News archive - Week ending 28th December 2007

Scottish Parliament Takes a Lead on Energy Saving

Holyrood?s administrators have set ambitious targets to cut energy consumption. To help them in the process they have set up a system under which those who leave their computers on overnight are greeted with an e-mail the next morning asking them not to do so again.

Up to 1,000 people work in the building in Edinburgh and not many spend the day without logging on to a computer. Alex Johnstone, a member of the Scottish Parliament's management team said he hoped the tactic would help achieve an 8% cut in energy consumption by March 2009. Parliament is on course to achieve this target, but by a narrow margin.

Mr Johnstone admitted that the contribution this new scheme would make will be very small but added that the trick, when it comes to saving energy, is to actually make sure that you do every little thing you can.

Wood Recycling Projects

Pitmedden-based social enterprise, Wood RecyclAbility, won the Community Recycling Network for Scotland (CRNS) Member of the Year Award in 2006 for its decade-long commitment and is now urging similar schemes in Aberdeenshire to put themselves forward for recognition. Categories include CRNS Member of the Year, Innovation and Local Authority Partnership

Manager, Ian Shiells, said "The CRNS Award lifted our community's motivation for recycling and gave us added coverage throughout Scotland, which makes us proud to be doing our part for the environment."

The Pitmedden scheme encourages adults with learning disabilities to use their creative talents to produce new items from waste wood. The team of 10 staff and up to 25 trainees per day produce anything from bird tables to garden furniture and expect to receive 3,000 tonnes of waste wood in the coming year.

Around 100 trainees have benefited from the enterprise, many of whom have used it as a stepping stone to work in other recycling projects. CRNS network manager, Neil Lovelock, said: "Community recycling provides an increasingly important role in many people's lives, complementing traditional recycling by diverting materials from landfill sites and minimising waste, as well as delivering a range of benefits to local communities across Scotland."

Super Efficient Light Bulb
A new type of energy efficient household light bulb is being developed in a collaborative project between Glasgow University and the Institute of Photonics at Strathclyde University. Researchers have found a way to make Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) brighter and use less power than energy efficient light bulbs currently on the market.

The technology, already used in mobile phones and computers, has not previously been powerful enough to be used for lighting but the University scientists believe they have found a way round the problem. The project involves making microscopic holes in the surface of LEDs to increase the level of light they give off; a process known as nano-imprint lithography.