As found on Doors of Perception, China has been testing with experiments to re-purify their water supplies, due to what is thought to be caused by fertiliser running off the land into their rivers. Oenanthe Javanicas are planted into floating beds to resolve the problem of dirty water. The full article can be found here.

In the Summer and Autumn 2007, thousands of people living and working in the town of Middlesbrough, Tees Valley participated in a project to increase local food production and reduce food miles. Along the way, young, old, rich and poor worked together, growing food and realising new relationships with local food producers and existing growers in the town and its surrounding area. Their goal has was to pioneer a new sustainable future – not just for Middlesbrough but also for other post-industrial communities across the UK

They were also working to raise awareness of the benefits of and opportunities for growing and securing food for our towns and cities. Local growers need to be connected to existing and new markets, a new relationship needs to be struck between urban and rural, and communities need inspirational and educational ‘soil to plate’ experiences.

Middlesbrough Council and David Barrie, senior producer for Dott 07, have led the project, working in close partnership with Groundwork South Tees, Middlesbrough Primary Care Trust, more than 15 primary and secondary schools, many local community and voluntary sector organisations, and existing allotment growers in the town. It was driven by Bioregional’s commitment to the concept of one planet living, developed in collaboration with the World Wildlife Fund and endorsed by the Minister of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

The groups from the schools identified locations in which to grow food and the produce they would like to cultivate. Then, in May 2007, about 1,000 people began growing fruit and vegetables in containers at locations across the town. They received support from local horticulturalists, allotment growers, farmers and food producers. Between June and September, this new team of urban farmers brought their harvested ingredients to a ‘kitchen playground’ event: three week-long blocks of activity in which people prepared, cooked and ate dishes based on ingredients that they had grown themselves. The frenzy of food production culminated in September in a ‘Meal for Middlesbrough’ – a banquet for 1,500 in the town’s main square. Participants in the growing project created the menu from produce they’d harvested. Local producers provided meat and vegetables to supplement the meal, which was cooked and eaten in the open air.

Finally, several containers grown in Middlesbrough were presented at the Dott 07 Festival and participating groups prepared food for visitors in a special-edition kitchen playground.

A fantastic sustainable idea which involves everyone from the local community and has endless amounts of benefits.

http://www.dott07.com/go/food/urban-farming

In partnership with Channel 4, Landshare is a service that allows people who are either a landowner, grower or helper to post a listing on the website, offering their services or needs. The concept of land sharing and making use of unused spaces, especially in built up cities such as London really brings back the ‘blitz spirit’ that started to emerge during the war. Self sufficiency and food production is a sensitive issue these days due to the problems with landfills, supermarkets, food prices and even nutrition values. There’s great demand for allotments and garden spaces in London (10 years in some cases), so there is obviously huge demand and tiny supply. Landshare and other websites such as yours2share are trying to solve this problem.

The idea seems so fundamental, land, food and cooperation, and yet maybe the English attitude to gardens and land ownership is very different in other cultures? Portland, Oregon in America for example, is a place where land use is currently a big issue, with 20,000+ acres of land currently vacant and farmland is restricted due to controversial regulations. Land sharing could make use of unusual spaces more effectively in cities like Portland, especially when regulations are currently in place, everything from back gardens to local parks.

http://landshare.channel4.com/

Transition Towns start off when a small collection of individuals within a community come together with a shared concern.

They begin by forming an initiating group with the intention of engaging a significant proportion of the people in their community to kick off a Transition Initiative. A Transition Initiative is a community working together to look at problems squarely in the eye and address them.

After going through a comprehensive and creative process of: awareness raising, connecting with existing groups in the community, building bridges to local government, forming groups to look at all the key areas of life and kicking off projects aimed at building people’s understanding of resilience, 15-20 year projects are formed.

This results in a coordinated range of projects across all  areas of life that strives to rebuild the resilience towns have lost as a result of problems such as cheap oil and carbon emissions.

The communities also recognise two crucial points: that they immense amounts of creativity, ingenuity and adaptability on the way up the energy upslope, and that there’s no reason for us not to do the same on the downslope, if we collectively plan and act early enough there’s every likelihood that we can create a way of living that’s significantly more connected, more vibrant and more in touch with our environment.

Examples of existing Transition Towns can be found here. From the UK to Australia to New Zealand to Italy to Japan, Transition Towns are currently evolving everywhere.

http://www.transitiontowns.org/

Continuing with the theme of online ideas and similar to The Million Dollar Homepage, The Million Dollar Green Page, allows users to buy a minimum of 10 pixels with 1 pixel costing $1 to advertise with the money donated to the green cause. If your a green charity, organisation, website or anything else that is trying to help the earth, your space is free. The Million Dollar Homepage just allowed advertisers to buy up the space, so instead this is a much greater cause.

The idea is kept simple, but visually interesting online as people can select from the eastern and western hemispheres of the world to choose where to buy their space. As you can see where and how much you have bought, along with everyone else, which is the point of this idea, it’s rewarding to people to see their efforts come to life. A lot of green charities ask for support, but I think The Million Dollar Green Page works much better as it rewards customers efforts with something they can actually see.

This is a truly global idea already, however I’m not sure how many people know about it, so other ways of promoting it could include social networking and Twitter which I can’t seem to see on the website and perhaps in as many different languages as possible. The internet is used globally, so ideas like this should really be translated globally.

http://www.milliondollargreenpage.com/

Team Green Britain held its first ‘Green Britain Day’ in July this year where 5 teams worked together to make a difference. The idea behind Team Green Britain, and in partnership with EDF Energy, London 2012 and the Eden Project, is to group together, no matter how small or big, with your friends, family, neighbours, strangers or anybody to make a change. If everyone does something small, when added together, makes something big. This is Team Green Britain’s philosophy.

Existing teams consist of Team Energy, Team Swap, Team Big Lunch, Team A to B and EcoTeams with more on the way. Teams can try everything from persuading friends to switch their TV off, not just on standby, to getting together with whole communities and having a big lunch together. Team Green Britain then rewards people for their hard work with prizes like London 2012 tickets for example.

I think this could work as Team Green Sweden, Team Green Brazil and perhaps every other country. Rewarding people for doing good with big incentives, this in itself is a great idea to get people thinking more about the environment.

http://www.teamgreenbritain.org/

Paris, Oslo, Vienna, Miami, soon London and trials run in Brussels, Barcelona, Toronto and New Delhi are just a few cities worldwide that have introduced public bicycle schemes. Paris is known for its ‘Vélib’ scheme with over 20,000 bike scattered across the French capital and with over 350 km (215+ miles) of cycle lanes to be used. Oslo’s scheme began about three years before Paris’ did using over 80 biking stations and has been operating successfully since. And now major outdoor advertisers such as JCDecaux plan to roll out more bicycle schemes including the ambitious project here in London, backed by Mayor Boris Johnson. These initiatives root from influential countries where bikes are a way of life, Holland being one of them, and Beijing, whose ‘9 million bicycles’ are unfortunately rapidly turning into four wheels.

After being in Paris and Barcelona myself, the simplicity of the idea is brilliant. You need a bike, you put the money in, you unlock the bike and you are off. Each country varies in it’s approach to the design and logistics of the schemes, but all have two aspects in common, a beneficial idea for the environment and a healthy option for the public. It’s obvious to see that these schemes are spreading quickly and working well as more and more people seek a healthier lifestyle and to save money in the financial downfall we currently are in.

What could improve the idea you may ask? Well my opinion on that would be promoting the schemes to the people who really need to know about it. Conscious people actively seek initiatives like these bike schemes, so I believe it’s up to people like Boris Johnson to find alternative ways of advertising the schemes. If you could get that commuter who uses his car to drive to the train station, to change on to the tube, to change one of those journeys and use a bike instead, well that’s where I feel the real gold lies.

Something else that should be taken into consideration however is systems that lie behind these pay-as-you-go bikes. For example, theft and vandalism has become a problem with the Paris schemes and in London and New Delhi there will no doubt issues with road safety. Placing bikes on the streets and inviting people to use them is one thing, but would more people use them if they knew that the whole city also wants them too?

More information and articles about these bike schemes can be found below. You can download the proposal by JCDecaux of their scheme and see what goes into its thinking, from logistics to design here.

http://www.rudi.net/node/17462

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/23/AR2007032301753.html

http://www.brandrepublic.com/bulletins/media/article/570028/jcdecaux-roll-city-bike-hire-scheme-capitals/

http://spokesnfolks.blogspot.com/2009/08/miami-bicycle-plans-looking-good.html

http://www.inhabitat.com/2008/02/19/urban-bike-sharing-system-coming-to-london/

http://www.bicyclinginfo.org