Recently in International Category

With the World Cup came lots of talk and thoughts, maybe too much, about the World's favorite sport, soccer. Now that the tournament is over, we can think about more important things, like soccer fields that double as water catchment systems.

Designers from the charitable design organization Atopia Research, have come up with a soccer field that acts as a community center and water catchment and storage system specifically designed for a typical African village.

The project, called PITCH: AFRICA ('Pitch', to the world outside the US means 'soccer field' FYI), is based on the idea that most of Africa gets plenty of rainfall but only at specific times of the year. Therefore, a good rainwater catchment system has the potential to create a consistent water supply all year long.

If you match a rainwater catchment with a very popular community activity, you get a centralized and easy to access water source that can be used to water plants, cook and drink. The soccer field basically acts as a large water catchment surface where water collects and is drained through a semi-permeable surface into a storage tank and then filtered. In theory, this system is able to provide 1000 people with water, year-round.

The idea is explained by the designers in this video below, courtesy of Fast Company:

According to Circle of Blue WaterNews, S2C Global Systems, a San Antonio, Texas based company in partnership with Alaska Resource Management LLC, will be exporting 2.9 billion gallons (10.9 billion liters) of water a year, from Alaska to Mumbai, India.

The operation is the first of its kind in that the water will be treated like other globally traded commodities to be shipped on ocean tankers.

Alaska Resource Management has struck a deal with the town of Sitka, Alaska to bulk extract water from the local resevior at 1 cent a gallon.

The water is planned to be shipped and offloaded in a Mumbai port, where it will be bottled into 2.5 to 5 liter containers and shipped around the region.

While states like California and Arizona ship their tap water from hundreds of miles away to meet demand, the concept of shipping water to be bottled thousands of miles, across oceans is new.

The trend of using a global water trade to solve local water purity issues is disturbing. It is highly unsustainable for many reasons to rely on water supplies from half way around the globe instead of working on the cleanliness of the local supply.

Foreign energy supplies are bad enough,  no one should be in the position of being dependent on foreign water.

For a range of public opinion on this subject, see this article at CircleofBlue.org.

A new community based energy utility in the industrial waterfront of Vancouver, British Columbia is using waste water and sewage to heat thousands of homes.

The Southeast False Creek Neighborhood Energy Utility is using a technique that takes the heat from warm water from your drain, such as bathwater and sink water, as well as warm sewage water (with an average temperature of 65 degrees) and uses it to heat a network of high efficiency water pipes. The piping system runs underground to local buildings and distributes the heat. The water then returns to the plant to be reheated by more waste water and sewage.

Many of the buildings being serviced by the new plant are part of the Olympic Village, that since February have been converted into over 1,000 housing units. The process is cutting greenhouse gas emissions from these buildings by 65% compared to conventional methods.

The housing is being awarded Leadership in Energy Efficiency and Design (LEED) Platinum, the highest rating possible.

The utility also hopes to be a model for other local, community based utilities. They have built and education center in the plant to show visitors how the process works.

Who knew our 'waste' was so useful?

The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has been devastating. 5,000 or more barrels of oil a day are leaking into ocean waters and could reach an estimated 60,000 barrels if the right steps are not taken.  It has had catastrophic effects on local wildlife and the livelihoods of thousand of local residents.

Many people are understandably calling for a permanent ban on offshore oil drilling in the US. However, it is important to understand that this should be a wake up call to slow our use of oil overall, not to just stop drilling in the US. Any drilling that is not done here, in the US, will be done elsewhere if there is still demand for oil. Often, this drilling is done in areas with far less environmental regulations.

Nigeria, as an example, provides 2.28 million barrels of oil a day to the global supply. The country has had massive oil spills in the size range of Exxon Valdez every year since the 1960's. Some estimates put the amount of oil spilled in Nigeria since 1960 at over 100 million barrels.

The global estimated total average amount of oil seeping into the ocean's waters is over 9 million gallons, absent any major spills. There is very little reporting done on these spills, though they clearly happen on a regular basis.

The point is that it is not just about banning drilling in America, it is about reducing the demand for oil overall. We need to slow the use of petroleum to power our homes, to drive our cars and we need to stop buying products, such as most plastics, that are petroleum based. This risks are to great and there are many alternatives. 

We will only have so many chances before the damage done by these kinds of accidents cannot be taken back. 

On average, 70% of ground water is used for agriculture. In areas where there is little or no ground water, drinking  comes first and there is no water left over for agricultural purposes.

The Groasis Waterboxx, created by Dutch inventor Pieter Hoff, is a 'water battery' that has the ability to establish plants and trees in incredibly dry climates. In recent experiments at the University of Oujda in Morocco, scientists were able to grow trees in the desert.

The Waterboxx collects condensation from the air and collects it inside the box. The water is then drip irrigated to the roots of the plant it is being used on. The box is kept around the the plant until firm roots are established. Then it can be moved to new plants to get them started. A biodegradable version of the box has been developed as not to create plastic waste. 

While the Waterboxx is a simple device, it has quite a bit of potential for people in developing countries in very dry areas. Hoff hopes to create a business model that will allow people in low-income areas to get their own box and start planting trees and crops.

For more technical details or to order a box, visit groasis.com or check out Pieter Hoff's presentation below:

A Taiwanese company has commissioned a 3 story expo center in Taipei made out of 1.5 million recycled PET plastic water bottles. The $4.6M building will be fully permanent and earthquake resistant. It is 426 ft. long and 85 ft wide.

The Ecoark, as it will be called, includes a museum space, an amphitheater, and a screen of falling water collected from rain that will also work as an air conditioner. The first event held in the space will be a fashion show held in November.

The idea came to engineers at Miniwiz Sustainable Energy, who worked on the project while looking at the trash cans at the company office. "We noticed that in our office most of our trash that we have are actually PET bottles because all our engineers love drinking bottled," said Arthur Huang, the director of the company.

While we think these engineers need to slow down on the bottled water drinking, this is absolutely brilliant.

You can see more footage of the building here.

The Carbon Disclosure Project has done a very good job at bringing investors together to effectively persuade corporations to disclose and focus on reducing their carbon footprint.
2,500 of the world's largest corporations measure and report their carbon usage through the CDP.

The CDP is announcing on Wednesday that they will use their highly effective model to force corporations to reveal and pay attention to their water footprint as well as their carbon footprint. This would include how much water is used by corporations in their operations and where they source their water from (whether it comes from regions with shortages etc.)

The idea behind the original project came from the fact that corporations have larger carbon and ecological footprints than many countries. Furthermore, international agreements such as the Kyoto Protocol had not proven to be very effective and many countries ( the US included) have not ratified it. So, the focus is on investors who might be able to make a bigger difference in influencing the biggest polluters, while reducing their long-term risk in their investments.

This new water accounting that will be used by the CDP is great news. Water use and cleanliness needs to be recognized as one of our top environmental priorities, right up their with carbon emissions.

For more information on CPD's water program or how to report for your organization, click here.

I must admit, I often find myself randomly thinking about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Sometimes I am about to get a plastic bag for groceries or buy an orange juice in a plastic bottle, and an image of that massive gyre of waste comes to mind.

Sometimes I think about informing strangers about the problem. For instance, when a cashier insists I take a bag with my purchase, I want to say, "thought you might want to know, there is a clump of plastic twice the size of Texas in the Pacific". But that might come off as just a little self-righteous. So I just refuse the bag.

Anyways, the original spokesman speaking out against the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, Captain Charles Moore did a great TED talk in February that I just found today. He presents some of the facts about how plastic gets into the ocean and the problems it causes, along with some great imagery. He happens to be kind of funny too. Watch the video below:
photo credit: Algalita Marine Research Foundation

Last Sunday, scientists at the University of Shefield and the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (Cefas) in the UK announced the completion of the first DNA level study on the microbes associated with plastic waste found in our oceans.

The scientists found that the microbes which grow on plastic particles floating in the ocean are different than the majority of microbes found naturally, in the absence of plastics.

The scientists warned that plastic particles in the ocean can become small enough that marine animals could easily absorb them into their bodies. Once in their system it could be fatal for the animals. However, the fact that the microbes growing on these plastics were significantly different than most marine microbes, suggests that they could be useful in breaking down plastics, especially if isolated.

Dr. Mark Osborn, who led the study was optimistic about their findings: "300 million tonnes of plastic are produced globally each year with significant proportions reaching the marine environment. Our research is revealing the potential for marine microbes to colonize plastics and to potentially degrade these key environmental pollutants."

Considering the breadth of plastic contamination in the Pacific and the Atlantic oceans, it is encouraging to hear their may be ways to help clean these areas up. In the meantime, we have to stop adding to the mess by throwing away plastic bottles and all plastic for that matter.

Buying reused stuff is the most environmentally friendly way to shop. What is even better is getting it for free. A new service called Yoink lets you use your iphone to locate free stuff stuff near you.

While other sites like Craigslist and and Freecycle offer a similar service, Yoink allows stuff to be located using GPS and never requires shipping.

The app includes a way you can upload a picture from the camera on you phone and immediately post it with a short description and your location. If you don't have an iphone, you can use the website to upload photos and post the location of your items.

We all have stuff that we don't need. Any way to efficiently get that stuff to those who need it, reduces our overall environmental impact and saves on energy and money. It's a win-win!