Water is a unique substance. It is not possible for life on earth to exist without water. Given the meager amount of drinkable water we have on Earth, it becomes all the more important to save this significant and unique resource. It’s available to us for free, this doesn’t imply, we can waste it.

We have only one Earth to live on, so it’s our moral duty also to protect this natural resource for our future generations, our own children…

Click on image to enlarge

We were involved in the process of shifting our grandparents to an apartment opposite to ours. At this time, we realized that there are many goods/items at home which need to be thrown away. Some of them are in good working condition and we were wondering if it is possible to get them sold to second hand dealers at reasonable prices. But then despite the condition of these goods, the items were not taken by any second hand dealer in Chennai. The following are the items which we tried to dispose off.

• BPL Sanyo VCR
• Philips Powerhouse without CD
• Sansui Audio system with only Audio CD compatibility
• Philips Gramophone player!
• Couple of Philips tape recorders
• Philips Home theatre system

As you can see, some of the items in the list are mighty old. This brings me to the relevance of the topic – recycling.

Indians generally hold on to their items for as long it lasts. Little do they realize that the longer they hold on to it, the more junk value it is accumulating. So in my personal opinion the following should be the guideline for appliances and gadgets at home after which it would make sense to dispose it off and get a new one all together.

• TV – CRT – 3 to 5 years
• Washing Machines – 3 years or less depending on the salinity levels in your area and the frequency of use
• Refrigerator – 5 years for conventional cooling and upto 7 years for frost free
• Audio systems -2 – 3 years
• DVD/Home Theatre and the like – 3 years
• Microwave oven – 5 years
• Pressure cookers – 1 – 2 years max

If you have any comments on these, please let the readers know your opinion…

[ Source : http://www.outreachindia.com/pfadesignerarchitect/green_architecture_eco_friendly_architects_mumbai_india.htm ] 

Green Architecture is a term used to describe economical, energy-saving, environmentally-friendly, sustainable development.

Green architecture is becoming increasingly mainstream with the lots of eco-friendly architectural innovations and simple of-the-shelf construction products to help ‘green’ living. Green architecture seeks to minimize the negative environmental impact of buildings by enhancing efficiency and moderation in the use of materials, energy, and development space.
An eco-friendly space requires planning as much as commitment towards a better future

Principles of Green Architecture

Energy Efficiency

• Design passive solar energy facilities use energy efficient appliances, solar panels and heat pump technology
• Use of computer sensor controlled energy saving devices; like automatic dimmers for lighting and occupancy sensors to adjust air-conditioning automatically
• Centralise plumbing, insulate cold/hot water piping
• Using energy saving lighting like CFL
• Install Monitor Power Management Software
• Use of low power computers

Water Conservation

• Collect rainwater for external use i.e. garden/washing car
• Use water conserving appliances including toilets, shower, taps, washing machine and dish washer  eg. Low flow faucets, water saving dual flush tanks
• Reduce irrigation and surface water run-off

Low Environmental Impact

• Include water permeable landscape features
• Enhance native bush and create edible gardens
• Establish home recycling bins and garden composting

Building Materials

• Certified Wood – Specify wood from certified sustainably managed forests.
• Select low volatile organic compounds (VOC) and toxic-free paints, finishes and adhesives
• Use materials that permit the building membrane to ‘breathe’
• Apply natural floor surfaces such as tile, timber and linoleum
• Use sustainable solid timbers rather than processed composite sheet materials
• Use inert gypsum-based wall and ceiling linings.
• Rapidly Renewable Materials such as straw, bamboo and some woods

Sustainability

• Think globally -act locally
• Reduce CO2 production, ozone and resource depletion, rainforest destruction and erosion
  encourage environmentally-friendly technologies and sustainable solutions

Waste Reduction

• Select materials using recycled components
• Design for re-use and recycling
• Control and reduce waste and packaging
• Reduce resource consumption.

Health and Wellbeing

• Meet the basic physical, emotional and spiritual needs of the occupants
• Consider healthy lighting, colour and sound, controlled temperature and humidity and good indoor air quality to enhance the living environment
• Reduce formaldehyde emissions and use pollution fighting indoor plants
• Create an asthma aware home i.e. no fitted carpets, reduced ledges, low-allergen gardens
• Apply an integrated wiring system for lighting, power, security, fire alarm and audio facilities
• Design a safe and user-friendly space

Economic Performance

• Consider maintenance of the space plus initial ‘running costs’ pay-back period
• Strive for a balance between ecological integrity and economic viability.

Community Support

• Use local resources, skills, labour, crafts and art
• Consider local facilities and utilities

Original Article : (testing trackback)

 http://interiorspaces.wordpress.com/2008/02/26/save-electricity-go-green/

If you have the will, here are some simple ways by which you can save energy and cut down on the ever-mounting electricity bills.

1: Replace an ordinary bulb with a CFL (compact fluorescent lamp), which uses one-quarter to one-third the energy to produce the same amount of light. Even if we replaced just one GLS bulb (incandescent lamp) with a CFL in every electrified home in India, we could save 10,000 MW of electric load, enough to light up 100 million homes.

2: Always remember to turn off the lights that you’re not using in the house. You will be surprised to know how far this goes in conserving energy.

3: After use, take household gadgets off their stand-by mode and switch them off. Not many know that plugged-in gadgets, even in stand-by mode, use energy. In fact, gadgets in stand-by mode can amount to about five to 10 per cent of your electricity bill.

4: Use task lighting instead of general room lighting and use multiple switches in order to conserve power.

5: Make use of natural daylight in combination with artificial lighting at the design stage itself. Also ensure effective insulation as poor insulation causes a great deal of energy to escape outside.

6: Go Green. Switch to new methods like solar lighting or make use of renewable sources like wind and bio-gas. This will increase efficiency as well as control energy costs and save energy, all at the same time.

(The writer is the President of Indian Society of Lighting Engineers)

Source : India Today Home

Here are some more tips on how to ensure that the emissions from your home and daily life activities are lowered.

 All the suggestions are made with US geography in mind. We will try to see if there are similar services available in India as well. Won’t be surprised if some of these can be done in India as well (going by my earlier experience with Reva). And for more information, please check the climatecrisis website.

Choose energy efficient appliances when making new purchases
Look for the Energy Star label on new appliances to choose the most efficient models. If each household in the U.S. replaced its existing appliances with the most efficient models available, 175 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions will be reduced on an annual basis.

Insulate and weatherize your home
Properly insulating your walls and ceilings can save 25% of your home heating bill and 2,000 pounds of carbon dioxide a year. The Consumer Federation of America has more information on how to better insulate your home.

Get a home energy audit
Many utilities offer free home energy audits to find where your home is poorly insulated or energy inefficient. You can save up to 30% off your energy bill and 1,000 pounds of carbon dioxide a year. Energy Star can help you find an energy specialist.

Switch to green power
In many areas, you can switch to energy generated by clean, renewable sources such as wind and solar. The Green Power Network is a good place to start to figure out what’s available in your area.

Buy locally grown and produced foods
The average meal in the United States travels 1,200 miles from the farm to your plate. Buying locally will save fuel and keep money in your community. Needless to say, this applies in whichever country you are living in.

Seek out and support local farmers markets
They reduce the amount of energy required to grow and transport the food to you by one fifth. If you are in US, you can find a farmer’s market in your area at the USDA website.

Buy organic foods as much as possible
Organic soils capture and store carbon dioxide at much higher levels than soils from conventional farms. If we grew all of our corn and soybeans organically, we’d remove 580 billion pounds of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Start a carpool with your coworkers or classmates
Sharing a ride with someone just 2 days a week will reduce your carbon dioxide emissions by 1,590 pounds a year. eRideShare.com runs a free national service connecting commuters and travelers.

Try car sharing
Need a car but don’t want to buy one? Community car sharing organizations provide access to a car and your membership fee covers gas, maintenance and insurance. Many companies – such as Flexcar — offer low emission or hybrid cars too! Also, see ZipCar.

Thought we’ll start out the year with some tips for better home maintenance from the environmental perspective. Given below are the pointers that we came across in the site climatecrisis.org. Clearly it is prepared with the US homes in mind, but some points are quite on target for other countries as well.

1. Cleaning a dirty air filter on your air conditioner can save 350 pounds of carbon dioxide a year.

2. Programmable thermostats will automatically lower the heat or air conditioning at night and raise them again in the morning. They can save you $100 a year on your energy bill.

3. You can save another 550 pounds per year by setting the thermostat no higher than 120 degrees Fahrenheit.

4. You can save 700 pounds of carbon dioxide when you air dry your clothes instead of using a dryer.

5. Even when turned off, things like hairdryers, cell phone chargers and televisions use energy. In fact, the energy used to keep display clocks lit and memory chips working accounts for 5 percent of total domestic energy consumption and spews 18 million tons of carbon into the atmosphere every year!

6. You can save 3,000 pounds of carbon dioxide every year if your new car gets only 3 miles per gallon more than your current one. You can get up to 60 miles per gallon with a hybrid!

7. You can save 100 pounds of carbon dioxide per year if you use your dishwasher only when the load is full.

8. It takes 70 to 90% less energy to make recycled paper and it prevents the loss of forests worldwide. So use recycled paper more.

9. Frozen food uses 10 times more energy to produce. So it is far better to use fresh food than the frozen ones.

10. If just 1% of car owners properly maintain their cars, nearly a billion pounds of carbon dioxide will be kept out of the atmosphere.
    

Psst.. Have a few more pointers with us. But saving that for another day.

A small advertisement which shows India’s attempt to rate electrical appliances based on energy efficiency.

Click here to see BEE’s website.

Humans are the only species who do some irreversible damage to our environment. Every other living creature helps maintain the food chain and the ecosystem except us. 

Most nations in Europe have already taken steps to ensure that our waste is not dumped into the environment. They take steps to separate the garbage and wherever possible recycle it for the betterment of mankind. They even have laws which forbid people from dumping electronic waste into landfills. Similarly companies are restricted from using  certain chemicals and heavy metals like lead in their products. These are being done to prevent ground water contamination.

What do we do with our waste?

Image Courtesy : jasco.com.au

Most people do not encourage separation of waste material at home or even collect garbage in an effective manner. Food leftovers, vegetable waste is all combined with other garbage and piled into the plastic containers which are found in streets or on the streets too.

What we try through this post is to try and inculcate some common details, which if followed can reduce the amount of waste disposed from one’s home, help save our nation’s resources and protect the environment which has to be inhabited by our children and grandchildren.

• Encourage use of dust-bins in all rooms of home, not just the balcony or kitchen. This alone would lead to selective separation of junk in your home. If this is followed, almost exclusively the kitchen waste bin would have only food related waste items , living rooms have probably lot of paper wastage and so on.
• Use waste-bin disposable plastic bags which are available in leading supermarkets. These plastic bags are designed to disintegrate easily and would not pollute the environment. Also using such bags would keep your bins clean and make collecting junk easier.
• Dispose waste in two separate bags from home and please tie the top of these bags. This would eliminate foul smell on the streets and also keep the flies and rodents in check.
• We Indians already believe in “Raddiwala” , so recycling is not an issue for  paper , glass and plastic bottles. Make sure you do not throw as much of paper as possible. Try to give them off to these shopkeepers.
• For those who have a small patch of garden or so, use the vegetable waste as a composite for the plants. It is an excellent nutrient and helps you grow your own mini vegetable mart ! Check out this post and this from Sudarsan.
• Do not dispose batteries and similar material onto regular garbage. If possible when you are staying in an apartments, try to have a common box to throw batteries and electronic waste. These can by picked up separately by the cleaning agencies and handled appropriately.
• Teach Young children the value of recycling and wastage. They are the next generation who would make a huge difference.

Try to think of the streets as part of your home. No one in their right mind would dirty their homes right?

Hope this post encourages you to handle waste more efficiently at your homes. Your comments and criticism would help us improve our content.

have a great weekend.

Check this link for information on how much emissions you are personally responsible for. The average figure for Americans is 7.5 tons every year. Now if you want to offset this by some carbon absorbing activity, pretty much the only thing you can do is to plant more trees. Unfortunately, the average tree can absorb only one ton of emissions in its lifetime (and that lifetime is usually very long, which means the offset is not done in the present time but in the future).

This leaves really leaves us in a corner as far as turning carbon neutral goes, leave alone the dreams of carbon negative. One has to plant something like 10 trees every year one is alive to offset our present modern lifestyle! This is too much to ask for, considering the fact that most people don’t have enough land to plant that many trees for even couple of years. Besides, ensuring that those trees grow correctly for the next 5-10 years is probably too paintstaking a task.

The other option is to drastically reduce our travels & power consumption patterns. However, even if we were to do that I doubt whether the 7.5 ton figure will more than halve, which leaves us with the same problem.

So the only way out appears to be in the use of clean energy like from wind turbines (nuclear as well?) and in the development of vehicles with hybrid fuels or biofuel. Indian market is not yet giving people these options, unlike in US where both these options are already being marketed. Let’s hope we catch up soon. 

In an earlier post, we had briefly touched upon some activities that one can do in order to keep one’s home as environment friendly as possible. At that time, we didn’t know the exact carbon emissions due to household activities and had hoped to research it later. Well, now we have come across some interesting statistics at http://www.climatecrisis.net, which I am summarising below.

It is basically 9 simple things ordinary people can do in their day-to-day lives to help combat global warming.

1. Change lights – Replace regular light  bulbs with CFL bulbs. One such move alone will save 150 pounds of Carbon Dioxide in a year.
2. Drive less- One pound of CO2 saved for every mile you don’t drive. We don’t have to cut down on our travel; rather we should use car pooling, bikes or even buses more than usual.
3. Recycle more – Recycle 50% of household waste will save 2400 pounds per year. Not sure whether we can recycle stuff easily in India. Anyone with knowhow on this, please feel free to comment.
4. Check tires frequently – Proper inflation of tires save 3% on mileage. 1 gallon of gasoline saved means 20 pounds of CO2 emissions saved.
5. Use less hot water – It takes a lot of energy to heat hot water. So use less of it by installing a low flow showerhead (350 pounds of CO2 emissions saved in a year) and washing your clothes in cold or warm water (500 pounds of  CO2 saved in a year)
6. Avoid products with lot of packaging – 1200 pounds of CO2 is saved by cutting garbage by 10%. This probably assumes some garbage disposal mechanism requiring power consumption. Again, unsure whether this is true for India as well.
7. Adjust your thermostat – If you place it 2 degrees from its usual spot, it will save 2000 pounds of CO2 in a year.
8. Plant trees – A single tree will absorb one ton of CO2 from the atmosphere in its lifetime. I know.., that figure seems dissappointingly low compared to the earlier emission figures. And to think, trees are such huge creatures.
9. Turn off electronic devices – Turning off your television, computer etc. when you are not using them will save 1000s of pounds in emssions every year.

There now.. we can’t claim ignorance about what we have to do, so that earth remains habitable.

Err.. hope that didn’t sound too fanatical…