Choco-power
Friday, November 16th, 2007 by Nigel
This story in The Guardian tickled my fancy. Andy Pag, a 24-year-old Londoner, is planning to drive from the UK to Mali in a lorry powered… by chocolate.
Yes. True story. Well, the confectionery scraps are waste from the sweet industry. A Lancashire man called Chris Elvey, who runs a biodiesel manufacturing company called Ecotec, buys them turns them into bioethanol.
Andy Pag is planning to drive to Timbuktu, fuelled entirely on processed confectionery-industry waste. They’re planning on buying offsets to make this what Andy calls “the world’s first carbon-negative” expedition. You can read about his curious adventure on his site here.
Timbuktu is a particularly suitable destination. It is one of the world’s most poignant symbols of how we’ve degraded our environment. It used to be one of the most important cities in West Africa, a place to which traders from Europe and all over Africa flocked for centuries. It used to be a verdant place. Even in the 19th century there were forests, orchards and fields surrounding it. Desertification has moved the river Niger, next to which it was founded, 15km away. Sand dunes are encroaching on its ancient buildings. It’s Africa’s Venice, a great historical trading city imperiled - except it’s threatened by too little water, not too much. Andy’s setting off one week from today.
I also enjoyed this piece of the Green Guy’s on his new site Smartplanet - about supermarket guilt. About how, despite all our good intentions, and the veg box arriving packed with goodies, we still find ourselves patrolling the aisles of the supermarket looking for something for dinner tonight.
Blogmemes |
Del.icio.us |
Digg |
Furl |
Google |
Netscape |
PlugIM |
Reddit |
Squidoo |
StumbleUpon |
Technorati |
Yahoo My Web
