The National Resources Defense Council, have evaluated the quality of drinking water in nineteen major cities across the country and ranked them based on quality and compliance, availability of information, and source water protection. Surprisingly it found everything from rocket fuel, pesticides, lead, arsenic, etc in many samples!
David Kuria wants to transform the way Kenyans think about toilets. His company, Ecotact, is building bright, beautiful structures in dense urban centers and slums, where Kenyans can pay a small fee to use a hygienic toilet. A seemingly simple intervention but with potential for enormous impact in urban areas where defecating into a plastic bag is a common practice (e.g., the infamous "flying toilets" in the Kibera slum).
Every Monday we profile a Dow Live Earth Run for Water partner organization that works toward providing solutions to the nearly 1 billion people who lack access to clean, safe water. To donate to one of these projects, visit liveearth.org/give.
Wasrag (the Water & Sanitation Rotarian Action Group) is a group of Rotarians who are dedicated to one of the aspirations of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals: to halve, by 2015, the proportion of the population without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation.
Sand dams are an ancient water-saving technique that is thousands of years old and could prove to save millions of lives from drought. They are constructed out of concrete barriers 1-5m high and filled with sand. When seasonal rains fall, water collects behind the dam. The sand acts like a sponge and filters the water and slows evaporation. Clean water can be drawn for up to several months after the rains have fallen through pipes underneath the dams or by digging a hole in the sand.
We should be much more aware that we may be using water at an extremely unsustainable pace. An astronomical amount of water is used for consumer products and food consumption known as your Water Footprint. This is the amount of water a person, company or nation uses to produce the commodities, goods and services consumed.
Water footprints can be hard to calculate, depending on how far up the chain of production you investigate, since everything you eat and buy used some water to produce. For example: to feed cows for beef, or to use in the factory that made your cell phone, or even the mass amount of water it took to make that plastic bottle of water - that you should have stopped using!
In recognition of Universal Children's Day, established by the United Nations General Assembly as a day to promote the protection, welfare and education of the children of the world, Global Water Challenge (GWC) today released "Clean Start: Focusing on School Water, Sanitation and Hygiene."
The report identifies the challenges and solutions associated with the global water crisis and its effect on children. It identifies access to clean drinking water as one of the leading health threats to children around the world today and the cause for millions of deaths and education loss each year.
Dell is shipping some of its computers in packaging that includes bamboo components, with the exterior packaging being made from 25 % post-consumer recycled materials. Bamboo is so preferable because it grows fast, at up to 24 inches a day, and is strong enough to protect equipment during transit.
The Austin, Texas-based company is “introducing it with mobile products, as it’s proven a strong, sustainable and cost-effective solution for packaging those.”
The long-term effects of this work will ensure improved health and increased agricultural production in these areas. You can support Pump Aid's current projects using the widget below the video.
Check out this new brick design! It looks like an ordinary brick, but is much more than that. Turn it over and and you can see one very different eco-friendly design change, one that will change the way bricks are made.