water conservation
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New wind and solar sectors won’t solve China’s water scarcity
JIUQUAN, China — Business for wind and solar energy components has been so brisk in Gansu Province — a bone-bleaching sweep of gusty desert and sun-washed mountains in China’s northern region — that the New Energy Equipment Manufacturing Industry base, which employs 20,000 people, is a 24/7 operation. Just two years old, the expansive industrial […]
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Your pants are an eco-abomination — here's how to lessen their impact
Between cotton growing, manufacturing, and laundry, a pair of jeans can use up almost 3,500 liters of water over its lifetime. What can you do to mitigate the damage, while still covering your unmentionables in style?
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Beware the water cowboys
The water wars are usually about supply and demand. But across the country, financially challenged communities are being aggressively courted -- including by Goldman Sachs! -- to sell or lease their drinking water and wastewater utilities to private companies.
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Rejecting free savings out of sheer dumbness: common!
A famous social science experiment shows how hotels could save 20% of their laundry costs for free. Apparently they haven't bothered to read it.
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iPhone app lets agencies crowdsource environmental monitoring
IBM rolled out Creek Watch, an iPhone app that lets the California State Water Resources Control Board crowdsource the condition of waterways.
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The greenest party schools
Which colleges make the green grade and know how to party?
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Reducing urban water use around the world with compost toilets
Theodore Roosevelt once noted "civilized people ought to know how to dispose of the sewage in some other way than putting it into the drinking water." But that's what we're still doing every day.
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When I learned that water isn't supposed to have a taste
Turning on your faucet shouldn't be a high-risk venture. Cities and towns shouldn't have to worry that the water lost in leaky pipes will mean ongoing shortages or usage restrictions. But these concerns are already cropping up in communities throughout the country -- and they will only become more common as decades of neglect to our water infrastructure begin to catch up with us.
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Redesigning our cities for the dawning age of global freshwater scarcity
The next urban evolution cannot occur unless we reinvent urban water supply and management to meet the demands of the age of freshwater scarcity.