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Showing posts with the label Saving water

April is Earth Month – 1 Working with Nature

  -Image by NoName13 from Pixabay Dear Friends, The whole of April is Earth Month. It began as Earth Day in America in 1970 by Gaylord Nelson, the Governor of Wisconsin. This led to legislative changes such as The Clean Water Act and The Endangered Species Act and the establishment of Environment Protection Agency to monitor and enforce them. By 1990, 200 million people from 141 countries had joined in and it soon became evident that much more than a single day was needed. It also led to the first UN Earth Summit in Rio in 1992 where world leaders first pledged to protect the planet and its biodiversity. While many issues such as ending the use of leaded petrol have since been resolved, others such as the proliferation of plastics and the continued use of pesticides have not and they have been joined by newer concerns such as climate change and sustainability, so the need to think about what we do is even more urgent than it was in the 1970s. We need it to be Earth Month ...

Flushed with success –Toilet Innovations

  Is time for the Japanese Toilet?  Why it's an improvement on what most people have in the west   I promised you an article about toilets. If you are wondering why I am thinking about toilets on this fine spring day, it’s because my oldest son has just modified his toilet to make it like a Japanese one.Given that half the country is now in lockdown again because of Covid and the toilet paper wars are starting up again, he is very pleased with his choice. It uses almost no paper; a warmed seat is quite lovely on a frosty Canberra morning and it also has warm water cleansing and a built -in deodoriser. Water consumption is about the same and power consumption is negligible. A deluxe Japanese toilet includes gentle music or waterfall sounds to mask less pleasant ones and some have little washbasins on top so that wash water can be reused in the cistern. Around 72% of Japanese homes have these and I have also encountered a few in Korea. It made me wonder why the uptak...

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