Donnerstag, 5. Dezember 2013

Low tech for better quality of life

In the so called modern civilization people are surrounded by a whole bunch of high tech products which make our daily life more comfortable, easier and cleaner . We cook our coffee on a gas or even electric stove, we do our morning business on a water closet toilet, we just have to push a button to brighten up our rooms with light. Oh, and before you go to work you quickly put the waste bag in front of your door where it will be picked up soon by the refuse collection. Imagine how your life would be without all those wonderful things? Cooking over the open fire, pouring the human remains into the creek, everywhere is rubbish because no one comes and pick it up and you have to sit in a small little shack which is dark even during the daytime. That's exactly how many people on this world have to live. With a little bit of low tech, simple but useful things for daily life, their life quality can be raised significantly. And the best is that the raw material low tech is for free then it's made out of rubbish. In this article you will read more about some interesting low tech concepts which can be realized almost everywhere on this planet. Everywhere where rubbish is present...

A liter of bottled light, please...
One of the most simple low tech product is the PET-Bottle roof light. The "liter of light" project supports the spreading of the idea to bring the daylight outside into a dark shack with only a hole in the roof and a clear plastic bottle filled with water and bleach. The bottle is mounted on the hole in the roof so that it is half way outside and half way inside. The sunlight is now captured and diffracted inside the room. One 1.5 Liter bottle collects the equivalents amount of light from a 55 watt bulb. The bleach avoids that algae and other microorganisms can grow in the water and keeps it clean for a long time.

Experimental excremental soil
Two other principals could decrease the pollution of the slum due fecal massively. Both concepts relate of the composting of human or animal excrements. One is the commonly known composting toilets. Those jakes are used on remote place where no gully is present. For example they are spread all over the National Park Campsites in Australia or USA. Simply said, after the appointment, human excrements fall down in a big tank where they stay and decompose. As they don't should become too wet, from time to time a bit of straw, bark cut or similar is added. After decomposing the content of the tank can be used as fertilizer.
One step further goes the idea of Terra Preta, the black soil. This principle has been used by the Incas more than thousand years ago. They mixed fecal, vegetable waste and charcoal which has been stored in air tight pots. Because of the lack of oxygen a fermentation started which eliminated all the bad (pathogenic / sick making) bacteria. After two weeks the content could be strew on the fields where another decomposing process started. After about two months there was a layer of excellent soil. Through the charcoal it became the black color and was able to hold fertilizing substances for a long time, just freeing them continuously to the plants need. Unfortunately the original recipe of that Terra Preta has been lost. But what worked thousand years ago will also work today and so this little wonder could been reproduced several times since the last few years.

Burning hot tin stuff
Also a very potential idea is the microgazifier. This is a stove which can be driven with common firewood. But the wood is burnt down with jus a little bit of air. Thus a smoldering fire starts and the smoke and gases are burnt down completely in the second part of the stove. As there more air is let in the burning chamber, the pyrolysis gases burn down almost completely. With this principle the burning of firewood is much more effective, has less emission and at the end of the process you even get best charcoal which can be used in a coal stove or for the production of terra preta. This stove can be built just out of tree simple tins of different size.

Low tech for high quality of life
There are many, many more ideas for low tech which are based on simple physically principles. All of them can be made by using rubbish as raw materials. So for low tech only the physical and chemical principles and the material used for the production is kept as simple as possible. More than often the intelligence of the idea and construction is very high and genius. The biggest benefit of low tech is that it can be produced with simple materials, used by everyone and also is affordable especially for the poorest people on this planet. The improvement of the quality of life can be immense. This not only because of the direct impact of low tech to the physical and physiological circumstances of life. Also the psychological aspect might be very big as it might help the poor people to get out of the lethargic conditions when the see that the can move a lot with just a little bit of rubbish and a bit of knowledge about nature's principles.

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