10 Easy-to-Make Home Designs That Promote Sustainability

In a world where the environment becomes the capitalist of all human trade, a century-old debate continues to heat up – sustainability. Most of the resources we use at home are finite, and if we keep on using them; the future generations will have nothing left. That is why it is necessary for us to tap the other resources that nature provides in infinite amounts. Below are the 10 easy designs that you can use to gear your home toward sustainability. You do not just save energy but conserve energy in style.
1. Sustainable Landscaping
The quest for sustainability starts in our very home landscape. The easiest approach would be creating a compost pit to nourish our soil. Once the soil becomes healthy, we can start making vegetable patches where we can plant, grow, and harvest, fruits and vegetables of our own. Adding more trees will keep your home cool during the summer and will add more aesthetic value to our house is also a great plus.
2. Use Reclaimed Bricks
Bricks don’t just shrivel up and vanish. Most of them can last for decades and even centuries. So why use new ones if we can just gather old bricks from old homes and from already-demolished ones? Yes, there are old bricks gathered around town, and we can always have our local contractor piece the reclaimed bricks together to form house walls and apply artistic finish on its ancient surface.
3. Use Reclaimed Lumber
Trees that were uprooted and destroyed by storms and other natural disasters can still be treated and processed into a usable wood that can be applied to various home improvement projects. Wood from old chairs and other fixtures can also be reclaimed and refinished for newer purposes. That way, we can prevent the need for newer lumber, which also decreases our contributions in cutting trees down.
4. Employ Passive Design Approach to Cool or Warm Homes
Using a passive design approach in houses can significantly decrease the energy consumption for heating. It uses passive solar air to warm the entire house. According to various studies, buildings that use such design approach can mitigate their own energy consumption for a whopping 90 percent.
5. Build a Solar Water Heater
Building a solar-powered water heater of our own is one of the best things that anyone can do for sustainable living. It helps cut down energy costs, as it only relies on passive solar heat to keep water hot and well-insulated.
6. Use Low Flush Toilets
Unlike their ancient counterparts, the modern low flush toilets can save approximately four and a half gallons of water. This effectively saves a lot of money when it comes to water bills, and as far as I am concerned, saving money will always be something that I should do, on any circumstances!
7. Build a Rainwater Harvester
Rainwater can be used for bathing, cooking, and drinking. That is why it is important to save water by gathering rainwater for future use. Not only that it’s safe, it’s also free! Rainwater is also free from the contaminants that ground and surface water are always exposed to, and according to the Texas Water Development Board, rainwater can even exceed ground and surface water in terms of safety and quality.
8. Install Faucet Aerators
Faucet aerators add air to your faucet, thereby breaking the flow of water and turning it into droplets. This ingenious way of dispersing water allows to cover more surface area, which saves a considerable amount of water in any home. If you don’t believe me, even the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency contends that installing faucet aerators is one of the best ways you can do to help conserve water.
9. Use a Higher Ceiling and awnings to improve ventilation
Hot air stays up. That is why it is necessary to keep our ceiling high so they can stay there during hot days. A window installed in the higher ceiling area will allow hot air to escape. Installing an awning can be beneficial too for giving protection both for rain and too much sunlight. Such design will enable the free flow of air, which will decrease the need for relying in air conditioners. Ergo, lesser electric bills!
10. Use Greywater Storage Tanks
Greywater is what remains after potable water has been used for washing purposes. Though generally dirty, it can still be used to flush toilets and nourish the topsoil. Relying on greywater can also help reduce the need to extract more freshwater, which ultimately saves clean drinking water.
In this day and age, it is necessary for us to be aware of the things we could do to help make a difference. Remember, if everyone does their part, our collective efforts will accumulate to become a world-changing one.

Source: enn.com

Go Green with Green Alternatives to Everyday Products...

Although you can't single-handedly clean up the environment, you can make choices in your everyday life that will benefit the health of the planet and your community. Simple changes, such as finding green alternatives for the everyday products you consume, can have a beneficial impact on water quality, energy use and the amount of pollution and waste you generate.

Personal Care Products

Everyday products such as soaps, toothpastes, cosmetics and hair care items, often contain chemicals that, when washed off during showers and baths, enter the waste-water stream and can pollute the waterways. When purchasing personal care items, read labels carefully. Products with "natural," organic" or "hypoallergenic," on the labels can be misleading, since there little regulation on the use of these terms. Look for products that list fewer ingredients, and ingredients with names that can be pronounced. Green alternatives include avoiding products with synthetic fragrances, and trying to use fewer personal care products overall. (See Reference 1) You can even make many of your own personal care products with natural ingredients. For example, substitute natural, oil-based soaps for commercial shampoos and rinse your hair with plain cider vinegar. Make your own lotions from essential oils and other natural ingredients, such as aloe vera, shea butter and jojoba.

Home Cleaning Products

Homes now contain up to 10 times more pollution than is found outdoors, much of it from the use of cleaning products. In addition to the health risks, these chemical cleaners also harm the environment in their manufacture, use and disposal. (See Reference 2.) Green alternatives to chemical cleaning products are often found in the kitchen. For example, the U.S. EPA's guide to safer cleaning recommends using 4 tablespoons of baking soda to one quart of water for an all-purpose kitchen and bath cleaner. Substitute 2 tablespoons of baking soda and 2 tablespoons of borax for automatic dishwasher soap. To clean carpets, sprinkle with a mixture of 1 cup of borax and 2 cups of cornmeal, and allow it to stand an hour before vacuuming. Clean hard-surface floors with 1/2 cup of white vinegar in 1/2 gallon of water. (See Reference 3.)

Disposable Paper Goods

Paper and cardboard make up almost 33 percent of solid wastes in landfills, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. (See Reference 4.) Cut down on your landfill contribution with greener options for everyday paper products. Opt for cloth napkins over paper napkins, and substitute washable plates and cups for disposable ones. Instead of using paper towels, wipe up spills with re-usable cleaning cloths, and dry windows with clean, lint-free cloths that can be laundered. Carry your work or school lunches in fabric bags rather than disposable paper brown bags. Buy recycled copy paper instead of new, and then use both sides before shredding it and adding it to your compost pile. Instead of buying note pads and drawing paper for children, save junk mail for jotting down notes and paper craft projects.

Food Products

Much of the food Americans eat each day is grown, processed and packaged long distances from their homes. For example, produce may travel as much as 1,500 miles from grower to table. (See Reference 5.) Long “food miles” contribute to fossil-fuel use and greenhouse gas emissions. Green options for many of your everyday grocery store purchases include buying local food whenever possible, shopping farmers’ markets and eating vegetables and fruit when in season. You may be able to shop for beef, free-range chicken and dairy products from growers in your area as well. Organizations such as Local Harvest provide searchable databases for each state and city in the U.S. to help your find nearby food resources in your community and to help you reduce your own "food miles." (See Reference 6).

References

• The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics: Protect Your Health
• Montgomery County, Maryland Department of Environmental Protection: Green Ways to Do Dirty Jobs
• U.S. Environmental Protection Agency: Safer Cleaning
• U.S. Environmental Protection Agency: Municipal Solid Waste in the United States
• Land Stewardship Project: Racking up the Food Miles
• Local Harvest: Real Food, Real Farmers, Real Community
• World Watch Institute: China Watch: Plastic Bag Ban Trumps Market and Consumer Efforts

Resources

• The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics: DIY Recipes
• U.S. Environmental Protection Agency: Safer Cleaning
• Sustainable Table

Source: homeguides.sfgate.com   Bt Burn McKay

The Great Man-Made River Project: Libya’s Achievement

September 1st is the anniversary of an event little known in the West. Today, over twenty years on, the people who deserve to be celebrating it, are instead enduring a war. Yet the achievement changed their lives greatly and merits recognition. A tap was turned on in Libya. From an enormous ancient aquifer, deep below the Sahara Desert, fresh water began to flow north through 1200 kilometres of pipeline to the coastal areas where 90% of Libyan people live, delivering around one million cubic metres of pure water per day to the cities of Benghazi and Sirte. Crowds gathered in the desert for the inaugural ceremony. Phase I of the largest civil engineering venture in the world, the Great Man-made River Project, had been completed. It was during the 1953 search for new oilfields in southern Libya that the ancient water aquifers were first discovered, four huge basins with estimated capacities each ranging between 4,800 and 20,000 cubic kms. Yes, that’s cubic kilometres. There is so much water that Libya had recently also offered it to Egypt for their needs.

After the bloodless revolution of 1969, also on September 1, the new government nationalised the oil companies and spent much of the oil revenues to harness the supply of fresh water from the desert aquifers by putting in hundreds of bore wells. Muammar Gaddafi’s dream was to provide fresh water for everyone, and to turn the desert green, making Libya self-sufficient in food production. He established large farms and encouraged the people to move to the desert. But many preferred life on the coast and wouldn’t go.  So Gaddafi next conceived a plan to bring the water to the people. Feasibility studies were carried out by the Libyan government in the seventies and in 1983 the Great Man-made River Authority was set up. The project began the following year, fully funded by the Libyan government. The almost $30 billion cost to date has been without the need of any international loans. Nor has there been any charge on the people, who do not pay for their reticulated water, which is regarded in Libya to be a human right and therefore free.GMMRP figures are staggering. The ‘rivers’ are a 4000-kilometre network of 4m diameter lined concrete pipes, buried below the desert sands to prevent evaporation. There are 1300 wells, 500,000 sections of pipe, 3700 kms of haul roads, and 250 million cubic metres of excavation. All material for the project was locally manufactured. Large reservoirs provide storage, and pumping stations control the flow into the cities. The pipeline first reached Tripoli in 1996 and when Phase V is completed, the water will allow about 155,000 hectares of land to be cultivated.  To achieve all this, construction work was tendered and many overseas companies, including from US, Korea, Turkey, Britain, Japan and Germany took up contracts for each Phase, and some have worked for decades in Libya. The project has not been without problems, including faulty materials and financial difficulties within some of the contracting firms. Since the NATO air attacks on Libya began in March, most foreign nationals have returned home, including those employed on the hydro scheme. The final phase of the Great Man-made River Project is stalled. Libyan people put their hearts into work on the GMMR from the beginning, and years ago took on most of the managerial and technical positions as their expert knowledge increased, with government policy encouraging their education, training and employment. They proudly call the GMMRP “the eighth wonder of the world.”(UN Human Development Index figures for Libya since the beginning of Gaddafi’s influence can be found here http://bit.ly/b4ItsI )The project was so well recognised internationally that UNESCO in 1999 accepted Libya’s offer to fund an award named after it, the Great Man-Made River International Water Prize, the purpose of which is to “reward remarkable scientific research work on water usage in arid areas”. http://bit.ly/rnxiCf  Gaddafi was often ridiculed in the West for persevering with such an ambitious project. Pejorative terms such “pipedream”,“pet project” and “mad dog” appeared in UK and US media. Despite a certain amount of awe for the enormity of the construction, the Great Man-made River was often dismissed as a “vanity project” and then rarely mentioned in western media. But truth is, it’s a world class water delivery system, and often visited by overseas engineers and planners wanting to learn from Libyan expertise in water transfer hydro-engineering.

Source: www.scoop.co.nz

Subaru of Indiana, America's Scrappiest Carmaker

Set amid tawny popcorn and soybean fields, weathered barns, and rusty silos, the Subaru of Indiana Automotive plant cuts a swath. A 3.4-million-square-foot monolith abutted by railroad tracks, SIA has a mountain of compost and the occasional coyote skittering through the surrounding 832 acres of woodland. Step inside, though, and you'll discover why this might be the most exemplary car factory in America.

In its 22-year history—a period that has spanned three recessions, a global financial crisis, massive U.S. auto bankruptcies, and the departure of Isuzu, a founding partner, from the operation—SIA has rolled out more than 3 million vehicles and has never resorted to layoffs. Instead, it's given workers a wage increase every year of its operation. Staffers also enjoy premium-free health care, abundant overtime ($15,000 each, on average, in 2010), paid volunteer time, financial counseling, and the ability to earn a Purdue University degree on-site—all in a state that has lost 46,000 auto jobs and suffered multiple plant foreclosures in the past decade. And the truly astonishing thing is how it achieved all this: through a relentless focus on eliminating waste. "This is not about recycling, or a nice marketing to-do," says Dean Schroeder, a management professor at Valparaiso University who has studied the plant. "This is a strict dollars-and-cents, moneymaking-and-savings calculation that also drives better safety and quality."

Toyota made kaizen—the Japanese principle of constant "change for the better," with a special focus on efficiency, aka "pushing lean"—famous. SIA, you could say, has instilled green kaizen, or pushing green. Starting in 2002, SIA set a five-year target for becoming the nation's first zero-landfill car factory. That meant recycling or composting 98 percent of the plant's waste—with an on-site broker taking bids for paper, plastic, glass, and metals—and incinerating the remaining 2 percent that isn't recoverable at a nearby waste-to-fuel operation to sell power back to the grid. Within two years, the results spoke for themselves.
"Everyone quickly saw the green dividend of not wasting anything," says Tom Easterday, the plant's executive vice-president, passing a stack of yellowed Styrofoam cases that have survived four round trips around the globe. "You reduce packaging, negotiate a better deal from suppliers, and everyone then shares in the savings."

Today, the plant abounds with boxes and containers scribbled over with marks that show how many times they have traveled from Japan to Indiana and back (and back again). On a tour of the plant, Easterday sped a golf cart past a welder whose metal shavings are swept off the asphalt floors and auctioned into a roaring bull market for copper. Last year, Easterday says, SIA saved approximately $5.3 million by obsessively reducing, recycling, composting, and incinerating; Valparaiso's Schroeder calculates that Subaru saves multiples of that figure by using zero-landfill discipline to reduce worker injuries and fatigue. He cites the example of SIA's switch away from taking cars apart to check the quality of welds—a process that wasted metal and risked jackhammer injuries—to ultrasonic technology that did so better, faster, and far cheaper. SIA workers get bonuses (grand prize: a new Subaru Legacy) for pointing out excess packaging and processes that can be cut from the assembly line and then rebated by suppliers. All the savings are effectively plowed back into plant operations—and overtime.

To score a cherished "associate" position at the factory—there's a 10-1 ratio of applicants to openings—would-be employees are expected to put in long hours learning and practicing SIA's low-impact manufacturing. That means scrutinizing every byproduct, from welding slag to plastic wrap, for savings. And obsessively slicing seconds off assembly procedures. And a willingness to work whole months of six-day shifts, and likely years on the graveyard shift, while resisting the siren call of unionization. (The United Auto Workers has failed three times to organize the plant's workers.)
There's always a catch, and at SIA it's this: All that ultra-efficiency—when applied to employees—can lead to unforgiving schedules. SIA workers, who start at just over $14 an hour and peak at about $25 an hour, put in 47-hour workweeks that include two Saturdays a month at time and a half—good for $50,000 to $60,000 a year in per-employee salary. (That means roughly 100 employee salaries were protected by the aforementioned $5.3 million zero-landfill rebate.) The upside? When the Japan earthquake interrupted the supply of parts in March, slowing down the plant's breakneck output, SIA was able to keep paying its workers in full to volunteer in town. The downside: "Everyone's burned out here," says Kay Tavana, a 48-year-old who installs airbags and headlights. Not that she isn't grateful for the work and the SIA perks. Working while on chemotherapy for a blood disease, Tavana avails herself of SIA's free gym to rev up for her shift from 4:30 p.m. to 3:30 a.m.
The cost savings and social programs at SIA wouldn't amount to much if Subaru's cars weren't in demand. From 2008 to 2010, unit sales jumped 41 percent, while last year the company's 22 percent rise in vehicle sales was double the broader car market's increase. "You get worker commitment to productivity by offering job security," says Kristin Dziczek, who studies labor issues at the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Mich. "But the best job security is still a product people will buy."

With SIA operating at maximum capacity and with an expansion plan under way, Vice-President Easterday says this "experiment" in the middle of Indiana corn country could someday export its American-made Japanese cars to the rest of the world. His SIA case study left Schroeder convinced that "Dumpster diving can be great for business."

Source: www.businessweek.com

How The Environment Affects Your Health

It has been a banner week for biomedical news. The Institute of Medicine released a provocative and somewhat controversial report on calcium and vitamin D intake; the American Cancer Society announced results of an enormous study reaffirming the link between body mass index and mortality; there was at least aleatory passage of a historic food safety bill in Congress; and a long awaited update to federal policy governing child nutrition was passed and awaits the President's signature.


Ordinarily, this content would populate my public health reflections to their far horizon. But seen from just a bit of altitude; viewed through a wider angle lens than my habitual routine accords -- these headlines announce modest news about modest measures related to our singularly immodest perspective on our own health. There is far more to health than is generally dreamed of within the purview of biomedicine.

I know, because my horizons have been widened. This past week I was privileged to join an illustrious group, convened by the Wildlife Conservation Society at their headquarters on the grounds of the Bronx Zoo, to address the contention that there is only one health. The "one health" concept stipulates, essentially, that the health of people will be promoted along with the health of the planet, its diverse ecosystems, and its biodiversity, or it won't be promoted at all.

What made the group illustrious? Aside from the fact that virtually everyone in the assemblage, with the exception of me, has a career devoted to protecting the native magnificence of our planet, the group was noteworthy for every aspect of its pedigree. Outstanding work, outstanding achievement, extraordinary devotion. Intelligence, passion, eloquence, fortitude, resourcefulness. Participants represented premier organizations, from the Wildlife Conservation Society, to Conservation International, to the Nature Conservancy, to World Wildlife Fund, to Harvard University, Stanford University, Columbia University, and in the case of my modest contributions, Yale University.

What was I doing there? Ah, there's the rub! Alas, this group -- to which I should simply be sending accolades -- has ostensible need of me.

The scientists at the meeting -- many of whom have spent arduous years in some of the planet's most dazzling, important, fragile and embattled ecosystems -- from the Arctic to the Amazon, from the Australian Outback to the Mongolian Steppes, from the jungles of Borneo to the jungles of Brazil, from the island of Madagascar to the islands of Fiji -- have collectively reached this fundamental conclusion: nobody really cares.

Well, I suppose that takes it a step too far. Lots of people do care about our planetary cohabitants and the places they and we call home. But not nearly enough people care, and people care not nearly enough to make the requisite differences. Not enough to stop the damage. The places and their denizens are ever more imperiled as we collectively squander every successive opportunity to rectify the trajectory of our impacts.

So the conservationists and wildlife biologists have conceded that the only way to make the case for what they do is through the lens of public health, and that's where I -- and others like me -- come in. We, from the human health community, are being asked to draw up chairs at the big table -- the "let's save the planet" table and help elucidate how saving oceans and lakes, mountains and jungles -- will help save people.

More specifically, the enterprise incubated at the meeting I attended involves the generation of specific, collaborative research projects to show the costs to human health of ecosystem-degradation-as-usual: the costs to human health of burning down rain forests; the costs to human health of cyanide fishing of coral reefs; the costs to human health of disrupting traditional food sources; the costs to human health of increased CO2 in our atmosphere.

We gathered secure in the conviction that there are such costs, that they can be measured, and that they are high. But that they need to be on the marquee is sad testimony to our world view. The global human population does not, apparently, acknowledge intrinsic value in the status of the globe. My conservation colleagues' unfortunate need of me is predicated on the sad inability of our species to see intrinsic value in any other species.

Environmental scientists can readily show on their own the cost to the rain forest of burning down the rain forest; public health counterparts are needed to help show the immediate cost to human lungs downwind of those fires. Environmental scientists can show on their own the cost to coral reefs of cyanide fishing; public health scientists are needed to help show the toll on nutritional status of coastal peoples dependent on the diversity of sea life those reefs formerly supported. Environmental scientists can show on their own the impact on biodiversity of human incursions into pristine areas; public health colleagues are needed to help demonstrate the association with emerging infectious diseases and potentially devastating outbreaks. Environmental scientists can tell us what species are being dispossessed by deforestation; public health counterparts are needed to help tally the human cases of malaria directly attributable to the enterprise.

And so I go from my routine allocation of effort to cultivating the health of humans who, in our masses, routinely abuse the planet, to offering what I can to a group trying to save the planet from those abuses. I love the people I care for, and that's why I do what I do. And what I do is important both for the immediacy of its responsiveness to human need, and its scope.

One in three American adults will have diabetes by 2050, testimony to the importance of work I and others do related to diabetes prevention. But all three of those three American adults, and their counterparts around the globe, will have need of a habitable, vital planet in 2050 and every year thereafter. So I can't help but view my invitation to the One Health table as a promotion.

For there is indeed but one health for all -- people, animals and planet -- to share. Our neglect of this imperative, our blindness to this blunt reality is at our collective peril. It is borne by either egomania, or mindlessness.

If mindlessness is our excuse, we must concede we are much like a parasite or virus that replicates at the expense of its host. And once its mindless replication toasts the host, the parasite, too, is doomed. One health, indeed. Are we that parasite, and earth the host?

If not, and sentience is our distinction, we are the more malignant for it. If we are destroying our host mindfully, there can be but one explanation: we are so ego maniacal as to think that the short term pursuit of our own profit -- however measured -- justifies the plunder of the planetary body that sustains pursuit and profit alike.

We are pillaging the planet that hosts us for short term gain. If anything ever epitomized penny-wise, pound-foolish conduct -- it is to profit in the short term at the long term expense of the source of all profit, and of life itself. Indeed, one of the objectives of the One Health initiative is to show that even in the short term, costs of environmental degradation outweigh profits; health economists were at the table to advance this agenda. In all likelihood, our plunder of the planet has established a new frontier for calamitous folly: penny-foolish and pound-foolish alike.

We have but one home. We have but one health. That we can manage to see it only through the lens of short term human impacts is testimony to the limits of our sight. But this view, too, will make the case.

Eventually the lens won't matter. Sooner, later, just in time, or tragically too late -- every view will reveal just one health, or just what's left when it's gone.


Sources:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

David L. Katz, MD, MPH, FACPM, FACP


Director, Prevention Research Center


Yale University School of Medicine


http://www.davidkatzmd.com/

http://www.turnthetidefoundation.org/