Sylvia Thompsonwith dates for your diary.
Moving the nappy mountain
Did you know that it takes a cup of crude oil to produce the plastic for one disposable nappy? Or that babies require about 4,500 nappies each in the first 30 months of their lives? Or that nappies make up half of a typical waste bin for a family with one baby? Or that half a million nappies are thrown away every day in Ireland? Next week's Real Nappy Week is an international environmental effort to raise awareness of just how problematic disposable nappies are. "Cloth nappies can now be purchased throughout Ireland by mail order and they come in several funky designs, are easily fastened and can be used with flushable liners," says Sharon Cameron, environmental awareness officer with Mayo County Council, which is promoting cloth nappies next week. Real nappies also reduce the costs of a baby by about €1,000. Other councils including Kerry, Clare and Limerick have also promoted cloth nappies this month. For information on cloth nappies and a list of suppliers, tel: 094-9047360, or see "reduce, reuse, recycle" under the environment section at www.mayococo.ie, or www.realnappycampaign.com
Celebrating the landscape
An exhibition of contemporary landscape architecture will be held in the Atrium of Dublin City Council Civic Offices, Wood Quay, Dublin from April 21st to 25th and April 28th to May 2nd to celebrate World Landscape Architecture month. The exhibition focuses on good landscape design in Ireland in the past 10 years. Landscape architecture involves planning, design and management of parks, playgrounds, university campuses and business parks. The free exhibition organised by the Irish Landscape Institute runs from 9am to 7pm each day. Also, an exhibition of contemporary architecture from the Vorarlberg region of Austria continues at the Civic Centre in Ballymun, Dublin until Friday, May 1st.
Environmental showcase
Fifteen of Ireland's largest environmental NGOs will showcase their work on Tuesday at the Royal College of Physicians, Kildare Street, Dublin. The free public event runs from 10am to 4pm to coincide with Earth Day and will include groups such as Coastwatch Ireland, An Taisce and the Irish Peatland Conservation Council.
In Galway, a seminar entitled Global Warming: Science, Solutions and the Human Spirit will take place on Wednesday at 8pm in the Cairnes Theatre, NUI Galway. Dr John Stanley, director of an ecological Buddhism project and former researcher at the UK Health Protection Agency will give a scientific overview. This will be followed by a talk by Tibetan Buddhism teacher, Ringu Tulku Rinpoche on the spiritual aspects of global warming. See www.ecobuddhism.org.
It's the environmental law
The enforcement of European Community environmental law and in particular EU environmental directives is the focus of a half-day seminar in University College Cork on Thursday. Speakers from the office of Environmental Enforcement at the Environmental Protection Agency, the Faculty of Law at UCC and Friends of the Irish Environment (an NGO) will discuss difficulties in interpretation, practical applications and discretion when directives are made into national laws. Admission is free but booking is essential on tel: 021-4903220. See also www.ucc.ie/law/events