Current Initiatives

1. Tree Plantation Initiative, a Partnership With BBMP: Free tree plantation has been arranged for the roadsides of large areas in Bangalore. This has been done with the help of BBMP. The saplings will be provided free of cost with barricade and transportation. The minimum requirement is 50 saplings per area.

2. Survey on "Best Practices at IT Companies Towards Environment Conservation" with Climate Project India: We have partnered with Climate Project that has Nobel Laureates Al Gore and IPCC Chairman, Dr. Pachauri, as their patrons. The objective of the initiative is to undertake a survey on IT companies to understand the best practices in environment conservation implementations. The key dimension of the survey would cover areas of e-waste recycling, water re-cycling, power management and transportation. Large IT houses and data center operations will be a part of this survey. The insights gathered from organizations, will be publicized to contacts in several media outlets.

3. Symposium on "Implementations & Opportunities in Large IT Organizations to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions": Project GreenCredit in collaboration with "The Climate Project, India" and a few companies will sponsor a two-day workshop that has two-pronged objectives of sharing of best practices across these companies and will help them to collaborate with internationally acclaimed subject matter experts(SMEs). These SMEs will participate as program committee and in panel discussions, and will be experts in the areas of power management, e-waste recycling, water management, and health-cum-safety management.

Friday, May 16, 2008

10 Indoor Plants to Check Indoor Pollution

NASA and the associated landscape contractors of America have conducted large scale experiments and found household items such as carpets, furniture, paints and air-conditioners often emit Volatile organic compounds (VOCs). These can cause various illnesses. One of the effective ways to control and absorb these VOCs is to have indoor plants. Following is the list of few indoor plants that are suitable for tropical climates, have low maintenance and are capable of absorbing toxic gases like formaldehyde, benzene and carbon mono-oxide.

1. Golden Pothos (http://www.plant-care.com/pothos-number-one-houseplant.html ) - commonly known as Money Plant in India.
2. Chinese Evergreen (http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?action=howTo&p=PlantGuide/_PLA552.html ) – needs low light and low maintenance.
3. English Ivy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedera_helix – can grow in very low lighted indoor areas.
4. Draceana Marginata (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dracaena_marginata ) – Needs very little watering and any level of lighting is sufficient. In fact, soil has to be allowed to dry for it to grow properly.
5. Braided Ficus (http://www.denverplants.com/foliage/html/FiBenBrd.htm) - This plant needs good sunlight.
6. Mass cane/Corn Plant (http://www.metaefficient.com/indoor-plants/best-all-round-plants.html)
7. Mother-in-Law's Tongue (http://www.metaefficient.com/indoor-plants/best-all-round-plants.html)
8. Pot Mum (http://www.plantcare.com/encyclopedia/florists-mum-1877.aspx or http://www.ag.auburn.edu/hort/landscape/Potmum.htm)
9. Peace Lily (http://www.boloji.com/photoessays/flowers/fl001.htm)
10. Warneckii (http://plantcareguru.com/plant_care/warneckii.php )

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5 Simple Steps to create Eco-Friendly Home

1. Have low maintenance indoor plants – Studies have revealed that Money plant and Braided ficus can remove indoor air pollution created by volatile organic compounds. These compounds are emitted primarily by paints, carpets etc. For folks who want plants, which are not just cosmetic, try planting mint or fenugreek, in pots that can be kept in the kitchen windowsill.
2. Replace incandescent bulbs (commonly referred as yellow bulbs) with CFLs - to conserve electric power and reduce gas emission. The Indian government has kick-started initiatives where the cost of these CFLs will be equal to the cost of the older generation bulbs.
3. Segregate Kitchen Waste and prepare your organic manure – Begin with having two pots – one empty and other with soil. Keep dumping the vegetable/fruit peels and other rotten leftover waste food in the empty pot, and top it with a layer of soil each day. No water should be required. Continue this for a few weeks till the pot is full. Your organic manure will be ready within the next 4 weeks. For households with more than 2 kilograms of such waste consider setting up an urban biogas unit. For more details on installation please view http://www.arti-india.org/
4. Replace your mosquito repellent with camphor – Eco-sensitive methods to keep homes bearably pest free include filling camphor in the blow-attachment of the vacuum cleaner and blow on the ceiling corners, using camphor and sambhrani and other dhoops (strictly herbal) everyday and letting the sunshine come into the house, whenever possible. Growing pest-repelling plants such as Elephant grass in the garden can control mosquito population quite a bit.
5. Solar power for your house – People owning independent houses should look at solar power for water heaters and even as inverters for generation of backup power. This saves millions of tons of CO2 emission. CO2 is a greenhouse gas that traps the heat, so addresses the problem of global warming.
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Inspirational Incidents

True Story from the Bishnois

We all have heard about the sensational news coverage of the Bollywood actor Salman Khan being jailed for killing a blackbuck in some remote village of Rajasthan and Bishnois were agitated and angered with his action. I had somehow internally framed in my mind that these Bishnois must be one of those tribal communities living in remote villages of Rajasthan.

Recently I was reading a book called Forest Tales by Meena Raghunathan and Mamata Pandya published by Center of Environment Eduction(CEE). One story in the book narrates the true incidents involving the Bishnois. I understood that Bishnois meant “Twenty-Niners” and these were a group of people who followed the 29 tenets on “Protecting Nature” laid down by their founder, named Jambaji, who lived several hundred years back.

The history narrates that this region in Rajasthan faced severe drought due to complete de-forestation. A youngster named Jambaji realized that the only way to bring relief to the situation was by recreating a healthy living environment and planting trees was one main aspect of it. He started preaching 29 simple tenets to achieve this. Some of these tenets were:
Do not cut any living tree; do not kill a animal or a bird etc. This way he dedicated himself to preaching these tenets to all the nearby villages. This started a revolutionary movement and his followers started calling themselves “Bishnois” or “The 29ers”. This community has made amazing sacrifices for conservation of Environment. One of those incidents is when a King of the area wanted to build a palace and had ordered his soldiers to get timber for the palace by cutting down the thickly populated forest in the Bishnoi area. Bishnoi villagers protested this by hugging the trees as and when the soldiers came to cut them. The story reports that 363 people were axed to death by the soldiers before the King himself intervened. King was touched and inspired by the dedication that the Bishnois showed and passed an order that no tree should be ever cut or an animal be harmed in any Bishnoi village. Today there are many blackbucks that roam freely (well almost! :-)) in the tree abundant Bishnoi villages.