30 mar 2013

The radio silence on the blog



I've been away, 
which explains the radio silence on the Sustainable diary for the past few days.
I've been very busy with my day job and I also did a bit of travelling,

Now I'm here, ready to write.


18 mar 2013

Dabba wallas: 4,000 men and 175,000 lunches delivered. A sustainable food delivery system


Today Sustainable diary writes about the successful system of the Dabbawallas, who manage to deliver food from mothers and wives at home into the hands of their sons and husbands who are off at work. “Dabbawalla” comes from the term tiffin dabba, referring to a tiered lunch box and “walla,” a carrier or vendor.
This process, how you can see in the video, is complete sustainable.

"In India, where many traditions are being rapidly overturned as a result of globalization, the practice of eating a home-cooked meal for lunch lives on.
To achieve that in this sprawling urban amalgamation of an estimated 25 million people, where long commutes by train and bus are routine, Mumbai residents rely on an intricately organized, labor-intensive operation that puts some automated high-tech systems to shame. It manages to deliver tens of thousands of meals to workplaces all over the city with near-clockwork precision".


Dabbawallas's video is realized by The Perennial Plate, who explain: "Each day in Mumbai 4000 men in white outfits and matching hats transport 175,000 lunches across the big city. They retrieve the tiffens (lunch containers) of food from mothers and wives, and bring them (by foot, train, bicycle and even carried on top of their heads) to the office buildings of waiting husbands and sons. The Dabba wallas have been doing this since the late 1800s. Despite the unsophisticated mode of transport, the lunches always arrive on time (the error rate is 1 in every 16 million transactions). It's a pretty impressive feat and we were lucky enough to follow a couple Dabba Wallas for a day in Mumbai, and see their work first hand."

Despite the influx of food chains and eateries in Mumbai over the last decade, demand for the lunchtime service is higher than ever before, with customers from multinational corporations and hedge funds. If we thought it was too hard to have a hot, home-cooked meal for lunch each day, well, this organization proves us wrong.

More info


17 mar 2013

Sunday's tale: Bottle Masonry. Made house with recycled plastic bottles


Sunday's Tale: a post from the past
On Sustainable diary last Sunday we spoke about an amazing building made with glass bottles, and also today we decide to tell a bottle’s story.

Plastic bottle construction is an idea of Andreas Froese, an architect and environmental entrepreneur. Froese developed Eco-Tec, a method to utilize plastic (PET) bottles as “bricks” in the construction of houses, latrines, and water tanks. It is a good idea to address the problem by putting to use some of the million plastic water bottles discards each day in developing nations.

The first plastic bottle construction project in Africa was pioneered in Uganda by an organization called Butakoola Village Association forDevelopment - BUVAD. BUVAD is located in Kayunga, a district north of Kampala.
They teamed up with Eco-Tec to bring bottle construction technology to Uganda in the form of a latrine block. Students and community members at a local primary school collected and filled bottles found throughout the community and together they built a block of latrines for their school. Constructed in April 2010, BUVAD’s latrine block was the first of its kind on the continent.




Benefits of Bottle Construction
Waste management - A small house can use as many as 10,000 bottles, waste that would otherwise be deposited in a landfill or burned.
Environmental protection - Unlike “traditional” bricks, bottle bricks are not fired, a process which uses much firewood and contributes to deforestation.
Cost effective - Building with bottles is typically less expensive than building with bricks as the main construction material is trash.
Job creation – The construction process of building with bottles is work intensive. This means many can be involved in the process, creating opportunities for employment and community involvement, from collecting to filling to building. While this method would potentially be costly in more industrialized nations, where labor is expensive and materials are cheap, in countries like Uganda, materials are expensive, labor is cheap, and jobs are in demand.
Shock resistant – The plastic coating of “bottle bricks” makes them more flexible than fired bricks. Bottle construction has greater shock resistance and is well suited for earthquake prone areas.
Long lasting – It is estimated that it takes a plastic bottle approximately 300 years to decompose.

Here you can have a tutorial, and here you can find some inspirations.

More info
website Eco-Tec

Photo credit © Aminu Abubakar

16 mar 2013

Buffalo Project: on-demand mobile electricity. A simple and unique solution


In recent years mobile phone communication has been a major contributor to economic growth in developing countries but its spread has been hindered by limited charging options for the 650 million off-grid mobile phone users who have network access.
Having an operational phone means access to services that have improved banking, health and farming in Africa and Asia. Many millions of people at the bottom of the economic pyramid are expected to acquire mobile phones, greatly benefiting their lives, business activities and access to information. However, most of these new subscribers will not have direct access to electricity.


In response to the growing problem, London-based Buffalo Grid have developed a text message activated solar-powered cellphone charging station to help cut electricity costs. The technology utilizes a 60-watt photo-voltaic panel, which charges a battery that is then taken to the village on the back of a bicycle. The portable micro generator extracts power from the harvested solar energy using a technique called maximum power point tracking (MPPT) - providing on-demand mobile electricity. The system is activated when a customer sends a text message to the device. Once the message is received, an LED above a socket on the battery lights up, indicating that it is ready to charge a phone. On average, each text message allows a phone to be charged for 1.5 hours; where a fully charged 'buffalo grid' unit can last for three days, with up to 10 charging points and charge 30 to 50 phones per day.

In addition to this, Buffalo provides environmental benefits through supplying zero CO2 power which translates into increased access to safe lighting. The system can also be used to provide off-grid power for a range of uses from medical to educational applications.
It will help in bringing a considerable amount of economic growth to hundreds of rural communities around the world.

More info
facebook page

Photo credit © Buffalo Grid
Buffalo entrepreneur, Bududa village, Uganda

 

 

15 mar 2013

Indonesian students create eco-friendly deodorant from cow dung



DwiNailul Izzah and Rintya Aprianti Miki are two students who won the gold medal at the Indonesian Science Project Olympiad (ISPO), which is held every year at the end of February in Jakarta, with their original invention and respectful of environment.

The two young inventors have create an affordable air freshener made from cow dung. Yes dung, as weird as it sounds, the formulation actually has a pleasant herbal smell. This two girls overcame 1,000 other competitors with their surprising freshener, which was created by collecting unused cow manure from a cattle farm in Lamongam, East Java, and fermenting it for 3 days: "Then they extracted the water from the fermented manure and mixed it with coconut water. Finally, they distilled the liquid to eliminate all impurities. The whole process took 7 days, which is pretty long, but in the end they obtained what they were looking for – a liquid air freshener with an herbal aroma from digested cow food."

Their natural deodorant is healthier, contains no chemicals that are found in similar products available on the market, and is also cheaper. While a traditional deodorant to 275 grams costs 39,000 Indonesian rupiahs (about $ 4), a 225-gram cans of deodorant from cow dung only costs 21,000 rupees (about $ 2), which is half. Explains Dwi Nailul Izzah: "Our air freshener is not supplemented with chemicals to smell fragrant, it’s pure and smells like the natural plants fed to cows."

Dwi and Rintya are ready to show their cow poop air freshener at the International Environment Project Olympiad (INEPO) held in Istanbul, Turkey during May, and are going to file for a patent.

More info

14 mar 2013

Waiting for the spring: Ecology of Colour Pavilion in Kent, UK



UK-based Studio Wave created Ecology of Colour, a colourful pavilion for holding a variety of sustainable craft workshops within Dartford Central Park’s Ecology Island. This is the third Artlands public realm commission for North Kent. Made from local materials, was designed “to act as a jolly custodian" and encourage community involvement in a neglected corner of a public park.

In response to this unique context, Studio Weave have designed a small versatile structure with a semi-outdoor space at ground level and an enclosed area on the first floor with many windows that open wide onto the landscape. As well for bird watching and art studio the building will be used as an outdoor classroom, a dyeing workshop and simply as a rain shelter, as well as sun shelter, within the Ecology Island.


The colorful cladding was conceived by graphic studio Nous Vous who have created a cohesive graphic visual language for the exterior of the building. Prior to its installation, a team of local residents and artists worked together in a painting workshop to produce each of the 144 panels, which form the external cladding.
The building opened in September 2012, now a group of designers is working with a group of horticulturists to create a garden full of native plants for extracting natural pigments (including Golden Rod for yellow, Alder for red and Bugloss for blue), celebrating nature and color in a fun, inclusive way.

More info
website Studio Weave
facebook page

Photo credit © Studio Weave

 

 


13 mar 2013

The most beautiful, and green, street in the world: Rua Goncalo de Carvalho


Sustainable diary has found another amazing green tunnel, so let's go in Brasil.
RuaGoncalo de Carvalho is a street located in bairro Independência in the city of Porto Alegre, the capital of the state of Rio Grande do Sul. Flanked by trees on either side, the street became internationally known after a campaign for its preservation spread on the Internet leading it to be dubbed "the most beautiful street in the world", and today it is considered "environmental heritage" by the city.
It is a forest. Over a span of 500 meters the sidewalks are lined with more than one hundred trees of the genus Tipuana, going up to the seventh floor of the buildings in some cases. These trees were planted in the 1930s by employees of German origin who worked in a local brewery.

In 2005, the construction of a mall nearby brought the risk of changes to this beautiful street, prompting residents to mobilize. The campaign was successful, and on June 5, 2006 the then mayor José Fogaça signed a decree making the street Gonçalo de Carvalho "historical, cultural and environmental development of the city."




The writer Pedro Nuno Teixeira Santos wrote: "Goncalo de Carvalho in Porto Alegre, Brazil, is not only the most beautiful street in the world because of the stunning visual effect of its immense Tipuana green tunnel. It is the most beautiful street in the world for this, but mainly because these trees were planted cherished by its residents, over several decades, that is, the green tunnel is the result of love, the love of the trees! It was from this love and this struggle of the residents of Goncalo de Carvalho, that the political power of the city found itself forced to recognize the importance of cultural heritage, landscape and environment, classifying and protecting it with the force of law".

More info

Photo credit © here

 

12 mar 2013

My space is small. My life is big


TreeHugger founder Graham Hill describes his lifestyle in the New York Times,
Here youcan read the complete interview. I did not consider the case to summarize it, it is very good and well worth to read it all!

"I sleep better knowing I’m not using more resources than I need. I have less — and enjoy more."
He draws the principles of degrowth theoryThe decrease is a current of political thought, economic and social environment to the controlled reduction, selective and voluntary economic production and consumption, with the aim of establishing relations of ecological balance between man and nature, as well as fairness among human beings themselves.

Degrowth is something that we need to think:
"Our fondness for stuff affects almost every aspect of our lives. Housing size, for example, has ballooned in the last 60 years. The average size of a new American home in 1950 was 983 square feet; by 2011, the average new home was 2,480 square feet. And those figures don’t provide a full picture. In 1950, an average of 3.37 people lived in each American home; in 2011, that number had shrunk to 2.6 people. This means that we take up more than three times the amount of space per capita than we did 60 years ago.
Apparently our supersize homes don’t provide space enough for all our possessions, as is evidenced by our country’s $22 billion personal storage industry."

In this video you can see where and how Graham Hill lives:




More info
website  Graham Hill
facebook page


Photo credit © New York Times

11 mar 2013

Make food not war! Vegetable Weapon by Tsuyoshi Ozawa




Sustainable diary loves speaks about food and food culture, so when we watched the pictures of Tsuyoshi Ozawa on Inhabitat we thought: "This is a good story for start the week".
The artist was born in 1965, Tokyo. In 2001, he began “VegetableWeapon”, a series of photographic portraits of young women holding weapons made from vegetable.
He realized this photo project in different countries around Asia, America, Europe, and Africa. He finds a woman that live in the place and asks her to gather vegetables and other ingredients needed to make an indigenous hot-pot dish. After the food is creatively arranged in the shape of a firearms, he starts shooting the absurd war-like portraits.

Once the photograph is made, Ozawa and his model disassemble the delicious weapon, cook the ingredients, and share a meal together. Vegetable Weapons shows how humor and art enable us to talk about delicate subjects like war, food culture and power.


"Drawing on the dynamics of everyday life and human interactions, Ozawa combines real-life incidents, situations and materials to create works which draw attention to ideas and issues central to social and political life.
[...] He intends these processes to create an opportunity for discussion of issues such as conflict, war and injustice using the construction of an art work as the catalyst for dialogue."

More info

Photo credit © Tsuyoshi Ozawa

 

 






10 mar 2013

Sunday's tale: the Thai Temple of recycled beer bottles


Sunday's Tale: a post from the past
In the Thai landscape, Buddhist temples are very common sight.
Deep in Sisaket province, in the north-east of Thailand, lies one incredible temple complex. Its official name is Wat Pa Maha Chedi Kaew but it is known by almost everyone as Wat Lan Kuad or the Temple of a Million Bottles
There’s an estimated 1.5 million bottles bound in concrete into the temple. It is a novel way to recycle any empties.

The construction of this temple complex began in 1984, as the monks found themselves with an excess of donated beer bottles that they previously used just to decorate existing buildings.
The resident Buddhist monks at the complex encourage local authorities to deposit any used bottles at the temple which they then use to build new structures and works of art to the grounds of the temple. "The more bottles we get, the more buildings we make", says Abbot San Kataboonyo. Everything on the temple site, from the crematorium to the toilets, incorporates the bottles, making a space that’s both functional and beautiful. Bottle caps have been used to decorate murals, and to create mosaics of Buddha.


The monks have come to prefer the bottles over traditional red clay bricks as they don’t fade and produce a fantastic colored ambient light. They primarily use green and brown glass bottles from the beer brands Heineken and Chang. Some of the older buildings in the complex are created with rare square shaped Heineken bottles that are easily stackable and were briefly sold in the 80′s. Perhaps that is where the idea for bottles as bricks was originally conceived.

Even though drinking is a sin in Buddhism, this still seems like a positive use of beer and lager bottle. So, if you find yourself in Thailands Sisaket province consider stopping by and earning some merit. Or at least just enjoy a cold beer and donate your bottle to the effort!


 

 

 



9 mar 2013

A Forest Year by Samuel Orr. How landscapes change over time


This Saturday Sustainable Diary does not have many words. It leaves pictures to tell the story today. A year long story, which you can see in three minutes. Photographer Samuel Orr for about 2 years in 2006-2008, lived just outside Bloomington, Indiana, at the edge of one of the more wooded regions in the midwest. He was there because at the time he was creating several nature documentaries on the natural history of Indiana for PBS. His house was into the middle of a large nature preserve.
Every day for 15 months, took photos out of the window of his house, then put the accumulated 40,000 photographs into an amazing time-lapse video, A Forest year.

Samuel explain:"Over 40,000 images were taken, and I made little movies of 5-8 seconds for each of the key days/events/seasons, and blended them together into the finished film at 30 frames a second. The audio was added to give another dimension. I tried to put in wildlife songs and calls appropriate to the season. For instance, the honking during what is late winter are Sandhill Cranes, which used a migratory flyway that passed directly overhead".  




At the moment Samuel has a new project, you can see, and help, here...

More info
website Samuel Orr

8 mar 2013

Starving Artists Project tells the stories of homeless artists

Despite their massive presence, the homeless are widely ignored. They are part of city invisible culture. But every day this people communicate to us, telling their basic need for help through a piece of cardboard. Each sign expresses a basic human need in a creative way completely unique to the creator’s life.

StarvingArtists Project is a new initiative, it try to change all of that by giving NYC’s homeless community a platform to showcase their cries for help. The program seeks to turn the cardboard signs we see being held up on street corners and in subway stations into art that funds social change.
The creators of the project, Nick Zafonte and Thompson Harrell, worked with world-renowned photographer Andrew Zuckerman (famous for shooting portraits of politicians, humanitarians, artists and entertainers) to capture beautiful, dignified portraits of each “artist” as well their handmade artistic signs and turn the images into a collection of art to inspire change.


The Starving Artists Project Film from Thompson Harrell on Vimeo.

The collection of diverse cardboard signs, along with portraits , debuted at the Dumbo Arts Center in January, 2012. The project showcases 35 handwritten signs, accompanied by portraits of the 30 artists who wrote them. A giant 4 ft tall collection cup was constructed and placed in the center of the gallery - all donations were given to the New York City Coalition Against Hunger and Holy Apostles SoupKitchen, two local charities focused on feeding the local community.
Zafonte and Harrell explained to the Huffington Post: “Everyday the homeless reach out through the only means they have, scraps of cardboard and their own creativity. The problem is we don’t ever look, seeing their messages as an interruption to our day. Our mission and solution was to change the way society interprets their messages – by presenting their signs as art, allowing their own voices to inspire meaningful action.”

More info

Photo credit © Starving Artists Project

 

 

 

7 mar 2013

NLE architects and Makoko community in Lagos: floats idea for life on the water



Today is a rainy day here in Milano and maybe for inspiration, Sustainable Diary speaks of a water story. As you know on our planet water levels are steadily rising, and along west Africa's densely populated coast many waterfront communities are finding themselves inundated with the problem of adaptive housing solutions that withstand swelling tides and swift currents.

NLÉArchitects has been working on a three-phase plan for the waterfront community of Makoko in Lagos, in Nigeria. An estimated 250,000 people live here, they trade, shop and build aquafarms on the lagoon's waters. This slum was said to be created in the 18th century as a fishing village, but has ballooned as others have sought to find a home.
Each year, the tropical rains that lash Lagos, overwhelm the colonial-era drainage system. The NLÉ's project will transform the already buoyant city into a contemporary community on the water's surface with independent floating structures made of local materials applied in new ways.

First step of the project is the realization of the Makoko Floating School, a triangular form in section constructed with timber on a platform supported by empty blue plastic drums. The 3-storey structure contains a common area for children to play on as its base, with two floors for classrooms above it. The energy supply is based on renewable technology, this with the water catchment systems make the dynamic educational facility partially self sustainable.

The school is expected to serve the urgent needs of educating children in the community, and also as a floating building pilot project for African water communities.
"Particularly in view of climate change, there's a need to adapt buildings. We decided to use this as a prototype for developing something whether the water level rises or goes down, the building responds to that," said architect Kunle Adeyemi from NLÉ.
The school was completed in the end of February, the floating houses being finished in September of this year and the Lagos Water Community project by the end of 2014 which will herald a new era for coastal developments in Africa.

More info

Photo credit © NLÉ Architects

 

 

 


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