E-Waste

The technology have improved very quick in last ten years. Many electric devices, for example mobile phone, computer or the tablet, update every week and every months. However, what can we do for our old electric derive?

First, there are many trade-in scheme in the retail store. The retail store will according to your trade in value to have a discount for purchasing the New phone. The main idea of this scheme is that the store can reuse the useful parts of those deceive. This method is  good because it is "Win-Win" situation. The purchaser can enjoy the discount of the phone and the store can get the useful parts.
 

The above is the trade-in cell phone scheme of T-moblie in US

There are also another ways to recycle the e-waste. In Sydney, the City of Sydney have collected all the e-waste in Villwood. They try to break down the device and get the useful material. They also have a list to tell the the people which items can be recycle.

The above is the items that can be recycled

Reference:
http://www.t-mobile.com/cell-phone-trade-in.html
http://www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/live/waste-and-recycling/e-waste-and-chemicals/e-waste

Smart City - Smart phone

When we talking about smart city, the most important point is thinking about how to make the life become better by using the Information and communication technology. The city, including all the asset and facilities, for example public transport, road or some the water supply etc, will improved by developing the cities and provide better quality to the residents.

One of the key factors that i think it improve the cities quality and interactive of the community is because the smart phone. In recent year, due to the improvement of the smart phone, the mobile application become more poplar than better. In 2015, there are over 1,600,000 app in google app store. It become part of life. In those app, most of them can get the information easily. For example, the NSW public transport have the "Real-time" Road apps, which can tell the user the situation of the road so that the road user can schedule their plan better.
 
Smart phone and the develop of the internet can help us to get the information faster than before. We can have the better reaction and more effective life.


Reference,
http://www.statista.com/statistics/276623/number-of-apps-available-in-leading-app-stores/

http://www.rms.nsw.gov.au/roads/using-roads/trip-information/real-time-road-apps.html

Green Belt Area and the Development

In most of the city, there are set some land for the green belt area to let the citizen to have a place to hiking or camping this area. Most of this is near the urban area. The other advantage is the natural area and the eco-system can be protected and the air quality will be improved within the urban area. It shows that the green belt area is important for the cities.

Green Belt area close the uran area          Source: The telegraph

However, in between Development and the green belt, what should we choose? Due to some cities, for example London, Hong Kong, are facing the problem of housing crisis. The demand of the house keep increasing and not enough land supply to build the new apartment. Therefore, someone suggest to use part of the green belt area to build the apartment.

Take Hong Kong for an example. The land supply is not enough in Hong Kong because the flat land is not enough to build the new apartment. The Hong Kong Government was change 57 hectares’ land to build the residential development. It will provide around 80,000 residential flats.

Above pic shown the heat is on Hong Kong urban climatic                                                   Source: SCMP

According to the press release of the Hong Kong government, using the green belt for developing residential development have big economic benefit. Due to the green belt area was removed. The heat island effect will become more and more serious. There is nick name in Hong Kong called “Cement Forest” because there is not enough green plant inside of the urban. It will cause the city become hotter and the energy consumption become more for the ventilation or air-con

The urban development and the green belt area should be balance. Not just focus on the economic issues, but also need to balance the health development of city.

Reference and Photo Source:

Wong, 2015. Hong Kong government housing plans may intensify 'heat island' effect, warns academic, SCMP, Jan 23,

Available at <http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1689474/hong-kong-government-housing-plans-may-intensify-heat-island-effect?page=all> Accessed: March 13, 2016].

Hk Gov, 2014. LCQ12: Proposal of rezoning a "Green Belt" site in Tai Wo Ping. Available at: <http://www.info.gov.hk/gia/general/201503/18/P201503180432.htm> [Accessed: March 13, 2016].

Skyscraper and Sustainable city

There is a hot topic in property market in this few days – there are ninety floor residential building will be built in Parramatta, which is the tallest building in western part of Sydney. This type of Skyscraper is one type of the symbols of well developed city, for example the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. This type of tower is good to shown the successful in economic and in some extent can solve the problem of housing problem. However, in the view of energy saving, skyscraper is not good for the sustainable city.

The 90-storey tower at Parramatta. (Supplied: Parramatta City Council)    

 First of all, the taller building means high energy consumption. According to Halbur (2011) shows that, the high speed and the bigger elevators is needed for the taller building. This type of elevators needs more energy consumption and it will use around 10-15% more than the normal in super tall building. Not just the elevators, some electric deceive in common areas is also needed to turn on in long time. It is not good for energy saving.

       

        Then the construction method and material is also a big concern abut the skyscraper. In building this type of skyscraper. For example, the most expensive skycrapers in the world is the One World Trade Centre in New York city in US. It cost around US$3.9 billion built in 2014. The reason is that the tallest building require more safety material to make sure the base of the building can support the whole building. Beside, most of the facades of the building are using full height glass panel.

In day time, the sunshine will make the building inside high temperature therefore, there are more air conditioner is request for this kind of building.

Skyscraper maybe the symbol of a developed city, however in long term this type of building can not be the sustainable city sue to the energy consumption is too high to maintain. Apart from this, there are still have many other problems for the skyscraper, for example, it may increase the risk of the high island effect.

Reference and Photo Source:

Tim Halbur, Negrete & Fortin, 2011. Skyscrapers and the World of Tomorrow. Available at: <http://www.planetizen.com/node/51164> [Accessed: March 13, 2016].

Emirates247, 2015. High-cost high-rises: World's 10 most expensive skyscrapers. Available at: <http://www.emirates247.com/property/high-cost-high-rises-world-s-10-most-expensive-skyscrapers-2015-01-03-1.575250> [Accessed: March 13, 2016].

 Abc News, 2016. Design for Sydney's tallest residential tower released. Available at: <http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-03-09/design-chosen-for-the-largest-residential-tower-in-nsw/7233954> [Accessed: March 13, 2016].