OneWorld4All

On May 15 and 16, 2009, you can return your old cell phone for recycling and you receive a chocolate cell phone instead. This incentive should inspire people to recycle instead of throwing the cell phones away. Many cell phone components are highly toxic if burned, and raw materials like copper should rather be re-used. According to Swico Reycling, so far only 15 % of all sold cell phones are being recycled.

Where exactly you are going to receive the chocolates is currently being investigated.

If you miss the dates above, you can still always return your old cell phone to a Swiss dealer for recycling; with the new cell phone, you already paid a recycling tax.

 Read on...

Check out at http://www.solardays.eu if there are activities planned in your country. For Switzerland, the list of events can be seen here in French, German or Italian.

Europe's highest Solar Plant was inaugurated today on the Little Matterhorn, Switzerland. The power plant is located at an altitude of 3'883 meters (approx. 12440 feet) and has a size of 200 square meters (approx. 2150 square feet). It produces 22 kilowatts per year which is equivalent to the annual consumption of 12 households. It is said that the power production is twice as much as comparable plants in lower altitudes due to the lack of air pollution, the presence of lower temperatures and snow reflection. Read on...

In September 2008, a Swiss House at Leimgrubenweg 90 in Riehen near Basel received one of the Swiss Solar Awards 2008. That house produces 120 percent more energy than it consumes! It achieves this with superior insulation and solar energy. Imagine now what you could do in places where the sun shines more than in Switzerland. Conclusion: the technology exists already; now ways have to be found how to apply this to existing buildings. This would also end discussions about new nuclear plants! Read on...

Nicolas Hayek, the man who turned the "Swatch" into a success, has a very good point that biofuels still pollute the atmosphere and are not the solution. He now founded a new company, Belenos Clean Power, that focuses on hydrogen-powered cars.

According to the article, "Hayek believes a new generation of hydrogen-powered cars could be on the market within three years." Great news!

Read here the whole article:
http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/search/Result.html?siteSect=882&ty=st&sid=91...

In case you still think that Global Warming is a hoax (especially when looking at the deep winter conditions of January 2008 in the midwest of the United States), then contemplate the following picture which shows the European Alp's (still) largest glacier, the Aletsch glacier in 1900 and 2005:

 Read on...

Zurich's Federal Institute of Technology (the Swiss equivalent to the MIT) published a strategy paper last Monday that calls to "limit CO₂ emissions to one ton per person per year by the end of the century - if the planet's population increases to ten billion as foreseen." They want to achieve this goal with the three "E"'s:
Increased efficiency of energy conversion at all steps of the supply chain, the rapid introduction of renewable energies, and the increased consumption of electricity at the end-user level. Read on...

Last Saturday, we had the great fortune to visit the "Forests of the World" photo exhibit in the museum "Fondation Beyeler", one of Switzerland's leading art museums. Read on...

Instead of looking for ways on lowering the CO₂ emissions, 970 Swiss companies rather look for ways to not pay the greenhouse tax. They have it upside down....

Read the whole article at Swissinfo.ch:
http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/top_news/detail/Major_firms_seek_exemption_f...

One doesn't have to travel all the way to India to see the pollution. This picture was taken overlooking Lake Geneva, Switzerland, on a winter day when the air pollution becomes visible as a brown cloud.