Water is probably the most important natural resource on earth. Our bodies need it to stay alive: we need it to drink, cook, and wash. Plants and animals require it to grow and stay hydrated. We have come to realize that it is imperative not to waste this precious resource. Here at Earth Promise, there are many suggestions on how you can save water:
• Take shorter showers
• To run only full loads in the dishwasher
• Turn off the tap while brushing your teeth
• To plug the drain in the tub before turning on the water instead of waiting for it to get warm
• To collect the water used when I wash vegetables and fruit and use that water for houseplants.
• To collect rainwater to water flowers and plants
For now, many of us are fortunate to have access to fresh, clean drinking water. But what about those who struggle on a daily basis, not only to hydrate themselves, but to be able to cultivate their crops? Many regions need to have their water expensively trucked or piped in, and this doesn’t even guarantee that the water is suitable to drink or bathe with.
I came across a link for an amazing invention to collect fresh water from fog. Believe it or not, the concept of harnessing fog to use for drinking water has been around for decades. According to Science in Africa :
“The first experiments were conducted in 1901, on Table Mountain. But it was only in 1987, in the arid coastal desert of northern Chile, that it was implemented on a large scale.”
South of Lima, Peru the village of Bellavista is one of the areas being used as a testing ground for this innovative idea of fog harvesting. The annual rainfall here can be less than an inch. Fog, however, blankets the area over six months of the year. German conservationists Kai Tiedemann and Anne Lummerich have been quite successful in Bellavsita. Water collection through fog has provided this parched region with hundreds of gallons of water.
So, how does it work? Massive mesh nettings have been set up to “catch” the thick, dense fog that sweeps through the mountainside. Once this mesh becomes too saturated, the fog-water then drips into gutters that then lead to collection tanks. Talk about renewable technology!
It appears that other areas of the world where dense fog is abundant have jumped on the fog-catching bandwagon. Click on the links below to read more about these phenomenal projects:
Last week, I came up with a Challenge idea based on one of Reduce Footprints’ interesting posts. They liked it so much, they took advantage of it:
Earth Hour began three years ago capturing the world’s attention 
One of the people we had the privilege to interview was Nathan Winters. Not an actor, a politician, musician or movie director. All he did was ride his bicycle across the United States to raise for the Nature Conservancy and increase awareness regarding our environment and the importance of protecting it and caring for it. To read more about Nathan and his amazing journey, visit his site at 
There is nothing more satisfying than finding new ways to use everyday products. I try to think about the items I use on a daily basis that are then tossed away. We need change our ways of thinking about what is truly waste, and what doesn’t need to be deemed as such. I’ll start with my early morning routine: after my pre-sunrise workout, I head home for my morning jolt of caffeine. Ahhhh, coffee. Nothing like the feeling of that first sip of hot coffee being fed into my bloodstream! But what to do with the remains? Now there is a product that can have many lives. Daily, I take my coffee grounds and dump them into my bushes and flower pots. ( I used to attempt to throw my grounds into the trash, but much of it would end up on the floor.) As I was looking for other coffee grounds uses, I came across, 
It is so easy to take everyday essentials for granted: I am fortunate to be able to wake up in my own bed, with a roof over my head; there is fresh food in my refrigerator and I have plenty of clean water to drink and bathe with. As of recently, we are reminded daily (hourly?!) of these necessities to live; especially following the shocking earthquake that has turned Haiti upside down. (The other day 
