GoGreenIdeas

Bangalore, Sep.9 (ANI): An innovative woman industrial designer has designed clay pots to conveniently and hygienically make compost and organic waste at home. These eco-friendly pots basically help prepare and keep organic waste to a value-added product.

With her concept, based on age-old wisdom of utilising waste, Poonam Kasturi has also set up a Daily Dump Company. It designs products and services that manage home waste.

Poonam said: "It has a lot to do with how people perceive this. How Indian housewives actually look at waste. We noticed people were not interested in an expensive product for this purpose beyond rupees 600. Anything beyond it is not paid attention to."

Today,this young entrepreneur is a big a success due to her earthware pots and concept is catching up.

Poonam said: “We didn't want to use a factory production system to produce this specific product. If you want to start something, it has to be really simple. It has to fit and the whole thing of garden and terracotta and even the material is also very good for taking compost."

These attractive earthenware pots, punched with holes for aeration and one set atop another. The Organic compost is filled in the topmost pot and then interchanged as the bulk of the garbage matures and declines.

The units need to be stirred at least once within three to five days. Maintenance involves using natural 'Neem' spray to mask any odour and the addition of an organic culture to accelerate the decomposition process.

A full cycle may take up to two months or more for significant decline in volume. Daily Dump offers service support and information on knowing and segregating home waste. Poonam found a great demand for these eco friendly products in over 100 countries. She claims that her eco-friendly initiative has an advantage in an urban situation.

Cars of the future might run on eco-friendly fuel that is produced by photosynthesis in algae. According to a report in New Scientist, the fuel produced with the help of algae is an emerald-green crude oil, which could fuel cars, trucks and aircraft without consuming crops that can be used as food.

“This product can go right into today"s oil pipeline," said Jason Pyle of Sapphire Energy in San Diego, California, which developed the fuel. Pyle said that the “green crude" is similar in quality to naturally occurring crude oil. It is produced as a by-product of photosynthesis by a genetically engineered strain of algae, housed in tanks of treated waste-water and exposed to sunlight.

The tanks can be placed on non-arable land. Gasoline, diesel and jet fuel have already been refined from the green crude, and the company aims to produce 10,000 barrels per day within five years.

Recycling rubbish could do more harm than good to the environment, a new research has revealed. RMIT environmental engineering expert Tim Grant was quoted by news.com.au as saying that when it came to recycling consumer electronics such mobile phones, computers and TVs, "the net (benefit) of recycling them was negative (for the environment), but throwing them away is equally damaging.

While most experts agree that recycling plastic bottles and glass jars does less damage than burning or putting them in a landfill, the recycling process has environmental costs. David Moy from the Waste Management Association of Australia used the example of rinsing out a glass jar before placing it in a recycling bin.

"The approach I would take to that is to not use fresh water to rinse out, but put them on the sink and wash them at the end of your washing up. "That gives you a clean product, without adding (that) environmental cost. But there’s also an environment cost with transport: using carbon fuels and building the vehicles."

Dr Sami Kara, an expert on the total environmental impact of consumer products at the University of New South Wales, said the recycling process has many unknowns, and that "it is almost impossible to answer" questions without going into the subject in detail.

"These are issues related to type of product, collection networks, distance, volumes, recycling techniques, land fill cost, etc. "They all play a critical role," he said.