The Bulawayo City Council called for residents to unite in the simultaneous flush after going without water for 72 hours. The city has implemented a strict conservation program designed to make drought-ravaged supply dams last until the rainy season starts in November. After such long periods without running water, the sewer system can become so clogged that the mass flushing is needed to clear it out.

In fact, while the city-wide toilet flush might sound like a joke, the situation in Bulawayo is becoming more and more serious. Residents say they’re keeping water in large drums to survive the water outages, but they fear disease outbreaks.

A plan is underway to bring water to the city from the Zambezi River with a pipeline partly funded by China, but the project won’t be complete until 2014 at the earliest.  Meanwhile, in just the coming weeks, city officials are warning they may have to extend the water rationing periods to 92 hours at a stretch.

Drought has been a serious problem in Zimbabwe this year, reminding some of a disastrous dry period in 1992. The nation’s cabinet has formed a committee to address the issue and attempt to ensure access to food.

Recently, the government announced a $2 million program to provide feed to keep cattle in the Matabeleland South area from starving after there was too little grain to keep grazing pastures growing. The international community has also provided aid to the nation to support food security. The World Food Program has said that close to 1.7 million Zimbabweans are in urgent need of food aid.

Featured image credit: 80n/Flickr

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Ben de la Roche has come up with a concept for a new kind of refrigerator – called “Impress” – that doesn’t have nor need a conventional door. Instead, it is a wall with a series of hexagonal refrigeration chambers laid out like a honeycomb on the front, with swinging “doors” that can be moved and pushed in many different size configurations depending on what needed to be put inside. When items in need of refrigeration are pushed into the chambers, the refrigeration for only that chamber is turned on and keeps the item cool. Empty chambers are not refrigerated, which saves energy, and because all the items in the “fridge” can be seen with one look, food is also less likely to be wasted.

“How many times have you put leftovers in the fridge and forgotten about them, only to come back a week later and find them spoiled?” said de la Roche. “Impress is a refrigeration wall that holds your food and drinks for you, out in the open and not behind closed doors so you will always remember the lunch you prepared for work or find that midnight snack with ease.”

De la Roche is one of ten finalists presenting their concepts in front of judges next month in in Milan, Italy at the International Electrolux Design Lab 2012 Award competition. Winners will receive 5000 euros ($6,400 US) and a six-month internship at Electrolux.

Is it funny looking? Sure is. But if it ever worked as planned, it could change the way we use cold storage for food in our kitchens which hasn’t changed or been updated in many, many years.

[via Dvice and the New Zealand Herald]

Image Credit: Mark Mitchell/Massey University

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Reuters is reporting that a new French study (PDF) has found that rats fed a lifetime diet of Monsanto’s genetically modified corn end up dying prematurely with multiple tumors and organ damage. The study took place at the University of Caen and the findings were published Wednesday in the journal Food and Chemical Toxicology.

Research consisted of feeding the rats Monsanto’s GMO seed NK603 – which was developed to be tolerant to their weed-killing herbicide Roundup – and given water to drink that was contaminated with Roundup at levels allowed by current U.S. law. 50 percent of male and 70 percent of female rats exposed to these two Monsanto products died earlier than those that were not, suffering from mammary tumors as well as severe liver and kidney damage. The research covered two years of experimentation with Roundup and the rats, following up on a short study done by the same team that voiced similar concerns about the toxicology of Monsanto’s product back in 2009.

While some “experts” have publicized their doubts about the authenticity of the findings, the French government has asked its own National Agency for Health Safety to investigate and the European Commission has asked it’s own food safety authority, the EFSA, to verify the findings of the study. As for Monsanto, the company states that they will review the study but that “peer-reviewed scientific studies performed on biotech crops to date…have continuously confirmed their safety.” Here in the U.S., California Right to Know is working hard to pass Proposition 37 this November which would require the labeling of GMO foods and this study is sure to add some fuel to that fire.

[via Reuters]

Image Credit: Image publicly released by study authors

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While Arizona’s biggest aquifer sits directly under their land, it is nearly 400 feet from the surface and not suitable for drinking or domestic use. Because it is full of salt and polluted with arsenic and uranium, Navajo families must drive hundreds of miles away to get potable water. “It is an expensive and time-consuming journey that has become part of the Navajo way of life,” said Kevin Black, a Native American affairs specialist for the Bureau of Reclamation. Thankfully, scientists at the University of Arizona, along with the help of the Bureau, have come up with a solution that will work by using the power of the sun.

The first of (hopefully) many solar-powered and self-sufficient water desalination plants is being constructed on the reservation that will capable of producing over 1,000 gallons of clean water each day for local residents. Construction began last month on the facility and will be completed in 2013. The electricity generated by the solar panels brings water up from the aquifer and boils it to produce steam. The steam then rises and goes through a series of filters which remove the salt and pollutants, where it eventually lands in an external condenser for storage and dispensing.

Developers are hopeful that the system they are building will last at least 30 years and require minimum upkeep. The downside, at least right now, is the price: $100,000. But they believe the per unit price will drop if more of them are built.

“Clean water has become the Navajo’s most precious commodity,” said Black. I would venture to say it is for nearly everyone and am hopeful this kind of solar-powered desalination plant sees widespread adoption around the globe.

[via New Scientist]

Image Credit: Nature’s Images/Flickr

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Scottish scientists have discovered that compressed barley husks – used during the malting, germination, and mashing process that converts sugar into alcohol – have the ability to remove pollutants such as pesticides, benzene, and heavy metals from polluted water.

Dr. Leigh Cassidy from Aberdeen University and soil toxicologist Professor Graeme Paton developed the system, which they are calling DRAM – Device for the Remediation and Attenuation of Multiple pollutants. The husks are normally a throw-away item once the sugars have been drained out of them and distillers are all too eager to find a use for the waste product. As such, they have found a plentiful supply of the husks from Speyside distilleries in Scotland.

The team is hesitant to get into details on how the treatment system works until they have patents in place, but they says it works by binding pollutants in the water using the residue of husks after fermentation – called “draff” – to bind with and remove the pollutants in the water. The water is then supposedly clean enough to drink, removing about 95 percent of most contaminates in lab tests.

With the ability to clean up to 1,000 litres of water per hour, the local charity Purifaid will start using the technology this December to try to clean up the problem of arsenic found in domestically-used water in the region surrounding Golaidanga. It hopes to deliver clean water to the 30 families residing in the local village. Currently, more than 18 million people in Bangladesh drink water contaminated with arsenic.

“The DRAM system has the potential to transform people’s lives by bringing clean water to entire villages at a low cost. A successful pilot project could change the face of the country,” said Shahreen Raza from Purifaid.

The two scientists have formed Epona Technologies Limited to develop the project for commercial applications. You can check out a video of how the system works on their website.

While this process is not exactly technologically superior to water treatment solutions that modern science has come up with, it sure beats the use of chemicals and other dispersants used in some regions of the world. Take a natural waste product that is usually thrown away and use it to clean up drinking water for millions of people? I’d call that clean tech progress for sure.

[via Scotsman]

Image Credit: tienvijftien/Flickr

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The Dutch-owned boat, named the Abel Tasman (formerly known as the Margaris, it was renamed in honor of its new home in Tasmania) was registered in Australia on Sept. 7. The giant trawler can operate nonstop, processing 250 metric tons of fish each day. As it tows its 300-meter long net through the ocean, fish are sucked up through a long pipe and processed onboard.

The boat’s owners, Seafish Tasmania, say that the boat has an “excluder” that is intended to prevent large animals from becoming caught in the net. The net also has an escape hatch. A similar, smaller boat owned by Seafish Tasmania caught 14 dolphins in its nets, but didn’t have the excluder device. Greenpeace is arguing that because the excluder hasn’t been tested with this boat, it’s possible it won’t work as intended.

While large animals might or might not be slightly safer, local fishermen say the boat may decimate fish stocks. Seafish Tasmania has been approved to take 18,000 metric tons of jack mackerel and redbait, two species of fish that are critical as food for seals, tuna and other sea life. In the past, when redbait were fished in the area, tuna disappeared. The super trawler is more than twice as big as any past ship ever used in the area. In other parts of the world, like West Africa (where, incidentally, the Australian fish are intended to be sold) super trawlers have been accused of wiping out fish populations.

For now, the government has banned the boat for two years to allow more environmental studies, though the company is already fighting the ban.

Main photo credit: Greenpeace

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In a move sure to gain the appreciation of at least some hunger activists, EU Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard and Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger announced that The European Commission will be limiting crop-based biofuels to just 5 percent of transport fuel until at least the year 2020. Activists have been railing against the use of crops and other food sources for fuel as millions go hungry around the world.

“Finally the European commissioners have come to their senses,” said Clare Coffey, policy adviser at ActionAid. “They are firmly acknowledging that using precious food and agricultural land to fuel our cars is bad for people and bad for the environment. In a world where a billion go to bed hungry every night, that is immoral.”

While the limits will be put in place for crop-based fuels once passed by EU governments and lawmakers, development of other biofuels will move forward towards a goal of having at least 10 percent of the fuel mix be from renewable sources by 2020. According to a statement by Oettinger at a recent meeting of EU energy ministers, the difficulty in that will be finding sources that are as cheap to produce as crop-based ones currently used.

The United Nation’s food agency recently called for the U.S. to change its policies on crop-based biofuels because of the danger of a worldwide food crisis, but it seems the European Union is the only one taking that advice to heart. “We cannot continue to burn food in our petrol tanks while poor families go hungry,” said Natalia Alonso from Oxfam. Truer words aren’t spoken too often and we definitely need to speed up the development and production of non-food-based biofuel sources.

[via The Guardian]

Image Credit: Frapestaartje/Flickr

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Forty years ago, when many environmental experts sounded the death knell for Lake Erie, Richard Nixon and Canadian leadership signed the Great Lakes Water Quality agreement. On Friday, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa P. Jackson and Canadian Environment Minister Peter Kent signed an updated version of the agreement, signaling renewed commitment to Great Lakes conservation.

According to an EPA statement, the revised agreement includes strengthened measures to anticipate and prevent ecological harm, and it will allow both countries to take action on threats to Great Lakes water quality. New provisions address aquatic invasive species, habitat degradation and the effects of climate change, and support continued work on existing threats to people’s health and the environment in the Great Lakes Basin, such as harmful algae, toxic chemicals, and discharges from vessels.

“The new plan requires progress reports every three years on the efforts, which can involve dozens of parties and agencies across all levels of government as well as the private sector. It also expands the commission’s advisory board to include representatives of traditional indigenous peoples and local governments,” reports the New York Times.

With warmer temperatures giving way to toxic algae blooms, an ongoing invasion by Asian carp, and constant threats from industrial polluters, there’s no denying the Great Lakes could use the extra help. Still, advocates of the Great Lakes Water Quality agreement say the amendments are merely lip service where direct action is needed.

“While there’s lots of very good language [and] new issues addressed, how they are going to be tackled is completely unknown,” said Gail Krantzberg, director of the Center for Engineering and Public Policy at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. “The actual procedures, programs, methods for implementing the agreement are really not defined.”

It seems that this yearning for clear, manageable conservation goals is something that permeates the governments of both nations. Transparency during the negotiation process was also lacking, according to environmental advocates. Although the agreements state that indigenous people will be included in decisions regarding the Great Lakes, critics say there are still groups excluded.

“More accountability would mean that the voices of industry, farmers, environmental groups and other communities would [also] be heard,” said John Jackson, interim executive director and program director for Great Lakes United, an association of Great Lakes advocates.

The entire text of the revised agreement can be found here: www.binational.net/home_e.html

Main photo credit: NASA/Flickr

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Non-organic farmers typically rely on herbicides to control their weed problems. Ingestion of these man-made chemicals has been linked to autism, ADHD, cancer, and other side effects, making them bad for consumers, bad for the farmers using them, and bad for the general health of our food system and our country. But because they have been the only alternative to manually pulling weeds, farmers often don’t see another option.

Blue River’s weed killing robot could change that industry practice and reduce herbicide use in the U.S. by more than 250 million pounds a year. The wheeled robot starts its job by scanning the ground with cameras.  It then uses algorithms, to differentiate between good and bad plants.  Once it finds a bad one (re: a weed), it injects it with enough fertilizer to kill it.  The technology is about 98 or 99 percent accurate.

Right now the robot is only “trained” for lettuce, but with the company’s announcement this week that it has raised $3.1 million from investors, it is looking to commercialize its machines and bring them to the broader market. “We intend to invest the proceeds of this round in growing our engineering team and accelerating our new product roadmap,” said Jorge Heraud, co-founder and CEO of Blue River Technology.

“With global population expected to increase to 9.5 billion by 2050, increasing food production in a sustainable way is going to be one of the great challenges of this century,” said Vinod Khosla, founder of Khosla Ventures. The company hopes to take on this challenge head on, and with its team of engineers now backed by millions of dollars, there’s little reason to think it won’t succeed.

Featured image via Thomas Bethge/Shutterstock

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According to the Indiegogo fundraising page, more than 2 billion people still cook indoors over wood-burning fires. These inefficient wood fires contribute to deforestation, climate change and the aforementioned premature deaths.

But how can the PlanetStove help?

The creators of this stove, Dylan Maxwell and Olivier Kolmel, say that the PlanetStove can help both people and the environment in the following ways:

1. Reduce indoor cooking smoke to a minimum.
2. Mitigate airborne soot, which is responsible for 5-10 percent of man-made global warming.
3. Reduce deforestation by increasing stove efficiency; villages reported using roughly 1/3 less wood than with traditional stoves.
4. Sequester carbon (in the form of biochar) within the soil.
5. Improve the soil structure and drought resistance.
6. Improve the financial situation and living conditions of rural populations.

How does the PlanetStove work?

It is a TLUD stove, which stands for “Top-Liti Updraft.” Basically, you light kindling on top of a vertical tube full of densely packed wood. That vertical tube is nested inside a larger vertical tube. The fire on the top heats the wood and resulting hydrogen and carbon monoxide rise toward the top where they meet with oxygenated air drawn through the space between the tubes.

The stove essentially gasifies the wood. The resulting charcoal can then be returned to the earth in the form of biochar — which still contains at least 50 percent of the carbon that was in the original wood.

How can you help?

At the time of this writing, the PlanetStove Indiegogo project has received $4,053 worth of the $25,000 it needs to fund the campaign, with 34 days left remaining.

The lowest level of contribution is $25 and will basically subsidize the cost of a PlanetStove for a family in the developing world. You’ll get a photo of the family that received the stove, as well as a follow up with that family after a year of using the stove. Obviously, other contribution levels are available, so hit up the PlanetStove fundraising page and see if it strikes a chord with your passions.

Main image credit: Novotera

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