Sometimes a simple idea is all you need to produce great benefits to people in need. PlayPumps are marry-go-rounds that enable people access to clean water in areas of Africa that previously had none. As children play water is pumped from the ground into a storage tank on a tower at a rate of 370 gallons an hour. Women and girls in many areas in Africa walk an average of 5 miles to fetch 5 gallon containers of water everyday. Obviously this really sucks, and on top of that unsafe water and lack of sanitation are the single largest cause of disease worldwide. Babies and children are sickened everyday from drinking unsafe water causing lost school time and often death. That is why the non-profit PlayPumps International is working to install  access to clean water in areas that need it. So far they have installed more than a thousand of these systems with a goal to have four thousand installed by 2010.

How does it work?

While children have fun spinning on the PlayPump merry-go-round (1), clean water is pumped (2) from underground (3) into a 2,500-liter tank (4), standing seven meters above the ground.

A simple tap (5) makes it easy for adults and children to draw water. Excess water is diverted from the storage tank back down into the borehole (6).

The water storage tank (7) provides a rare opportunity to advertise in outlaying communities.  All four sides of the tank are leased as billboards, with two sides for consumer advertising and the other two sides for health and educational messages. The revenue generated by this unique model pays for pump maintenance.

The design of the PlayPump water system makes it highly effective, easy to operate and very economical, keeping costs and maintenance to an absolute minimum.

Capable of producing up to 1,400 liters of water per hour at 16 rpm from a depth of 40 meters, it is effective up to a depth of 100 meters.

So what other benefits do people get from these water systems?

• Access to clean water promotes better sanitation and hygiene.
• Promote Play, children get a safe maintained place to play which is often not the case in most parts of Africa.
• The pumps are manufactured in Johannesburg and installed by a African group called Roundabout Outdoor. This spurs  job creation, community involvement, and ownership at a local level.
• Billboards on the tower educate about HIV/AIDS helping to reduce the impact of this disease.
• Help reduce barriers to education because many schools do not have access to clean water.
• Increase opportunities to women and girls that previously had to walk 5 miles a day to fetch water.
• Spur Economic Development because less time is spent fetching water and being ill from drinking bad water.

PlayPumps international is looking for donations or any help you can offer, please visit their website for more information.

Admittedly, we have never gotten the hang of composting. We tend to put our food waste in a crazy heap at the back of the yard that we occasionally shovel around, water, and throw more stuff on. Needless to say, not much composting occurs there. We haven’t taken the time to learn how to do it but figure at least it is slowly breaking down in our yard instead of taking up unnecessary room in a landfill and eventually it will be something our soil can use and in the mean time its something our neighborhood of bugs can munch on.

Nature Mill knows there are good intentioned folks like us out there that want to compost but like us haven’t got the hang of it. More likely for most people, they may not have time or room to do it properly or have the misconception that it will be stinky. Forgive me for sounding like an infomercial but I stumbled across their product and am so impressed! Granted, with the economy the way it is now, we can learn how to do it the good, old fashioned way but this is very tempting and for some folks it will be the only way to go. They have created a neat gizmo that takes up to 80 pounds of plant food-scraps per month and turns it into happy, healthy compost ready to nourish your garden by controlling temperature and oxygen levels for optimum decomposition. It runs on very little energy and compost is garden-ready in two weeks. Using compost helps keep your garden healthy, nourishing plants and deterring pests and disease. It is tremendously better than fertilizers and weed killers, that are detrimental to long term soil health and are made from petroleum byproducts.. not exactly a green solution for your homegrown greens! This machine seems like an easy way to get great compost with no questions about what mystery ingredients may be in it. Neat!

This compact device called the YoGen Max from a company called Easy Energy allows you to charge up your laptop anywhere in the world with the power of your foot. If you are at an airport with no outlets in sight or on a plane and you don’t mind looking a bit silly and getting weird looks this could be perfect for you. More importantly this can keep your laptop going in rural parts of the world where you won’t look silly at all foot pumping your laptop.

Folded up it is small enough to fit into most laptop cases and easily go with you anywhere. The YoGen Max produces 60-80 watts of power when in operation and when your foot and leg cramp up  it can also hold 12 rechargeable AA batteries to keep the power flowing. Easy Energy claims this is enough to keep a typical laptop going.

This isn’t for sale quite yet, but they say they have a working protype and are starting to take orders from distributors. I also don’t see any information about how much this retail for, but hopefully it will be reasonably affordable. This portable charger could help many people that need power on the go.

For more information head over to Easy Energy’s site.

Here’s a video demonstration of the YoGen Max.

image: rhettmaxwell

You might want to check out a new farmers market that is starting up near downtown Phoenix next weekend. There will be plenty of local artisans and vendors with locally grown food and handmade goods. Strawberry Hedgehog will be there so if you’ve ever wanted to try Tracy’s eco-friendly lotions and potions, this is the place to do it. With just a couple weeks until Valentines’ Day, I’m sure you will be able to find something locally made for your sweetie. Here’s the low down:

Farmer’s Market at Ticoz & Switch
beginning January 31st!

The farmer’s market will be held from 10am – 3pm every weekend; at Ticoz (5114 N 7th Street, North of Camelback) on Saturdays and Switch (2603 N Central Ave, on Virginia) on Sundays. The market will run all year long until April 18th!

ASU president Micheal Crow, UA president Robert Shelton, and NAU president John Haeger discuss Arizona’s proposed budget cuts to higher education on KAET’s Horizon.

Related: Arizona budget cuts stifle innovation