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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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,...

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