Author: Abel Renew

Posted on

Turning trash into clean fuel, refugees aid environment in South Sudan

Refugee women and their host community in Maban county are turning agricultural waste into clean-burning briquettes in a pilot project that saves trees.

By Ampurire Aryampa and Mary-Sanyu Osire in Maban, South Sudan  |  18 May 2022
see whole UNHCR article at
https://www.unhcr.org/afr/news/stories/2022/5/6284c4a94/turning-trash-into-clean-fuel-refugees-aid-environment-in-south-sudan.html

The teams gather dried biomass waste including charcoal dust, dried leaves, grass, shrubs, lalop seeds and agricultural trash, such as sorghum and maize stalks, from around the two camps. After being given training, they are provided with briquette making machines that crush, mix, press and extrude a mixture, which is dried into rock-hard combustible briquettes under shade.

They then sell the briquettes at US$1 per kilogramme, making it an income-generating activity in addition to acquiring new greener skills. In March alone, the Gendrassa based group produced over 2,000 kilogrammes and earned up to US$2,000 from the sale of the briquettes

Full article: https://www.unhcr.org/afr/news/stories/2022/5/6284c4a94/turning-trash-into-clean-fuel-refugees-aid-environment-in-south-sudan.html

Posted on

Pothole Repair – with plastic

From the BBC:

Recycled plastic has been used to resurface a road in Flintshire as part of a trial scheme. Pellets made from the waste material were added to the asphalt laid at a junction in Connah’s Quay, UK. Flintshire County Council wants to reuse items from residents’ bins which are difficult to recycle and would otherwise go to landfill sites.

Officers have been working with a Scottish firm which produces plastic pellets from bottles and bags to be melted into the asphalt as a binding agent in place of bitumen.

Read more here

Posted on

Plastic Waste – build our future

Scidev.net reports how just a few years ago, Nzambi Matee decided to do something about the plastic pollution that she saw all over Kenya. Now, she has designed and built a thriving recycling and brick production facility, and her social enterprise Gjenge Makers has recycled plastic waste weighing more than five female elephants.
This week on Africa Science Focus, reporter Michael Kaloki takes a tour of Matee’s workshop – and finds out how she is tackling Kenya’s pollution problem, one brick at a time.

Listen now on Scidev.net

Africa Science Focus, with Halima Athumani.

Posted on

Paint Your Cattle 👁️

Cattle Eyespots

Recent fascinating research from Botswana has looked at the effects of painting eyes on cattle.

The researchers have shown that eyespots painted on cattle rumps were associated with reduced attacks by ambush carnivores (lions and leopards). Cattle painted with eyespots were significantly more likely to survive than were cross-marked and unmarked cattle, despite all treatment groups being similarly exposed to predation risk. While higher survival of eyespot-painted cattle supports the detection hypothesis, increased survival of cross-marked cattle suggests an effect of novel and conspicuous marks more generally.
“To our knowledge, this is the first time eyespots have been shown to deter large mammalian predators. Applying artificial marks to high-value livestock may therefore represent a cost-effective tool to reduce livestock predation.”

Radford, C., McNutt, J.W., Rogers, T. et al. Artificial eyespots on cattle reduce predation by large carnivores. Commun Biol 3, 430 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-020-01156-0

https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-020-01156-0

Posted on

COVID-19: How to make masks, face shields, handwash stations, hand sanitiser and soap

Hesperian has an excellent set of instructions showing how to make facemasks and shields. It also shows how to make handwash stations, hand sanitiser and soap.

You can download the .pdf from here

The Tippy Tap is from www.hero-in-my-hood.co.za

Tippy Tap

Start making!

%d