Pulpwatch.org

Pulpwatch.org is from the environment paper network, which is an ongoing project monitoring pulp mills. Before paper is produced in a paper mill, the wood must go through a pulp mill which converts it into a material for making paper. A pulp mill uses a high amount energy and at the same time releases a high amount of pollutants to air and water. On the map the mills are marked from good to bad, green to red respectively, based on the basic criteria set by the environment paper network.



From the map, we can see the location of pulp mills on the high demand of pulp is needed from different parts of the world, whether it is sustainable or not. For example, one company in Indonesia PT KERTAS NUSANTARA process 525,000 metric ton per year and have really bad management about forestry certification, bleaching technology, social conflicts and endangered forest rating. This map can give us a clear idea on the impact of paper industry as a whole from social to environmental problems.

Green Brochures

Brochures or pamphlets are commonly used for advertising events, places, hotels, products, services, etc. This is surely informative for people to get more information but the problems about paper brochures are they are produced in mass quantities and a lot of excess waste is generated. This certainly has an impact to the environment and to tackle this problem, Save Our Trees, a non profit international environment project is promoting the use of digital green brochures to reduce paper consumption. They also provide a free conversion from printed brochures into a 3D page digital format.

An example of digital green brochure,
http://www.tourismbrochures.net/businessbrochures/sidi_saler/index.htm

This is certainly a good way to make deforestation lesser where from the statistics from this project shows that by converting 240,000 pages of brochures, magazines, manuals and catalogues saves around 700,000 trees per year. TourismBrochures.net portal is also part of this project where the aim of this project is to give out information to tourists before going to the places they wish to travel. They hope to give out the most accurate information and also to reduce printed brochures so that less trees will be cut down for printing purposes.

Paper dress

What can we do with old phonebooks lying around? One of the best ways to get rid of old phonebooks is to recycle it, to reduce waste, reduce usage of raw material and many more benefits. But another good way is to up-cycle it into another product using the most of its potential. Jolis Poans is an artist who makes dress using old phonebooks. This dress is made by hand, from being sewed, glued and stuck together. Instead of making dress using regular material like cotton, this material is a good substitute to make beautiful dress in order to reduce carbon emission.

Black/African-descent communities of Choco, Colombia

These are the videos I showed for my presentation. As I only showed very little that day, I thought you might like to have a better look at them and understand why I feel the need of helping this community.

Effects of Plan Colombia on Black Colombia

Float House for Make It Right Foundation

Brad Pitt has been making waves in the green building world lately, so it’s only appropriate that the newest house completed for his Make It Right Foundation project be a floating one. Being revealed today in New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward, the Float House by Morphosis Architects, goes beyond sustainable design and construction and is built within the context of its environment – it can float. In case of flooding, the home can literally break away from it’s moorings and rise up up to 12 feet on two guideposts. It won’t float away, but it will act as a raft and provide the family with enough battery power to allow them to survive for up to three days until help arrives.



Thom Mayne, founder of Morphosis and winner of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, wanted to build a home that could survive through hurricane flooding as well fit in with the surrounding homes. He and his team designed a house that was essentially built on a chassis of polystyrene foam and covered with glass-reinforced concrete. During hurricane flooding conditions, the home could break away from its electrical lines, gas and plumbing and rise with the flood waters. Anchored to its site by two guideposts the home could sustain 12 foot high flood waters.

While it has never been tested in real life flood conditions, Morphosis conducted extensive computer simulations and modeled it to withstand Hurricane Katrina-like conditions. There is also a battery backup in the home with enough capacity to power crucial appliances for up to three days.

As with all Make It Right homes, the Float House is built with environmentally friendly materials, but in contrast to the other homes, this one is built on the ground level rather than 12 feet above the ground. Mayne and Morphosis wanted to retain the look of the existing community and make it more accessible to people who didn’t want to or couldn’t get up a huge flight of stairs. Mayne says about the house and design, “Hopefully it never gets used. But when it gets used, it’s important.”