Category Archives: Sustainability

Commercial Rainwater Harvesting, Environment, Sustainability

Students Design Rainwater Collection System & Save Money for Business

K5116 Tyler Hammerle Engineering Senior Design Project
K5116 Tyler Hammerle Engineering Senior Design Project

Let’s hear it for the next generation! A team of students in Miami, Ohio designed and built a rainwater collection system for a local business that was looking to save money.

An article in the Miami Student details the story of how, in 2010,  an environmental commission discussion on improved stormwater management at an auto shop led to this project. Once the right student team could be assembled, the venture began in September 2014 with students from The College of Engineering and Computing

With the help of their professor, the students worked on designing a rainwater harvesting system that would reduce water usage through filtration, collection and reuse from the 4,200 square feet of roof at the business location. The collected water is used for washing cars and other cleanup functions at the shop.

K5116 Tyler Hammerle Engineering Senior Design Project
K5116 Tyler Hammerle Engineering Senior Design Project

According to the article, the system has been successful, providing the business with 2,500 gallons of water per inch of rainwater and saving close to $1,000 on water bills this year because city water no longer needs to be tapped for this function.

Congratulations to these innovative students for designing and implementing a cost saving, functional and sustainable rainwater collection design.

Photos by Scott Kissell

Environment, Sustainability

Would You Buy Genetically Modified Salmon?

A genetically engineered salmon from AquaBounty Technologies, rear, with a conventionally raised sibling roughly the same age. Credit Paul Darrow for The New York Times
A genetically engineered salmon from AquaBounty Technologies, rear, with a conventionally raised sibling roughly the same age. Credit Paul Darrow for The New York Times

The US Food and Drug Administration recently gave the green light to genetically modified salmon, deeming it safe for consumption. This landmark decision makes salmon the first genetically altered animal to be approved for US groceries and, ultimately, our homes. This strain of salmon’s DNA has been altered to make it grow faster, creating a market sized end product that also requires less feed to reach maturity.

According to the Wall Street Journal, consumers may be hard pressed to find the GMO salmon in groceries, as many have pledged to not carry any GMO foods.

The article further states: “Andrew Kimbrell, the Center for Food Safety’s executive director, said that if the modified salmon find their way into open waters, their rapid growth could allow them to outcompete wild Atlantic salmon and become preferred mates, putting the wild species at risk of being replaced with AquaBounty’s version. ‘If even a small amount would escape, that would threaten native populations,’ said Mr. Kimbrell, whose group plans to sue in federal court by the end of the year.”

Will You Know You’re Buying Genetically Modified Salmon?

According to a NY Times article, the FDA reports that the fish would not have to be labeled as genetically engineered, “however, it issued draft guidance as to wording that companies could use to voluntarily label the salmon as genetically engineered or to label other salmon as not genetically engineered.”

We’d love to hear your thoughts about how we can spend more time and energy preserving our natural resources, or, on the other hand, share your comments if you think the future looks brighter with even more genetically modified foods for our diets.

Environment, Sustainability

Will Museum Become the Place Future Generations Can Experience Rainfall?

They took all the trees
And put them in a tree museum
Then they charged the people
A dollar and a half just to see ’em
Don’t it always seem to go,
That you don’t know what you’ve got
‘Til it’s gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot
Big Yellow Taxi, Joni Mitchell

lock-143616_640Released in 1970, artist Joni Mitchell hit the nail on the head with this lyric from her song, Big Yellow Taxi, practically predicting the future. A recent NY Times article titled Drought Adds Wrinkle to ‘Rain Room’ Exhibit in California, reports on “Rain Room” an exhibit at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, which gives visitors the experience of walking through rain without getting wet. Motion sensor cameras pause the water as people walk beneath them, “creating a Moses-parting-the-seas kind of spectacle — the exhibit here is truly novel and timely, a reminder of what is missing in the parched West these days”.

One drought-weary Californian commented on the irony, “The only rain we get is indoors, and it doesn’t hit us, said Ken Bruce, who spread his arms wide as he walked under the high-tech rain ceiling in a mostly fruitless attempt to do what people normally avoid at all costs: get wet. I wouldn’t have minded being hit by some of it”.

Museums typically showcase precious artifacts – often priceless items of historical, scientific, artistic value. Has rain become such a precious commodity that  future generations will only be able to experience it in a museum?