Triumph Japan Recycles Old Bras Into Power-Generating Fuel

Worried about throwing out your used bras lest they be stolen by perverts? American women may find such fears unwarranted, but they’re genuine concerns for their counterparts in Japan, according to the Japan Times. Responding to those anxieties, as well as growing concerns about the environment (which might be more relatable for us Western gals), Triumph International is accepting used bras in select Japanese stores for recycling into boiler and power-generating fuel. The initiative not only saves these unmentionables from landfills, it also relieves Japanese women of a constant source of distress. A 2004 survey by major lingerie-maker Wacoal found that 61 percent of respondents hesitate to throw their old bras out with the trash because many municipalities require clear garbage bags.


WONDER BRAS
While underwear end-of-life disposal isn’t a subject on most people’s minds, it’s interesting to note that bras are one of hardest types of garments to recycle. Think about it: They don’t have resale appeal at thrift shops—unless you’re really, really hardcore about your secondhand shopping, that is—and they’re usually made from a blend of fabric and wire that’s impossible to tease apart for repurposing. These obstacles make it so difficult to recycle bras, in fact, that turning them into refuse-paper-and-plastic fuel (RPF) is the only viable option, according to the Japan RPF Association.


Made from a mix of waste paper, plastic, and fibers, RPF generates less carbon dioxide than coal while costing only a fourth as much


The organization notes that RPF contains fewer impurities and less water than refuse-derived fuel made from household garbage. Besides releasing very little dioxin when incinerated, RPF also boasts a combustion efficiency comparable with coal. Made from a mix of waste paper, plastic, and fibers, the fuel also generates less carbon dioxide than coal while costing only a fourth as much.


By distributing bags at stores across Japan for women to fill with their unwanted skivvies, Triumph has collected more than 200,000 bras and produced over 14 tons of RPF since 2009. But it’s not the only bra-maker taking on the cause. Wacoal isn’t far behind, with more than 179,200 bras and 17.9 tons of the fuel to its credit.

Source: <a href=”http://http://www.ecouterre.com/triumph-japan-recycles-old-bras-into-power-generating-fuel/”>Ecouterre</a>.

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Water Facts

Today’s water crisis is not an issue of scarcity, but of access. More people in the world own cell phones than have access to a toilet. And as cities and slums grow at increasing rates, the situation worsens. Every day, lack of access to clean water and sanitation kills thousands, leaving others with reduced quality of life.

 Water

• 884 million people lack access to safe water supplies; approximately one in eight people. 

• 3.575 million people die each year from water-related disease. 
• The water and sanitation crisis claims more lives through disease than any war claims through guns. 
• People living in the slums often pay 5-10 times more per liter of water than wealthy people living in the same city. 
• An American taking a five-minute shower uses more water than a typical person in a developing country slum uses in a whole day.

Sanitation

• Only 62% of the world’s population has access to improved sanitation – defined as a sanitation facility that ensures hygienic separation of human excreta from human contact. 

• Lack of sanitation is the world’s biggest cause of infection. 
• 2.5 billion people lack access to improved sanitation, including 1.2 billion people who have no facilities at all. 
• Of the 60 million people added to the world’s towns and cities every year, most occupy impoverished slums and shanty-towns with no sanitation facilities. 

Children

• Diarrhea remains in the second leading cause of death among children under five globally. Nearly one in five child deaths – about 1.5 million each year – is due to diarrhea. It kills more young children than AIDS, malaria and measles combined. 
• Every 20 seconds, a child dies from a water-related disease. 
• Diarrhea is more prevalent in the developing world due, in large part, to the lack of safe drinking water, sanitation and hygiene, as well as poorer overall health and nutritional status. 

• Children in poor environments often carry 1,000 parasitic worms in their bodies at any time. 
• In the developing world, 24,000 children under the age of five die every day from preventable causes like diarrhea contracted from unclean water. 
• 1.4 million children die as a result of diarrhea each year. 

Women

• In just one day, more than 200 million hours of women’s time is consumed for the most basic of human needs — collecting water for domestic use.
• This lost productivity is greater than the combined number of hours worked in a week by employees at Wal*Mart, United Parcel Service, McDonald’s, IBM, Target, and Kroger, according to Gary White, co-founder of Water.org.

• Millions of women and children spend several hours a day collecting water from distant, often polluted sources. 
• A study by the International Water and Sanitation Centre (IRC) of community water and sanitation projects in 88 communities found that projects designed and run with the full participation of women are more sustainable and effective than those that do not. This supports an earlier World Bank study that found that women’s participation was strongly associated with water and sanitation project effectiveness. 

Disease

• At any given time, half of the world’s hospital beds are occupied by patients suffering from diseases associated with lack of access to safe drinking water, inadequate sanitation and poor hygiene. 
• The majority of the illness in the world is caused by fecal matter.
• Almost one-tenth of the global disease burden could be prevented by improving water supply, sanitation, hygiene and management of water resources. Such improvements reduce child mortality and improve health and nutritional status in a sustainable way.

• 88% of cases of diarrhea worldwide are attributable to unsafe water, inadequate sanitation or insufficient hygiene. 
• 90% of all deaths caused by diarrheal diseases are children under 5 years of age, mostly in developing countries. 
• It is estimated that improved sanitation facilities could reduce diarrhea-related deaths in young children by more than one-third. If hygiene promotion is added, such as teaching proper hand washing, deaths could be reduced by two thirds. It would also help accelerate economic and social development in countries where sanitation is a major cause of lost work and school days because of illness. 

Economics

• Over 50 percent of all water projects fail and less than five percent of projects are visited, and far less than one percent have any longer-term monitoring. (10)
• Investment in safe drinking water and sanitation contributes to economic growth. For each $1 invested, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates returns of $3 – $34, depending on the region and technology. 

• Almost two in every three people who need safe drinking water survive on less than $2 a day and one in three on less than $1 a day.
• Households, not public agencies, often make the largest investment in basic sanitation, with the ratio of household to government investment typically 10 to 1.
• Investment in drinking-water and sanitation would result in 272 million more school attendance days a year. The value of deaths averted, based on discounted future earnings, would amount to US$ 3.6 billion a year.

Environment

• Less than 1% of the world’s fresh water (or about 0.007% of all water on earth) is readily accessible for direct human use. 
• More than 80% of sewage in developing countries is discharged untreated, polluting rivers, lakes and coastal areas. 

• The UN estimates that by 2025, forty-eight nations, with combined population of 2.8 billion, will face freshwater “stress” or “scarcity”. Our Water.org High School Curriculum
• Agriculture is the largest consumer of freshwater by far: about 70% of all freshwater withdrawals go to irrigated agriculture. 
• At home the average American uses between 100 and 175 gallons of water a day. That is less than 25 years ago, but it does not include the amount of water used to feed and clothe us.
• Conserving water helps not only to preserve irreplaceable natural resources, but also to reduce the strain on urban wastewater management systems. Wastewater is costly to treat, and requires continuous investment to ensure that the water we return to our waterways is as clean as possible. Water.org High School curriculum

Source: http://water.org/learn-about-the-water-crisis/facts/

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The Global Water Crisis

Water crisis is a general term used to describe a situation where the available water within a region is less than the region's demand.


The water supply and sanitation situation around the world can only be described as abysmal. Currently, 1.5 million children under 5 die of preventable water related diseases every year (4,000 every day), around 900 million people (1 in 6) have no access to safe drinking water, and 2.6 billion (2 in 6) lack adequate sanitation. In the developing world, 90% of wastewater is dumped untreated into water bodies, spreading contamination and disease and spawning "dead zones". The World Bank reports that 80 countries are suffering water shortages. One has to wonder whether the horror occurring in the Horn of Africa is a forerunner of things to come in other parts of the world.


This already desperate situation will only worsen with climate change and population growth. Climate change is likely to accelerate desertification (thus reducing arable land in certain areas), alter precipitation patterns, generate extreme weather events, and produce harsher and longer drought cycles. The U.N. has estimated that the world's population will grow by an additional 3 billion people by 2050. Thus, population growth and climate change are on a cataclysmic collision course. Just how enough water can be found to support this number of people is, next to addressing climate change itself, the most fundamental issue facing humanity.


Additionally, water inadequacy poses a national security issue for the United States. Around the world, 215 major rivers and 300 groundwater aquifers are shared by two or more countries. Growing shortages will lead to conflicts into which the U.S. will be dragged. Competing water claims in the Middle East, and escalating friction between India and Pakistan over water diversions, are particularly worrying in this regard.


With all this, one would think that developed countries would have devoted greater resources to tackle water insufficiency and deficient sanitation at their source, rather than executing costly reactive rescue missions to deal with the epidemics, famines, refugee crises, and mass exoduses that are their consequences. And yet, the work to effectuate solutions (such as improved irrigation, integrated water management, wastewater reuse, better sanitation practices, more effective public-private partnerships, trans-boundary cooperation, and enhanced public education) have so far proven unequal to this colossal challenge.


In 2000, the United Nations adopted 18 objectives called the Millennium Development Goals ("MGDs"). Target 10 was the reduction of the number of people living without water and sanitation by half by 2015.


In releasing the recent 2011 Millennium Development Goals Report, UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon described the progress as "uneven". Regarding Target 10, the Report was likewise mixed, stating that while the drinking water goal was on track, "more than 1 in 10 people may still be without access in 2015". Despite advances, an estimated 884 million people still rely on unimproved water sources for drinking (as of 2008). As disturbing as that may be, sanitation presents an even bleaker picture: "The world is far from meeting the sanitation target." The Report adds: "... some 2.6 billion people globally were not using an improved form of sanitation in 2008. That year, an estimated 1.1 billion people did not use any facility at all and practiced open defecation...". The Report finds some encouragement in the fact that frequent sanitation conferences are being held "to ensure that sanitation... receives the attention it deserves."


Indeed, keeping attention focused on the global water crisis with the hope of spurring additional action is the very goal of the International Water Forum.


And Los Angeles is part of the intended audience and can be a part of the needed solution. While we will never experience the misery afflicting much of the rest of the world, we do live in a semi-arid region and are heavily reliant on imported water resources, which may not expand to meet our future needs. And, although we are enjoying a respite at the moment, we will have more intense droughts and shortages in the future. We simply must make the necessary investments today to secure new water resources. That means implementing strategies such as additional conservation, infrastructure repair, improved building standards, wastewater recycling, groundwater remediation, rainfall capture, and underground storage.


By taking these steps, we will not only better prepare for our next water crisis here at home, but we will gain additional insight and expertise in how to most efficiently produce "new" water. Sharing that knowledge with those in the world less fortunate than us may be the greatest contribution Los Angeles can make to alleviating the global water crisis.



Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/h-david-nahai/the-global-water-crisis_b_964576.html

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Artificial trees could help reduce Global Warming

  

A new kind of tree could reduce global warming by removing a major greenhouse gas from the planet's atmosphere. What researchers are calling artificial trees are actually towers filled with various materials that adsorb carbon dioxide from the air. They could play a major role in reducing climate change -- if they prove profitable.


Scientists are proposing that one of the most practical ways to cut greenhouse gases on a large scale is to build a forest of 100,000 artificial trees over the next 10-20 years.


A Columbia University physicist, Dr Klaus Lackner, has developed an artificial tree designed to absorb carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air as plants do during photosynthesis, but retain the carbon and not release oxygen. According to him, one artificial tree could remove 90,000 tonnes of CO2 in a year - the emissions equivalent of 15,000 cars. "One artificial tree can suck up to 1,000 times more CO2 from the air than real trees can," he said.


The artificial tree is based on an environmentally friendly alkaline resin which reacts with acidic carbon dioxide thereby holding it in place. After one hour exposure to the air, the resin is completely saturated with CO2. Dry resin soaks up the CO2. Adding water releases the CO2, which is then captured and stored. Drying the resin again restores its abilities, a cycle that can be repeated indefinitely. It is estimated that an artificial tree, containing about 32,800 feet of resin, will harvest about one ton of CO2 each day.


When the first artificial tree is ready, it will cost about $150 for each ton. When the technology is fully mature, the price will be as low as $20


However, there is a stickler of a problem -- "what do you do with all those TONS of CO2 you've Captured?" Global Research Technologies, LLC, the company creating the C02-scrubbing towers plans to sell the purified CO2 to a range of buyers. Oil and natural gas companies are probably the biggest customers for the artificial trees. Another use for the artificial trees would be in the cap-and-trade carbon credit system. The idea is that companies that produce CO2 would pay another company, like GRT, to get rid of it.


This carbon sequestration technology is being considered as a part of the long-term solution as global reliance on fossil fuels will not reduce anytime soon.

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Saving Lake Chad: The Way Forward

Lake Chad is a historically large, shallow, endorheic lake located mainly in the far west of Chad, bordering on northeastern Nigeria. The entire geographical basin of the Lake Chad covers 8 percent of the surface area of the African continent, shared between the countries of Algeria, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Libya, Niger, Nigeria and Sudan.


Lake Chad is the largest, fresh water reservoir in the Sahel region of Africa. The Lake has been a cultural and trading Centre for many centuries and provided the vital transit place for trans‐African merchants. The resources of the Lake and its basin provided the subsistence for the livelihood of more than 30 million people, most of whom are farmers, fishermen and livestock breeders. But today the resources are fast diminishing as a result of several decades of droughts and desertification caused by shortage of rainfall, high winds and temperature rise in the Sahel region. Most of the people are now refugees in their own land while many of them along with their herds have migrated southward and are still migrating.


The shrinking of the lake has also caused several different conflicts to emerge as to which countries that border Lake Chad have the rights to the remaining water. Along with the conflicts that involve the countries, violence is increasing among the lake's dwellers. Farmers and herders want the water for their crops and livestock and are constantly diverting the water. The fishermen however want the remaining water in the lake to stay so they can continue to fish and not have to worry about the lake shrinking more and decreasing their already strained supply of fish. Furthermore the birds and animals in the area are threatened as they are important sources of food for the local human population.


The looming crisis which has common root cause of climatic change aided by anthropogenic activities has several facets: the Lake Chad has shrunk by as much as 90% over the past three decades; most of the citizens of the basin have no domestic water services – clean or even unclean – just to get by, many suffer from avoidable malnutrition and diseases caused by poor sanitation; the people and governments lack the wherewithal to solve the problems. Yet, if the situation is left unattended, it could lead to serious regional catastrophe with significant global repercussions.


The problem of the Lake Chad is actually manifold, as listed below:
• The variability of the hydrological regime and the dramatic decrease in freshwater availability.
• The relatively high rating of water pollution mainly due to commercial cotton and rice production known to use large quantities of agro-chemicals.
• The low viability of biological resources which pertains to the inability of the regenerative rates of the
plant and animal resources to keep pace with exploitation and disturbances.
• The loss of biodiversity, in particular loss of plant and animal species, as well as damages to ecosystem health.
• The destruction and modification of ecosystem due to the change of the Lake from an open water system to a marshy environment.
• The sedimentation of rivers and water courses that has led to a reduction in the inflows to the Lake.
• The proliferation of invasive species.


Measures related to improved adaptation and prediction systems, environmental planning, information pooling, the exchange of information on best practices, strengthened technical cooperation and close cooperation with policy-makers and all stakeholders must be implemented urgently in the Lake Chad Basin.

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Solar Powered Camel Clinics carry Medicine across the Desert

Kenya’s camels recently started sporting some unusual apparel: eco-friendly refrigerators! Some of the African country’s camels are carrying the solar-powered mini fridges on their backs as part of a test project that uses camels as mobile health clinics. Organizers hope the eco-friendly transport system will provide a cheap, reliable way of getting much-needed medicines and vaccines to rural communities in Kenya and Ethiopia.


For the past decade, Nomadic Communities Trust has been using camels as mobile health clinics in Kenya’s Laikipia and Samburu districts, isolated areas with few roadways. While the camel convoys provide a cost-effective method of traversing the harsh terrain, the group had no way of delivering medicines and vaccines that required refrigeration — until now. In 2005, Nomadic Communities Trust partnered with California’s Art Center College of Design’s Designmatters and Princeton’s Institute for the Science and Technology of Materials (PRISM). Together, the groups created a lightweight and durable solar-powered refrigerator that can be strapped to camels’ backs in order to transport chilled medicines and vaccines.


The mini fridge is housed in a bamboo saddle that is lightweight and durable enough for camels to easily carry it across miles of rough terrain. The device itself is covered with crystalline solar panels that provide power for the compartmented fridge’s generator. The solar panels themselves can also be used by the mobile clinics for lighting and refrigeration in the field.


Mariana Amatullo, Designmatters‘ executive director, said the project was designed with a budget of only a few thousand dollars. To save money, designers tested the device on the Bronx Zoo’s camels so people wouldn’t have to fly back and forth to Kenya.


The solar-powered fridges are currently being tested on camels in Kenya and Ethiopia, but Amatullo says the system could be used by any rural communities with access to camels. If the project secures enough funding, it will be implemented in earnest in 2010. Let’s hope the eco-friendly venture receives the money it needs — in the Laikipia and Samburu districts alone, 300,000 people do not have access to the mobile health clinics.


Source: http://inhabitat.com/solar-powered-camel-clinics-carry-medicine-across-the-desert/

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How to Recycle Your e-Waste

According to the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP), 20-50 million tons of e-waste is dumped into landfills all over the world each year. These range from old phones, TVs, microwaves, computers and more. Most of the time, it's not because these gadgets are defunct; they're being dumped in favor of new releases. While getting a new piece of technology device can bring more fun and entertainment, it also brings with it a whole lot of toxic waste. Failure to properly dispose unwanted electronic devices causes exposure to hazardous chemicals which include Mercury, Lead and PCBs. These chemicals are known to cause cancer, respiratory illness, and reproductive problems, and damage the earth by seeping into the soil and ground water.

Here are 3 sustainable tips to help deal with electronic waste.

1.Recycle Them
Step away from the trashcan! You should never dump unwanted electronics - instead, take them to an e-waste recycler

2. Donate Them
Give your old gadgets to a friend or family member, and if you can't find a taker, try donating them to a reputable reuse organization that won't export it unless it's fully functional.

3. Sell Them
Many companies offer buyback programs for their old electronics from customers looking to upgrade. You can sell your old gadget and use the credit towards a newer version within the same mark.

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Environment Defined

The word environment, in every day usage, means surroundings, circumstances, or influences. Most people understand the term to mean the physical conditions of the landscape, including the topography, drainage, climatic conditions, and the vegetation of a given area or territory.


This is the physical environment or natural surroundings made up of land, water, and air, along with all the resources including the soil, plants, animals, and minerals found in them.


The second type of tangible or material environment is the human-made environment, which is basically the natural environment that has been modified or transformed by human activities.


In addition to these two types of tangible environments, there is a third type of environment, namely the socioeconomic environment, which encompasses the political environment. Often, it is this intangible environment that plays a major role in determining what proportion of the natural resources of a territory is used for the economic development of the territory and for the economic development of the territory and for the material benefit of the inhabitants.

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What is Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA)?

Environmental impact assessment (EIA) is an assessment of the effects of a proposed development on the physical, biological, social, and economic environment. The the development could be a policy, plan, programme, project, social, cultural or economic change, or environmental change.

It is an assessment that aims that aims to integrate environment into development in a manner that will bring about sustainable development.

Although EIA evolved in the USA in 1970 long before the United Nations report on sustainable development was published by the World Commision on Environment and Development (WCED) in 1987, it was at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) held in Rio de Janerio, Brazil, 1992, that the need to intergrate environment into development globally was further underscored.

EIA is a tool for systematically evaluating impacts of a proposed development on people, other organisms, and on the physical, social, economic, cultural and aesthetic environment before a final decision is taken.

In addition to identifying the impacts, EIA considers various alternative options including the option not to undertake a development or not to make a change. It should clarify what a situation would be if there were no development or change, and what the impacts are for various alternative development options. It shouls be undertaken to provide environmental and social inputs into the project decision-making process.

Environmental Impact Assessment is therefore concerned with the continued welfare of people and the stewardship of nature. The practical objective of an EIA is to predict probable and potential changes in the environmental and social system resulting from a proposed project.

Thus, EIA is a process with the ultimate objective to provide decision makers with an indication of the likely consequences of their actions.

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Population and the Environment

Population is the total number of people who live in a specified area or territory such as a country, province, ethnic territory, or a town.

In the process of creating development, human beings transform and destroy the environment. The continued growing demand for resources by an ever-increasing population (population pressure) has created an age-long concern for the environment and the adequacy of resources for future generations (sustainable development).

The environment provides the resources needed for the existence and survival of human beings. It also provides the site for the physical presence of all living things. The environment serves as the sink for wastes. Human beings produce the greatest amount of waste.

With advances in technology, overexploitation of environmental resources become inevitable. Land degradation, soil erosion, droughts, flooding, sand dunes, etc. are evidence of the worsening state of the environment.

There is no problem in the relationship between living things and the environment as long as the total ecosystem made up of great variety of species remain balanced. Trouble begins when nature's balance is upset by a dominant species, usually the human population, or by natural disaster.

Recent studies of population-environment interactions therefore recognize land use and land cover change as a corner stone of the science of global environmental change, sustainablity, and increasingly, environment-and-development.

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Noise Pollution and its Health Effects

Noise is simply any form of unwanted sound. The unit of measurement is decibel (dB). Exposure to noise can cause a number of deletorios effects on humans and yet noise generation is one of the inevitable features of development.

There is ample experimental evidence that specific disorders such as cardiovascular disease, annoyance, speech interference at home and at work, and sleep disturbance can occur due to exposure to noise. Temporary and even permanent impairment to hearing can also result from prolonged exposure to excessive noise.

Research shows that decrease of working quality, increase of psychical tension, increase of blood pressure and pulse frequency, and biochemical effects such as increase in epinephrine, urine and serum Mg, protein, cholesterol plus decrease of erythrocyte Na and rennin are associated with a noisy work environment.

There are diffrent noise levels of dicomfort for different people. Generally, the human level of discomfort starts from about 100 dB, pain from about 120 dB, and damage to the hear drum will occur at 160 dB.

Different nations adopt different safety sound levels in different environment such as industrial workplace, open street, and a residential area.

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Environmental Law

It is easier to describe law than to define it. However, law has been described as the body of rules regulating the human conduct regarded as obligatory or binding by its members.


Environmental law are laws that are concerned with the protection of the natural resources of the environmental media - land, air and water - and the flora and fauna (plants and animals) which inhabit them.


The function of this branch of law is to regulate human conduct with a view to sustaining life, which is incontrovetibly the most important of all fundamental rights.


The content of environmental law is wide and extensive. It covers subject areas like water pollution, air pollution and land degradation, noise pollution, wildlife and natural resources conservation, pest control, fishery, environmental sanitation, solid waste management, land use and planning, matters of afforestation and deforestation, and desertification, among others.


Law is obviously not the only instument of social control in the society as there are others like public opinion, religion, and custom. Law is unique, especially within the the confines of the environment because its presciptions are backed with sanctions.


However, not all environmental problems are human generated. Granted the fact that some environmental problems are occasioned by factors outside the immediate control of humans, the role of law here is to ameliorate their impact by preventing aditional disturbances to the ecosystem that might be occasioned by human activities either by omision or commision.


Law combines a number of techniques in environmental protection to achieve sustainable developmwnt and these include the penal technique, the administative regulatory technique, and the grieviance-remedial technique.


The paramount social value which the law communicates, regulates, and reinforces is that of the survival of the society.


It has benn acknowledged that a massive pollution of the environment through despoilation of land, water and the air, by industrial waste, chemicals, oil, the dumping of refuse/garbage, the indiscriminate use of pesticides, and by any other means threathens the very conditions of social survival.


Law is apparently the most potent weapon that can be employed to regulate human activities with a view to sustaining social survival.

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