World Toilet Day

World Toilet Day may sound like a joke, but for the 2.5 billion people in the world who don't have access to toilets and sanitation, it certainly isn't. November 19, 2009 is World Toilet Day.

I would just like to post some facts here for you to think about.

2.5 billion people worldwide don't have access to proper sanitation, risking their health, stripping their dignity, and killing 1.8 children a year.

Diarrheal diseases kill five times as many children in the developing world as HIV/AIDS.

That's 5,000 children DYING EVERY SINGLE DAY.

Disease kills more children than either malaria or AIDS, stunts growth, and forces millions - adults and children alike - to spend weeks at a time off work or school, which hits both a country's economy and its citizens' chances of a better future.

The majority of the illness in the world is caused by fecal matter.

Lack of sanitation is the world's biggest cause of infection.

One gram of feces can contain 10 million viruses, one million bacteria, 1,000 parasite cysts and 100 parasite eggs.

Safe disposal of children's feces leads to a reduction of nearly 40% in childhood diarrhea.

If you would like to find out more or get involved, you can visit the World Toilet Day site or the WaterAid site. Take a look at this short video as well - and share it!

Cow Dung To Heat 1,100 Homes In Netherlands

A cow dung-powered plant opened last Friday in the Netherlands, which hopes to provide 1,100 homes with the heat generated via anaerobic digestion of cow dung.

At the plant itself, cow manure along with grass and food residues will undergo fermentation and will release biogas. A special 5.5-km biogas pipeline from the Nij Bosma Zathe experimental dairy cattle farm will transport the biogas to a thermal plant’s gas turbines. The heat, thus generated, will go to the homes in the De Zuidlanden area (Leeuwarden) in northern Netherlands.

Via: Reuters

Image via: Flickr User Paul Stevenson with a Creative Commons License

Solar Parking For Electric Cars

This design offers a dual solution to parking and charging of electric vehicles. It proposes wireless transmission of charge from the solar canopy to the charging coil embedded in the asphalt and later, to the car battery. After sensing an electric car parked, the parking system automatically starts the wireless charging process. Once the car’s battery is full, the sensors embedded in the asphalt stop the charging process.


Romanian designer Nejur Andrei said this about his design is "A parking place designed to promote electrical cars by offering free electricity produced by the sun. Owners of electric cars dont have to worry about fuel anymore when parked here."


Via: Designboom

The Journey Of A Biscuit To The Philippines

The World Food Programme (WFP) has distributed over 230 tons of High Energy Biscuits in the Philippines as part of its response to the recent typhoons. The video below shows how the biscuits travelled the 9,374 kilometres from the factory to the beneficiaries, and in particular, one little boy called Antonio (photo above).

These biscuits (HEBs) are ideal for the sort of relief operations that follow natural disasters because they’re easy to transport and they don’t require cooking. In addition, they are full of minerals, vitamins and energy so they can keep people going for several days if there's no other food available.

In the Philippines the biscuits have also been useful as a way of making sure mothers and children don't lose out on important nutrients as they deal with the floods and devastation left behind by a series of typhoons.

LightSail: New Project By Planetary Society

LightSail-1 Artists rendition of LightSail-1 by Rick Sternbach. Credit: Planetary Society

The Planetary Society, with its new project called LightSail, announced its plan to propel a spacecraft on sunlight alone by the end of 2010. Under this new programme, three separate spacecrafts will be launched over a period of several years.

LightSail-1 Prior to Sail Deployment Credit: Planetary Society

The project was unveiled on the 75th anniversary of astronomer Carl Sagan ’s birth and will start with LightSail-1, which will demonstrate that sunlight alone can propel a spacecraft into Earth orbit. It will use three Cubesat spacecraft, out of which one will form the central electronics and control module, while the other two will house the solar sail module. Cameras, additional sensors, and a control system will be added to the basic Cubesat electronics bus.

The solar sails are propelled by reflected light pressure and not solar wind. The LightSail-1 will launch with its four triangular Mylar sails packaged in a volume equal to about three quarts and unfurl to an area of more than 340 square feet, resembling a giant diamond-shaped kite. It will orbit at an altitude of nearly 500 miles and operate for just a few days to determine if it can be controlled, and to measure the orbital acceleration.

The LightSail-2 spacecraft is planned for higher altitude orbits, while the LightSail-3 is intended to be sent to the Sun-Earth Libration Point, L1, where solar sails could be permanently placed as solar weather stations, monitoring the geomagnetic storms from the sun that potentially endanger electrical grids and satellite systems around Earth.

Via: UniverseToday

TPRF: Food for People raises most funds in Causes Giving Challenge on Facebook

Following my previous post about TPRF:Food For People participating in Cause's Giving Challenge on Facebook, I wanted to follow up to say that the Challenge ended yesterday and TPRF:Food For People raised the most money - $222,950! However, since the challenge was based on numbers of donations and not amount, they didn't win the first prize of $50,000, but won $25,000 which will be added to the amount of donations!

TPRF have said that, thanks to the tremendous effort and generosity of donors, they can now start planning the third Food For People facility. To see more about the Food For People programme go here.

To see the unofficial results of the Causes Challenge, take a look here.