Good News story – out of darkness into light with quality
When I&I saw this story from the American Society for Quality (ASQ) we thought it too good not to pass on.
There are an estimated 15 million people in India who are visually impaired — which equates to roughly one out of every three blind people in the world. In 1988, a blind lawyer from India came to visit Dr. Manu Vora, an ASQ Fellow, and presented those statistics. Since 80 percent of blindness is curable or preventable, Vora knew immediately that he wanted to help. Along with five colleagues from AT&T Bell Laboratories, Vora formed the Blind Foundation for India (BFI) in 1989. As president and founding director of BFI, Vora exemplifies Quality for Life through his passion and commitment to fighting blindness in India.
Working with limited resources, Vora implemented the concepts of Deming’s "plan, do, study, act" model (PDSA) at BFI. As a result, from January 1991 through December 2008, BFI raised more than $3.5 million to help the visually impaired in India. They have restored sight to about 90,000 people and have provided measles vaccinations and vitamin A to approximately 90,000 children.
Photo: A medical assistant examines a child at the Bhuta Eye Hospital in Sihor, India
"The quality discipline has helped us manage the foundation from the beginning," said Vora. "By implementing the PDSA model at BFI, we were able to hit the ground running."
For more on this story go to http://www.asq.org/media-room/news/2009/02/20090202-quality-for-life-darkness-into-light.html
Harvesting Stormwater through wetlands.
In Adelaide pumping of harvested stormwater from the $2.8 million Grange Golf Club Wetland has started, providing for hundreds of ML of water in the western suburbs to be captured and reused.
The project will harvest stormwater runoff from surrounding suburbs, including Findon, Seaton and Woodville West, and clean it through a series of wetlands so it can be injected into the 90 metre deep aquifer for storage and then reused for sustainable irrigation.
Work began on the wetland two years ago and already there is dense growth of reeds to filter the water before it’s pumped into the aquifer. Water quality testing has revealed water of high quality, with a lower salinity than the water currently in the aquifer.
“Up to 320 megalitres of urban stormwater – the equivalent of 128 Olympic size swimming pools -potentially will be diverted each year from the Trimmer Parade and West Lakes Boulevard stormwater catchments into the wetland and away from our marine environment,” said Environment and Conservation Minister Jay Weatherill.
“The water will be extracted in summer to water the golf club, one of South Australia’s premier sporting venues. Every drop of harvested stormwater used to irrigate public parks and sporting fields means less pressure on Adelaide’s supply of drinking water.”
Story sourced from www.EnvironmentalManagementNews.net
Honey Bees under attack but see them in action at Science Centre
New Scientist reports that the world's honeybees appear to be dying off in horrifying numbers, and now consensus is starting to emerge on the reason why: it seems there is no one cause. Infections, lack of food, pesticides and breeding - none catastrophic on their own - are having a synergistic effect, pushing bee survival to a lethal tipping point. A somewhat anti-climactic conclusion it may be, but appreciating this complexity - and realising there will be no magic bullet - may be the key to saving the insects.
A third of our food relies on bees for pollination. Both the US and UK report losing a third of their bees last year. Other European countries have seen major die-offs too: Italy, for example, said it lost nearly half its bees last year. The deaths are now spreading to Asia, with reports in India and suspected cases in China.
The main stress facing bees is the varroa mite, a parasite from Siberia that has now spread everywhere but Australia. Mite infestations steeply reduce bees' resistance to viral infection. Worryingly, the mites are developing resistance to the pesticides used to control them, forcing beekeepers to use methods that are often less effective. For more on this story go to: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126954.600-honeybees-under-attack-on-all-fronts.html.
To see live Australian Bees in action you can observe bees entering and working away in the hive at the Wollongong Science Centre and Planetarium (http://sciencecentre.uow.edu.au).
Zero emissions at Antarctic station!
The Princess Elisabeth Station in Antarctica – the first “zero emissions” station and the only polar base operating entirely on renewable energies – installed eight 6kW wind turbines supplied by Proven Energy, a small wind turbine manufacturer with operations in Scotland, India and the US. The fixtures must withstand temperatures of -60 degrees C and winds of over 144 km per second.
Most Antarctica facilities rely on diesel generators because no wind turbines, until now, were thought to be robust enough for such extreme conditions, Proven Energy said. Touted as the greenest station in Antarctica, it is reported to combine eco-friendly construction materials, clean and efficient energy use, optimisation of the station's energy consumption and the best waste management techniques. In addition to the turbines, both solar thermal and photovoltaics are used on the building itself.
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