The 2003 NBA Rookie of the Year Amare Stoudemire has recently turned his focus away from the court and onto Africa—he's donated a considerable sum of money to fund well construction (a cause he has in common with TreeHugger founder Graham Hill) in Sierra Leone, and he's personally taken a trip there to unveil the various project sites where the work is to be done. ...
Image source: Getty Images
Pharmaca Integrative Pharmacy Company just announced that it has joined the list of facilities that can and will take your unused and outdated medicines and properly dispose of them "by an FDA-approved company." Neither dumping them down the drain or in the trash is a good ideas, as either way the drugs will eventually get back to you in your water supply.
Why is drug take back so difficult? Well, it has to do with Federal regulations....
1992 Nobel Peace Prize winner Rigoberta Menchú came to speak today at the local community college in my town. I jumped at the opportunity to hear such an incredible woman speak and was especially excited that her speech revolved around global environmental issues.
Photo via ogimogi
Yesterday I talked about the high standard Bioneers has set for the conference, including ditching bottled water and serving water only at stations. So, appropriately enough, Food & Water Watch had information about Taking Back the Tap at their booth, which also mentioned some interesting information about the city of San Francisco's restaurants.
The type of water conditions these programs are attempting to address, photo: McKay Savage.
XEROX/PARC Spiral Water Filtration Technology
A typical water-treatment plant is very big and very expensive. XEROX's Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) has come up with a new technology that could make the whole process cheaper and simpler, potentially making life better for millions.
Read on for more details....
In Bottlemania, Elizabeth Royte concluded: “I come away from my investigations with at least one certainty; not all tap water is perfect. But it is the devil we know, the devil that we have standing to negotiate with and to improve."
The inner guts of Element Four's Watermill
With the West in a water crisis, it's not surprising to see a machine that pulls water from ambient air at West Coast Green. The concept itself is nothing new. However, these kinds of machines tend to require a ton of energy. Of course there are camping/emergency dew-catching versions that require no energy at all, but they also aren’t practical for the average family home.
Water for Life
Back in 2005, Warren wrote about the elephant pump. A design from ancient China that is now being used in poor regions of Africa to bring drinking water to local populations, with the benefit that it can be easily assembled and maintained locally.
We found this Youtube video about it and thought it was really cool. Check it out, and if you like what you see...
Image source: Kona Bikes
Kona not only sells good bikes, sponsors riders to jump off things taller than our heads, and promotes recreational and functional biking, but it also is putting those bikes to work all over Africa. Their AfricaBikes program not only helps HIV/AIDS workers deliver medicine, but now the bikes are also being used to ensure that over 6 million people have access to water. The bikes also allow healthcare workers to move from seeing 1-2 patients a day by foot to over 6 a day.
photo: Liz via flickr
The very un-TreeHugger nature of the bottled water industry has graced this site numerous times, but there is some good news:
In the world’s largest market for bottled water, the United States, more people seem to be getting the message that bottled water is not only a waste of resources, but also money. According to the Worldwatch Institute, growth in the US bottled water market is starting to slow down after years of increases.
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