The Horse 2019/20

Showcase Carsharing

I took the topic carsharing and did some research about it. In my calculation I assumed, that two person can share one car. I calculated with the data of one VW Golf. To produce one VW Golf you need 22'000 kWh of energy. If you compare 10 people who do carsharing to 10 people who aren’t doing carsharing, you can see that we save 50% energy by doing carsharing. Of course not every person would be able to do carsharing, because he needs his car too much or he lives somewhere, where you can only get to by car. I assume that 60% of all the people which are having a car could also do carsharing. So in the real world we could save 30% energy by doing carsharing.

In the year 2019 67 Million cars where produced. If we do carsharing we would have produced 20 Million less cars. If we do the same calculation like we did before, we can see that we would save 440 billion kWh of energy. This is enought energy to supply switzerland for 7 years. As you can see carsharing could save a lot of energy.

Sources:              https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graue_Energie

Picture source pixabay.com

Audio: Audio-Showcase Carsharing.m4a (55.93 kb)

DOC: Showcase Carsharing.docx (23.17 kb)

Hello everyone,

we are ready to publish our project "game sharing" on dontwastemy.energy.

Kind regards,

Deia and Rezon

Game-sharing-Deia-Rezon.pdf (454.33 kb)
(uploaded by teacher)

Financing of environmental protection through income from cannabis legalization

Introduction

In recent years there has been a lot of discussions in politic and media about the legalization of cannabis. In some countries cannabis is already legal. For example in the Netherlands, Jamaica and some parts of the United States.  The plant is widely accepted as being indigenous to and originating from Central Asia. More...

Hello together

Our project is now ready to publish. When we receive the text from Elizabeth we can publish it on dontwastemy.energy.

Here you can find our part.

Best regards,

Shana & Rahel

More...

Food waste

In recent years there has been a lot of discussion in politic and media about food waste. Some countries have made laws to reduce food-waste. In France supermarkets aren’t allowed to waste food. They have to give it for free to homeless people before they waste the food. Germany has similar laws for food waste like France. Here in Switzerland we don’t have any laws for food waste in supermarkets. They are allowed to throw away what they want.

In Switzerland supermarkets are responsible for only 5 % of the all the food that gets wasted. Around 50 % of the food gets wasted at home. But the food that is wasted from supermarkets is most of the times good food, while private households waste the food when it’s not eatable anymore. So the food that is wasted in supermarkets gets wasted for no reason in most cases.

Interviews

We have made interviews with a owner of a little farmshop:

How much food do you waste?

Nearly nothing. Only products like eggs or milk are very tricky to store.

Which food get wasted the most by you?

Eggs, because they are the trickiest products and get bad very fast.

Why do you throw away the food?

Because otherwise you can get a food poisoning. This would be bad for our reputation and we can get sued.

Have you done arrangements against the food waste?

No, we dont do anything, because the demand is not planable. We look that we waste as less food as possible.

Would you eat food which is older then the “best before date”?

Yes, nearly in every case. In milk and meatproducts we look very carefully. Naturally we cant sell food which is over the best-before date, because it is not alloud.

Have you a bad conscience when you throw away good food?

No, because we only waste food which you cant consume anymore.

Do you attach importance to the spotlessness of an apple for example?

No, I dont tend to, because external flaw does not mean that the food is not good anymore.

If you have the choose between an older product and a fresh one which would you take? Both are eatable?

I would tend to fresh food, but I would never waste food, which is over the best-before date but edible. 

Do you have a solution against the food waste in supermarkets here in Switzerland and as well in other countries?

You can give the food for example to poor people.

Solutions for the food waste in supermarkets

There are many solutions for the problem. Supermarkets can give away the food which is over the best before date for free. This is also a possibility for poor citizens to spend less money. In this less food gets wasted and you help poor people. But there is also a downside with this method. If the supermarkets are forced to give the bad food away for free, nobody would buy any food, but wait until the food is over the best-before date and would get it for free then. We think this cant be the solution.

Another solution would be, that they have to give the bad food to welfare recipients for free. We think this would be a great idea, because the supermarkets can sell their food for the normal price in most of the times, but less food gets wasted. Also only poor people get the food for free.

Added comment from the writers:

Food waste has a huge effect on climate change. Food waste is responsible for 8 % of the Co2 balance sheet. In Switzerland supermarkets are responsible for 5 % of the food waste. So supermarkets are responsible for 0.4 % of the balance sheet. So the food waste in supermarkets is only a small problem in terms of climate change. The most food gets wasted at home. So we are responsible to reduce our food waste and make a little step into a sustainable world.

Dear colleagues, students and teacher

Last but not least the moment came and our project reached the final stage.

Please have a look into our finished project in the following word document.

Sustainable Packaging and the benefit for our environment.pdf (415,51 kb)

You will find this project also on dontwastemy.energy very soon!

Stay tuned and leave us some comments below!

Best regards

Claudia & Sharon

Dear Students and Teachers

In the attached word-document you can find our final document which is ready to publish on dont waste my energy.

Feel free to have a look and leave a feedback.

Green Walls final document.docx (2,00 mb)

Best regards

Anja, Manuela, Raffael

Summary Evaluation of the survey on the life cycle of a local product

Costumers are the important people for farmers as they buy their products, that is also why  it was important to obtain not only information from experts, but also opinions and views of the population on the subject "Growth of a local product". For this reason, we started a survey in which we wanted to find out the apple varieties known to the population and additional questions about the cultivation and process of production.

More...

Hello!

In my holidays, I did something that I never would have expected to do. For one whole week, I only ate non-animal food.

Usually, I eat at least one time a day meat and one snack a day which contains milk. So it was a very rough start. More...

In addition to the development of an apple, our project also aims to analyse the effects of apple production on the climate. For the necessary information we have contacted the agricultural school Strickhof in Lindau and have done research on the internet to supplement this.

Apple production has both positive and negative effects on the climate. Every production process has a negative impact on the climate, including the use of machinery, pesticides etc. in apple production. But with apple production a new plant grows, which takes the CO2 out of the atmosphere and produces oxygen from it. The change in the climate in apple production is mainly noticeable in the fact that weather extremes such as frost, hail etc. are increasing. Due to climate change, new investments had to be made in the area of weather protection for apple trees. Many plantations have to be irrigated (bewässert) by longer periods of drought. However, climate change is making it possible to grow thermophilic crops such as apricot trees in regions where this was previously not possible. The ecological footprint of an apple depends on the variety. Depending on how long an apple can be kept and which measures are taken to extend its shelf life (Haltbarkeit), more or less greenhouse gases are released. If a lot of effort is put into the shelf life (Haltbarkeit) of an apple, it is quite possible that an apple imported by ship from abroad will emit fewer greenhouse gases. In today's society, we want to have apples and other fruits on offer at any time. This also applies even if it is not in season. In order not to interrupt the supply of apples, we have to store and import apples. For a better ecological footprint, the supply of apples should be limited to the apple season in Switzerland. The production of apples is highly professional. Companies produce apples that meet the requirements of the trade and consumers. Changes would only be possible if the demands of the trade and consumers changed.

Stefanie Kunz, Simone Etter, Tamara Keller, TZ19, Wetzikon

Filming Day on the Farm - drone video

Some weeks ago we did an interview with the Farmer, Mr Keller. As pictures and videos bring closer looks into projects, we decided to go for it. A friend of mine flies drons and offered us new opportunities for the project.

On Thursday, 2nd January 2020 the day finally came, it was an incredibly cold afternoon, after two hours of filming, the feet were already frozen and of course the hands as well. We were really happy and lucky to get a cup of tea afterwards to defrost ourselves.

The filming was very interesting, the drone flew from here to there, back, and did some turns... absolutely flexible! Check our finale post on befter (coming soon) to watch the video.

Cheers,

Simone, Tamara, Stefanie