Green Options

The UK imports cheap roses grown in Kenya for Valentine’s Day that are “bleeding that country dry,” says Dr. David Harper, an ecology and conservation biologist at the University of Leicester.

Of particular concern is the region around Lake Naivasha, where cheap rose growers have no concern for the environment.

Roses that come cheap are grown by companies that have no concern for the

[...]

A Swedish inventor has unveiled a solar-powered water purifier that could provide billions of the world’s poorest people with access to clean and disease-free drinking water [video].

The device, called the Solvatten, (Swedish for ’sun water’), looks much the same as a standard jerrycan and can be filled with up to ten liters of water, opened out, and left in the sun. A simple indicator shows either a red or green face to let users know when the water is safe to drink (typically after 3-4 hours), thus avoiding the risk of contracting water-borne diseases.

Despite the uphill struggles faced by Kenya’s environmentalists, the tourism industry is definitely doing its part to save the country’s fragile wilderness.

As South American nations rush to achieve energy independence and become the next Venezuela, oil exploration and treasure hunts for profitable and reliable energy sources have increased in countries like Uruguay, Ecuador, Brazil, and Chile.

This past Friday, the U.S. company Pure Biofuels opened up a new biodiesel plant in Lima, Peru. It plans to produce 52 million gallons of biodiesel next year, about 35% of which will meet Peru’s internal demands for the alternative fuel. The rest will be exported. The plant has the capacity to increase its production threefold, and hopes to eventually produce 156 million gallons of biodiesel per year. Production has yet to start at the new plant, but will later this year.

The new plant is only the second to open its doors in Peru. The other biodiesel plant opened in January and will produce about 48 million gallons each year. So with biodiesel on the rise, could this be the start of a new energy boom coming out of Peru? It is difficult to know.

This guest post comes to us from the Blue Planet Run Foundation.

Annette Fay visited Blue Planet Run’s project in Kisii, a crowded town nestled on top of a hilly, green part of the Kenyan countryside. The news from the completed water project demonstrates just how immense the impact of safe drinking water can be on a community. Annette shares her story:

I met with the Hospital Superintendent Dr. Otomu, the District Water Engineer Mr. Orangi and the Head Nurse Mrs. Monayo, the latter two walked me through the project.

The 200 bed Kisii District Hospital serves 525,000 people directly and is a referral facility for an additional 2,430,000, as far south as the Tanzanian border and west as Lake Victoria’s south-eastern shore. The Kisii area has a high density of HIV/AIDS victims and is known for the prevalence of the deadly highlands malaria after the rainy season.  The hospital’s water needs are 180,000 litres per day. Before the water project, if all systems were functioning properly, the hospital had 40,000 litres of water per day from the following sources: 15,000 from a borehole, 10,000 litres from rainwater harvesting and 15,000 litres from the municipal water system.