World Oceans Day 2011

World Oceans Day 2011

World Oceans Day, which had been unofficially celebrated every June 8 since its original proposal in 1992 by Canada at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil,[1] was officially recognized by the United Nations in 2008[2]. Since then it has been coordinated internationally by The Ocean Project and the World Ocean Network with greater success and global participation each year.World Oceans Day is an opportunity every year to honor the world's ocean, celebrate the products the ocean provides such as seafood as well as marine life itself for aquariums, pets, and also a time to appreciate its own intrinsic value. The ocean also provides sea-lanes for international trade. Global pollution and over-consumption of fish have resulted in drastically dwindling population of the majority of species.

The Ocean Project, working in partnership with the World Ocean Network, has been promoting WOD since 2003 with its network of over 1,200 organizations and others throughout the world. These groups have been working to build greater awareness of the crucial role of the ocean in our lives and the important ways people can help. World Oceans Day provides an opportunity to get directly involved in protecting our future, through a new mindset and personal and community action and involvement – beach cleanups, educational programs, art contests, film festivals, sustainable seafood events, and other planned activities help to raise consciousness of how our lives depend on the oceans.

The Ocean Project recently launched a new site for WOD 2011.
The World Oceans Day 2011 & 2012 theme is Youth: the Next Wave for Change. World Ocean Day - The Ocean Project
The aim is to challenge participants to view ocean protection as a way of life, with a special emphasis around World Oceans Day each year.
This focus on youth is based on market research by The Ocean Project and others which clearly shows that youth are the most promising members of the public to reach out to if you want to effect lasting change.
Young people are the most knowledgeable and motivated segment of the population when it comes to the environment and its protection. Youth generally have the free time, familiarity with current issues, and the motivation to go out of their way to take environmental actions. Furthermore, the research shows that parents are increasingly looking to their tween and teenage (i.e. ages 12-17) children for information and advice on these issues.
We hope that event organizers will make a concerted effort to reach out to and collaborate with young people, helping inspire them to care for our world’s ocean, now and throughout their lives.

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West Midlands school is first to have rainwater harvesting system retrofitted

A school in the West Midlands has become the first academic institution in Britain to have a rainwater harvesting system retrofitted onto an existing building.

Campion School in Leamington Spa has had a Kingspan Water SmartRain system installed - a move that is expected to reduce mains water usage by up to 85% and lead to a saving of around 250,000 litres per year (equivalent to 416 baths).

SmartRain collects water from the roof of the Sydenham Sports Centre located in the school grounds, and uses it for flushing WCs within the block.

The rainwater is stored in a 5000 litre tank outside the sports hall, and if there is insufficient rainfall to meet demand, the SmartRain system will automatically default to using mains water, ensuring total continuity of supply.

The development is highly significant because retrofitting rainwater harvesting offers schools across the country the chance of having their own sustainable approach to water use.

Until now, only schools that were actually being built could be fitted with rainwater harvesting because of the complexities of integrating harvested rainwater with the internal plumbing of a building. This has meant the majority of existing British schools are entirely dependent on mains water, something which has both a high environmental and financial cost.

Furthermore, the SmartRain system comes with the Kingspan Water Vision pack of remote monitoring. The technology within this pack provides information about its operations to a wall-mounted control panel - making installing, managing, and maintaining it easy to do.

It has a GSM card installed within the control panel. A web address has been set up for the school, which can be accessed from any computer with wireless internet access so that the pupils can see how much water they are saving.

Campion school has been championing sustainable issues through its ABC (A Better Campion) Group. This voluntary group of around 30 pupils from all year groups, led by teaching assistant, Chris Philpott, has spent the last three years implementing various eco and green initiatives around the school site.

Head teacher, Mark Feldman, welcomed the move in terms of both improving the school’s sustainability agenda, and reducing the water bills.

“Campion takes its impact on the environment very seriously. This is an exciting innovation that we hope will demonstrate to our pupils the need for using water wisely. Like many green initiatives of course, it is a ‘win win’ for us because using less mains water also means the bills go down,” he said.

Chris Kerr, commercial manager at Kingspan Water, added: “We’ve done similar installations, very successfully in Dublin, and proved the green credentials and the savings that can be delivered by the technology. We hope Campion School will be the first of many schools across the country to adopt it and experience the savings it offers.”

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