Showing posts with label Drinking Water. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Drinking Water. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Free Filtered Water For Reusable Bottle Users - The Trend Grows
From: http://www.treehugger.com/
You simply set your bottle onto the station's metal tray and refill happens hands free.
The Dept. of Aviation estimates the water stations, installed after Earth Day 2010, will save approximately 17,000 pounds of greenhouse gases from being emitted, and 29 fewer tons of trash from going to landfill annually.
Photo A. Streeter via flickr and Creative Commons.
The Chicago Department of Aviation has installed filtered water stations especially designed for reusable bottles at both O'Hare (Terminal 2) and Chicago Midway airports. Not only is this a boon to those of us with reusable bottles and a real aversion to buying bottled water. It's also saving CO2 emissions. Yes, a drop in the proverbial bucket, but a start in turning back the massive tide of bottled water that is so damaging to our environment and so unnecessary.
At both the airports, there's a Liquid Disposal Station before security lines, and refill stations are located right next to the regular drinking fountains (a big plus, as it is quite difficult to refill bottles at the regular fountains).You simply set your bottle onto the station's metal tray and refill happens hands free.
The Dept. of Aviation estimates the water stations, installed after Earth Day 2010, will save approximately 17,000 pounds of greenhouse gases from being emitted, and 29 fewer tons of trash from going to landfill annually.
In San Francisco, Virgin Airways is sponsoring a similar filtered water refill station.
Washingtonians are also lucky - the TapIt initiative means there are more than 60 spots in the city, (participating businesses) that will allow you to fill your reusable bottle for free.Reviewing some of the highlights from the documentary for your water edification:
- A large amount of the water you are buying in bottled water comes from the same sources as tap water.
- Bottled water is more than a $10 billion annual business, with the biggest corporate players being Coca-Cola, Pepsico, and Nestle.
- Approximately 18 million barrels of oil are used each year to transport water for bottled water consumption.
-Eliminating or minimizing bottled water usage would be a huge boon for the ocean where lots of plastic ends up circling endlessly in loops like the Pacific Gyre.
-Storing water in plastic is a very risky business, as toxic chemicals have been shown to leach from the plastic in to the water, especially over time (including bisphenol-A).
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Filter Turns Filthy Water Drinkable
Uploaded by nexfutbol on Oct 13, 2009
Support my Raise to Empower campaign at http://igg.me/p/29202?a=151955&i=shlk
A Solution for Flash Floods, especially here in the Philippines
Check out The Clean Water Project by two creative Filipinas.
http://web.me.com/tish_valles/The_Clean_Water_Project/The_Clean_Water_Project...
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Drinking Water Proven to Help Weight Loss
Adding science to years of anecdotal claims, scientists find that dieters who drink two cups of water before meals lose more weight.
From: http://news.discovery.com/
THE GIST
- Drinking two cups of water before all three meals helped dieters lose weight and keep it off.
- The findings only worked in people who were middle-aged and older, but water might help younger dieters, too.
- Americans get far too many calories in the form of sugar-filled beverages.
Two glasses of water before meals and help people eat less and lose weight, research shows. Click to enlarge this image.
iStockPhoto
It's a popular dieting secret: Drink more water, and you'll shed more pounds. Finally, science is adding weight to the practice.
After about three months, a new study found, obese dieters who drank two cups of water before each meal lost 5 pounds more than a group of dieters who didn't increase their water intake. A year later, the water-drinkers had also kept more of the weight off.
The study included only middle-aged and older adults, but other studies suggest that drinking water might help dieters of all ages, said Brenda Davy, a nutrition researcher at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg. After years of folklore, she added, this may be the first hard evidence that pounding water is viable weight-loss strategy.
"It's this popular idea that, oh yeah, drink more water -- that's what you have to do when you want to lose weight," said Davy, who presented her new findings today at a meeting of the American Chemical Society in Boston. "It seems to be logical, but it had never really been investigated."
Davy and colleagues reported one of their first findings in 2008 in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association. That study found that older adults who drank two cups of water half an hour before breakfast ate about 75 fewer calories -- or 13 percent less -- than a comparable group who hadn't drunk water before the meal. People in both groups were overweight or obese, and all were allowed to eat as much of the food as they wanted.
To see if that behavior would lead to actual weight loss, the researchers started by putting more than 40 overweight and obese adults on a diet. The dieters, all between the ages of 55 and 75, were instructed to eat healthy meals that totaled no more than 1,200 to 1,500 calories a day.
Half of the dieters were randomly assigned to drink a 16-ounce bottle of water before all three meals. The others received water but were not given any instructions about when or how to drink it.
Twelve weeks later, the water drinkers had lost an average of 15.5 pounds, compared to an average 11-pound loss in the other group. That's a 44 percent boost in weight loss, just from drinking water.
Davy's experiments have failed to find the same effect in younger adults, possibly because the gastrointestinal tract empties more slowly as we age, so water might lead to a longer-lasting feeling of fullness in older people.
But water might still work as a diet aid for younger people -- just in different ways. One year-long study, for example, found that younger dieters who reported drinking more than a liter of water a day lost a little more weight than dieters who drank less water.
The reason could be physical. According to some research, water consumption might spark the body to produce more heat, boosting metabolism and burning more calories. Or, drinking more water might simply make people less likely to drink a lot of high-calorie sugar-filled beverages, said Barry Popkin, director of the Interdisciplinary Obesity Program at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
In hundreds of studies, Popkn said, people eat just as much food no matter how many calories they drink. And Americans are now drinking an average of 235 calories a day -- far more than ever before.
Davy's findings need to be repeated, Popkin added, before doctors can confidently tell dieters that downing water will boost their efforts. But it can't hurt to keep a water bottle nearby, especially if that helps you take in less soda, juice, energy drinks and other caloric beverages.
"Water is by far the healthiest beverage, and if you can't drink water, then drink unsweetened tea, coffee, diet beverages or for kids, low-fat milk," Popkin said. "The fewer calories we get from beverages, the healthier we're going to be."
Friday, July 16, 2010
Perrier Understands Advertising
From: http://warmingglow.uproxx.com/
Below is the newest commercial for Perrier, in which fetish model/modern burlesque star Dita von Teese takes off her clothes and douses her lingerie-clad body in refreshing bubbly water with a light citrus flavor.
A lot of people on the Internet don’t seem to find Dita attractive, and while everyone’s entitled to speak their minds, some of those people are goddamn liars. I’m not saying she’s the sexiest woman on the planet or anything, but if she showed up in my apartment in lingerie and heels and seductively dumped Perrier all over herself, I wouldn’t be like, “Hey! I just mopped yesterday! Get some paper towels, will you?” I’d probably have some witty line about how sparkling water prevents stains from setting in.
[via bohemea]
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Madonna is Crazy for Coconut Water
Madonna's manager, Guy Oseary, told The New York Post that the singer invested about $1.5 million in Vita Coco, a New York-based company that sells the beverage in New York and Los Angeles and wants to take its product national. Oseary also told The Post he's convinced other celebrities, including actor Matthew McConaughey and singer Anthony Kiedis of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, to make smaller investments in the company.
Apparently, Madonna liked the juice of green coconuts so much, she's throwing marketing ideas to the Vita Coco management, and is talking about making a follow-up investment, according to The Post.
Coconut water has been gaining trendiness over the last couple of years, moving out of inner-city bodegas, where its main audience had been immigrants from the Caribbean and Latin America, and into the realm of hipster chic. With Madonna's seal of approval, it could go mainstream.
The market could be ripe for growth -- no pun intended. Several companies are already promoting coconut water as both a healthy substitute for sports drinks and a trendy mixer for cocktails. Vita Coco has reportedly turned down overtures from both Pepsico (PEP), which already owns two brands of coconut water in Brazil, and Coca-Cola Co. (KO). A rival coconut water brand, Zico, last year sold a minority stake to Coca-Cola, and another brand, O.N.E., signed a distribution agreement with Pepsi.
Lucky Stars? In High-Profile Investments, Not Always
But keep in mind, celebrity investors are not the same thing as investment celebrities. Madonna is nothing like Warren Buffett.
Any number of celebrities have put their money and fame behind various ventures -- U2 frontman Bono co-founded Elevation Partners, a Silicon Valley tech fund, and Bruce WIllis just signed up as an investor in distiller Belvedere SA -- but a having celebrities attached to your business is no guarantee of success. The company has to live and die by its own product.
Remember Planet Hollywood? The chain of restaurants was supposed to take on the Hard Rock Cafe, and it was a natural fit for movie stars like Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone. For a while, it was flying high, and spawned imitators like the Fashion Cafe (models) and the All-Star Cafe (famous jocks). Then it overreached, opened too many restaurants and ended up with a trip to bankruptcy court, followed by a couple of sequels. Star power turned out to be no substitute for prudent management.
The investors apparently learned their lesson -- except perhaps for Arnold, who's trying to bail out California. Willis got a 3.3% stake in Belvedere in exchange for promoting its vodka, and his ex-wife Demi Moore -- another former Planet Hollywood investor -- made a smaller investment in Vita Coco than Madonna. Even stars sometimes have to start small.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
The 5 Cleanest (and Dirtiest) U.S. Tap Waters - Infographic
Click Image above to Enlarge...
awesome.good.is —
Even though water comes out of the faucet looking clean and clear, there is a good chance it has some pretty nasty stuff in it. A new study has cataloged all the pollutants and chemicals that appear in our tap water, and they include things like arsenic and fuel additives. This is a look at the five most and least polluted water systems in America
Friday, December 11, 2009
Friday, October 30, 2009
Clean Water Everywhere: DIY Clay Water Filters
By Jasmin Greene
By Care2 .com
Aaron Lindberg/Getty Images
READ MORE ABOUT:
Clean drinking water has always been a major issue in many developing countries, but with the onset of climate change and droughts, this may become a problem for industrialized countries as well. There is a simple solution for clean water: clay. Tony Flynn with the World Vision charity and Potters for Peace have discovered people everywhere can drink clean water with the materials around us.
Tony Flynn, a master potter and scientist, has created a simple to create water purifier out of incredibly simple materials found almost anywhere in the world. The filter is created with clay, organic materials (coffee grinds or rice), water and manure. The straw and rice are mixed in with the clay and water and then fired over some burning manure. The organic materials are burned away during the firing process and create small passages in the filter that allow water, but not pathogens, to pass. This filter effectively removes 96.4-99.8% of E. Coli in water [Source: ANU]. One of these filters can great a liter of drinkable water in only two hours. You can make your own filter by following these steps:
Materials
1. crushed, dry clay
2. organic material(tea leaves, cofffee grounds, or rice hulls)
3. water
4. Cow manure
Instructions
1. Mix in enough water to make a stiff biscuit-like mixture
2. Form a cylindrical pot that has one closed end
3. Dry the pot in the sun
4. Surround the pot with straw and place it in a mound of cow manure
5. Light the straw and then top up the burning manure as required.
6. Filter will be completed in less than an hour.
This invention was purposely not-patented so that everyone could create their own water filters. Other organizations like Engineers Without Borders and Potters for Peace have introduced a similar clay filter designed by Guatemalan chemist Fernando Mazariegos. The filter follows the same idea as the one created by Tony Flynn, but fires the clay inside of a kiln rather than over an open fire and paints the filter with colloidal silver afterwards. The silver helps to remove bacteria and pathogens that traditional clay filters might otherwise miss [Source: Gazette Times].
While clay filters are easy to create and much environmentally friendly, there are some downfalls. One of the major disadvantages is that they can only produce a small amount of water and that if the water is turbid, then the filter needs to be scrubbed after use. This abrasive treatment wears away the ceramic and may even crack the ceramic. Any cracks would allow pathogens to short circuit the filters. Clay filters may be cheap to produce, but if the surface water that they are treating is highly turbid the filters may have a relatively short life [Source: RELFE] and need to be replaced at a very high rate.
Despite these flaws, clay filters are gaining in popularity and countries like Ghana and Cambodia are producing thousands of these for distribution per year. Clean drinking water does not have to a problem in the future if we take precautions not to pollute our water or climate.
How to Go Green: Water
At Care2, we believe that individual actions can collectively make a difference. Whether you start making differences in your home, your community, or across the globe, we are glad to help you on your journey. Join us today! With more than 11 million members, Care2 is the largest online community of people making a difference in healthy and green living, human rights and animal welfare. Join us today!
Friday, May 29, 2009
Emergency Water Purifier for Flood Conditions
For this year’s Aspen Design Challenge — which had the theme Designing Water’s Future — Umea Institute of Design student Ceren Bagatar proposed the following concept: a Rescue Bottle.
The bottle is designed to address not only the scarcity of fresh water the world is facing, but mostly the contaminated and hazardous water conditions due to flooding, hurricanes and tsunamis. Those disasters expose and contaminate surface water, ground water and drinking water supplies with a variety of elements: toxins, chemicals, septic and animal carcasses.
The Rescue Bottle filters contaminated water through a reverse osmosis membrane using the driving force of highly concentrated dioralyte solution. The bottle has a 500 ml capacity and has an interchangable mouthpiece for multi-user usage. The dioralyte solution supports 15 batches of drinking water.
Awesome concept, Ceren!
Photo courtesy of Yanko Design
Photo courtesy of Yanko Design
Photo courtesy of Yanko Design
Source [Yanko Design]
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