Michael Green

One Planet developers

michael — Sun, 20 May 2012 08:13:12 +0000

Green developers are getting a toehold in the market.

FIFTEEN years ago, when Mike Hill and Lorna Pitt sought financing for their eco-housing development, WestWyck, the response wasn’t wholly enthusiastic.

“We put up our model for funding and the banks were really sceptical about the shared facilities,” Mr Hill recalls. The ground has shifted since then. In the planning for the next stage of development, their financiers pushed them to add more communal features.

Community-funded solar

michael — Sun, 13 May 2012 21:49:33 +0000

Can community-funded solar panels transform our skyline?

WITHIN a year and a half, 400 photovoltaic panels could be glinting from a single commercial roof in the City of Yarra – and all of them will be owned by the local community.

The medium-scale solar project would be the first of its kind in Australia. It’s kicking off next Saturday, May 19, at a public meeting in Clifton Hill organised by Yarra Climate Action Now.

Greening of Gavin

michael — Sun, 06 May 2012 00:26:29 +0000

One Melbournian has turned an epiphany into an example.

IN September 2006, Melton resident Gavin Webber attended a movie screening organised by his workplace. “There were about 100 of us and we all went and watched An Inconvenient Truth, of all things,” he says.

Before that day, the IT-professional admits, he was a “conspicuous consumer”.

Garage sale trail

michael — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 00:43:31 +0000

Get ready to haggle at garage sales all over the country.

THREE years ago, Andrew Valder was helping organise a community festival in Bondi Beach. “We had things like surfing, music, film and arts,” he says. “But we also had a garage sale trail component.”

Around Bondi, he says, abandoned furniture is as common as bikinis and board shorts. The suburb has a transient population and people often ditch their belongings when they skip town. While some of the goods are scavenged, most wind up in landfill.

Composting coffee grinds

michael — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 02:27:13 +0000

Pep up your soil and cut landfill waste with spent coffee grinds.

WHEN Shane Genziuk was very young, he loved gardening – but by his teenage years, he’d lost interest. Then in 2010, he had an epiphany. A stray onion had sprouted in his cupboard; on a whim, the 39-year-old IT-manager popped it in the earth.

“I didn’t think twice about it, but later when I saw it had started to flower all by itself, I thought it was so beautiful. I just wanted to try growing other things,” he says.

Fridges

michael — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 12:35:11 +0000

Refrigerators eat up energy, unless you choose wisely.

BACK in 2004, Dr Tom Chalko had just built an off-grid eco-house at Mount Best, in South Gippsland. But during the summer, while he waited for his solar panels to arrive, he was short on electricity.

“I needed refrigeration, but I didn’t have enough energy for it,” he recalls. “My small vertical fridge was consuming more energy than my wind turbine was able to produce.”

Fungi

michael — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 05:26:04 +0000

Wild mushrooms are just the tip of the iceberg.

FOR this year, stone fruits are over. Berries have been and gone. But another kind of fruit has begun to bloom. “If you get early rains and the earth’s still warm, then you get early fruiting of fungi,” explains Alison Pouliot. “They’re the ideal conditions to see mushrooms popping up.”

Sustainable Chippendale

michael — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 22:53:41 +0000

One suburb’s plan to take over the streets.

THE transformation of Chippendale, in inner city Sydney, began three years ago. “We held a ‘Food for the Future Fair’, invited local farmers and closed off three city blocks,” explains resident and sustainability expert Michael Mobbs.

The council donated 200 fruit trees to be given away, and people were shown how to plant them in front of their homes.

Harvest frenzy

michael — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 00:09:26 +0000

THE ‘Apple Spiral Machine’ is surely one of the greatest technological advances known to humankind. Have you seen one?

Push an apple onto the prongs, wind the handle, and a miracle ensues: the apple emerges peeled, cored and sliced into a spiral.

Local harvest

michael — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 00:19:08 +0000

Global worries sow the seeds for a local harvest.

IN Melton, 40 kilometres west of Melbourne, Carey Priest has taken a lease on a small farm. He’s starting slowly, beginning with a modest market garden and 100 free-range chooks that peck their way around the old olive and almond groves on the property.

Each week, Mr Priest supplies about 35 dozen eggs to several food co-operatives in the city’s inner west. “Many of my customers have visited and seen the chickens and the conditions where their eggs come from,” he says. “We run regular open days – it’s as transparent as it can possibly get.”