Coke bottling despite water SCARCITY
Community water shortage concerns confirmed
January 18, 2008
BOSTON, MA – A report released on January 14, 2008 confirmed what communities across India have been saying for years – groundwater levels are dangerously low in areas near some Coke plants.
"The report was an attempt to hide certain facts and ‘whitewash’ the [corporation’s] operations," said R. Ajayan of the Plachimada Solidarity Council. "But the Coca-Cola corporation’s attempt to regain its lost credibility has once again failed."
Though Coke commissioned The Energy and Resource Institute (TERI) to conduct the 500-page study, the findings raise serious questions about Coke’s water use in India.
Of the six plants surveyed, three plants are located in areas where the stress on groundwater is increasing.
"…in Mehdiganj, the water tables have been depleting and the aquifer may move from a safe to semi-critical situation," the report found. “[I]n Nabipur, the state of the aquifer has already moved from critical to overexploited conditions.”
These findings stand in direct contradiction to earlier claims by Coke officials that water levels in the Mehdiganj area had actually risen since their plant began operations. Such findings also echo community concerns -- concerns that Coke has previously dismissed.
"[T]he basic focus of the Coca-Cola Company water resource management practices is on the business community – community water issues do not appear to form an integral part of the water resource management practices of the Coca-Cola Company," the report found.
What’s more, the report questions Coke’s wisdom in siting its Kaladera plant in an area where groundwater is ‘overexploited,’ saying the most practical option would be to close the plant.
Still, Coke is resistant. This week Atul Singh, the chief executive of Coke’s India division, is defending Kaladera, offering a strangely illogical explanation for keeping the plant running.
"The easiest thing would be to shut down, but the solution is not to run away," Singh told the International Herald Tribune.
The report surveyed only six of Coke’s 60 facilities in India. The findings indicate that Coke’s bottling practices may have much greater implications for India’s water resources as a whole.
"Reporters and officials need to be asking some very tough questions of this corporation,” said Patti Lynn, campaigns director for Corporate Accountability International. “We all need to be asking whether we should be allowing corporations to control community water resources, especially if this is the result."
# # #
Corporate Accountability International, formerly Infact, is a membership organization that protects people by waging and winning campaigns challenging irresponsible and dangerous corporate actions around the world. For over 25 years, we've forced corporations -- like Nestlé, General Electric and Philip Morris/Altria -- to stop abusive actions. For more information visit www.stopcorporateabuse.org
Trees for Cities and Servite hold planting day on Finchley estate
The independent charity Trees for Cities, in partnership with Servite Houses are having a day of shrub planting fun on St Mary’s Green in the Thomas Moore Estate, East Finchley, on February 22.
Trees for Cities are calling on local residents and volunteers to lend a hand with digging and planting of 500 shrubs of variety of plant species; including Lesser Periwinkle, Bearberry and Windflower.
Kirsty Wedge, Community Events Coordinator at Trees for Cities, says: “Volunteer planting encourages community appreciation of nature; while offering a rewarding sense of achievement in helping the environment.”
Peggy Beckford, Servite Houses Regional Housing Manger for London, said: "Servite Houses wholeheartedly welcomes the opportunity to work in partnership with Trees for Cities.
"We're really keen to get as many residents as possible involved in shaping their communities, whether that is by enhancing the physical environment or working with us to improve our services.
"We think this initiative will give residents on the Thomas Moore estate a cleaner and greener local environment which they can enjoy for many years to come."
Trees for Cities is working in partnership with Servite Housing to improve the communal spaces within Thomas Moore Estate.
The project is part of a two year green initiative starting with St Mary’s Green; and aims to increase environmental awareness, whilst helping to improve the area for local residents.
Free activities will also be available on the day and include; woodland arts and crafts, a scavenger hunt, face painting and light refreshments.
GROWING ONE'S OWN STOOL
Christopher Cattle
A retired lecturer in furniture design, in the mid eighties I started to wonder what contribution I could make to the 'save the planet ' debate. Settling on the problem of our seemingly ever increasing demand for energy, I decided to see what one could do to reduce the amount used to make furniture. An early decision was to concentrate on the use of wood, an attractive and popular material, and biodegradable.
I was aware of the annual races for solar powered vehicles run in Australia, which attracted such elaborate and complex vehicles. Suddenly it struck me that of course tree growth is also solar powered! The energy we use to make furniture is simply that required to convert trees into the forms we use for our chairs and tables. If only the trees could be persuaded to grow into the right shapes in the first place . . . .
But people have been training and grafting trees to shape since we know not when, so no new skills are required. To grow furniture would simply involve using well known techniques for a different purpose.
To prove that it could be done however, I would have to do it myself, so I designed the simplest item of furniture I could devise, a three legged stool. I also devised a simple plywood frame or jig, on which to train the saplings as they grew. (Having practised as a designer of furniture for industrial production for the first half of my professional career, I was having to start from scratch.) In 1995 I approached the School of Plant Sciences at the University of Reading with my scheme. They rented me a suitable small plot of land and with their help, I planted and grew my first batch of stools. Five years later I harvested my first grown stool frame.
Having shown that it could be done, where was I to go from there. Should I go into business and sell them?
I decided that the outcome nearest to my original intention was rather to publicise the idea, and to enable others to grow such stools. In this way I hope to persuade people - particularly the younger generation - to change their mindset, and realise that it is possible to achieve useful and practical results simply by the intelligent use of natural processes.
Over recent years I have promoted the idea in a variety of ways. The experiment originally received wide coverage in the press both in Britain and abroad. Each year I attend several relevant public events in Britain, from exhibitions in London to environmental gatherings in Scotland. The stools were exhibited at Expo 2005 in Japan and more recently in Paris. I have been interviewed for the radio in the UK, USA and Canada.
I have a website ( www.grown-furniture.co.uk ) and anyone can buy the flat pack plywood jig and instructions. Stool growing has proved popular for young families and the kits are frequently in demand as Christmas presents for retired parents. (You can be sure they haven't got one of these!) All you need is the enthusiasm, the patience, and a local supplier of suitable 'whips' or young saplings. Nature does most of the work, and as she's been doing it for millions of years she's pretty good at it.
I recommend Sycamore as a suitable species, as it tends to grow and graft well. The whips are normally sold in bundles of twenty five, so you have a good chance to select three (or multiples of three) which are evenly matched, and slim enough to be bent and trained well. They should preferably be no thicker than a traditional wooden pencil. The kit comes with a planting guide which enables you to plant your saplings accurately, so that they fit snugly to the corners of the jig. With gentle persuasion the stems can be carefully bent to shape and secured to the jig with plant ties. If you can plant in November or December it gives the roots a chance to establish themselves before the Spring, but any time up to the end of February has proved satisfactory.
By about the third year you should be able to make the lower grafts where the stems touch. Cutting away the bark and the green cambial layer beneath it at the point of contact , you must hold them gently but firmly together for a few weeks. This can be done by binding or drilling through and inserting a rivet of some sort. If the graft bonds well, the sap will start to take the shortest route between the leaves and the roots, and each 'leg' - the lower half of which consists of one tree with the upper half of its neighbour - will start to grow as one, while the horizontal sections - joining the legs at their mid point and becoming the 'rails' - will cease to grow and remain at their existing size.
Although it will probably be about five years before the frame grows to its required size, the time you spend tending it will be minimal. I expect to spend less than five minutes on each frame every three weeks during the growing season.
Before 'harvesting' your frame, you should decide whether you prefer the 'rustic' look, by retaining the bark, or the perhaps a more elegant look by stripping it off. If you choose rustic you should harvest in the winter when the tree is dormant . If you harvest when the tree is actively growing, it is quite easy to strip off the bark. The thickness of the legs is such that any splitting as the wood dries out shouldn't be a problem, but it should be left to 'season' naturally, out of doors but under cover for about a further year. You can then give it a top of your choice and sit on it!
London's Low Emission Zone Welcomed
London Mayor Ken Livingstone's introduction of a capital-wide Low Emission Zone (LEZ) has been welcomed by Friends of the Earth.
The environmental campaign group urged the Mayor to strengthen the initiative and to also drop major road building plans - such as the Thames Gateway Bridge - so that Londoners do not suffer from unacceptable air pollution caused by road traffic. Effects of air pollution include ill health, extra hospital admissions and premature deaths.
London's single largest source of air pollution is road traffic. The LEZ will only reduce air pollution to below European Union (EU) air quality legal limits in some areas of London, leaving parts of the capital still dangerously polluted. Friends of the Earth called on the Mayor to ensure that the whole of London is brought within legal limits.
Friends of the Earth London Campaigns Co-ordinator, Jenny Bates said:
"We congratulate Ken Livingstone on this initiative. The LEZ is exactly the kind of initiative Londoners need to end decades of needless threat to their health from dirty vehicles. But to protect the health of all Londoners the whole of the capital must be brought within legal air quality limits."
The environmental group argued that the LEZ could be strengthened by the inclusion of emissions from cars. At present only emissions from lorries, buses, coaches, heavier vans and minibuses are included.
The Mayor could also improve air quality by abandoning large road building schemes. Traffic generated from the proposed Thames Gateway road bridge in east London would mean worse air quality - with one site in Newham exceeding an EU legal limit when it would not if the bridge was not built - something the Inspector at the public inquiry into the scheme said was unacceptable [1].
Bates added: "The Mayor's road building schemes undermine his efforts to improve air quality in the capital. Building the Thames Gateway bridge would only worsen air quality and traffic congestion there. It's the poorer communities living close to these areas who are set to suffer most. The Mayor has a duty to tackle health inequalities and preventing new building schemes would help to achieve that aim." [2]
Notes
[1] The Thames Gateway bridge public inquiry Inspector said in his report, which recommended that planning permission for the scheme be refused, "in an area in which air quality has historically been low, and where it is identified as a current problem, I do not regard that as acceptable"
More information on the Thames Gateway Bridge
[2] For information on the Mayor's new powers and duties to tackle health inequalities, gained in the GLA Act 2007
www.london.gov.uk/mayor/health/strategy/reducing.jsp and
www.london.gov.uk/mayor/powers/index.jsp
[3] The London Air Quality Network
Friends of the Earth
The Bane of the Plastic Carrier Bag
While those bags are, I know, very convenient indeed when shopping at supermarket and general stores as well – one does not have to remember to bring a shopping bag of one's, as one had to in years past before the advent of the plastic grocery bag – they come with a big environmental price tag attached and footprint.
Trees all over parks and countryside are festooned with plastic bags in different colors and hues and while decorations may be nice and fine and suit a Christmas Tree, in the countryside and in parks this is rather unsightly. In addition those plastic bags are also bad for wildlife.
Because of their very nature of being extremely light they get blown everywhere, high up into the canopy of the trees and deep into the undergrowth, and they end up hung from branches in the same way as stuck to brambles and thorn bushes deep in hedgerows and in the under storey of woodlands and parks, making everything look tatty and neglected, even if countryside and parks staff do their very best to make the places look nice.
In addition to this those plastic carrier bags, unless made from corn starch or other such biological material, are made from oil based plastic and are NOT biodegradable. They photo-degrade instead, slowly breaking down in the environment into tiny, even microscopic plastic particles and also leaching at the same time chemicals into the soil, all of which further contaminates the environment.
Moves are under way, so I understand, from a number of “sources” to outright ban the use of those plastic bags, even biodegradable corn starch ones, maybe, and while I must admit that I do use them as and when, the plastic bag that is, for they come in handy as free bin liners for waste bins at home and in the office, which means they get used at least two or three time with me, I am taking my own reusable ones, often tote bags that come FREE from the variety of fairs I attend, to the stores nowadays and we must all get back to doing this, that is to bring our own shopping bags, just like in the old days. If not always then at least most of the time.
As to tote bags, I would say, that there is no need, I am sure, to go out and buy such sturdy cotton or jute tote bags (he has good talking I sure some will think now for he has just told us that he gets them FREE on trade fairs) if you can sew, whether by hand or sewing machine. It is quite simple to knock up a couple of sturdy shoppers from some old denim of some other sturdy cloth, such as a bit of Hessian or canvass.
While you and I, and even all the remaining readers of this journal, if we all did it, may not save the planet on our own be refusing to use the plastic carrier bags, we may, however, contribute to the countryside and parks looking less tatty.
The problem is that, even if we all stopped using plastic carrier bags tomorrow, the unsightly bags in trees and such will still be with us for some time to come, simply because those that still fly about and hang about the trees will take a while still to break down, before they ultimately sort of disappear.
Having said this, that should not stop us, though, to make a start now and stop using and begin refusing the offered plastic shopping bag. Mind you, often you do not even get the chance to refuse for you do not even get asked as to whether you want a bang; the purchases are shoved into the bag before you even know it.
If we do end up with bags of this kind, for one reason or the other, then we must also make sure that we use them at least more than once and then – in the final end – dispose of them responsibly. However, best is no plastic bags.
© Michael Smith (Veshengro), February 2008
Weekly rubbish collections 'withdrawn from 18 million people'
Welcome to diseases & to vermin on the streets. No, not the two-legged kind... What the h*11 is the govt thinking?
Weekly rubbish collections have now been withdrawn from 18 million people, so it was claimed recently.
This number, based on latest Government figures, prompted fresh criticism of the impact of fortnightly bin collections on public health.
At least 155 councils, out of 350, have so far adopted "alternate week" collections, environment minister Joan Ruddock has disclosed to Mps.
That is up from 140 last April, causing shadow local government minister Eric Pickles to warn of the "slow death" of weekly collections.
He also accused Gordon Brown of "bullying" councils into the new rubbish collection cycle after ministerial answers showed that savings from the schemes could be counted towards annual efficiency targets.
All it is is targets, efficiency targets, and targets again with this government. Nothing else seems to count.
There has been a storm of protest over the rubbish collection changes, which see recyclables collected one week and other waste the next.
Ministers insist that rubbish is still collected weekly, but MPs have warned the scheme is unsuitable for many areas and there is no proof it increases recycling.
The cross-party Communities and Local Government Select Committee also raised concern about the public health implications of leaving rubbish in the street for up to 14 days.
Mr Pickles said today: "It is increasingly difficult for families to dispose of their rubbish responsibly - in turn leading to more fly-tipping, harming the local environment.
"We are witnessing the slow death of weekly collections.”
While people may indeed genuinely want to improve recycling and go green, Labour's approach of forcing rubbish cuts is not the answer, as it threatens to harm the local environment and is bad for public health. Nor is penalizing those that do not recycle, often because they cannot take their recyclables to the recycling centers for a variety of reason, not the least being the lack of transport, an answer. Instead the government should find a way of encouraging people to recycle by giving them financial incentives to do so, as it is the case in many areas of the United States where the recycling centers pay for material brought to them.
Whitehall bureaucrats and ministers do not seem to have a clue as to what happens with rubbish, especially organic refuse, in summer, and let us have some real hot and sticky months, and all I can say is “welcome diseases” which won't be all that welcome, and vermin. Already it is reckoned that there are rats all over the place, which indeed is true, and it will be worse when it comes to a hot summer and rotting refuse. And not only will it be rats but it will be flyes, maggots and the gods only know what.
Already it is being reported that fly tipping, the illegal dumping of rubbish, has doubled and trebled in many areas, and here especially those that have gone over to fortnightly rubbish collections and/or those that charge by the bin bag, and many of those that work in Parks and Open Spaces, as well as Countryside Rangers and farmers, report a significant increase of fly-tipping over previous years. This proves that people will not put up with the idiocy of the governments, local and central, and will dump refuse illegally in the countryside where then the councils – or in case of it being dumped on farm land the farmer – will have to foot the bill for clearing up the mess.
Let us get serious and – one – get back to at least weekly rubbish collections, including recyclables and – two – give incentives to people to recycle, financial incentives. Then we must return to the returnable glass bottles with deposit. It is amazing that other countries can have daily refuse collections while in the UK a weekly one seems to be too much for the public purse. However, the answer would be the usual one, I should assume, namely that while this may all work in other countries it could not work in Britain, as Britain is different.
© Michael Smith (Veshengro), February 2008
Zurn Introduces Truly 'Green' Urinal System
Uses only one pint of water per flush.
Erie, Pa. -- Zurn Engineered Water Solutions, one of the largest manufacturers of commercial plumbing products in the nation, is introducing a “green” urinal system that uses only one pint of water per flush. By comparison, most urinals use one gallon or more per flush. The Zurn EcoVantage™ Pint Urinal System is a certified Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) product.
The EcoVantage Pint Urinal is an excellent alternative to waterless urinals. Its extremely low water consumption represents an 85% water savings compared to a one-gallon urinal. This overall savings translates into an average of up to 30,000 gallons per urinal per year, which makes this product ideal for both retrofits of existing facilities and new construction.
The product is engineered for optimal performance and hygiene in demanding environments. It features sensor-operated, smart flush valve technology that creates a sanitary, hands-free operation for users. The EcoVantage high-efficiency series of water conserving urinals and toilets are easy to retrofit because they have a large footprint to cover most existing installations.
According to Zurn Engineered Water Solutions President Carl Nicolia, “this unique and water-conserving product further illustrates the Zurn commitment to green products and leadership in plumbing system innovation. It leads the way with ultra low water consumption.
The EcoVantage Pint Urinals have been chosen by numerous Georgia building owners and retailers to react to recent drought conditions. The retrofit Pint Urinal provides a quick and easy solution for water conservation in their existing facilities. Numerous retrofit projects are occurring throughout the state that will result in several million gallons of water savings each year.
Marty LaPorte, Stanford University Utilities Department manager of water resources and environmental quality, notes "our plumbers and users liked the demo urinal; it works well. So I decided they are a viable technology for us. We started retrofitting 63 old (greater than 1gpf) urinals in late March. Because of the urinal’s design, the retrofitting requires no or minimum carpentry, or additional work due to tile and different footprints.”
To make installation easier, Zurn EcoVantage fixture systems can be easily configured. A custom designed, internet-based computer modeling program allows the user to quickly mix and match components depending on need and performance requirements.
The Zurn EcoVantage line provides a mix of innovative LEED/Green listed products including high-efficiency one pint urinals, low consumption toilets and 1.28 ultra low flow flush valve fixtures. Lavatories can be installed with self-generating sensor faucets and metering faucets with low flow pressure compensating aerators that deliver the same level of performance as traditional fittings with minimal water consumption. All can be installed as part of new construction or retrofitted to existing installations.
To coincide with the launch of this innovative new product, Zurn formed an industry-wide initiative of construction industry leaders. Through this initiative participants pledge to work together to help developers, owners and managers of large facilities make green improvements and create more sustainable, environmentally friendly buildings. Green product information, conservation information, success stories and a list of participating industry leaders can be found at www.standupfortheearth.org.
Zurn Engineered Water Solutions, based in Erie, Pa., offers a century-old tradition of high-quality products and customer service. Founded in 1900, Zurn was created initially to manufacture a patented backwater valve. The company has worked throughout the past century to expand its product offering. Today, Zurn manufactures the largest breadth of engineered water solutions in the industry, including a wide- spectrum of green plumbing products. More information can be found at www.zurn.com.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
