Green Options » filtration

Revved-Up Sand Could Purify Water

Tina Casey — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 10:55:56 +0000

First there was the Life Straw. Then there was the Aquaduct Tricycle. Now ordinary sand could provide an answer to one of the thorniest problems of the future: how to purify drinking water for the many millions of people who don’t have access to a clean, disease-free source — and no means to pay for conventional water treatment.

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Innovate or Die: Aquaduct Water Filtration Tricycle

Rhonda Winter — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 01:10:51 +0000

Over a billion of our fellow world citizens do not have access to clean drinking water. Over three million people die annually as a result of waterborne diseases, making them the leading cause of death on our planet. Often when clean water is available, it is located miles away and takes hours and much effort to transport. An innovative new tricycle has been invented that could potentially help to solve some of these life-threatening problems.

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The Aquaduct is a pedal-powered vehicle that transports, filters, and stores water. It is the winning design in the “Innovate or Die” contest, which asked people to create pedal-powered solutions to help combat climate change. The novel competition was sponsored by Specialized Bicycles, Google and Goodby Silverstein & Partners.

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Largest LEED Platinum Building in the World

Keith Rockmael — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 17:42:46 +0000

This post, like the masses of crowds, makes its way inside the just opened Academy of Sciences Museum. And why not as the Museum just became the largest LEED Platinum building in the world as well as the world’s most sustainable museum building. Take that Louvre.

As a Green building, the designers highlighted the new qualities but the also the previously used materials. What could be more famous then the seahorse railing and the colorful original tiles that surround the old favorite alligator swamp exhibit? Both the unique decorations are back. Okay, we’ll get to the bigger stuff.

One of the biggest challenges for this building was to optimize the natural light from the 200 some odd roof skylights to reach the living rainforest and coral reef. Unfortunately no LEED for Aquariums exists so the designers had balance radical ideas with practicality because they could take a chance that the wildlife wouldn’t survive.

The new aquariums displays contain twice as much water as the original, however they use less potable water because of filtration and recycling systems that purify water piped in from the Pacific Ocean. They purify the nitrate wastes using natural systems, ensuring that aquarium water can be recycled and reused. We also liked that they used 50% recycled content for the aquarium’s concrete.

Of course, everything can’t be perfectly green in a building. We cornered Water Planet designer Tom Hennes who (together with Urban A&O) designed the exhibit’s innovative wall treatments, about things that he would have liked to changed in regard to making the aquariums more green he said, “It’s hard to live without fiberglass.”

Even with the fiberglass we’re happy to be living with the fishes in this extraordinary green icon.

Building a DIY Wetland

Philip Proefrock — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 13:59:38 +0000

A family in Australia has created their own tiny wetland as a part of a household grey water system. It is a fairly large DIY project, but, as the article demonstrates, not an overwhelming project. The writer even enlisted his young children to help in the construction.

Black water is toilet waste and other water that requires more substantial treatment. Grey water is non-sewer waste water from washing clothes and showers and the like. Although in most homes, both black water and grey water go into the sewer system and are handled in water treatment plants with the same processing, grey water really requires much less treatment. It is possible to find other uses for grey water, including using the water for toilet flushing or for irrigation.

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Bicycle-Powered Water Pumps and Filtration Systems

Nayelli Gonzalez — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 23:52:34 +0000

Note: this article is part of this week’s EcoWorldly cycling series: Cycling and its importance in countries around the world.

As a writer on global writer issues, I wasn’t quite sure what to do when my writing colleagues at EcoWorldly suggested that we all contribute to a series on bicycling.

Bikes and water: could the two really be related? To my pleasant surprise, they are indeed!

I learned about several organizations dedicated to providing people in developing nations with the means to get clean water through the use of bicycles.

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