Appropedia

Have you heard of Appropedia.org: Sharing knowledge to build rich, sustainable lives.

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Appropedia is the site for collaborative approaches to sustainability, poverty reduction and international development. Learn more at our Mission page.

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Ethicle

As we enter into the new age of the green movement, let's try to stay involve by being either a passive or an active advocator of conservation for a better planet.

A search engine that promises to make a difference.

It is a search engine that is the product of a collaboration between Yahoo and a French organization, Planete Urgence.

The goals are simple - for every 100 searches that are made through this search engine, a tree will be planted.

It is still new, which was recently launched. So give it a try and possibly there will be one more tree on this earth courtesy of you.

The Story of Stuff with Annie Leonard

The Story of Stuff http://www.storyofstuff.com will take you on a provocative tour of our consumer-driven culture — from resource extraction to iPod incineration — exposing the real costs of our use-it and lose-it approach to stuff.

The movie is just the beginning of the story. Watch it, learn more and get involved here: www.StoryofStuff.com

Ten tips for an eco-wise Christmas/New Year

Every Holiday season, people throw away a million extra tons of garbage each week, including holiday wrapping and packaging, according to Robert Lilienfeld co-author of the book "Use Less Stuff: Environmental Solutions for Who We Really Are." This year, Americans will send nearly 2 billion holiday cards, use more than 38,000 miles of ribbon and leave millions of Christmas trees on the curb.

Here are ten tips for an ecological Christmas:
1. Do not send a traditional card but use an electronic card which does not require physical resources to make or distribute. Many electronic cards can be personalized.
2. Stop using plastic Christmas decorations. Make them yourself from, for example, recycled paper. Artist Jeff Clapp turns empty aluminum oxygen canisters from Mt. Everest into decorative bells for $2,400 each. Leftover aluminum shavings are also used, making nice tree ornaments that someone might actually buy (the "Everest" balls are $48 for four at Eco-Artware.com)
3. Use LED lights. Trade in the old style light bulbs with modern LED lights. LED lights use 80-90% less energy compared to old light bulbs. You can also use living lights like people do in many countries. You can chose soy, vegetable, wax or beeswax candles all of which are renewable and biodegradable materials rather than paraffin wax candles.
4. Plan your shopping trip. Go where you need to go but do all your shopping at once to avoid repeat journeys.
5. Avoid new shopping bags when you buy Christmas presents. Are you afraid of being stopped for shoplifting? Danny Seo, the author of "Simply Green Giving" attaches his receipts to the outside of shopping bags with a paper clip.
6. Pack your presents in ordinary gift wrapping. Be creative. Use newspaper or colorful pages from magazines. You can also pack presents in a beautiful scarf and make the packaging part of the present.
7. Buy alternative Christmas presents such as gift certificates to charitable organizations. Oxfamamericaunwrapped.com invites donors to "buy," among other things, a camel ($175), a cow ($75), a sheep ($45), building tools ($25) or finance the planting of 50 trees ($30) as a way to support Oxfam's programs in developing countries. Another alternative is to give friends items that save energy, such as low-flow shower heads and fluorescent light bulbs, which use much less energy than candescent bulbs.
8. Buy a genuine Christmas tree. Artificial trees can be difficult to dispose of. Genuine Christmas trees can be burned or made into compost. New trees are replanted each year but you can also buy a Christmas tree with roots which can be replanted into the ground so that you can reuse the tree next year. Friends of the Urban Forest of San Francisco (Fuf.net) rents nontraditional trees, such as Southern Magnolia and Strawberry, for $150, and replants them on city streets once Christmas is over.
9. Deck the table with clay or porcelain plates and use cutlery made of metal which can be washed and reused again and again.
10. Use cold water to do the dishes after Christmas dinner. You will discover that it can certainly be done. Use ecological dish soap such as Ecover Ecological Washing Tablets or others.

To read on go to http://www.allthingschristmas.com/misc/eco-christmas.php

100% eco-friendly

A small resort in Bangalore, India, took up the gauntlet to create a near-perfect, eco-friendly outfit.

At the recent Wild Asia 2007 Responsible Tourism Awards & Seminar, Indian resort operator C. B. Ramkumar gave a talk on responsible tourism and social change. He said matter of factly: “We built a 100% eco resort.”

Call it a marketing ploy or a bold claim, but now Ramkumar had everyone sit up and listen.

This genial yet unassuming 44-year-old owns and runs a 24-room resort in a village 40km from Bangalore City in southern India. Called Our Native Village, the resort started operating in September 2006.

Aquatic plants are used to purify the water in the swimming pool.

Sitting on 4.8 hectares of land, the resort was constructed of bricks made with mud from the building site. The layout of the building allows natural light to filter through, and strategically placed windows create airy and cool spaces, hence the resort did away with air-conditioning.

The Village generates 80% of its electricity through solar panels, a windmill and biogas plant. Sixty percent of its water is harvested from rain and stored in underground tanks or tapped from bore wells. With its zero-waste policy, all food and animal wastes are converted into methane gas and electricity at the biogas plant. Slurry from the biogas plant is used as fertiliser for the resort’s organic farm. Reed waterbeds recycle grey water from sinks and showers for gardening. “Black” water from the toilets is fed into leach pits and later used as manure.

"All my water is used at least twice, if not three times,” says Ramkumar.“We use soap nut powder and ash for cleaning dishes and the water can be used for watering plants.”Specially handmade for the resort, the soaps and shampoos are biodegradable. Pretty clay bottles, water jugs and cups are sourced from local potters. Plastics go for recycling in Bangalore where they are made into pellets for paving roads.

A solar water heater and a traditional Gujarat boiler provide hot showers for guests. The resort’s organic farm supplies fresh, chemical-free veggies for guest meals and herb oil extracts for the spa. Guests can also splash about in the chlorine-free swimming pool.“We use aquatic plants to clean and oxygenate the fully natural pool – a first in India and a rare one in a tropical climate,” says Ramkumar.

Quality experience

Of course, tourists don’t stay at a resort solely for its eco-friendly slant.

“We can’t presume that everybody who comes here will appreciate the solar power or our waste management practices,” smiles Ramkumar. “So, we need to give people experiences.”

Guests get to pick from a smorgasbord of activities. The Village boasts the first resort in the world to issue a bullock cart-driving licence. Or indulge in traditional village games like gilli-danda (similar to cricket), top spinning and kite-flying. Guests can learn the art of rangoli (floor painting with intricate designs) or take short excursions to the Nrityagam dance school or to a 10th century monolithic temple.

“Urban kids get a thrill from milking the cows. Most of them thought milk came from cartons sold in supermarkets,” grins Ramkumar.

This innovative operator also revives traditional Indian arts. Murals painted by rural artists adorn the guestrooms and replicas of Hero stones dot the resort landscapes. Unique to Karnataka, the hero stones, or veerakallu, are stone engravings and sculptures of heroic kings and knights of ancient times.

How it all started

How did someone who spent two decades in the advertising industry decide to go green?

“It was out of necessity,” says Ramkumar who lived in the Middle-East for 17 years, working for multi-national firms. Ten years ago, Ramkumar bought a piece of farmland where the resort now stands. His crops were failing due to water shortage.

“I thought it was ridiculous to lose our crops because we didn’t have enough electricity to pump water from the bore wells,” says Ramkumar.

“I looked into renewable energy. It was clear that whatever we did had to be self-sustainable.”

“Once I get obsessed with something I do it 100%,” says the man with an indomitable drive. In 1995 and 2000 he cycled across Lebanon and then India to raise funds for charities.

It helps that Ramkumar came from a middle-class upbringing where “waste not, want not” was the maxim of his life.

“My father used to be upset with us if we left a light on in a room, or the tap running when brushing our teeth,” says Ramkumar. “The Village became a lifestyle option because of necessity and my upbringing.”

It took three long years before the resort opened on World Environment Day (June 5) in 2006.

Steep learning curve

For Ramkumar and his team, running the Village is all trial and error.

Managing three forms of renewable energy – windmill, solar and biogas – comes with problems.

“Till about four months ago, I was still sorting out these problems but now things have stabilised,” admits Ramkumar.

The resort stores its gas in five huge, 15-cubic-metre biogas “balloons” (the size of a medium-sized truck) instead of conventional gas cylinders.

Once they had a lunch booking for 100 guests and on that morning, the staff discovered the balloons were empty.

“We checked and found that the fifth bag had a hole in it. Maybe a rat had bitten into it,” says Ramkumar. “But because our balloons were all connected, every balloon emptied out!”

Now he’s changed the balloon piping to individual connections and has an efficient firewood stove for emergencies.

The initial investment to set up the windmill, solar panels and biogas plant was high. Ramkumar struggled to find investors.

Till now, the resort only has an average of 20%-30% occupancy due to lack of marketing.

“We live on a shoe-string budget. Every month, what we earn is put back into the resort. And we’re forking out our own money to fund the cash flow.”

The 100% question

“Eco sells today,” grins Ramkumar. “I don’t use the word just because I use energy-saving bulbs and treat a little bit of water. From renewable energy to waste management, we’ve taken the full 10 steps to call ourselves ‘eco’.

“My dream is to be able to put together a 100% self-sustaining model. If we can duplicate that model everywhere, we can use precious resources like electricity for other things and not just run a resort for people to have fun.”

A gratifying effort

Ramkumar is proud of his dedicated team. More than 70% of his staff come from the surrounding villages. Agriculture is the mainstay of the economy.

“You get their loyalty and create a sense of belonging for them through respect, not through money,” says Ramkumar.

Of course, he has had to weed out the problematic ones who get drunk or don’t show up for work.

Though the Village keeps a relatively low profile, it has garnered some interest amongst local Indian media and the BBC World Service who plans to do a 30-minute programme on the resort.

“Through media exposure, our staff can see that this is not just another job but that we are in this together,’’ says Ramkumar.

Inspiring others

Not one to rest on his laurels, Ramkumar has set up a foundation called FEEL (Foundation to Enable Eco Living).

FEEL tries to demonstrate responsible living (waste management, renewable energy, etc) at the resort.

“Many guests have asked: ‘Can I do composting at home? Can I harvest rainwater?’,” says Ramkumar.

“There is a lot of interest but sometimes they lack knowledge or direction.”

The Village runs a two-day/one-night stay package for schoolchildren and teachers to learn about sustainable living.

What does the future hold?

“I’m the new kid on the block,” admits Ramkumar. “But now I know we’ve done something no-one else has. This experience has encouraged me.

“Like they say, the peacock would never have been recognised as the most beautiful bird if it hadn’t spread its tail,’’ smiles Ramkumar.

“If you do anything with passion and a clear conscience, you don’t have to sell it. It will sell itself,” he believes.

“I want people to come and feel it, and say Wow!”

Our Native Village
Tel: +91 80 41140909
E-mail: bookings@ournativevillage.com
http://www.ournativevillage.com/

Article from http://thestar.com.my/lifestyle/story.asp?file=/2007/12/1/lifefocus/19585158&sec=lifefocus

Eco-Sites - Global Green

Eco-Sites - BYO

Take out the trash

We hate thinking about the future of plastic. Using and chucking disposable cups and plastic bags can add up to nearly 700 pieces of plastic a year per person. Most of it ends up in landfills, but quite a bit of it flows through storm drains and out into our oceans. So much so in fact, that there is a garbage patch the size of Texas floating in the North Pacific.

By reducing your share of the plastic pie, you might keep plastics from becoming a popular breakfast for sea birds and other marine creatures.

And you can save yourself some $ - some coffee shops and markets give you a discount when you bring your own. Peets, Starbucks, Wild Oats, Whole Foods, and many others will throw you a dime for doing the right thing. Which is great, we just wish they'd publicize this a bit more. How about a little reminder? We're busy and forgetful, help us out here!

You're doing them a favor by keeping their trash bills low, so don't be shy about asking for a discount.

It's time to kick some serious plASStic.

To read more go to http://www.bringyourown.org/ & http://www.byotalk.blogspot.com/