Nature is part of our lives. It gives life to everything around us. But comes with this wonderful gift is also a responsibility to our environment. This new generation, we can call it the “plastic” generation wherein almost everything is made up of plastic or such. How horrible to imagine if half of what we see is disposable plastic. Before its too late, we must act now. Great to hear that something like the Serenbe village in Georgia near Russia that recycling have a big part in their community. I hope that everyone will look up and follow to the recycling facilities of Serenbe. Could you imagine how to live in a peaceful place?

As a volunteer engineer working for 15 years (at no salary) in the Developing World with a focus on water supply I would like to have non-engineers consider the many benefits that can be derived from using surface water (e.g. lakes, streams).  In that construction and operational economics clearly favor (4 to 1) processing surface water over drilling deep wells it is equally clear that more of the poor of the world could be provided good water for the scarce resources available.  There are simple, very mature,  low cost technologies that can convert most any surface water source  into drinking water with no need for chemicals, and most often with no need for electrical or other power.  These systems can be scaled upward from a single family providing pure drinking water as their source of income to 300 of its neighbors at a cost of a penny a gallon or less,  to systems to address the water needs of villages of up to 50,000 persons. If there is any surface water within 1 km or if there is ground water at less than 6 meters depth it makes great sense to process such water with the simplest of technologies rather than go the route of very expensive, very risky deep wells that require costly drillling machines, imported pumps and clean electricity.  It is no secret among engineers that over 50% of the wells funded by well intentioned NGOs fail within 1-3 years.  It is not necessary to think well drilling when one says water .  Dr. Todd D. Stong, Licensed Professional Engineer