Initiative, a multi-faceted investment in the development and commercialization of innovative technologies in renewable and sustainable energies as well as sustainable design.

About the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA)

IRENA was founded in January 2009 and includes 77 member countries from both the developing and developed world. IRENA aims at becoming the main driving force in promoting a rapid transition towards the widespread and sustainable use of renewable energy on a global scale.

Acting as the global voice for renewable energies, IRENA will provide practical advice and support for both industrialised and developing countries, help them improve their regulatory frameworks and build capacity. The agency will facilitate access to all relevant information including reliable data on the potential of renewable energy, best practices, effective financial mechanisms and state-of-the-art technological expertise.

::IRENA website

President Shimon Peres and Environmental Protection Ministry Team Up for the Environment

Karen Chernick — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 20:54:22 PDT

Since becoming President of the State of Israel, Shimon Peres has had a pretty green track record. Last year he kicked off Earth Hour in Tel Aviv, and over the past few months he has inaugurated Israel’s first “green”city Kfar Saba, unplugged Jerusalem for Earth Day 2009, and hosted tree-planting Hollywood stars Naomi Watts and Liev Schreiber.

And Shimon is about to get greener.

Peres will soon be meeting with the Minister of Environmental Protection, Gilad Erdan, and so a special joint team has been set up in preparation in order to plan the advancement of a few environmental projects.

The projects include:

Special prize for excellence in promoting environmental issues: Starting next year a special prize will be awarded to individuals, institutions, or companies that excel in promoting awareness of environmental issues. These issues may include energy conservation, environmental education, environmental technologies, sustainable development, and more. The prize will be awarded by the President of the State of Israel and the Minister of Environmental Protection on a fixed date every year (such as Earth Day).

Transformation of the Presidential residence in Jerusalem into a green home: The Presidential residence will be transformed in accordance with green building principles. Improvements such as energy efficiency, water conservation and savings, waste reuse and recycling, and sustainable gardening will be focused on.

Advancement of environmental issues within the educational system by the President of the State of Israel: The joint project will help incorporate environmental issues into school curriculae, certify green schools/kindergartens, and spearhead an environmental approach within the entire educational system (with a focus on recycling and conservation of energy and water).

Got any suggestions on other issues they might want to team up and work on? Please share.

Read more about the Ministry of Environmental Protection::

Tender Offered: Help the Environment Ministry Collect Fines From Green Criminals

Shut Down the New Coal-Fired Power Plants, Says Israel’s New Environment Minister

SPNI Boycotss Ministry of Environment Gala Over New Settlement

Israel’s Ministry of Environmental Protection to Clean Up the Kinneret

Solel and 8 Israel-related Cleantech Headlines, Week of June 21, 2009

Lisa Damast — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 02:32:10 PDT

During the week of June 21, 2009, Israel’s wealthiest female and founder of Miya Water, Shari Arison spoke about her visions for cleantech. Siemens is considering acquiring Israeli solar company, Solel and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), Israel’s aviation giant, is leading the EU initiative to make airplanes more environmentally friendly. For these stories and more, check this week’s 8 Israel-related cleantech headlines below.

Investing
1. Tel Aviv Stock Exchange

2. Cleantech is hot – Should you try to cash in?

3. Israel’s richest woman gets messages, has visions

Water
4. Water, Water, Everywhere. And Not a Drop to Drink?? Part I

5. Converting Air into Water In Israel

Solar
6. Siemens Mulls Buying Israeli Solar Company Solel

Tourism
7. Eco Tourism in the Middle East Ready For Next Generation Explorers

Environment
8. IAI to help build quieter, greener and cleaner aircraft

Recycling the Depressed Development Town Arad

Karin Kloosterman — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 00:10:50 PDT

As a means to revive a development town, and a model for an entire country to follow, a super team of organizations have banded together to “green” Arad — an Israeli development town with a population of about 23,000 south of Tel Aviv in the Negev Desert.

While Israelis are generally following the “green trend” now taking the world by storm, basic infrastructure in the country is still missing, like blue bins for recycling tins and cans.

But a new recycling program in Arad, with the community at its heart, could be a new model for all of Israel to follow, and possibly the entire Middle East. Planners are hoping that a new green image in Arad will boost the development town’s fading status — in recent years it changed from a middle class town to one that’s depressed economically and socially.

Today in the city you’ll find clothes recycling programs, recycling bins for tins, paper and glass in the homes, a forum for helping industry nearby cut down on pollution, and educational programs for youngsters at school.

Kids in Arad are learning how to rehabilitate rivers, how to grow a community garden, and are getting to know what trees and plants work best in extremely arid environments like the Negev desert

Residents needs first

Over a year in place, and managed by the Or Movement, an NGO that works to develop the Negev Region, recycling in Arad puts the community first, and involves residents in planning every step of the way, and in overseeing the projects the city takes on.

[image via ixpix]

Over 700 locals came out to the first planning meeting, an overwhelming response to the vision put together by a US family foundation, the Ruderman Family Charitable Foundation, the Jewish National Fund, the Ministry of Environment Protection and a local environment group in Arad.

“Arad is a very unique place,” Roni Flamer, the director of the Or Movement tells ISRAEL21c. “People from the center of Israel established it of their own free will. They wanted to come and build a home in the Negev.”

Its clean dry air is sought by asthmatics worldwide who travel there for respite from respiratory difficulties.

But societal difficulties in the last 15 years have seen an exodus of Arad’s middle class residents from the city. So when representatives from the city were approached with the idea of turning the city into Israel’s first recycling city, they understood it could address a number of problems the city was facing. Essentially it could rebrand Arad’s rapidly fading image.

Enlisting the kids

One of the main focuses of the scheme is on the kids, who organizers believe will help educate their parents. “If students have a good attitude towards the “green” subject, they will carry this through to their lives,” says Flamer.

“Green ideas encourage people to look over their shoulders, and not only deal with their own individual needs, but to be aware of environmental problems as well,” he adds.

But many people can talk about green without knowing what it means. Teaching children in schools about planting trees and fruits that require little water, and how to create a community garden, are just some of the skills the younger residents of Arad are learning. They are expected to pass the green message onto their parents and neighbors.

“The green branding of Arad will help people take a second look at Arad,” says Flamer.

The idea to turn Arad into a recycling city came by way of Jay Ruderman, who manages his family’s foundation, the Ruderman Foundation, from Israel.

Super group oversees community efforts

Ruderman immigrated to Israel three and a half years ago with his wife and children, and noticed a strong parity between environmental activities in the Boston region, where he is from, to what’s happening in Israel.

“We were recycling before I immigrated to Israel — cardboard, glass, plastic — and were trying to throw away very little garbage,” he tells ISRAEL21c.

“In Israel, I first stayed with my in-laws in Rishon and they were recycling nothing, were throwing everything away. It felt like such a waste for a small country. With that in mind we decided to fund a project and fund a recycling project that would be the most comprehensive one in Israel. That’s what’s going on in Arad right now,” he says.

Thanks to a generous donation from the Ruderman Foundation, the project got an equal boost from the power-partners the family brought to the table, says Flamer.

Just a year into the project, the parties involved hope to have a bigger show and tell and launch party of the recycling activities in Arad, within the next few months.

Aiming to create sustainable programming

While the Ruderman family generally supports only local projects in the Boston area, Jay Ruderman saw that helping Arad get on its “green” feet could “create a vehicle to show it a new direction so then it could build on itself,” he says, reporting that the community is now working on solutions for grey water recycling.

There is a strong focus there on educating the kids at school: “I have four kids and know that the parents are often led by the children. They’re saying, c’mon dad you should be recycling this… it is a way to affect change,” he says.

Built to fit a community with a diverse population, including an ultra-orthodox Hasidic population, finding out what fits a community’s special needs is an important part of the recycling project in Arad.

And Ruderman hopes that some organizations taking part will eventually generate business and income from Arad’s recycling project: “Any philanthropic project has a shelf life,” says Ruderman. “One of our goals is to see some businesses taking parts of it over.”

(This story first appeared on the beyond the conflict news service ISRAEL21c – www.israel21c.org)

Elephant Dung Makes Perfect Compost at City Safari in Tel Aviv

Karin Kloosterman — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 22:11:59 PDT

Letting nature take care of itself: Instead of paying a private company to haul away elephant dung every day, caretakers at the Ramat Gan Safari outside of Tel Aviv have found that those 7 kg of dung, per elephant, per day, can save the safari water, and fertilize the plants.

With 12 elephants at the safari, the compost pile has been growing. According to Ha’aretz, Safari staff are using the compost to seal the irrigation basin around young trees, enabling the water to permeate the roots, while slowing down its evaporation.

“Until about a year ago we used to pay a company to collect the dung with a tractor,” said zoologist Amelia Terkel. “But then we thought, why pay for removing it if we could use it ourselves?”

The staff piled the droppings in a heap and a few months later sent a sample of the fermented dung to an laboratory to check their suitability for the trees’ environment.

Two weeks ago the lab results were completed, showing that the dung would be excellent for fertilizing the trees in addition to saving water.

And like many zoological parks worldwide, the safari is acting to become “greener,” said Terkel.

::Haaretz [photo via mtkopone]

More on animals:

David de Rothschild Bravely Sails Away To The Pacific’s “Plastic Island”

Maurice Picow — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 23:01:35 PDT

(image via The Guardian)

David de Rothschild is no ordinary person; and certainly no ordinary adventurer. And his next adventure is something probably only the very rich could dream to do:

The son of Britain’s Evelyn de Rothschild of the famous Rothschild banking family, and a known adventurer and environmentalist, David has already accomplished a number of feats in his 31 years, including crossing both the Arctic icecap and entire continent of Antarctica, including reaching both geographical poles.

Founder of Adventure Ecology, his love for planet earth and concern for its environment as resulted in his launching of what appears to be his most harrowing feat of adventure to date. And that feat entails sailing a homemade craft made almost entirely of discarded plastic bottles, tied together by web mesh.

His destination: the gigantic “plastic island,” which we wrote about a few weeks ago –– it coming to light after Air France 447 disappeared into the abyss.

Located in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and made up of waste plastic and other material – and said to be almost twice the size of the American state of Texas.

Image via nakedmaninthetree.wordpress.com

His voyage, a journey of nearly 11,000 nautical miles, will begin off the State of California, continue until reaching the “island” now floating in an area known as the Great Pacific Gyre (southwest of Hawaii) and finally ending in Sydney Australia.

The improbable voyage, on a craft made up of the same type of flotsam that the “Plastic Island” is said to be made of, is to make people aware that our oceans, the giver of much of our planet’s food and oxygen sources, are in danger to being turned into nothing but floating garbage dumps; and as a result will make life on earth even more threatened.

The journey, which was to have begun in March, 2009, was delayed until mid-summer, which could make de Rothschild’s trip even more perilous due to the occurrence of typhoons and other serve storms which are more prevalent during the summer and autumn months.

The 60 ft catamaran craft, made out of 12,000 plastic bottles and other recycled plastic material woven into self-reinforcing polyethylene terephthalate (PET), a very strong webbing material, will be his home and that of his crew during the voyage, which he says will take about three months.

Image via franklygreen.com

“The only worry I have (concerning the voyage) is that I get sea-sick in a bath tub. But when one is as committed as I am to do such a thing, it will be done” he says.

The craft that he and the small crew of scientists and ecologists will sail on has been named Kon-Tiki, after the primitive raft that Norwegian adventurer and writer Thor Hayerdahl used to cross the Pacific Ocean in 1947.

The main difference now is that the gigantic plastic island they are sailing to was much smaller then – if it existed at all.

While David de Rothschild globe-trots the earth to find ways to save the planet, the international banking empire his family represents have been making some moves into the United Arab Emirates, and were recently hosted by HH Sheikh Mohammad bin Rashid, Ruler of Dubai and UAE Prime Minister.

The Rothschild banking consortium has entered into agreements with the Dubai government to establish financial and banking interests in the UAE. The interest of the Rothschild banking in the establishing themselves in the Dubai International Financial Canter (DIFC) indicates their interest in assisting Dubai and other UAE states to become a leading financial center in the Middle East.

It is hoped that Rothschild bankers, with David de Rothschild’s influence, will invest in projects dealing with environmental sustainability, such as Masdar City, which is being developed as one of the fist truly ecologically friendly residential and commercial projects in the world.

What is currently transpiring in the Persian Gulf region, from an environmental standpoint, especially regarding The World artificial island development project, might well be David de Rothschild’s next environmental undertaking , after his Kon-Tiki sailing adventure to “plastic island.”

::Guardian

More rich and famous explorers:
Daryl Hannah Splashes Into Egypt’s Eco Tourism
It’s The Water That Binds Us Finds Alexandra Cousteau
Hollywood’s Liev Schreiber and Naomi Watts Plant Pistachio Tree in Israel
Rich and Famous Eco Explorers Prepare for New Frontier

UPDATE: A recent press conference says the voyage will only take place by the end of the year.