The Eco Timber Project | Aotearoa / New Zealand

Takaka, Golden Bay—November 30, 2005—If you ask discerning users what bothers them most about swimming pools and spas, they reply, “Whether they’re clean” and “The chlorine really gets me after a while.”

If you ask discerning pool and spa owners what bothers them most, they tell you about endless maintenance and how much it costs, and how much the chemicals worry them. “The storage, the mixing—chlorine’s so toxic—and the pool’s still not really clean.”

We’ve all had long, hot, summers with red pool eyes, and remember the kids with the green-tinged straw-like hair. Let’s face it, the traditional Kiwi pool is, at its best, blue and sparkly, but doesn’t taste or smell too good; at its worst it’s decidedly green and has a complement of resident wildlife.
Official New Zealand standards exist for swimming pools, but the latest fail to offer a comprehensive comparative study of alternatives to chlorine treatment, and don’t point out that non-chemical technologies can produce better results than conventional chlorine. Nor do New Zealand standards acknowledge chlorine’s limited ability to break down pathogens in the biofilm (or bio slime) that builds up in filtration piping.

Public pool operators in New Zealand are required to maintain levels of chlorine more than four times higher than EU regulations allow. Maximum upper levels were not given in the latest standards. With no upper restriction, NZ pools may reach or exceed levels of 10ppm, considered to be a state of super-chlorination.

More vitally, these standards also completely ignore the THMs (trihalomethanes) produced when chlorinated water bonds with organic matter. Colin Ingram, author of The Drinking Water Book, explains, “…. There is no question that chlorine creates toxicity when it bonds with some of the organic chemicals ever present in water. It forms THMs (trihalomethanes), which are known to be carcinogenic.”

Our children may be swimming in these conditions every time they use a pool.
In recent years some owners and users have made a shift to salt-based pools and ionisation, with varied results. Ionisation attacks bio slime very effectively, but some ionisers are more effective than others.

There is a real place for a genuine and uncomplicated alternative to chlorine—one that offers the best modern technology based upon price, performance, power consumption and ongoing costs, and one that considers users’ health and the wider environment.

EcoSmarte offers highly effective, trouble-free non-chlorinated technology for purifying pool water. EcoSmarte’s stand-alone chemical-free process combines solid-state technology to sanitise pool water, and using little energy. This state-of-the-art technology was originally developed by NASA for astronauts, and combines processes which deal with 1) biological control, 2) oxidation of organics and 3) removal of unwanted particles. These systems consist of a copper-ioniser, a titanium-based oxidizer, and proper filtration. Whereas most pools filters are undersized and overpowered, the EcoSmarte system is robust enough to work with standard sand-filters and improved glass-based filters.

Changing from a chlorine-based system to an EcoSmarte system is simple. Acid is added to the pool to lower its pH. An average-sized pool will also need 20 to 25kg of calcium chloride, which allows electrically charged copper and oxygen to be dispersed throughout the pool via a low amperage 12-volt control box. Once the calcium chloride has been added, the pool can be tested using a standard EcoSmarte test kit for pH and copper on a weekly or bi-weekly basis, and only occasionally for calcium.

More remarkably, EcoSmarte technology is now used in not only the pool and the spa, but in houses, bore and town water supplies, cooling towers, and commercial and horticultural applications such as vineyards and golf course irrigation.

Brad Harwood Heising and his partner Jocelyn Kemp converted to an EcoSmarte system and have enjoyed a chlorine-free, trouble-free pool for the past six months. “We were so impressed with our new EcoSmarte technology that I became the NZ master distributor for EcoSmarte products in New Zealand,” said Brad. “I haven’t checked my pool more than three times during the past three months this winter because it has remained crystal clear which indicates that the water is in balance.”
Brad now operates as Water Care Naturally, a company dedicated to helping people find solutions to protect the quality of their water. If you are ready to consider chlorine alternatives, convert your pool or spa, or find out more, then contact Brad at info@watercarenaturally.co.nz or on (03) 525 8055 or visit the Water Care Naturally site at www.watercarenaturally.co.nz and make your move toward cleaner, kinder water.

Contact

Brad Heising, Water Care Naturally
Phone (03) 525 8055 • Mobile 021 051 3860
Email info@watercarenaturally.co.nz • Website www.watercarenaturally.co.nz

Source: Waikato Times | 16 January 2006

Councils charging hundreds of dollars for building consents for solar water heating are acting against the industry, says a trade boss.

Slow take-up of the energy-saving systems – which can slash electricity bills by 30 per cent using the sun’s free energy – is blamed on hefty costs to consumers of between $3000 to $7500.

About $500 of this can be fees to local authorities.

Councils are obliged under the Building Act to require building consents but set their own fees.

At the top end Thames-Coromandel District Council charges upwards of $490 – topping the $300 subsidy offered by the Energy Efficiency Conservation Authority toward installation.

This is made up of a minimum of $350 for council administrators to check plans, $50 for a code of compliance certificate and $90 for each building inspection.

Solar Industries Association executive officer Brian Cox said fee levels were a “great concern” and blamed the problem partially on councils being fearful of making mistakes in the wake of the leaky building crisis.

The association was giving councils and the Building Officers Institute information about different solar water systems in a bid to cut processing time and costs.

He said less complicated systems could be treated as minor plumbing alterations, which did not require building consents.

“Pump circulated” systems – which did not require the installation of new water storage cylinders in the roof –- should be able to be checked off by accredited suppliers instead of requiring a building inspection.

Thames-Coromandel council spokesman Peter Hazael said fees were set high enough to cover the cost of staff travelling across a large area. The district had high growth and fees helped pay for extra staff to administer new developments.

There was no policy to reduce charges to encourage solar water heating, and the council ran a “user pays” system that left individuals bearing the cost of how they heated their homes.

Since 2001 annual sales of solar water units have increased from about 850 a year to 2700 –- but are far behind the association’s target of 10,000 units a year.

Energy officials are investigating a Green Party proposal to more than double this target to 125,000 units over five years by bulk-buying to reduce the cost to consumers.

Government energy efficiency spokeswoman Jeanette Fitzsimons said she received more letters on solar water heating than any other issue – with people wanting to install it but finding the price too high.

Savings would keep going up as electricity companies increased power prices, she said.

The following article was recently published in New Zealand newspapers. With all the chemicals and treatments already being applied to timber, this raises the question of how toxic these aromas will be in order for them to withstand “harsh climates, difficult transportation conditions and treatments such as sawing, varnishing and staining”.

Source: Stuff | 11 January 2006

New Zealand scientists have triggered research to tag felled trees with aromas, and use the smells to track the wood from the forest to its end use, whether as framing or furniture.

Robert Franich, of Scion, formerly New Zealand’s Forest Research institute, and Glen Murphy, a forest engineering professor at Oregon State University, have developed a $US8000 ($NZ11,700) prototype electronic “nose” that tracks the timber.

Prof Murphy tagged the wood with chemicals from the perfume industry, but his device has so far only been able to identify one scent at a time, the Seattle Times reported.

Five years from now, Prof Murphy hopes to be able to track 25 aromas in various combinations which would allow timber trackers to tag more than 33 million logs with a unique scent for each.

“Ideally, we want to track from standing tree to piece of wood on a desk,” he said. “That’s where we want to go. A smell is like a fingerprint.”

Such a system could allow the timber industry to certify that individual products come from woods managed in an environmentally-sound way, or make it harder to move pirated logs, reducing theft and illegal logging.

Or they could help the industry improve its marketing and management. Some foresters currently use metal staples or plastic tags that risk problems with pulp mill and sawmill machinery, of radio frequency tags, which are expensive.

“One of the challenges the forestry industry faces is being able to track products through the supply chain,” Prof Murphy said.

Some markets already used aroma tagging: food manufacturers relied on electronic noses to measure freshness, the medical and dental professions can use it to detect disease, and specific aromas released into a pipeline can help natural gas companies isolate leaks.

Each year 1.5 billion cubic metres of timber are harvested worldwide from up to 15 billion logs.

Prof Murphy said a truckload of about 50 logs can cost upward of $US2000, so timber manufacturers wanted to keep close tabs on their merchandise.

But to be effective, a wood sniffer system would have to be inexpensive and able to withstand harsh climates, difficult transportation conditions and treatments such as sawing, varnishing and staining.

Prof Murphy is looking for grant money from the US Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service, the Oregon Department of Forestry and private timber companies.