v |
i |
s |
t |
a |
s |
p |
m |
e |
h |
t |
a
|
I’ve railed against the unnecessary use of concrete for years but I was not aware that it is such a huge contributor to Carbon Dioxide emissions – 10% of the worldwide total according to some estimates.
Here’s an interesting article because it gives a few alternatives to the use of concrete – most of them are not available here but, nonetheless, the article is worth reading.
Go to :: Concrete: a ‘Burning’ Issue
This is the ideal air conditioner – the hotter the sun gets the better the a/c works. Still, there have been drawbacks that made such machines non-viable. Now, a company called GreenCore Air has released a hybrid unit that claims to have solved the inefficiency problem.
Go to :: GreenCore The website has been squatted upon. Try this company instead.
via :: MetaEfficient
The price of electricity in India has gone up substantially of late and the argument for eliminating incandescent bulbs has become even stronger. Scroll towards the bottom of this article to see cost comparisons for Bulbs, CFLs and Fluorescent Tubes.
View of the verandah which overlooks the river
It’s been a while but I finally got this page uploaded. The [RaBV] bungalow has been completed and the owners are living there already. Teething problems are still being sorted out–rather slowly–by the local contractor and they should be done soon. more…
Found an article at Sustainable Design Update (the site seems to have disappeared) about Sintex Industries making a prefabricated biogas digester which turns waste and garbage into cooking fuel. Nothing new about the technology but constructing a tank has always been the biggest headache. Now, you can just get it ready-made and install it. According to some reports, it costs about Rs. 17,000 for a tank that’s 1m³ in size which is enough for a family of 4 and the payback period is 2 years.
Interestingly, most references to Sintex call it a “plastics and textiles manufacturer”. I didn’t know they did textiles. Here in Bombay, Sintex is to tanks what Xerox is to photocopiers. In the meanwhile, not a single Indian newspaper or website had picked up on this. Yet…
The Sintex website makes no mention of this product and it’s still probably a pilot project because only 100 have been installed as of date. They do plan to increase production tenfold but 1000 tanks is still merely a drop in the ocean. If other manufacturers copy this design with as much alacrity as they did the Sintex loft and overhead tanks, then we might get somewhere.
Edit: Since this was written, Sintex has updated their website and you can see septic tanks listed as one of their products.
Edit #2: The page itself has disappeared so, for the moment, the link above points to an archived version on Wayback Machine.
This is absolutely wonderful. When it comes to inexpensive, self-help construction, you can hardly go wrong with this extremely low-tech system.
See :: Earth Bag House in Haiti
via :: Sustainable Design Update <http://sustainabledesignupdate.com/> (no longer available)
Researchers at IIT Kanpur are working on a toilet design that will reuse water. The design is still under development but, if it works as advertised, it’ll be a good thing because the amount of fresh water flushed down the drain is dramatically reduced. The article at Down To Earth may disappear in the next few days because access to archives requires subscription. From what I understand of the system, a vortex is created to clean the pan and then, further, to separate the solid from the liquid matter. The liquid is then being pumped back for reuse. In places where there is little or no power, hand-pumps can be used a couple of times a day.
What you are left with is dry waste which can be composted and reused liquid which contains a lot of urine. They’ll have to work on the smell angle because… well… have you ever been to a urinal at a train station? The smell is so strong, methinks it would almost be commercially viable to bottle the ammonia!
I’m also left wondering if at least a small amount of electrical power would be required to help with this mini centrifuge work better. Indian Railways have approved the design and they’re going to test it out on one particular route. It remains to be seen if the centrifugal force which is running on gravity is strong enough to override the rock and roll effect of a railway carriage running at high speed.
Finally, even if the system doesn’t work for reusing the water, I still think it’s a good idea to separate the solid and liquid components because dry composting is far more efficient.
Edit: The original article at Down To Earth Magazine has been removed.
I’ve been watching the much-talked-about Antilia building on Altamount Road come up these last few months and other than the architects, nobody seems to know what exactly is so green about it (apart from vegetation hanging over the side). Like many others, I’m convinced this is a major case of green-washing but, what I like is very much, is the debate being generated by this monstrosity.
LEED ratings and even our own home-grown GRIHA system which I wrote about earlier are always going to be open to manipulation and I would prefer to see them being used as check-lists to help architects design sustainable structures rather than as “certificates” of sustainable design. The article linked below gives, I think, a very balanced view of this issue.
Full article: Slate Magazine via: Arzan’s blog
Edit: The Slate article no longer exists — but greenwashing continues unabated!
Just a few days ago, a friend of mine emailed an article from the NY Times talking about Orange County in California treating their sewage and then piping it back into people’s taps. Conceptually, it’s the correct thing to do but the cost attached is much too high. Of course, this is not the first place in the world trying to do something like this:
“Namibia’s capital, Windhoek, among the most arid places in Africa, is believed to be the only place in the world that practices ‘direct potable reuse’ on a large-scale, with recycled water going directly into the tap water distribution system”
Ironically, just a couple of days later, I came across an article about a county near Atlanta, Georgia, which has enough water in their system even though the surrounding areas are facing the spectre of drought. Instead of thinking along the lines of a sewage treatment plant, they created wetlands and planted forests so that the water got treated more naturally. It cost a lot less and it sounds a far more sustainable idea.
More: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (page no longer available)
Via : TreeHugger
After being a while in the pipeline, The Energy Research Institute – TERI – released GRIHA, (Green Rating for Integrated Habitat Assessment) which has been developed keeping the Indian scenario in mind. GRIHA evaluates a building’s environmental performance over its life cycle and rates it based on a number of criteria. Now, the Ministry for Renewable Energy has said that they are thinking of giving incentives to green buildings in the form of tax breaks.
The Green Building Council, meanwhile, already has their own version of LEED here: LEED-India which is, apparently, more restrictive than its US counterpart. LEED has got the backing of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), which is not surprising given that their centre in Hyderabad received a Platinum award from the GBC.
Whether both rating systems survive or one will become the standard is unknown at this point and I had, so far, thought that GRIHA would be pushed aside by LEED’s marketing muscle. However, with the government stepping in with the promise of tax-breaks for GRIHA, it might just emerge the winner. If, on the other hand, the government is seen as interfering and the awarding of points is thought to be biased, it will serve nobody.
In the meanwhile, there are many who feel that neither system is holistic enough. See the article in Down To Earth magazine