Tag: water supply

County has new, safer options for prescription drug disposal

If you’ve been flushing unused medications down the toilet, it’s time to stop. Doing so in the past has led to widespread contamination of water supplies, because wastewater treatment plants were not designed to remove these compounds. Throwing drugs into the trash or leaving them in the medicine chest, though, is also problematic, because it can…

Flint, Mich. water disaster highlights nation’s infrastructure problems

If you’ve been following the news, you know that Flint, Mich., is in the middle of a water crisis. It’s a disturbing event that really drives home the importance of fresh, clean, drinkable water. It’s something we take for granted — until we don’t have it. One troubling aspect of this disaster is that it may have…

That pesky snowfall is actually good for the water supply

As we find ourselves in the middle of a second snowstorm in just a few days, it’s as good a time as any to think about how much of that snow ends up in our drinking water.  Although snow can pile up quickly, an inch of snow and an inch of rain are very different…

Rainwater collection — it’s not just for gardens anymore

We noticed an interesting discussion over on a LinkedIn Group called “UN-Water,” about the collection of rain for use as drinking water.  As one commenter stated: “Collecting rainwater on concrete surfaces and collecting it in underground tanks for drinking use … has been a popular practice in a number of areas in western Rajasthan India.”…

Turning Fog into Drinking Water

We’ve written before about Star Wars-like technology that can pull water from the air. Now a team of MIT and Chilean scientists have found a way to efficiently harvest fog. The technique is based on plants and bugs that rely on air-borne water for their hydration needs. In most cases, these plants and bugs rely on…

Sites across Lehigh Valley will collect unwanted medicines on Saturday

Do you have a cabinet full of expired, unwanted or unused medications? Or even just a few that need to be safely disposed of? Then mark your calender for this Saturday, Sept. 29. From 10 a.m. until 2 p.m., sites across the Lehigh Valley region will be accepting medications for proper disposal. The service is…

Starting off on the right foot for conservation

One big step for NIKE, one bigger step for the environment: The sportswear and equipment company is apparently working with a Netherlands-based company to eliminate the use of water in textile dyeing. NIKE says its partnership with DyeCoo Textile Systems B.V., announced in early February, means the elimination not only of water in the dyeing…

What’s your water footprint?

You’ve probably heard of a “carbon footprint,” but how about a “water footprint?” That’s what waterfootprint.org wants to know. The Netherlands-based conservation site has created a way to calculate not just how much water comes out of your tap, but how much water has been used to raise the food you eat, produce the paper…

Age-old technology, modern results

Have you ever noticed that when there’s an electrical failure, you usually still have water? That’s because our power source is one that has, quite literally, stood the test of time. Although there have been some improvements over the years, it works on the same principle used by ancient cultures such as the Romans, Egyptians,…

Next stop: The buffer zone

When it comes to protecting our rivers and streams, there’s one option that’s easy to accomplish yet can work wonders: a buffer zone. What’s a buffer zone? It’s an area that catches, slows and filters water runoff before it enters a stream or river. It can remove chemicals, excess nutrients such as phosphorus and nitrogen…

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