In El Salvador, a couple, Prudencio Amaya, 102, and Maria Ponce, 78, decided that not having enough money to build a home won’t stop them from having their dream house. Their home, called “La Casita Encantada” or “The Enchanted Cottage,” has drawn attention for its clever use of recycled bottles as building material. Prudencio and Maria are reaping the benefits of their innovation as well–tourists have been stopping by to see the house and leaving donations for the couple.
Water’s a major issue for Matt Damon, which was why he created the non-profit company Water.org two years ago. Water.org teamed up with CamelBak recently to launch a limited-edition BPA-free water bottle, which comes in stainless steel and plastic. Ten dollars from the sale of every bottle will go towards supporting Water.org’s efforts to bring clean water to communities in developing countries.
The Save Vanishing Species stamp is now available at all U.S. post offices. According to the World Wildlife Fund, “all proceeds raised from the premium will go to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Multinational Species Conservation Funds, which support efforts to protect wild populations of tigers, rhinos, elephants, great apes and marine turtles.”
A great use for those plastic soda bottles, and a way to save on electric bills. Mabuhay!
Film Biz Recycling is offering lumber, paint, furniture, and other props from movies or photo shoots to Brooklyn-based victims of Hurricane Irene. You can call or email them at donate@filmbizrecycling.org. You can also drop by their warehouse on 540 President St.
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I had an Odwalla bar the other day and found out that if you collect the wrappers, you can raise money for a charity of your choice. You can send hard-to-recycle waste materials, like candy wrappers or chip bags to Terracycle, where they will be converted to new products. For each unit of waste, the company donates $0.02 to your favorite charity.
Sign up for their Brigades and start collecting!
Recently here in the Philippines, news broke out about the widespread death of fish in fish farms. No, it’s not anything sinister. It’s just that fish farms have been operating following greed as a principle. One area is supposed to hold only 30,000 fish, but many operators have been piling in 50,000 to as high as 100,000, leaving the fish with no room to swim and even breathe.
That certainly sounds terrible enough. But apparently, the fish are also being fed feeds that consist mainly of chicken manure. I can’t fathom how anyone thinks stuffing a fish farm with too many fish and feeding them chicken manure of all things is a good idea, but hey, maybe it makes sense to the fish farm owners. One thing’s for sure, their attempt to turn large profits quickly has blown up in their faces, since nobody’s keen on buying fish these days.
I think this situation also calls into question the assertion that fish is a more healthful alternative to meat, since over here, it seems like both fish farm owners and livestock farms think that it’s a good plan to feed fish and livestock nothing but rubbish and then make them available for human consumption to people, not thinking that what they put into the animals actually have an effect on them and whoever consumes them as well.
Here’s Jon Stewart’s interview with Alex Prud’homme, author of The Ripple Effect: The Fate of Fresh Water in the Twenty-First Century.
