Johanna

It’s been over a month since I joined the Huffington Post’s No Impact Week project, a group experiment on carbon-cleansing for one whole week.  Participation from all over the world was very encouraging to say the least! A girl named Rachel from Holland, for example, shared a cool new transportation option for the green mommy:

Holland's new pride, the modern bakfiets! (image source)

Other interesting ideas shared:  a sharing cooperative among neighbors for common household tools, natural alternatives to shampoo, geocaching (treasure hunting using GPS).

Visit the post-experiment insights page and the No Impact Project Ning site for worldwide participants (those outside Canada and the US) to take a look for yourself or join in the discussion

A new batch of carbon cleanse participants started on November 15.  Click here to check if you can still participate (better late than never!).

Chanced upon the No Impact Week challenge on Huffington Post a few days ago. The idea is to live for a week with zero or reduced impact on the environment, based on the year-long experiment by Colin Beavan, known as No Impact Man:

HuffPost Green and HuffPost’s Eyes & Ears Citizen Journalism Initiative are thrilled to announce that we are partnering with the No Impact Project, a non-profit started by Colin Beavan, to bring our readers the first No Impact Week. This week will give people the opportunity to examine and reduce their ecological footprint by taking part in a short and intense period of conscious consumption supported by local and online communities.

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As we learned more about Colin, and saw No Impact Man, the documentary film and read his book of the same title, about his family’s year-long experiment, we were downright inspired. The documentary follows the Beavans’ journey as they incrementally lowered their impact through phases, such as making no trash, only eating food grown within 250 miles, using no carbon producing transportation (not even the subway!) and finally, no electricity in their home. By year’s end their impact was down to nearly zero.

Primary takers so far are Americans and Europeans, but I really want to give myself an honest shot at it.

The global project starts this Monday, October 18.  Are you ready to try this for yourself? Take a look here or download the No Impact Week Guide here and let me know, so at least I’ll have a friend to dial when I’m ready to scream and pull out my hair from the birthing pains of this first step towards going green!

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Today, October 15, is Blog Action Day, and the theme for this year is Climate change. Visit www.blogactionday.org to see the green ruckus from all over the blogosphere today.

Plastic clogged the drains, relief goods in plastic will clog the drains even more.  The Acacia Waldorf school in Sta.Rosa, Laguna shows us an alternative: packing relief goods (food/meals in particular) using good old banana leaves…

Photo from Dale Diaz shows 500 meals of rice, tuyo and hardboiled egg in “green” packaging.

Other alternatives (taken from calls of help from We Philippines as reposted on facebook):  used (but still usable!) blankets, bedsheets, pillow cases, towels, curtains and tablecloths to pack goods with.

First heard about this revolutionary invention that lets people drink filthy floodwater from my dad.  Was super excited to read about an initiative by The Clean Water Project to bring the Lifesaver bottle to the Philippines:

The Clean Water Project aims to transform the deadly floodwaters of Typhoon Ondoy (international name Ketsana) into life giving, pure drinking water.  It is a collaboration among old friends who are committed to doing whatever we can do, and work for as long as there is work to be done.

Inventor Michael Pritchard explains how this works:

LIFESAVER bottle removes all micro-biological contamination from water.

LIFESAVER bottle has been thoroughly tested by London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine showing that even the smallest of viruses were removed. Download the LSHTM laboratory test results HERE.

The smallest bacteria measures 200NM (nanometres) whilst the smallest virus measures about 25 nanometres. The ultra filtration membranes in the LIFESAVER Ultra-Filtration cartridge have pore sizes of only 15 nanometres, this means that no contamination can pass through into the drinking water.

The pump creates pressure within the bottle which forces water through the membranes leaving the dirt and contamination on the other side of the membranes.

Here’s a 10-minute video with Michael Pritchard from TED.com (filmed during the most recent TED Global last July 2009):

Shorter demo video from the BBC here:

More info on the Lifesaver website, where donations for Typhoon Ondoy (Ketsana) victims are also accepted.

Behind The Clean Water Project are two Pinays: Tish Vallés, a strategic planner, advocate and social entrepreneur based in New York, and Denise Celdran, an artist, environmentalist and advocate.  They say that the British manufacturer has “kindly offered a 35% discount on the bottles for relief efforts. For the $100.00 each Lifesaver bottle costs, we will help provide from 4,000 – 6,000 liters of safe drinking water. That is from $0.016 – $0.25 per liter!”

Although help is welcome from all aspects,

We are also very collaborative, and welcome like-minded action-oriented groups and individuals to participate in this project. Please email  tish@strategicstiletto.com to start a discussion.

the urgent need is funding, which can be done through paypal, cash or cheque donations. Visit the donation page or email cleanwaterfund@gmail.com for arrangements.

Found through Panjee Tapales (thanks!), who says that the Lifesaver jerrycans, which can “process up to 20,000 litres of clean sterile drinking water without the aid of chemicals,” are also coming in December!

Let’s spread the word and help getting this initiative going!