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Water: Precious & Scarce as it is

Do you know what date it is? 22nd March. I know its not your birthday (unless you are Prof. Aneesh Gangal), neither is mine. Today is World Water Day, observed world-wide since 1992, popularized by the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development at Rio De Janerio that year. And what are we doing? Forget about standing in the world’s longest queue to highlight the global sanitation crisis or using low flow toilets, we’re not even closing taps when we brush. And please note, its not about the money; water is still very cheap at 25 paise (INR 0.25) a gallon. Just that its not enough. Water like other resources is extremely precious & sadly depleting. Let us atleast pledge to conserve & use it judiciously. Read further if you wish to Go Green!

Anyway, we’re talking water. If you are planning to save water, you should first be roughly aware of how much you are using. Similar to the carbon foot print, water consumption by individuals & companies is measured by a water foot print. This includes the total amount of freshwater used directly and indirectly. Direct consumption is on account of drinking, washing, leaving the tap open Indirect usage is the water spent on growing vegetables we consume, manufacturing coffee beans, preparing a meat steak, etc. Unfortunately, it takes 20 gallons of water to create a pint of beer. Here is a Facebook app to check out your water foot-print.

So why is water so important?

• Although a person can live without food for more than a month, a person can only live without water for (continue reading…)
  

I sometimes spend a lot of my time and blog-space publicizing (often, through criticism) other products, websites, hotels, etc. But sometimes I just want to show respect for  great ideas. And nothing excites me more than green initiatives! While going through Gopal Shenoy’s blog on Product Management tips, I got to learn of this cool company called Gazelle he joined. Gazelle, based out of Boston, pays you for taking away used electronics which it recycles. So instead of going to landfills, you’re gadgets are erased and either re-used or sold in the secondary market. It takes a week after receiving the gadget to complete inspect it and issue the payment. What more could you be asking for with Money in one hand and carbon-credit in the other!

I got too excited and checked what I will get for my 4 year old Nokia 6600! Have a look at the disheartening result!

Gazelle will pay me $9 for Nokia 6600

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A couple of weeks back we celebrated World Environment Day (Did you?). Was I aware? No! Volunteers from a NGO were distributing pamphlets at the gate, to create awareness among people like me. I’m definitely ashamed of the negligence but at the same time I am, like others, concerned too. (continue reading…)