Articles tagged with: wool
Posted in Eco-Friendly, Eco-friendly products, Environment, Go green, Health, Himalayas, Solar, concept on 24 July 2008
What kills roughly 2 million people but is not AIDS? Answer: indoor cooking related diseases. Shocked? This fact is found and recorded in a World Health Organization report. The problem aggravates in villages where modern gas burners are rarely available and the smoke chullas (stoves) are vicious enough to choke your lungs!
In an attempt to alleviate this situation, students from MIT have designed a clean solar cooker out of yak-wool canvas panels, for villagers of the Himalayan region. The panels are stretched over bamboo ribs and faced with reflective Mylar in a manner that in first look you might think it to be some sort of an umbrella!
But this unique light weight cooking device comes for only $17 and for an extra $26 one can attach a metal coil for heating one’s house. This solar cooker helps in cutting down carbon emission as opposed to the traditional yak dung or wood fuel the cooker uses solar power to make yummy food! Its design has won a prize and loads of public attention at the MIT IDEAS competition and in near future one may happen to find it in markets for sale. This means clean and green cooking at an affordable price and no more choking or coughing over horrible gas stoves! 
Via: wiredscience
Posted in Uncategorized on 29 May 2008
Giampiero Maracchi, director of ‘Institute of Biometeorology CNR, during the conference on climate, energy and environmental challenges of which we talked a few days ago, told of how the biometereologico institute has calculated that only vestendosi in a more wise and lowering of two degrees heating in homes during the winter, was already at 20% of the effort needed to respect the commitments of the Kyoto Protocol.
Until 50 years ago people used clothes heavier the current rating to protect themselves from the cold. To make the concept a numerically head of clothing of our grandfathers weighed on average 550 grams per square meter, while one of those who use us about 200. Today most of the tissues that we use and ‘import, whereas until a few decades ago was used Italian wool and other fibers such as hemp and obviously, the textile industry was born and closed locally.
Today 95% of wool that is tosata in Italy ends in landfills as waste special. That remaining 5% is used in construction, insulation, or somewhere that the craftsman infeltrisce to make handbags and hats. Certainly, the sheep wool and cashmere, ‘a little’ softer and layout of our clothes where work is cheaper can earn much, but throughout this speech should include the environmental costs of transport that, for now, producers they do travel unload their goods on the community.