Water out of Mist

There are countries where most of the ground area covered by desert. Countries like Namibia has no water reservoirs like Well, River in their country. Every day comes with the scarcity of drinking water. One innovative idea is evolved… called Fog harvesting.
Early morning air, coming over the sea is cold, moisture in the air can be collected in small reservoirs to satisfy small scale requirement of water.  One Canadian charitable trust FogQuest, is working to install devises to collect water in developing countries. Devise made of plastic mesh has capability to collect pure drinking water through water vapor in the atmospheric air.

About Fog Quest: FogQuest is a non-profit, registered Canadian charity dedicated to planning and implementing water projects for rural communities in developing countries. We utilize innovative fog collectors as well as effective rainfall collectors to make optimum use of natural atmospheric sources of water.

Mechanism:
Size of water droplet is very small, around 1 to 50 microns. Hydrophilic surface of devise holds water holds and gathers water droplets due to electrostatic attraction. This prevent them being picked up and blown out by wind. Collected water run off over the channel into water container. Channel is made up of water repelling material like Teflon.
Geographical Area:
Mountains and deserts where fog is present and water resources are very low, are ideal places for water harvesting.

Top Ten Actions on Earth Day

All these are standard actions mentioned by Earh day Canada group. They have started the Earth Hour from Year 1970. I liked to collect and spread these actions on blogosphere.

So, Promise yourself to follow few of them.

1. Smart Shopping
   • Buy what you need, not what you want
   • Consider renting and borrowing things that are seldom needed
   • Buy used items from garage sales and second-hand stores
2. Simple Savers
   • Replace incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs
   • Use aerators on faucets and shower heads
   • Weatherstrip windows and doors
3. Transportation Alternatives
   • Walk, cycle, car pool and use public transportation
   • When driving, reduce idling and maintain correct tire pressure
   • Consider car sharing programs or renting
4. Food Choices
   • Choose local and organic foods that are in season, and support local food producers
   • Eat less meat
5. Washing and Drying
   • Wash full loads of clothes in cold water and hang to air dry
6. Heating and cooling
   • For summer air conditioning, set your thermostat to 24°C or 25°C
   • For winter heating, set your thermostat to 19°C or 20°C
   • Install ceiling fans and programmable thermostats
7. Close to Home
   • Vacation, travel and work as close to home as possible
8. Bathroom Basics
   • Take short showers instead of baths
   • Close water taps while brushing your teeth
9. Careful Cleaning
   • Choose natural, non-toxic cleaning products
   • Make simple, natural cleaners with ingredients like vinegar, baking soda and water
10. Don’t Discard
    • Donate, reuse and recycle items before throwing them into the trash
    • Harmful materials like chemicals, batteries, electronics, etc. should be taken to local hazardous waste depots or recyclers

More Information can be found on Earth Day Canada site here.

Simple Ways To Protect Planet Earth

With the couple of comments on previous the Earth Day blog post, I am writing brief information about the major tips to ‘Go Green’ (some suggested by wordpress readers. Thank you all.

1. Recycle– If we look inside our home, we find more than 50 percent residential appliances including chair, tables are made up of plastic. Poly thin bags are prepared with non-degradable polymer material and over usage of plastic has turned disaster to the environment. Only usage to destroy plastic is to burn it or bury it underground. Carry bags are also available in the degradable material that is made up from coconut root.
2. Use Energy saving appliances- If we replace Incandescent light bulbs with CFL(compact florescent light) bulbs, it will save much part of electricity bill. It consume less electricity as well as lifecycle of such bulb is much higher than ordinary bulbs.
3. Water Saving Taps and showerhead- Low flow shower heads saves much water if installed in residential complexes. Remote detector water taps are also available in market. These water taps are open till the person’s hand is in front of water tap. Such water taps can be used in wash basins in restaurant as well as residential complexes.
4.  Reduce-Reuse-Recycle: We are not aware that many daily usable things in the market are coming in the form that can be recycled and reused. I have listed below recyclable and reusable things below.
   I found one good informative post here by Debi on Chocolate Wasteland Blog.
   Following few ways comes under this principles only, but explained in details.
5. Books, Magazines and News papers– In coming days, rarely people are reading news papers in the form of hard copy. I myself stopped getting news papers from local vender. I read them on line. Huge amount of paper pulp has been saved because of e-papers and e-magazines, in turn tree cutting has been prevented for this purpose. Many libraries also updating their books in soft copy, so that user can just subscribe the library through internet.
6. Recycle E-Waste: Computers, Scrapped DVDs and CDs are yearly growing and considered as major part of e-waste. Hard drive, cabinet and internal hardware of Scrapped computers are difficult to recycle. During the recycling, silicon, registers and burned to separate from motherboard and causes air pollutions. This situation has changed in some way. Size of electronic appliances has been reduced.
7. Used Mobile phones: It is one of the major e-wastes. People use mobile for general communication purpose and entertainment. Competitive technology has made cell phone companies to update the versions many time in a single year. As the mobile versions, designs are updated. People dump away their old phone and purchase new ones. This habit has been increased tremendously. Mobile subscriber has grown exponentially higher. Cell phone is reached till the rural under developed countries like Sudan, Uganda, South Africa.
8. Avoid Food wastage: It is the good daily habit to cook only amount of food that is sufficient for people in home. If we imagine, there are countries where people won’t get food and some die of food shortage. Food inflation is growing due to reduced cultivable land.
9. Drive Less, Drive Smart:Whenver you skip using your own car, bike for general purpose, you are helping to reduce pollution. Public transportations are good for long routes. It saves money as well as fuel. There should not be hesitation to use public transportations.
   While going for shopping, men can preper bicycle. Sometimes, it may seem difficult, but China has reduced carbon foot prints by using cycle.Find my previous informative post about Bicycle Sharing Program in China

Save Water

I have written this small article to initiate the ‘Save Tiger’ campaign along with ‘Save Water’ campaign in our social awareness group – ‘Go Green’ club.

Save Water

What we can see in this image?

‘Birds are starving due to absence of water…’ This applies to all animals and birds, which needs water!

Principle/Social Responsibility: Along with human being, every other life on the Earth has equal right to live. Other life includes plants, animal of all type, terrestrial, aquatic.

‘Why water disappeared? This is due to increased atmospheric temperature caused by Global warming. It is surprising if anyone sees river with flowing water in summer season. This is not at all natural phenomenon, but side effect of human causes. Deforestation, multiplying population growth, industrialization, and pollution are few clear reasons. Major IT, Automation companies are partially responsible. Green house gases are flushed into air by ACs, refrigerators. This gas tears out ozone layer and allowing UV rays to burn the Earth surface. Even 4 to 5 degree temperature cause flood in the rivers, after melting the icecaps of Himalayas. For example, Yearly, flood of Brahmaputra river in Asam.

This is part of actual cause-effects of Global warming.

Why we did tree plantation?
To increase greeneries? But still why? Loss of full grown mountains and forests has erased animal life cycles. We must have heard, Leopards entering into societies. It is because, they don’t have their home now. We rarely see elephants, bears and other animals in future. Forget about Tigers, our national animal! At this moment, India has only 1411 tigers, which are caged in sanctuaries. Government has banned entertainment of animals and birds in Circus. Why? Because, On other side, we have only killed them. Still why? Principle. Tree plantation is effective when we push supportive ‘awareness campaign’ of decreasing animal spices.

What is Awareness campaign?
It is not about only having knowledge, but to spread it around as much as possible. Mails, posters, social Medias like Face book, Twitter are the effective tools. We do plantation to increase greenery, but already grown mountains and forest has been destroyed. India has about 23 percent total land covered with trees, below the actual required limit of 33 percent.