A true fighter remembered..

Coco cola Inc. will not forget this great fighter easily.. it was chiefly due to her that they had to close down their plant in an obscure village called Plachimada in Palakkad district, Kerala.

I am speaking about Mayilamma, who passed away exactly a year before, succumbing to her grave disease brought about by drinking contaminated water in that particular place in Kerala. Coco cola, had opened a plant there, and was drastically depleting the ground water reserves to manufacture their produce, and in the bargain, was contaminating the whole area with fatal production wastes, that affected the lives of thousands of people living in the surrounding area.

Not the one to keep quiet about it, Mayilamma, along with other like minded indivudals, united together to vehimently protest against this inhuman act. In a short while, the whole world had heard about the plight of these people, and lots of international like minded supporters joined her crusade. At last, for the first time in their history, the coke plant had to shut down and suspend all operations....

Unfortunately, this gusty lady couldn't hold on much longer, due to her fatal illness brought about by the contamination from the plant, and died a year back, on 6th january, 2007.

I salute the spirit of Mayilamma, who, inspite of all odds, had the strength to fight against injustice, and had the foresight to preserve the ecosystem.......

Degradable plastic from Corn!

How would you like the idea of envoronmental friendly, totally degradable plastic, for use in packaging of food stuffs? Imagine what a boon it would be if we could throw away all those plastic packing materials that pile up in no time in our homes, into the earth, being fully assured that they would decompose soon to form valuable fertilizers...

Well, i happened to read through an article which mentioned how in the American state of Nebraska, they are making totally degradable plastic from Corn. It seems, dextrose is extracted from the starch in the corn kernels, and it is fermented and converted into polylactic acid (PLA). A sort of industrial resin is manufactured from this, which can be effectively substituted in the place of the regular plastics for use in packaging.

Another aspect is that while the manufacture of plastics consumes quite a lot of oil, this new procedure may turn out cheaper, considering the huge rise in oil prices and the rapid way this natural resourse is being exhausted!

It seems the world's largest retailer, Wal-Mart, has decided to sell some of it's products in PLA containers. Let me hope, that others too would catch up soon...

recycling e-waste

Undoubtedly, India is emerging to be one of the leaders in the field of information technology. Computer education, being made mandatory in all schools right from the primary level, India is undoubtedly witnessing a surge of IT companies and professionals.

In such a situation, imagine the amount of e-waste generated per year per state! What happens to all those computer hardware parts and related non-degradable items which are beyond any use??

If your computer keyboard or mouse or some other electronic gadget gets damaged irrepairably, what do you do? Throw it off? Burn them? Bury them? Or give them to your local shop or dealer for recycling? Just imagine the scene where thousands and thousands of such parts are thrown away.. They are no doubt, taken away from your houses or offices along with the other garbage, by the concerned dealers , and dumped in some waste dumping grounds, or thrown into some river, where they contaminate the earth and water alike. some of them are burnt periodically... which no doubt causes a rise in the pollution level, resulting in several health hazards.

This is a grave situation which is causing concern to the government and environmentalists alike. So imagine the condition of Bangalore, the IT hub of India... But thanks to the efforts of Mr. P. Parthasarathy, an IIT Chennai product, and an entrepreneur at Bangalore, the city can heave a sigh of relief. Encouraged by the centre and state pollution control boards, he has created a company called e-parisara, which aims to recycle and manage e-waste, without causing any ecological damage

Computer components and other e-wastes generated by the computer companies and other manufacturers are carefully recycled, and reusable raw materials are created. Hazardous components such as chromium, arsenic, mercury, nickel, cadmium, lead and zinc sulphate are separated from the material they are contained in. The metal content that can be safely reused is seperated, and the rest are buried carefully, without causing any related environmental pollution.

I just wish that more such waste recycling companies come into existance, and more people are made aware of such safer options to dispose of their e-wastes. If such options are made available in all major places, It would certainly do a lot of good to our planet.

clearing oil spills the natural way...

Accidental oil spills does indeed create many problems to the ecosystem, and clearing them is a big problem. i came across an interesting piece of news, where some ingenious volunteers of San Francisco, were trying to clear an oil spill by totally organic means!

They are using mats made out of human hair to absorb and clear up the droplets of oil washed ashore due to the spillage of around 58000 gallons of fuel! It seems hair acts as a natural sponge and absorbs oil both from water and air. the mats roughly resemble door mats and are woven with dark hair. once the mats are soaked with the black oil, oyster mushrooms grow over them, absorbing more oil from the water.

Isn't it great? just goes to show how ingenious people can get if faced with challenges. And the good part of it is that everything is totally eco-friendly... i am sure that this will certainly inspire more ecological responses to toxic waste removal.

i came across this article on degradable refuse, by Victor Rozek in the site http://www.indiamike.com/india/chai-and-chat-f73/the-plastic-sea-t25534/. for anybody really concerned with the growing environmental issue, this is an ideal site to share your views.

a small excerpt is given here:

"Imagine you are looking at a little girl playing with a keyboard. What do you see? Is she in a classroom watching bright software-generated images dancing to the touch of her fingers? Or is she home at a small computer desk tucked under the windows of her pastel room? What is she doing?

Look closely and you will see that the child is dirty and her eyes have a look of resigned boredom.We do not know who she is, but we do know something of her life. She is Chinese. She lives in a village called Guiyu in Guangdong Province. If someone in her family had a car, she could travel to Hong Kong in just four hours. But for her, the distance is galactic. She will never climb the glass and steel peaks of the Hong Kong skyline. Her mountain is made of computer parts: an alp of American electronic refuse that rises in irregular contours above her village. She sits atop it, aimlessly fingering a keyboard. To her left runs the Lianjiang River. Its waters no longer sustain life; they poison it. To her right, her father, and thousands like him, swings an ancient hammer, dismantling screens, printers, CPUs, looking for the mineral caches within. The broken plastic is tossed into a burning pyre that fills the air with black, acrid smoke thick enough to thwart the sunlight. Through the haze she can see bulldozers pushing mounds of broken components, toner cartridges, and the slurry from chemical extraction processes into the river.

This is what American authorities and computer manufacturers call "recycling." It is perhaps an inevitable, if unintended, consequence of our appetite for computers and related electronic gadgets. Their strategic obsolescence has created a massive disposal problem that grows with each generation of machines. In 1994 an estimated 10 million systems annually found their way into the nation's landfills. Today, that number approaches 40 million.

It further states:

California and Massachusetts, states with large populations and concentrations of high-tech industries, became concerned about ground water and soil contamination. They passed laws preventing the wholesale dumping of computers and electronic components. At least 20 other states are poised to follow.

In response, a number of computer recycling companies emerged to process the astonishing quantities of e-waste. Everyone felt better, but few actually understood the workings of the "recycling" operation or had anything but a theoretical grasp of the unmanageable volume of materials that continued flooding into the pipeline.

The reality was that 50 to 80 percent of the electronic equipment was never recycled at all, but loaded onto ships destined to be dumped in some desperately poor nation. Officials in target nations like China, India, and Pakistan either didn't fully comprehend the toxic nature of the materials they were accepting or, more likely, were paid not to object. ...."

isn't this real scary? think about it. do visit the above link if you want to know more of it, or if you want to air your views. they have a discssion forum open.

plastic hazard

It is indeed commendable that Kerala is the first state in India to totally 'ban' the use of plastic covers (lesser than 30 microns) anywhere. it is another fact that those dreaded items are still visible everywhere. the problem with the authorities is that they do not enforce the rules they make in an orderly manner. If only they could bring out regular checking squads, who have the power to enforce suitable fines, this ban could be made more effective. still, there is a 30% reduction in it's usage, which is indeed a good start.

i really think, the use of plastics or poly bags should be controlled at the source. if the manufacturers could find some other alternative methods of packing their produce, a considerable difference would be seen in this world. these days, almost every consmable durable item comes packed in attractive plastic covers. for eg., biscut packets, soap powder packets, packings of cereals and pulses, etc. Just imagine the amount of such packets which accumulate as waste per day, per district, and i guess you can comprehend it's magnitude! Can't something be done about this???

Plastic Wastes

It’s scary… Downright scary, when I think of how the ecosystem of this earth seems to be changing for the worse. Each day, some disaster or the other hits this planet… Tsunamis, tornados, melting glaciers, dwindling forests, scarcity of water, all amount to one thing… untold misery and loss of life to all the living beings on this wonderful world. Eminent scientists all over the world are warning us of impending disaster if we do not do something fast to cover up the damages done by the human race to this world.

Let me ask you a simple question.. what are YOU doing about it? isn’t it the moral responsibility of every human being in this world to protect it from further damage and to preserve this world and all the wonders of nature in it for the future generations??? Actually, I have been asking myself this question for quite some time.

I see a lot of atrocities committed to nature right in front of my eyes. But as a mere indivudal, I am practically helpless to fight them. For example, take the case of plastics. Even in a small town like mine, every single person is aware of the destruction caused to this environment by the ordinary plastic covers that are dispensed free of cost by the shopkeepers, when we buy something from the shops. People throw them after use, and you can see them flying along roadsides, and settling down in drains, and clogging them up. In spite of warnings and threats of fines from the authorities, this is still a common occurrence. Though, after a recent ban on those really thin recycled ones, it is still a problem area, which we all ought to stand up and deal with.

I guess, we, as responsible people of this world, should try and limit it’s use in our own houses. If all those who read this blog of mine, reduces their plastic cover consumption to atleast 10%, I would consider that I am on my way to success. Let us carry our own shopping bags while shopping, and help this world. I know, banning plastic covers altogether is a near improbability, but let us atleast try to avoid those real thin (lesser than 30microns) ones for a start.

If any of you have any worthwhile comments to pass on, please do. Your one suggestion could make a huge difference.