March 23, 2009

Hope we all had a great WORLD WATER DAY.

by Environmental Building Strategies in Green Building, Uncategorized Tags: water No Comments

I thought I would share with you some fun/disturbing facts about water and why it should become a priority in our buildings.

1) An American taking a five-minute shower uses more water than the typical person living in a developing country slum uses in a whole day.
2) 3.575 million people die each year from water-related disease.
3) 84% of water-related deaths are in children ages 0 – 14.
4) 98% of water-related deaths occur in the developing world.
5) The water and sanitation crisis claims more lives through disease than any war claims through guns.
6) At any given time, half of the world’s hospital beds are occupied by patients suffering from a water-related disease.
Sanitation
1) Only 62% of the world’s population has access to improved sanitation – defined as a sanitation facility that ensures hygienic separation of human excreta from human contact.
2) 2.5 billion people lack access to improved sanitation, including 1.2 billion people who have no facilities at all.
3) At any one time, more than half of the poor in the developing world are ill from causes related to hygiene, sanitation and water supply.
Now some fun facts about buildings and waters in the US
Average Home Water Usage:
toilets 28%
clothes washers 21%
showers 17%
faucets 15%
leaks 14%
other 5%
It’s pretty amazing to me that 14% of our water use is because of leaks!
Here are some easy ways to help out
• Fix your leaks
• Install water saving aerators or spring loaded valves on all faucets.
• Install water saving shower heads.
• Retrofit flushometer toilets and urinals with low consumption valve replacement kits.
• Replace existing higher consumption toilets and urinals with Low Flush (ULF) toilets and urinals which use 1.6 gallons per flush (gpf) and 1.0 gpf respectively.
• If only replacing a limited number of toilets, replace heavily used fixtures located in high traffic areas first.
• When remodeling, such as for ADA compliance, replace fixtures with ULF models.
Just a couple suggestions for the year ahead.

I really do believe that we must stress the importance of our lack of water and create a sense of urgency out there. It is a problem that we can solve but we must take action soon. I want to thank organizations like the WORLD WATER DAY for advancing our knowledge and spreading the word about the shortage of water.

–The EBS Team

March 2, 2009

Water – you’ll be drinking sh*% soon (literally)

by Environmental Building Strategies in Green Building, Uncategorized Tags: green, Renewable Energy, sustainability, waste, water 1 Comment

So a couple things are on my mind this week. The main one is water however. To date this blog has focused quite a bit on energy, materials, and sustainability however we’ve lacked on the water subject.

Since Karolina let me on to this movie FLOW I’ve been newly recharged to change the world. I can’t express in words how important it is that you see this documentary. It discusses the critical nature of our current water supply in a global context.

It also discusses how multi-national corporations such as Coke, Nestle, and Pepsi are literally destroying aquifers where the “set up shop.” The worst part is they do this in places around the globe that can least afford it. Companies like Coke suck up water that would otherwise be provided for indigenous people and then bottle it and sell it back to them for profit. Lets just ask ourselves, “Does that make sense?” Does it make sense to pay ridiculous amounts of money for something that falls from our skies? Should we start paying for air? How about sunlight?

The greatest part about it is that this bottled water we drink is rarely ever better for our health and of course when you throw in the future impacts of the plastic bottle its stored in, you have a recipe for disaster.

Besides the film, I wanted to share some things the world is doing for water and its conservation.
In Orange County California, wastewater is being treated and discharged back into the ground water. It then is recaptured and used for drinking, showering and such. This is a really important concept because quite often wastewater and sewage is treated and dumped into our oceans. We are dumping potentially viable FRESH water in the salty oceans. An interesting note that Australia does this already – in fact I’ve heard that their President was shown on TV drinking a glass of treated water. Besides that they capture much of their rainfall and understand capture and reuse much better than Americans.

In other interesting news, Ben Block from Greener Buildings talks about how water efficiency is key to energy savings here. Also on Greener Buildings is an interesting article about a mobile transportation device for wastewater treatment. That article can be found here.

Thats about all I have for now – I will leave you with this interesting tidbit I learned…

An investment in wind power produces almost three times as many jobs as the same investment in coal power. And an investment in solar power produces almost four times as many jobs, and energy efficiency, almost thirty times as many jobs as coal power.

–The EBS Team