Monthly Archives: August 2022

5 Unique Features of Engineered Wood Floors

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Choosing the best flooring for your dream home is not an easy task. There are a wide variety of flooring options available in the market, and it is sometimes frustrating to select the right type of flooring. Engineered wood flooring is a cost-effective and eco-friendly flooring option to add a touch of elegance to your new home. Read more about the unique features of engineered wood flooring below:

1. Engineered wood is eco-friendly

With increasing focus on green lifestyle, homeowners are looking for eco-friendly hard flooring to make their homes truly green and environmentally-friendly. The appearance of engineered wood flooring is almost the same as that of solid wood flooring but the manufacturing processes are quite different.

Engineered wood flooring is made up of a thin veneer on top of a less-expensive plywood. This distinctive style of manufacturing not only helps in conservation of natural wood, but also makes the flooring both cheaper and stronger. A new industry trend is to replace plywood with recycled wood fiber mixed with stone dust which provides additional dimensional stability.

2. Ease in installation

Engineered wood flooring offers installation advantage as it is easier and cost-effective to install than traditional hardwood floors. The wide range of engineered wood floor installation methods include stapling or nailing, fold-and-lock, or glue. The ease in installation makes it ideal for both DIY and professional installation.

Engineered wood floors are milled with tongue and groove (T&G) construction in which the planks are fitted together, like puzzle pieces, with each row held down by the row next to it. Tongue and groove milling allow the floors to be stapled or nailed down, glued, and sometimes floated. The versatility of engineered wood can be gauged from the fact that it can be directly installed over a concrete subfloor or on top of old hardwood floors.

3. Better resistance to moisture

Engineered wood is more capable of fighting moisture than conventional wood floors, primarily due to its dimensional stability which prevents warps and other deformities when it comes into contact with water. The relatively stable structure of engineered wood is provided by the cross-wise layers of plywood fibers which is in contrast to parallel fibers of hardwood.

The moisture-resistant nature of engineered floors makes it well-suited for moisture-prone areas like bathrooms and basements. The ability to withstand moisture means engineered wood is more durable than conventional hardwood floors.

4. More resistant to temperature changes

Compared to traditional hardwood floors, engineered wood floors have better capabilities to resist temperature changes. The multiple-ply plank design facilitates its expansion without compromising on its structural strength and stability.

The hardwood and plywood layers are bonded together under heat and pressure which negates the natural tendency of hardwoods to expand, contract, warp, or cup when exposed to temperature changes in certain areas, like utility rooms.

5. Amazing range of styles, grades and finishes

Engineered wood floors can adapt to your lifestyle as well as your budget. It is available in a wide array of styles, like oak and maple, and diverse range of multiple finishes including matte, semi-gloss, and high-gloss. You have the option to go for cost-efficient tough, lacquered floor or to choose the top-quality oiled version. You also have the liberty to choose a rustic or a time worn appearance, depending on your preferences.

Conclusion

Engineered wood floors is a cost-efficient, durable, versatile and eco-friendly alternative to traditional flooring options, like hardwood, laminate and parquet flooring. Its ability to withstand moisture and temperature changes makes it well-suited for all kinds of residential and commercial buildings.

The easy installation and hassle-free maintenance of engineered wood flooring makes it attractive for an amateur DIY buff as well as for a professional interior decorator. To sum up, engineered wood floors are a logical and green alternative to provide elegance and creativity to your new home.

The Big Question: Why are Electric Cars the More Sustainable Choice?

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By now, everyone living in the UK should be aware that by the end of 2030, non-electric passenger cars and light commercial vehicles will no longer be sold, imported, or manufactured in the country. Even though the plan seemed quite ambitious at the time of its announcement in 2020, recent stats tell us a different story altogether.

Why Electric Cars are the More Sustainable Choice

Excellent Sales Numbers Indicate Willingness to Welcome the Shift to EVs

According to data revealed by the UK Transport Department, the electric vehicle (EV) industry generated 173.5% more revenue during Q3, 2021, as compared to Q3, 2020. By the end of 2021, not only did the EV sector manage to sell the number of cars they needed in order to meet the necessary adoption curve, but they also exceeded their annual target by 60,000+ more electric vehicle sales.

Also Read: EV Uptake in Australia

These stats and figures more clearly indicate that people in the UK are both aware and willing to take the road needed for creating a more sustainable future for everyone. That being said, not everyone is ready or willing to support a shift to EVs yet. There are several social, economic, and political factors behind their unwillingness to adopt an electric car. Some of those causes are very real hurdles that the government hopes to overcome in the coming years.

Alongside other serious obstacles in the path of incomplete understanding of an EV’s benefits is a core problem that must be addressed. We are often informed that an electric vehicle is the more sustainable choice, but that statement is seldom explained properly. Whether you already own an electric vehicle or not, this post will help you understand why and how EVs are indeed the better choice for a cleaner, sustainable future.

Preparing for a Future without Fossil Fuels

More recently, the European Union (EU) has also declared its plans to slowly phase out fossil fuel vehicles by 2035. While we don’t yet have details regarding how they plan to go about it, it’s another step in the right direction. Despite the tremendous effort and investment it will take to create and maintain an automotive industry that’s not primarily reliant on fossil fuels, relevant governing authorities are still planning to go through with it. If successful, the entire movement will be tantamount to ushering in a new industrial revolution.

However, when multiple world governments decide in favour of reducing their dependence on non-renewable energy sources, the deeper implications are there for us to ascertain. People were running out of coal and petroleum from the very first day they started using it, but that time was still set in a very distant, vague future. As a result of globalisation, overpopulation, and over industrialisation, our energy consumption needs have increased beyond all previous estimations. Furthermore, that need continues to grow unchecked in several parts of the world. Consequently, we are now dangerously close to putting a date on a dystopian future!

It would take decades to build a reliable, new infrastructure that can effectively replace/reduce the need to rely on fossil fuels for an entire demographic. When the world finally runs out of easily accessible sources of fossil fuel, a well-developed alternative fuel industry must be present to keep us from reverting to the dark ages. Therefore, preparations to move away from non-renewable fuel sources must start now.

In conclusion, it can be said without a doubt that electric cars are the more sustainable and practical choice because that choice helps in building an infrastructure capable of surviving a future without easy access to petroleum. If we focus on the fact that running out of fossil fuels is an inevitability and not just a possibility, the current push towards adopting EVs begins to make a lot more sense.

That shift does not have to be difficult for anyone in the UK, although it may seem like a confusing change to many. Visit ElectriX to learn everything you need to learn about electric vehicles and find a good lease on your favourite model. They will even help you find cost-efficient insurance policies for your new EV. Leasing electric cars is the smarter choice right now because between now and 2030, EVs will improve exponentially with each passing year. A lease makes it much easier and more economic to shift to a newer, better, and more energy-efficient model, every time you need to.

electric-mobility-vacuum-technology

 

Decreased Contribution to Air Pollution

In 2020, the Covid-19 lockdowns reduced vehicle usage across the world. Just a few weeks of decreasing traffic saw nitrogenous air pollutants plummet down to unforeseen percentages in the UK, Italy, China, India, and pretty much the entire world. It was confirmed by NASA in 2021 that the earth’s ozone layer also started to repair itself during those same periods. Given that the ozone layer protects us from extremely dangerous and highly carcinogenic cosmic and solar radiation, that was a startling discovery for the scientific community. Despite the core reason behind the environmental improvements being a very undesirable and unfortunate one, these events did manage to reveal some undeniable facts in plain sight.

It seems that just a few weeks of reduced traffic can lead to massive improvements in air quality, climatic conditions, and even ozone repletion. Therefore, we can only imagine how positive it would be for the environment if we shifted permanently to electric vehicles. Over time, even the infamous London smog can be eliminated if the majority of all vehicles running on its streets did not emit toxic fumes anymore. It should also be noted that regular exposure to urban smog is officially documented by the European Environment Agency (EEA) as a confirmed reason for killing over 400,000 people in Europe every year.

advantages of electric cars

One may argue that electric cars have electric batteries, and they will contribute to the growing problem of dumping electronic junk in the future. It’s also true that electric cars are not completely emission-free either. In other words, EVs contribute to environmental pollution as well. This is, in fact, one of the chief arguments against adopting electric cars. However, that argument is not as valid as it may seem initially. The fact is that transportation across all formats is essential, and it cannot be stopped.

Therefore, the choice is about how we decide to power our vehicles and not whether we should be using vehicles. This leads us to an obvious comparison of available choices. Despite EVs also being responsible for harming the environment to some extent, that harm is almost negligible compared to the negative environmental effects of any vehicle running on fossil fuel.

Furthermore, we are close to reaching the peak of efficiency with combustion engines. This means that there’s not much that science can do at this point to make a traditional car engine more efficient than it is right now. On the other hand, we have only scratched the surface of what we can really do with electric car motors. In just a few years, electric vehicles will have more efficient, yet powerful electric engines, which will pollute even less than they do now. In other words, the electric vehicle is not just an eco-friendlier choice, but it is also our next step in automotive evolution.

Couples Therapy: A Therapeutic Tool To Rebuild Relationships

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Conflicts occur in almost all relationships since it is very difficult for two different people to view the same thing from the same perspective. If handled properly, divergent views can bring partners together; however, they may drift away if relationship conflicts are not resolved amicably in the early stages. The steep rise in relationship breakdowns has led people to search for therapeutic solutions and couples therapy is playing a key role in saving marriages and conflict resolutions. Read on to know more about couples therapy and its benefits in mending relationships:

marriage-therapy

What is Couples Therapy?

Couples therapy, sometimes also known as marriage counselling, is a kind of psychotherapy in which a relationship therapist makes use of therapeutic tools to assist partners analyse their relationship, identify and resolve conflict and improve relationship efficacy.

The main areas of disagreements between partners include distancing, Internet addiction, in-laws, infertility, jealousy, controlling behavior, money fights, parenting, chronic health issues, abuse, and sex-related difficulties.  For example, some couples, after years of marriage, avoid each other and coexist as roommates after years but couples therapy can reignite the relationship.

What does a marriage therapist do? The marriage therapist talks to both the partners, identifies the key relationship problems and devise a plan to solve those problems. It is to be noted that therapist’s goal is not to resolve the issues but to devise a communication method for partners to solve mutual disagreements during and after therapy. It is also very important for the relationship therapist to develop trust with each partner without alienating the other.

The therapist focuses on a particular issue and actively participates in resolving the conflict through a solution-focused and change-oriented approach.  Needless to say, both the partners must participate in couples therapy actively.

Couples usually go for marriage therapy only when the chill in their relationship has reached dangerous proportions. It is advisable to go for marriage therapy in early stages of the relationship, as it is more challenging, time-intensive and more difficult for long-term partners to come to a mutual understanding on contentious issues lingering for years and years. Infact, resentful feelings are difficult to be reversed if they continue for a long period of time.

Steps Involved in Couples Therapy

Therapy can help in healing relationships. Some people need only a few sessions while others require months to resolve the conflicts. Here are the key steps involved in couples therapy:

Step 1: Collect Basic Information

It involved asking standard interview questions regarding the relationship history, family history of each partner, employment, cultural background, prior counselling experience and chronic health issues. This step is important for the couple to become comfortable with the therapist.

Step 2: Goal Setting

Since this counselling is a joint venture meant to understand the relationship, the therapist assists the couple in identifying the issue(s) that will be the focus of treatment, establishing treatment goals and devising the treatment plan.

Step 3: Treatment

The therapist helps the partners to get a better understanding into the dynamics of the relationship conflict, and their respective roles in conflict resolution, thus helping them to change the way they perceive the relationship and each other. Since behavioral change is a crucial aspect of couples therapy, the therapist often assigns homework to each partner to apply the skills learned in therapy to their day-to-day interactions.

Step 4: Goal realization

The ultimate goal of couples therapy is to help partners get insights into relationship issues, develop a conscious relationship, increase emotional expression and develop the skills required to communicate, brainstorm and problem-solve with each other more effectively and amicably.

Conclusion

Couples therapy is an effective tool to restore broken relationships. It helps partners to understand each other and their relationship as a couple, besides developing essential relationship skills, such as trust, patience, forgiveness, communication, selflessness and stress management.

Why You Should Install Solar Panels on Your Property

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Many people are now realizing the importance of using solar energy. Remember that solar energy has now become more common in renewable energy. Most homeowners are installing solar panels on their roofs so that they can benefit from solar energy. Both business owners and homeowners can take advantage of solar energy. Besides the obvious financial benefits, there are also various good reasons why it makes sense to use solar energy rather than fossil fuels. This post explains why you should install solar panels on your property.

beginners guide to renewable energy

Reduce energy bills

Regardless of where you live, there is always enough amount of sun that can power your home at net zero energy consumption. You can generate a lot more solar energy on warm spring days. Even better, on hot summer days, you can generate solar energy that can be enough to run your air conditioning system.

Even if you live in an area that is usually cloudy, you can still receive a couple of hours of sunlight each day. On the other hand, sunny areas can get at least 5.5 hours of sunlight each day. While sunny days can help to generate more solar energy, solar panels can keep on getting energy from the sun when it’s cloudy. Diffused or indirect sunlight can still assist to power your building. It’s worth mentioning that cloudy days can generate between 10 and 20 percent of the energy produced on sunny days. If you decide to install solar panels, you can visit 4 Solar Estimates for help.

You can start saving right away

You can spend a lot of money on your energy bills. Solar energy can lower or even eliminate these energy costs once you install the solar panels. Besides, they also give you long-term savings because it’s free to get power from the sun.

Also, solar panels can significantly increase the resale value of your property. Most home buyers understand the importance of having solar panels, especially when they don’t need to make any investment and installation. Solar panels can also extend the lifespan of your roof because they tend to protect it from the elements like snow, debris, and rain. Above all, they can make your home more energy-efficient during the summer since the sun doesn’t hit directly on your roof. Instead, the solar panels absorb the sun to keep your home’s temperature lower.

pros and cons of solar PV

Help the environment

Solar panels can get pure and clean energy from the sum. Therefore, you need to install panels so that your home can help fight greenhouse gas emissions and lower your dependence on fossil fuels. Electricity is usually produced from fossil fuels like natural gas and coal. When they burn fossil fuels to generate electricity, they produce harmful gasses that are the leading cause of air pollution.

Fossil fuels are not good for the environment, and they are also finite resources. Renewable energy can improve your health. On the other hand, natural gas and coal plants lead to water and air pollution that can harm you. Hence, you need to replace fossil fuels with solar energy.

Also Read: REC Solar Panels for Sustainable Home Energy

Waste Minimisation – Role of Public, Private and Community Sector

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When it comes to waste minimisation and moving material up the waste hierarchy you will find partisan advocates for the roles of the public, private and community sectors. Each will tell you the reasons why their sector’s approach is the best. The private sector will extol their virtues as the only ones capable of efficiently and effectively doing the job.  They rightly note that they are the providers on the front lines who actually recover the vast majority of material, that the private sector approach drives innovation and efficiency, and that if waste minimisation is to be sustainable this must include economic sustainability.

 

The community sector on the other hand will make a strong case to say that their model, because it commonly encompasses social, environmental, and economic outcomes, is able to leverage value from recovered materials to dig deeper into the waste stream, to optimise recovered material quality, and to maximise employment and local economic benefit.

Before recycling and composting were economically viable prospects, community sector organisations led the way, developing many of the techniques now widely used. They remain the leaders in marginal areas such as furniture reuse, running projects that deliver environmental outcomes while providing wider community benefits such as rehabilitation and training for marginalised groups.

Finally, in the public sector corner, advocates will point out that the profit-driven private sector will only ever recover those materials that are able to generate positive revenues, and so cannot maximise waste minimisation, while social outcomes are strictly a secondary consideration. The community sector, on the other hand, while encompassing non-monetary values and capable of effective action on a local scale, is not set up to deliver these benefits on a larger scale and can sometimes struggle to deliver consistent, professional levels of service.

The public sector can point to government’s role in legislating to promote consistent environmental and social outcomes, while councils are major providers and commissioners of recycling services and instrumental in shaping public perceptions around waste issues. The public sector often leads in directing activity towards non-monetary but otherwise valuable outcomes, and provides the framework and funding for equity of service levels.

So who is right? Each sector has good arguments in its favour, and each has its weaknesses. Does one approach carry the day?  Should we just mix and match according to our personal taste or based on what is convenient?

Perhaps we are asking the wrong question. Maybe the issue is not “which approach is better?” but instead “how might the different models help us get to where we ultimately want to go?”

Smells Like Waste Minimisation

So where do we want to go?  What is the waste minimisation end game?

If we think about things from a zero waste perspective, the ideal is that we should move from linear processes of extraction, processing, consumption and disposal, to cyclical processes that mimic nature and that re-integrate materials into economic and natural systems.  This is the nirvana – where nothing is ‘thrown away’ because everything has a further beneficial use.  In other words what we have is not waste but resources.  Or to put it another way – everything has value.

Assuming that we continue to operate in an essentially capitalist system, value has to be translated into economic terms.  Imagine if every single thing that we now discard was worth enough money to motivate its recovery.  We would throw nothing away: why would we if there was money to be made from it?

So in a zero waste nirvana the private sector and the community sector would take care of recovery almost automatically.  There might evolve a community and private sector mix, with each occupying different niches depending on desired local outcomes. There would be no need for the public sector to intervene to promote waste minimisation.  All it would need to do would be to set some ground rules and monitor the industry to ensure a level playing field and appropriate health and safety.

Sectoral Healing

Returning to reality, we are a long way from that zero waste nirvana.  As things stand, a bunch of materials do have economic value, and are widely recycled. Another layer of materials have marginal value, and the remainder have no value in practical terms (or even a negative value in the case of hazardous wastes).

The suggested shift in perspective is most obvious in terms of how we think about the role of the public sector. To bring us closer to our goal, the public sector needs to intervene in the market to support those materials of marginal value so that they join the group that has genuine value.

Kerbside (or curbside) collection of certain materials, such as glass and lower value plastics, is an example of an activity that is in effect subsidised by public money. These subsidies enable the private sector to achieve environmental outcomes that we deem sufficiently worthwhile to fund.

However, the public sector should not just be plugging a gap in the market (as it largely does now), but be working towards largely doing itself out of a job. If we are to progress towards a cyclical economy, the role of the public sector should not be to subsidise marginal materials in perpetuity, but to progressively move them from marginal to genuinely economic, so that they no longer require support.

At the same time new materials would be progressively targeted and brought through so that the range and quantity requiring disposal constantly shrinks.  This suggests a vital role for the public sector that encompasses research, funding for development of new technologies and processes, and setting appropriate policy and price structures (such as through taxes, levies, or product stewardship programmes).

Similarly, the community sector, because it is able to ‘dig deeper’ into the waste stream, has a unique and ongoing role to play in terms of being able to more effectively address those materials of marginal value as they begin to move up the hierarchy.  The community sector’s unique value is its ability to work at the frontiers.

Meanwhile, the private sector’s resources and creativity will be needed to enable efficient systems to be developed to manage collection, processing and recycling of materials that reach the threshold of economic viability – and to create new, more sustainable products that fit more readily into a waste minimising world.

In the end, then, perhaps the answer is to stop seeing the three models as being in competition. Instead, we should consciously be utilising the unique characteristics of each so that we can evolve our practices towards a future that is more functional and capable of delivering the circular economy that must eventuate if we are to sustain ourselves on this planet.

Note: The article is being republished with the kind permission of our collaborative partner Isonomia. The original article can be viewed at this link

Waste Management in Olive Oil Industry

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The olive oil industry offers valuable opportunities to farmers in terms of seasonal employment as well as significant employment to the off-farm milling and processing industry.  While this industry has significant economic benefits in regards to profit and jobs; the downside is it leads to severe environmental harm and degradation. In 2012, an estimated 2,903,676 tons of olive oil was produced worldwide, the largest olive oil producers being Spain, Italy, and Greece followed by Turkey and Tunisia and to a lesser extent Portugal, Morocco and Algeria. Within the European Union’s olive sector alone, there are roughly 2.5 million producers, who make up roughly one-third of all EU farmers.

olive-oil-wastes

Types of Wastes

Currently, there are two processes that are used for the extraction of olive oil, the three-phase and the two-phase. Both systems generate large amounts of byproducts.  The two byproducts  produced by the three-phase system are a solid residue known as olive press cake (OPC) and large amounts of aqueous liquid known as olive-mill wastewater (OMW).  The three-phase process usually yields 20% olive oil, 30% OPC waste, and 50% OMW.  This equates to 80% more waste being produced than actual product.

Regardless of system used, the effluents produced from olive oil production exhibit highly phytotoxic and antimicrobial properties, mainly due to phenols.  Phenols are a poisonous caustic crystalline compound.  These effluents unless disposed of properly can result in serious environmental damage.  There is no general policy for waste management in the olive oil producing nations around the world.  This results in inconsistent monitoring and non-uniform application of guidelines across these regions.

State of Affairs

Around 30 million m3 of olive mill wastewater is produced annually in the Mediterranean area.  This wastewater cannot be sent to ordinary wastewater treatment systems, thus, safe disposal of this waste is of serious environmental concern.  Moreover, due to its complex compounds, olive processing waste (OPW) is not easily biodegradable and needs to be detoxified before it can properly be used in agricultural and other industrial processes.

This poses a serious problem when the sophisticated treatment and detoxification solutions needed are too expensive for developing countries in North Africa, such as Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, where it is common for OMW to be dumped into rivers and lakes or used for farming irrigation.  This results in the contamination of ground water and eutrophication of lakes, rivers and canals.  Eutrophication results in reductions in aquatic plants, fish and other animal populations as it promotes excessive growth of algae. As the algae die and decompose, high levels of organic matter and the decomposing organisms deplete the water of oxygen, causing aquatic populations to plummet.

Another common tactic for disposal of olive mill wastewater is to collect and retain it in large evaporation basins or ponds.  It is then dried to a semi-solid fraction. In less developed countries where olive processing wastes is disposed of, this waste, as well as olive processing cake and SOR waste is commonly unloaded and spread across the surrounding lands where it sits building up throughout the olive oil production season.  Over time these toxic compounds accumulate in the soil, saturating it, and are often transported by rain water to other nearby areas, causing serious hazardous runoff. Because these effluents are generally untreated it leads to land degradation, soil contamination as well as contamination of groundwater and of the water table itself.

Even a small quantity of olive wastewater in contact with groundwater has the potential to cause significant pollution to drinking water sources. The problem is more serious where chlorine is used to disinfect drinking water. Chlorine in contact with phenol reacts to form chlorophenol which is even more dangerous to human health than phenol alone.

Remedial Measures

The problems associated with olive processing wastes have been extensively studied for the past 50 years.  Unfortunately, research has continued to fall short on discovering a technologically feasible, economically viable, and socially acceptable solution to OPW.  The most common solutions to date have been strategies of detoxification, production system modification, and recycling and recovery of valuable components.  Because the latter results in reductions in the pollution and transformation of OPW into valuable products, it has gained popularity over the past decade. Weed control is a common example of reusing OPW; due to its plant inhibiting characteristics OPW once properly treated can be used as an alternative to chemical weed control.

Research has also been done on using the semisolid waste generated from olive oil production to absorb oil from hazardous oil spills.  Finally, in terms of health, studies are suggesting that due to OPW containing high amounts of phenolic compounds, which have high in antioxidant rates, OPW may be an affordable source of natural antioxidants. Still, none of these techniques on an individual basis solve the problem of disposal of OMW to a complete and exhaustive extent.

At the present state of olive mill wastewater treatment technology, industry has shown little interest in supporting any traditional process (physical, chemical, thermal or biological) on a wide scale.This is because of the high investment and operational costs, the short duration of the production period (3-5 months) and the small size of the olive mills.

Conclusion

Overall, the problems associated with olive processing wastes are further exemplified by lack of common policy among the olive oil producing regions, funding and infrastructure for proper treatment and disposal, and a general lack of education on the environmental and health effects caused by olive processing wastes.

While some progress has been made with regards to methods of treatment and detoxification of OPW there is still significant scope for further research.  Given the severity of environmental impact of olive processing wastes, it is imperative on policy-makers and industry leaders to undertake more concrete initiatives to develop a sustainable framework to tackle the problem of olive oil waste disposal.