IB Group 4 Project Rottnest Sustainability

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IB Group 4 ProjectRottnest Sustainability

• Alex, Joe, Jonathan, Willard, Kevin, and Jacob

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Purpose

• Our IB Class wet to Rottnest for 3 days to
  research sustainability from the four parts of IB
  Group 4 subjects, which consists of Biology,
  Physics, Chemistry and Design Technology.

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Sustainability

• Sustainability is the ability to sustain life.
  We researched into how Rottnest is able to
  sustain life, as in waste management, power and
  water. We also took into account how Rottnest
  would cope with future growth.

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Power Usage

• Power at Rottnest is divided between Wind Power
  and Diesel Generators.
• Rottnest has an annual power requirement of
  4,650,000 Kilowatt Hours.
• 50 of this power is used
• solely for businesses.
• About 35 of the power
• generated at Rottnest is from
• Wind Power.

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Power (Continued)

• On the island there are 7 Diesel Generators, 4
  main and 3 back-up generators.
• The island uses over 1 million worth of diesel
  a year.
• That is on average 2,150 litres of diesel a day!
• Generators have a maximum output of 1,100
  Kilowatts

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Power (Continued)

• In 2004 the Wind Turbine was built. Since then
  it has saved approximately 1.6 million litres of
  diesel and it can operate in wind speeds ranging
  from 7 km/h to 130 km/h!
• The turbine is expected to save 400,000 and
  1,100 tons of green house gasses, 40 Rottnests
  green house gas output!

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Power (Continued)

• The cost per Kilowatt hour on Rottnest is 0.33,
  in comparison, the price in Perth is 0.139 per
  Kilowatt hour. Most of this is due to energy lost
  in low-voltage transmission of power.
• Businesses have introduced
• power saving measures such as
• solar power, water heaters, and
• smart building designs.

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Power (Continued)

• Wind measurements reached speeds of 13.65 m/s,
  which is 49.15 km/h.

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Waste Management

• A problem for sustainable
• life is waste management,
• what can we do with it?
• Up until 1995, Rottnest
• housed a landfill, but
• it had started to outgrow
• its size.
• Today, Rottnest has systems in place to deal
  with Waste Water, Recyclable Garbage, and General
  Garbage.

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Waste Management (Continued)

• Waste water is processed using a Cyclic
  Activated Sludge System (CASS). It is automated,
  so there is only one employee who only needs to
  check the site 3-times a week.
• Using this system, raw sewage can be converted
  to water suitable for drinking within hours.
• Each Year, it can handle 100,000 Kilolitres
  enters the waste water management plant. This is
  800 Kilolitres per day, and on New Years Eve (the
  day with most inflow), there is 650 Kilolitres of
  waste water produced.

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Waste Management (Continued)

• The CASS presses sludge out of the dirty water
  to separate the waste from the water and then the
  remaining waste is transferred to the
• waste management program.
• The water that is left is either evaporated or
  sent into tanks where it is chlorinated. All
  deadly bacteria is wiped out in this process.
• None of this water is used for drinking, it is
  used for other things, such as watering the oval.

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Waste Management (Continued)

• In 1996, Rottnest introduced a recycling program
  and a organic material composting program. In
  2006, 1.5 million was dedicated to expand and
  improve the waste management program, in a step
  to make it more sustainable for the future.
• Before this 97 of garbage
• at the landfill was
• recyclable!

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Waste Management (Continued)

• 1.8 cubic metres of general garbage
  (non-recyclable) is shipped on a barge to the
  main-land every second day in summer, and every
  second week in winter. This waste is taken to
  Canningvale. This greatly reduces the amount of
  waste taken to the landfill.

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Desalination

• 75 of the drinking water at Rottnest comes from
  desalination. Water is pumped up from shallow
  bores and then it is filtered to remove sand and
  other fine material.
• The water is out under high-pressure for reverse
  osmosis. Salt gets rejected when the water is
  passed through a membrane.
• For the future, they have considered digging for
  fresh water, but it is expensive, and salt water
  has started leaking into the underground water
  system.

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Rottnest Wildlife

• The human settlement on Rottnest has had a
  profound effect on the wildlife. Early settlers
  burned native bush to make room for farming and
  houses, destroying significant parts of the
  islands ecosystem. Quokkas used to be a commonly
  hunted animal, replacing the effect of natural
  predators wiped out by human habitation, and the
  stopping of this practice has led to the
  explosion of the quokka population.

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Rottnest Wildlife (continued)

• Despite the impact of human settlement, the
  ecosystem has recovered under the protection of a
  extensive national park protected status. Only
  recreational fishing is allowed, and strict
  guidelines are placed on this. Large amounts of
  unsettled land are considered national park as
  well.

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Rottnest Wildlife (Continued)

• One of the most important parts of the island is
  the salt lakes in the centre of the island. The
  shallow salt lakes support large plankton
  populations, are as a result are a important food
  source for most of Rottnests birds, and other
  wildlife. Many of the birds migrate to Rottnest
  to breed, and as a result these breeding areas
  are heavily protected. This fragile ecosystem
  needs to be protected from dangers such as
  lowering of the water table, caused by boring and
  large scale desalination , as the affect the
  salinity of the lakes with affects up through the
  food chain.

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Conclusion

• Rottnest is sustainable for the near future and
  can sustain growth. There are options to increase
  power and improve the waste management systems,
  such as the proposed additional desalination
  plant as well as another wind turbine.
• Thank you for listening!