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Professor Gyula Balázs and his team have presented themselves to the general public at Hungary’s largest environmental and communal exhibition. Between October 14 and 17 thousands of visitors had the opportunity to get to know firsthand the latest advances of the „Green world” and the trends of the ecological marketplace at Budapest Exhibition Centre. 178 exhibitors from 10 countries have considered it important to take part in person at this event.

A Budapest district has opted for a costlier, but more efficient method of garbage collection. The leaders of the 7th district in Hungary’s capital have decided to banish the recycling bins, which were both an eyesore and an offense to one’s nose, from public areas, and to move them into the condominiums, instead.

According to the innovator, this change is justified by international surveys, which show that recycling banks located on streets and squares reach less than 10% of the local population. The reason why this number is so low is that those people, who intend to collect their garbage selectively, often do not go looking for the containers on the street because of the discomfort this would entail.

ALUMINIUM 2008 is the world's no 1 meeting place for the aluminium industry and its applications. Since its start 1997 the fair has developed to the number one meeting place world-wide. The uniqueness of the show results from the fact, that it represents the entire value chain offering solutions for the aluminium industry and all application fields.

Székesfehérvár was known as the city of the kings, however this time the center of Fejér state's capital city became a mini Paris. A huge, 12 meter high aluminium Eiffel Tower was set up by dozens of volunteers in order to popularize selective refuse collection and recycling. It took 2500 working hours to cover the miniaturized steel-frame with more than 15000 aluminium drink can sheets. Making the alunimium tower was not a copy-paste job.

This work of art was completed by using the Alu-GO method: attaching the aluminium sheets to each other without using further fixative. The inventor Gyula Balázs, the father of Alu-GO said: a lot of people from different cities worked together on this project, engineers from the Technical University Budapest have been involved, waste collector companies from the countryside, like schoolchildren from high schools, in order to demonstrate an environmentally conscious behaviour by creating a measureble, visible and creative result.
 

Mankind can not exist without the Earth – in the name of this universal truth the United Nations has embraced the initiative to declare 2008 the International Year of Planet Earth. Our favourite planet, which came into existence roughly 4.5 billion years ago, has certainly seen better days, and we are not thinking of the collision with the asteroid that resulted in the Moon being formed from the Earth’s material. The series of scientific and popular events of the Year of the Earth represent, after all, a debate about the future. Round the world, you can ponder over ten questions grouped around the central theme of what is going to happen to the ” third rock from the sun”. A selection of subjects includes: What will happen to the reserves of drinking water, to natural resources and with climate change? What is the effect of megalopolises on nature, and what lies in store for the planet with the growth of its population? With regards to this latter question concrete predictions already exist, according to which by 2050 there might be 9 billion of us living on the planet compared to the present figure of 6 billion. Supposedly, the Earth will still be able to sustain this number of people, but how nature will change, and what fuel, for example, will you use to fill up your car round about the time you reach pensionable age, can only be guessed at.

Next time you are in the capital of Britain, you may take pride in knowing that London’s vast Underground network is made, in part, from aluminium drink cans. Of course, one should not expect to find them in their original shape, since the company that handles their recycling compressed them long ago. As a result of recycling, the cans ended up in the ventilators of the Underground’s carriages. One can only guess in which carriage one’s drink can was given a new existence. Needless to say, in order for an empty can to be recycled, it must first be put in the appropriate waste container!

The old continent is full of garbage. Just imagine: each year nearly 2 billion tonnes of solid waste are created in the EU. This means that each EU citizen ought to consider the disposal or recycling of 3.5 tonnes of garbage. This, however, is not the case: less than 30% of garbage is recycled. This average is a result of the fact that in some member states 90% of communal waste is stored at landfills, while in other states this proportion is only 10%. The European Parliament wanted to put an end to this situation when it passed the Directive on Waste Management this June. The complex expression covers tough regulations, which mean that by 2020 EU member states must reach a target of 50% of their paper, iron and glass waste being recycled. In the case of waste building materials this ratio must reach 70%. Member states, however cannot ”get off” with this alone: within five years they must work out waste management plans and programmes aimed at preventing the creation of garbage, so that the garbage mountain we are already sitting on would not get any higher…

Though it may sound incredible at first, yet it is true: there is great mess on Mount Everest. The authorities have declared that from now on climbers aiming to conquer the world highest peak must also carry with them a sack for collecting rubbish in addition to the climbing gear, sleeping bag, and hot and cold foods. Previously, these sportsmen did not concern themselves with this matter, and as a result the popular base camps on the mountain are disfigured by discarded cans, empty oxygen tanks and other articles. Similar regulations have come into force for the polar regions, which also have become increasingly full of rubbish over the last years. Therefore the basic rule is: those who intend to conquer nature must also think of its protection!

Can you guess when the first block of aluminium was produced? Those who guessed the 20th century are mistaken. Aluminium was first produced more than 150 years ago, in 1854, by a Parisian architect. By the way, the first object made from aluminium was a child’s rattle, which the architect presented to the emperor Napoleon III. For his work, he was rewarded with quite a sum: 65 000 francs, whose equivalent today would be a lottery jackpot. Naturally, there was a good reason why aluminium was so expensive in the beginning: it was considered to be the metal that would in time substitute silver. In the earliest days, aluminium was so expensive, that it was worth more than even gold!