There’s more to recycling than steel cans and glass bottles.

AUTHOR and science journalist Tanya Ha often asks this question:  What do you do in you own home to help the environment?

“Recycling is the first thing people say,” she says. “We’ve been doing it and we’re proud of it. To some degree, it’s second nature.”

National Recycling Week starts tomorrow, coordinated by Planet Ark. There’ll be challenges, swaps and workshops in schools and council areas around the country, and “file flings” in offices to encourage paper recycling.

A recent study released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics reported that 98 percent of households recycle or reuse items around home.

That’s something to celebrate, Ms Ha says, but not something to be satisfied with. (Take aluminium cans: we recycle two out of every three; the Germans, 96 out of 100.)

“We’ve gone into autopilot on day-to-day recycling. We could improve, especially away from home, but generally we do it pretty well. But the ground is shifting under us. There’s a lot more we can do,” she says.

To coincide with Recycling Week, Ms Ha and Planet Ark have released a report called Second Nature, which tracks the past and present and speculates on the future of recycling in Australia.

“The waste we produce says so much about our society: what things we buy, what things we value and what we don’t,” she says.

Normal practices are always changing. In the nineteenth century, rag and bone collectors sold household rags to paper mills, and kitchen bones to makers of buttons, soap, glue and gelatine. Until the 1960s, glass drink bottles were all refillable.

Ms Ha says our reasons for recycling have also changed, from concern about sanitation in the eighteenth century, and the need for thrift during the war eras, to worries about landfill capacity in the ’60s and ’70s, when consumption and single-use packaging boomed.

“Now the pressing need is climate change,” she explains, “and the other motivation will be resource security.”

They’re big concerns. Ms Ha says we need a shift in mindset, away from a linear, “cradle-to-grave” approach, and into cyclical, “cradle-to-cradle” thinking.

Organic waste is the perfect illustration. In 2006-07, material such as food scraps, paper, cardboard, wood and garden clippings comprised nearly two-thirds of everything that went into landfill (PDF).

“In landfill conditions, it produces methane, which is a powerful greenhouse gas. But biodegradable waste is such a useful resource; we need to capture it and put it back into the soil,” she says.

The other challenge is e-waste, such as computers, televisions and batteries. Around Australia, there are 22 million disused mobile phones and accessories languishing in the dark.

Inside are precious resources: 1 tonne of obsolete mobile phones (not including their batteries) can yield 300 grams of gold, over 3 kilograms of silver, about 140 kilograms of copper, among other things.

Until the end of the year, MobileMuster, the industry-funded recycling program, is promoting a “memory muster”. Post or drop-off your old mobile and they’ll send you prints of your six favourite, forgotten photos.

Remember, however, that avoiding consumption is better than recycling the results. Do you really need that new phone, TV or gadget?

With the race on to reduce carbon emissions, Ms Ha says, just worrying about recycling “is like a swimmer just focussing on the tumble turns, not on the laps”.

Illustration by Robin Cowcher

Read this article at The Age online

Building it yourself can help you consume less and live more.

IN 2008, Richard Telford bought a small block of land in Seymour, an hour north of Melbourne.

He dismantled the run-down weatherboard bungalow, and carefully stored the materials for reuse. Over the course of a year, the former white-collar worker laboured full-time to build a new home for his young family.

This year, Abdallah House – named for its street – was a finalist in the Housing Industry Association’s GreenSmart Awards.

The 100–square metre, three-bedroom home is largely self-reliant in water and energy. With two toddlers, he and his partner Kunie Yoshimoto use about one-eighth the electricity of an average home.

Illustration by Robin Cowcher

“People have become detached from where and how they live,” Mr Telford says. “The owner-building process really connected us with what’s involved in a house – the effort to create it and the energy and water we consume. It’s like growing your own food: the more involved you are, the greater appreciation you have for the quality.”

It also gave him control over the way materials were used and re-used.

“In a typical house, several skips go to landfill. We threw almost nothing away. We used things that would be considered waste, and transformed them into something quite beautiful,” he says.

He didn’t do it alone. Mr Telford teamed up with Peter Lockyer, an architect and builder who makes a living helping owner-builders with the nuts and bolts of designing and constructing a dwelling.

The main environmental benefit of doing it yourself, Mr Lockyer says, comes down to size. “Their homes tend to be smaller. You assess your needs more clearly – you don’t build a separate theatre or extra living rooms you’ll never use.”

Over three decades, he’s worked on about 100 passive solar homes of this kind. He remains enthralled by the creativity that emerges when people, with no special skills or experience, work slowly and steadily on something they care about.

“I’m still excited by the hands-on process of people creating their own space,” he says. “Building can be fun. It’s an enriching part of life, not just a transaction to get a product. They’re creating more than a backdrop for a plasma screen.”

He offers a warning too: projects are more likely to take years than months, and that can be stressful for relationships. Also, many banks are cautious in offering loans to owner-builders.

His advice is to make sure you’ve got someone on your side – a registered builder – who can help you avoid the bumps. The Building Commission provides links to tips, training and a useful information kit (PDF), which details your obligations and the required applications.

For Mr Telford, becoming an owner-builder was about choosing a way of life. The land cost $54,000 and the budget for the new house was just $100,000. With the help of the generous government grants then available, the couple have already paid off their mortgage. They have an abundant food garden, very few costs, and a lot of freedom to decide how they’ll spend their time.

Before all this, Mr Telford worked in advertising. Now, he does his own publishing, including a permaculture calendar, and writes about Abdallah House on his blog. “I’m using those skills to promote things I believe in,” he explains.

“I wanted to show people that you can do it without getting in debt for the rest of your life.”

Read this article at The Age online

A new project proves what’s possible with local knowledge.

KENNY and Tammy live on Ballarat’s eastern edge. They cultivate a veggie patch, keep chickens, geese, quail and bees, and stay comfortable in their super-insulating straw bale home. If that weren’t enough, Kenny has designed and built an aquaponics system, which grows fish and veggies together.

They’ve got knowledge and experiences to share, but how?

The couple’s story is now part of the Smart Living Ballarat project. Since February, dozens of volunteers have been staffing a shopfront stocked with the expertise of locals who’ve reduced their environmental impact and improved their quality of life.

The information covers five themes: home energy, water, food, transport and local environment. There are displays on each of them, covering insulation, lighting, flooring, paint, glazing and furniture, among others. There’s a model of a passive solar house designed for the region, and directories for local food suppliers, building expertise and materials.

All the information is replicated on the Smart Living Ballarat website, and there are regular events and workshops in the space, from bike maintenance and solar hot water to LED lighting and permaculture.

The project was conceived in 2009, at a time when the drought had completely dried out Lake Wendouree, the large artificial lake to the city’s west. Household water restrictions were set at Stage 4.

Local environment group Ballarat Renewable Energy and Zero Emissions – one of the centre’s partners – wrote that there was “strong scientific evidence that climate change is directly affecting the Ballarat region”, with warmer and drier conditions and long-term predictions for more hot days.

“Climate change was starting to affect our community very personally,” explains Sophie Akers, the centre’s project manager.

“A lot of people got their heads together and wanted to create a place where we could engage our community in an independent, non-commercial, non-government way, and to have a place where we could talk about sustainable living.

“It was clear that we needed to offer something in all aspects of a household – everything from the natural environment through to transport, the built environment to the food we eat.”

The centre itself offers a working model. It’s housed at the front of the city’s old Mining Exchange building, which opened in 1889 and fast became one of the world’s busiest stock exchanges. But within a few decades it had shut down and the last gold mines were closed.

This time, behind its tall, arched windows, the volunteers are building another kind of wealth, one that consciously aims to avoid the boom and bust cycle.

Part of the project’s funding from Sustainability Victoria was dedicated to retrofitting the shop with the kinds of energy-saving techniques that would be on display. A solar photovoltaic system was installed on the roof and it produces much more electricity than the centre uses.

Above all, however, the local stories and expertise are crucial to the project’s approach, both in the shopfront and on its website. Ms Akers says it’s always influential for visitors to see close-to-home, real-life examples.

“People can talk local to local, and see what’s happening around town,” she says. “They can even go out to people’s places and see what they’re doing.

“In regional areas especially, it’s essential that people get to see those local stories. Our communities really look to each other for help, learning, support, and leadership.”

Illustration by Robin Cowcher

Read this article at The Age online

Environmental and economic pressures combine to boost activity at home.

PERMACULTURE founder David Holmgren grew up in the suburbs – in Fremantle – in the 50s and 60s. As a young teenager, he concluded that the lifestyle he observed was the most wasteful that had ever existed.

Now, however, he regards our post-war subdivisions as fertile territory for the relocalisation movement: places where people could grow much more of their own food, work at home and meet their needs while consuming much fewer resources.

Why the change in perspective? Unfortunately, Mr Holmgren explains, it’s because “we’ve moved so far in the wrong direction in those succeeding decades”.

Earlier this year, he spoke at the Wheeler Centre on “retrofitting the suburbs for a resilient future”. (You can also find this video of his talk on the Centre’s website.)

In it, he sums up our neighbourhoods by way of the fictional – and often amusing – happenings at four properties on “Aussie Street”. He tracks the residents from the “golden age of suburbia” (1950s), through “rising affluence and additions” (1960s and 1970s), “aging and infill” (1990s), to the more speculative possibilities of a “permaculture retrofit” (2000s) and “the second great depression” (2015).

His thinking challenges the notion that higher urban density is the answer to reducing our environmental impact.

In the 1950s, the residents of Aussie Street have small houses and large gardens; most tend vegie patches, fruit trees and chickens. One couple, Mario and Angela, who live at number 4, even keep a goat.

As the decades pass, however, food production diminishes, the dwellings are extended, gardens and driveways concreted, and one block is subdivided for townhouses. All the while, there are fewer people living in the homes, and they spend less time there.

Illustration by Robin Cowcher

In a recent essay explaining his analysis, published on the Simplicity Institute website, Mr Holmgren argues that instead of re-building a denser city, we should aim to adapt what we’ve already got.

“Even with a growing economy, the building stock and infrastructure turns over slowly,” he says. “In 50 years, short of catastrophe, the city will be largely filled with the things that are there now. But within that, people can change their behaviour quite rapidly.”

Aussie Street begins to change in the 2000s, when a young couple and their baby move in. They set up a backyard nursery and an intensive vegie patch, and sell their seedlings and greens. A friend and his parents buy next door; they knock down the fence, take in a boarder and retrofit the house for passive solar gain.

With an eye on the economic strife in the USA and much of Europe, Mr Holmgren also extended his scenario to 2015, and addressed some of the financial coping strategies people could choose here as well.

The key change, he says, is to shift from seeking high incomes, to reducing your costs. That’s what people naturally do when times are tougher: more people live under the same roof, and meet more of their own needs. On Aussie Street, the goats return to number 4.

“You can minimise your costs by slowing down, going fewer places and being more productive with the underutilised fixed assets you’ve already got,” he says.

“People in Australia have a sense that really big change is coming. Every household knows their own situation best, so people should think hard about how they can seriously plan for the future.”

Read this article at the Age online

The speed paradox: how cars steal our time, money, climate and health.

WHICH one goes faster, a car or a bicycle? It’s obvious, right? In cities, says Paul Tranter, it’s the bike.

Dr Tranter is an Associate Professor of Geography at UNSW Canberra. This week, he’s speaking at the Bike Futures Conference about his research on “effective speed”. The conference, run by the Bicycle Network, will be held from Wednesday to Friday at the MCG.

His argument goes like this: imagine you live in a remote village and it takes you an hour to walk to the river and gather water everyday. To save time, you invent a spring-powered contraption to pump it for you. It works like a charm, but there’s just one catch – it takes over an hour to wind the spring.

“In our society, the equivalent of winding the spring is the time we spend at work to pay for our cars, and the registration, insurance, fuel, parking and tolls,” he says.

A car’s effective speed includes not only the direct commuting time, but also the hours we spend earning money to pay for it. According to the RACV’s estimated vehicle operating costs, even the most frugal new car will set you back over $110 per week (and that doesn’t include parking or tolls).

For cyclists, these costs are negligible, and for pedestrians, non-existent.

Illustration by Robin Cowcher

In a chapter for a forthcoming book, City Cycling, published by MIT Press, Dr Tranter estimated effective speeds in several cities round the world. (He chose locations within 15 kilometres of each CBD.)

For drivers of a low-cost car who earn an average wage, Melbourne and Sydney clocked in at about 11 kilometres per hour. London drivers crawl along at less than 7, while Nairobi drivers inch forward at less than walking pace: 2 kilometres per hour.

“Depending on how broadly you think about it, you could also include costs of the impacts on pollution and our health,” Dr Tranter says. “All those external costs are hard to estimate, but everything from obesity to climate change are consequences, in part, of mass car usage.”

To bring the concept home, Dr Tranter outlines two scenarios for parents. If you’re pressed for time, should you drive your kids to school, or walk or cycle with them?

“An average driver would take longer per day earning the money to pay for their car than it would take them to walk their children to the local school,” he says.

“And there’s more: once you lock yourself in to driving your child to school, then you’ve got to drive them to sport, to visit friends, to the cinema. You could even argue that you’re more likely to have to drive them to the doctor or the psychologist, because they’re going to be fatter, sicker and sadder.”

He acknowledges that not everyone can easily make this trade-off. People with long commutes or inflexible hours don’t have a choice. In part, that’s a symptom of a sprawling car-based society: fewer jobs and amenities are within walking or pedalling distance.

But equipped with this different understanding of driving costs, many people could give up their second car.

“That’s the big possibility for householders, even in outer suburbs, as long as you’re close to the train line, or you work within cycling distance,” Dr Tranter says. “That could save you between $5000 and $20000 every year.”

Read this article at The Age online

It’s time to get what we need without buying it new.

THIS week, two plucky volunteers – “The New Joneses” – will move into a pop-up apartment at Federation Square.

“Mr and Mrs Jones” will enter on Monday in their undies and bathrobes, with a bag of toiletries, and stay there for four nights, until Friday.

They’ll also be clutching their household scavenger list, which calls for items such as bikes, bedside tables and board games, cushions, cookware and cutlery. They must source everything second hand, or by means of borrowing, renting or swapping.

Tamara DiMattina, the event’s founder, says the volunteers aren’t celebrities and it isn’t a crazy quest for reality TV; rather, it’s an exercise in thinking differently about the way we consume.

“When you move house, you tend to write a massive list and buy a whole lot of new stuff,” she says. “But anything you need, you can get second hand.

“The Grand Hyatt is bringing down the beds, sheets and towels. We’re aiming to get people out of the mindset that second hand is dirty. If you stay at a luxury hotel, you’re using a towel and sleeping on sheets that someone else has used. Second hand is not second best.”

But the New Joneses won’t only be procuring preloved goods. They’ll also learn to cook and shop differently, to reduce food and packaging waste. And the apartment itself is a low-waste, pre-fabricated building, complete with water capture and storage systems, as well as home composting and gardening.

School groups will tour the exhibition each morning, before it opens to the public in the afternoon.

One family in Hampton is already putting these ideas into practice. Nearly three months ago, Erin and Peter Castellas and their children began a ‘Buy Nothing New Year’.

These are their ground rules: they can purchase food and new health and hygiene products, such as soap and medicines; everything else they must borrow, inherit, or buy second hand.

“We wanted to take on this challenge because it fits with our values, as well as our budget,” Ms Castellas explains. “We’re raising a young family on one income. It turns a situation that could be a bit miserable into something that’s fun and helps us talk to our kids about consumption and environmental problems, and the value of money.”

She admits to some initial anxiety about running out of things: what would they do without simple items, such as sticky tape or aluminium foil?

So far, they’ve coped. But Ms Castellas says the small stuff doesn’t matter so much as the bigger realisations the experiment has afforded.

“We’ve shifted from thinking about what we don’t have, to being grateful for what we do have. That’s been really interesting for me,” she says. “And when we’ve asked ourselves whether we really need something, we’re surprised that we often answer: ‘No, we don’t really need that’.”

If you’d like to experiment with reducing your consumption, you could set a more modest (but still testing) goal: October is Buy Nothing New Month.

The Castellas family still have many months to go – including Christmas present season. But, to date, even the experience of giving has been richer. Recently, for their grandma, they hand-painted a photo frame from the opshop. “We figured out that what we really want to say is: ‘Nan, we love you!’ not, ‘Here’s a flash new digital frame’,” Ms Castellas says.

Illustration by Robin Cowcher

Read this article at The Age online

Footpath fossickers are inspired by both ethics and aesthetics.

EARLIER this year, Tania Lewis and her colleagues visited householders in Moreland, in Melbourne’s inner north, to ask about how they reuse hard rubbish.

Dr Lewis, an associate professor of media and communication at RMIT, happened upon a gem of her own – she observed a kind of “green materialism” at play.

She explains, by way of example: one of her interviewees, Mark, had picked up an old shoe-cleaning box, the sort you’d keep a brush and polish inside and put your boot on while you buff and shine. He repaired it and uses it, and also, daydreams about its history.

“He imagined the old Italian man who might have made it originally and used it through his life,” Dr Lewis says. “He loved the fact that it had been used before. He was very invested in that romantic ethic, the sense of having a connection with the material objects in our lives.”

Illustration by Robin Cowcher

She says people rummage through their neighbours’ refuse for many reasons, including frugality, sustainability and an opposition to throwaway consumer culture. But many of us also do it for the thrill and the pleasure.

“People often valued hard rubbish precisely because these objects had histories and lives before them; unlike new objects, which they felt were somehow sterile and alienating,” she says.

Dr Lewis is the co-editor of Ethical Consumption: A Critical Introduction, published in 2010.  She says her research revealed another perspective on life in the suburbs.

“They’re often depicted as places of hyper-consumption. I wanted to focus on people who are doing quite the opposite. I wouldn’t call them alternative; they’re just ordinary families who’ve opted to live differently and who are very critical of mainstream approaches to consumption.”

There’s good cause to highlight our everyday thriftiness: it’s more common than you might think. A survey of households in Frankston, conducted by Dr Ruth Lane in 2007, found that two in every five had gleaned something from hard rubbish in the previous two years.

In another recent study, Dr Lane, from Monash University, recruited householders to track the things they put out on their nature strip. They reported that more than a third of the items were nabbed before the scheduled pick-up (the most popular were white goods, sports equipment, furniture, electrical appliances and kids’ toys).

She found that much more stuff is reclaimed informally than through the official collections. According to the Department of Environment and Sustainability, almost all the hard rubbish gathered by councils goes to landfill. Only 13 per cent, by weight, gets another life.

Despite this, lots of councils discourage scavengers, both professionals and amateurs. Many have switched away from scheduled pick-ups. Instead, you must book your own, once or twice a year, when you need it.

“Unfortunately, many councils have moved to make hard rubbish scavenging illegal and I think that’s incredibly short sighted,” Dr Lewis says.

“We need to encourage these forms of reuse and encourage people to reflect on what they consume, where it comes from and where it’s going at the end of its life.”

If you’re looking for the low-down on footpath fossicking, visit the Hard Rubbish Melbourne Facebook group. It has over 5000 members, many of whom post details of their finds and ask for tips on repairs and missing parts. They’ve also collated information about the timing and conditions of collections all across the city.

Read this article at The Age online

Anyone got a good story of finding gold? I picked a laser printer/photocopier five years ago, and after a simple, no-cost fix, it’s still going strong.  

Bill benchmarking must go beyond the average.

WHEN householders hand Lara Olsen their electricity bills, they watch her with nervous eyes.

“We’ve spent lots of time doing residential energy assessments,” says Ms Olsen, from Energy Return.

“Everyone asks, ‘Is this normal?’ Some look at you as though they’ve received a test result and they’re handing it to a doctor. They’ve paid it for the past 20 years, but never really had a chance to read it and understand what it means. Using as much electricity as we like is something we’ve taken for granted. But I think that’s changing.”

That change, however, won’t necessarily mean lower bills or less brown coal electricity.

Illustration by Robin Cowcher

If you visit the Energy Made Easy website (set up by the Australian Energy Regulator), you can type in your postcode, together with the number of people who live in your home, and find out the seasonal average electricity use in your area. Electricity retailers are now required to provide this information on our bills too.

It’s a nifty site, but Ms Olsen says just stating the mean isn’t good enough. Average household energy consumption is skewed: it’s pushed up by a relatively small number of very high consumers. And that means we’re creating a social norm that’s higher than the typical home, and much higher than an efficient one.

“At the moment, that benchmark is the average and the majority of people actually use less than the average,” she explains. “If this information keeps going out as it is, we will create the social license to consume more.”

Energy Return has been working with the Moreland Energy Foundation and several councils in Melbourne’s north (and the Horsham Rural City Council) to test a better target.

The councils are part of the Northern Alliance for Greenhouse Action. From now until November, they’re piloting the “Go 5” campaign, which promotes a target of 5 kilowatt-hours per person per day (for households with gas).

“We’re helping people think about their individual energy use,” says Judy Bush, executive officer of the alliance. “But we’re also creating targets and benchmarks for this region. We’re saying: ‘This is what you and your neighbours could all be aiming for’.”

The councils are testing different tactics, from community workshops to publicity campaigns. Some will focus on “bill busting” and others on using new metering portals to understand how we use electricity.

In Nillumbik Shire, the “Watts your power 3099?” campaign will encourage householders to set their own energy targets, based on 5 kilowatt-hours per person per day, and offer prizes and incentives for those who take part.

For most people, it isn’t a stretch target. Ms Bush, for example, says she uses “dramatically less than that” in her two-person household.

But, just as with the Target 155 campaign on water, they picked a number that’s achievable, rather than intimidating.

Ms Bush says the pilot campaign will help her team analyse whether “Go 5” is the right goal, and also, whether or not people will continue to cut their bills, even if they reach the magic number.

The target is harder for a one-person household than for a family of five, so larger households could comfortably aim much lower. “The more people you have in a household the more efficient it gets per person, because you’re spreading the use of appliances, like fridges and heating, across more people,” she says.

Read this article at The Age online.

You might be interested in this related article, about the effect of social norms on consumption. 

Householders are working on the alternative technology we need.

ON Wednesday 19 September, at Swinburne University in Hawthorn, you’ll find sun-tracking louvers, a nifty clip that helps you protect tomatoes from hungry birds, and two people who’ve made their own solar air-heaters (one of them from aluminium cans).

It’s the annual project night for the Melbourne Branch of the Alternative Technology Association.

The night’s organiser, and the convenor of the branch, Paul Fritze, says two-dozen people will briefly introduce their sustainability projects. Afterwards, they’ll exhibit what they’ve done, while everyone mingles and learns.

It’s a free event, supported by the School of Engineering at Swinburne University. “People who’ve been working away on their own can come along and display what they’re doing,” he says. “It’s about connecting ideas, skills and technology.

“Anything goes – there’s a permaculture food gardening course, a chap who builds battery packs for different uses by recycling old lithium batteries, and someone who’s been running a micro-hydro power generator for 30 years.”

Illustration by Robin Cowcher

Mr Fritze has been toiling at a number of schemes himself. With others, he’s planning a more permanent residence for the Melbourne branch, as well as the Association’s electric vehicle group and the Melbourne HackerSpace (a twice-weekly gathering of tech-hardware hobbyists), among others.

“The idea is to create a shared project space for different groups doing all sorts of things, where they can hold meetings, exhibitions and workshops, and come across one another,” he says.

It’ll be fitted out with technical equipment such as a laser cutter and a 3D-printer, which will allow people to experiment far beyond what’s possible in their own backyard.

Much like the project night, the idea is to generate cross-disciplinary projects. “We could get 3D-printer enthusiasts to team up with a jeweller, or someone working in disability who needs something built,” Mr Fritze says.

He says there’s “a whole swag of passionate doers” all over the city, constantly tinkering with new ways to make their gadgets more efficient and reduce their environmental impact.

“You couldn’t stop them if you tried,” he says. “And if you can provide a place for them to meet face-to-face, without telling them what to do, things just happen. It’s wonderful. There are all kinds of environmental, social and artistic benefits that come out of it.”

The Alternative Technology Association itself is evidence of that. It was established in 1980 and now has over 9000 members and subscribers.

From its national office, also based in Melbourne, it produces two magazines, ReNew and Sanctuary, which cover passive solar design, water conservation and renewable energy for households. Last year it launched Tankulator, a free online calculator that helps you figure out what size rainwater tank you need, and provides information on tank materials, siting, installation, filters and pumps.

As well as the group in Melbourne, there are 14 other local branches around the country (and one in New Zealand), all run by volunteer members.

“They’re all doers – they’re not complainers,” Mr Fritze says. “They’d rather get on and make the things that we need to change the way we’re living.”

If you want to glean some of their good ideas, you can visit the households open for tours today as a part of Sustainable House Day (some of them organised by the Association’s Melbourne branch). There are 60 houses on show all over the state, from 10 am until 4 pm – and it’s free.

Read this article at The Age online

Electric bicycles can get people out of the traffic and into the bike lane.

WHAT if a bicycle could flatten the hills for you? Or help you commute sweat-and lycra-free?

A bike store in Carlton has begun a rolling, four-year trial into why and how people use electric bikes. In early July, Dolomiti handed over the keys for 17 of them, each one fitted with a GPS transmitter.

The participants get effort-free cycling for up to three months, before the two-wheelers are passed onto the next team of rider-volunteers.

Professor Geoff Rose, from Monash University’s Institute of Transport Studies, says the study is the largest field trial of its kind. His research team is helping Dolomiti analyse the results. “We’re going to get extraordinarily rich data about where people use the bikes, what length trips they take and the roads they use,” he explains.

(The Monash researchers are also looking for e-bike owners to participate in an online survey)

Battery-powered bikes are fast becoming popular elsewhere, especially in Europe and the USA, and above all, in China, where nine out of every ten are sold, and where many cities have banned petrol-powered two-wheelers.

But they’ve been slow to gain momentum here. Until recently, Australia had the strictest regulations in the world. In May, the federal government relaxed the power output rules to match standards in European Union.

Illustration by Robin Cowcher

Most e-bikes look just like a normal pushbike, except they’ve got a battery pack connected to a small motor that generates the extra zip. They can reach speeds of 25 kilometres per hour with power; to go faster, the cyclists have to pedal. On a single charge, the newer models can cover up to 70 kilometres.

“From a rider’s point of view, it’s like you’re on a normal bike,” Professor Rose says, “but, somehow, every time you ride you’ve got a tail wind.”

For that reason, his research shows that electric bikes appeal to many folks who’d otherwise drive or catch public transport: older people and people with medical worries such as heart conditions or rickety knees and hips, as well as commuters who are put off by the distance or the effort of pedalling a conventional bike.

“For some people, it’s a technology that allows them to get back on a bike. And the evidence so far also shows that they really appeal to women riders – the gender balance is a lot more even than with conventional bikes,” he says.

Because many e-bike riders are switching away from cars, Professor Rose says they’re likely to be a plus for the individuals’ health and their environmental footprint.

“If you have an electric bike and purchase green power or install a solar power charging unit at home, then you’re really operating with a sustainable urban transport mode,” he says.

But while the technology is good, it can only be as effective as our cycling infrastructure allows, he cautions. Without safe places to ride, people won’t ditch their car keys.

If you’re keen on an e-bike, you can either buy a purpose-built model (they cost from under $1000 to over $3000), or a conversion kit for your existing bicycle (from under $1000). As with any equipment, it’s wise to do your research before you buy, and make sure you choose business you trust. It’ll help with maintenance, or with purchasing spare parts when things go wrong. 

Read this article at The Age online

Have you ridden an e-bike? Got any thoughts about the experience? I’m interested in the idea that they get people on the bike who’d otherwise drive or take public transport. If so, that’s a big tick. I’m a pushbike rider, and I don’t commute very far, so I don’t have any need for one. But it seems possible that e-bikes could broaden the appeal of riding, with environmental and health benefits to boot.