China’s Cancer Villages

Posted on February 27, 2013

The miracle economic boom in China has come with its own set of health disasters. Not only have the country’s main cities been affected by hazardous  pollution but industrial and agricultural boom has led to far flung contamination of ground water and air. The water and rivers across the country are contaminated with chemicals and sludge from industries and smelting plants . As more and more residents drink this toxic water cases of cancer are being discovered by the dozen in these cancer villages.

A huge rise in stories of cancer driven deaths in rural regions have become rampant and as the economy grows at breakneck speed the government is at its wits end, grappling with more and more environmental disasters. A Cleaning up act of pollution in urban areas by the government merely implies shifting and relocating the toxic industries to rural and far flung areas.

There has been a recent public outcry against rising cases of lung cancer caused by the pollution smog that enveloped cities like Beijing in early January. Cancer is now officially China’s biggest killer and one in every fourth person dies from cancer related death in the city. That’s an abysmal 80% increase in the mortality rate from cancer over the past 30 years. 

The issue has been addressed by environmentalists for a long time and in 2009, Deng Fei, an investigative journalist used the Google maps to plot out worst cancer hit villages in China. Communities and villagers that live close to Recycling factories for e waste showed highest incidences of cancer. They were exposed to carcinogens in the air and water supply. In other places where smelting plants exist, cases of lead poisoning are on the rise.  

But now, the new five year plan drafted by the government brings hope as the government has finally acknowledged the environmental disasters occurring in the country. The document states, “ “In recent years, toxic and hazardous chemical pollution has caused many environmental disasters, cutting off drinking water supplies, and even leading to severe health and social problems such as ‘cancer villages’”. 

The initial plan is to locate and clamp down those hotspots that have been identified as Cancer Clusters. Nearly 58 toxic chemical production plants face a possible closure in the near future. This step will hope to bring down the level of the occurrence in a positive way.

Asteroid and Meteors galore in this year 2013. While news of an asteroid whizzing by very close to the Earth over the Indian Ocean was viral, reports of meteors falling from the sky high up in the Ural mountains became top headlines. Had the two occurred together one can only imagine and fear the catastrophe of the aftermath. Scientists however reiterate that the two incidents are not connected.  

Lets begin with  the meteor shower. As millions of unsuspecting Russians drove to work around 9:20 am on the morning of February 15 2013, a meteorite entered the Earth's atmosphere exploding nine times starting at altitudes of 55 kilometers, this was seen as bright showers entering the Earth by people.The meteor was about one third the diameter of the asteroid 2012 DA 14 and eyewitness accounts state that it was brighter than the Sun with a trail blazing for almost 30 seconds before impact. 

The Russian military found a crater which was 6 meters wide. The Russian Academy of Science reported that the meteorite weighed 10 tonnes before it entered the Earth's atmosphere. Almost 1000 people are reported to be dead as news of many injured from the glass breaking shards still comes in. 

Its surprising though that with modern equipment and technology why the path of the meteorite was not detected. NASA later stated that the trajectory of the asteroid as well as that of the meteor were opposite to each other. While one was travelling North to South the other whizzed past in the opposite direction. Early detection and warnings certainly might have prevented the loss of life.

NASA however had early predictions of the Asteroid DA 14. This was first seen by the Spanish scientists early last year. The Asteroid DA14  went past the Earth's surface almost 27,357 kilometers (23, 230 miles) away and is said to have originated from the solar system's asteroid belt situated between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Live stream and much hype was related to this astral event as millions attended the event organised by NASA to watch the asteroids path as it whizzed past the Earth's surface.

As of now neither the United States nor Russia have equipment or the technology to prevent a meteor strike . There are ideas as to how to detect and deflect space matter . Some of the more brilliant ones are -

• Using a  Robotic Space Vehicle to gently change the path of the asteroid
• Dropping nuclear bombs on the surface or near the asteroid to enable it to change its trajectory
• Trying to melt it 
• Cooling it down with solar shields and finally ,
•  Flying a spacecraft close to an asteroid, which would exert a gravitational pull.

Green Future Technology

Green Future Technology

Recycling Paper

Posted on February 12, 2013

Recycling Paper is the process of turning waste paper into a new product. Typically recovered paper can put 80% of its contents into further use for recycling while 20% goes to landfills. For recycling, the recovered paper has to have no glossy ink and should not be coated with clay or any other material. This hampers the recycling process and does not produce the conventional scrap that can further be made into recycled paper. If we recycle paper we use 60% less energy than what we would use to make fresh new paper from wood pulp. We would therefore in fact be saving a lot many trees.

India lacks gravely in the awareness and the need to recycle paper. Annually only 20% of waste paper is recovered as the country lacks the collection, sorting and grading system of waste paper for proper utilization.In comparison developed countries have a very high recovery rate. Germany- 73%, Sweden- 69%, japan -60%, Western Europe-56%, the US -49% and Italy-45%.     

The Indian paper Industry uses wood, agricultural residue and some waste paper ( about 7%) to manufacture paper. The immediate need is to increase that percentage and to lessen the dumping in landfills by increasing recycling. 

Here are a few reasons we should recycle. 

• Recycling reduces GHG emissions and saves energy
• Paper Recycling helps in increasing the rate of Carbon absorption and slows the rate of Carbon release
• About 90 % of all paper pulp is produced from wood, recycling one tonne of newspaper saves one tonne of wood and recycling one tonne of printed paper saves slightly more than two tonnes of wood. 
• Recycling paper saves 14% of landfill space
• It requires less energy and water 
• It decreases sulphur Dioxide emissions
• Recycling one tonne of paper can save 17 trees
• you can power your TV for 31 hours by using energy from saving 1 tonne of newspaper
• Most papers can be recycled 8 times before being discarded.

Japanese plan to build a Wind Farm on the Baltic Sea near Denmark. This was confirmed by the officials who stated that the Wind farm would be built ten kilometers off the shore of Fukushima . This is the same place where the Earthquake with and intensity of 9.0 and a subsequent Tsunami struck Japan in 2011. The Japanese have sworn to replace Nuclear energy with Renewable energy. The Tsunami which took the life of millions was the biggest natural disaster ever to befall the Eastern shores. 

The most amazing fact is the attitude of the Japanese in the face of disaster. Having crippled back to normalcy the Japanese after the Tsunami have managed to reconstruct their economy and with an attitude change are finally making strides in sustainable development. They have our utmost respect. Having accepted that Nuclear energy poses great dangers and is a formidable source of uncontrollable energy the Japanese have decided that wind and Solar power will take them forth. 

The wind farm in question is the largest that will be built in the world.This new farm planned for Japan is expected to produce 1 gigawatt using just 143 turbines. The turbines will be placed on floating steel platforms which will be anchored to the ocean floor on the continental shelf. They will be kept upright and will be 200 meters high with a 200 megawatt capacity. The construction of this amazing wind farm will be completed in 2020. The Japanese have plans on becoming completely self reliant and energy independent from fossil fuels and nuclear energy by 2040. 

So great is the need and the ambition to adopt renewable energy that in addition to the wind farm, plans are also being drawn up for the biggest solar farm in the country.