Video Collection

Pervious pavement / porous pavement consists of a permeable surface course underlain by a uniformly-graded stone bed. Stormwater drains through the surface, is temporarily held in the voids of the stone bed, and then slowly drains into the underlying, uncompacted soil mantle. The Morris Arboretum, in Philadelphia, PA, has successfully integrated this BMP into its parking areas to control rainwater runoff and help improve water quality in the local creek.

Ecological Sanitation is an important new approach to sanitation, which is truly sustainable. It uses almost no water in its operation, and human waste products are used as fertilizer. So three major objectives are achieved:
-- saving on water, a critically scarce resource
-- non-pollution of the environment by human waste, a major cause of disease and loss of human life
-- 'closing the nutrient cycle' : the nutrients (primarily Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Potassium, and carbon matter) in our excreta goes back into the soil for re-use by plants. Instead of a one-way process where chemicals are mined and used for each crop produced, the same chemicals are returned to the soil for reuse.

This movie was created by UNICEF

Director of Nepal Water for Health, Umesh Pandey, talks about water issues in Nepal.

Learn more about this project at South Asia's Troubled Waters: http://www.pulitzercenter.org/showpro...

And join the conversation by sharing your story about water here: http://waterwars.pulitzergateway.org/...

This video can be downloaded here: http://www.ashdenawards.org/winners/bsp BSP won an Ashden Award for Sustainable Energy in 2005. To find out more visit the link above and check out the Ashden Awards Blog http://ashdenawards.blogspot.com

The Biogas Sector Partnership (BSP) in Nepal managed the installation of over 124,000 domestic biogas plants in Nepal between 1992 and 2005. The plants use cattle manure to provide biogas for cooking and lighting. In addition, about 75% of the plants incorporate toilets.

About 80% of the 4.2 million households in Nepal use fuelwood, cattle-dung cakes and agricultural residues for cooking, and kerosene for lighting. Demand for fuelwood substantially exceeds the rate of regrowth, and this is leading to degradation of the land and damage to vital watersheds. Cooking indoors over open fires, and lighting with kerosene, gives dangerous exposure to air pollutants and a high risk of fire, particularly for women and young children who spend much of their time indoors. In addition, women and girls have the drudgery of collecting fuelwood, which typically takes three hours each day.

The Ashden judges commended this project for the many benefits which it provides. The biogas plants replace nearly all the use of fuelwood, and make cooking easier, cleaner and safer. In 20% of houses biogas provides safer lighting as well. This saving of unsustainable fuelwood use also reduces carbon dioxide emissions. The provision of toilets improves sanitation; and the effluent from the biogas plant is a valuable organic compost.

The use of cattle dung to generate biogas is well known in the Indian subcontinent, but in no other place has it been used with such success as in Nepal. The scale of the programme is remarkable. Biogas already serves about one million people (4% of the population of Nepal), and the biogas sector provides about 11,000 permanent jobs in the country. If anyone needed to be convinced that 'small scale can be big' then they need look no further! The Ashden judges also recognised the excellent collaboration between different organisations (BSP, government, construction companies, donors, finance organisations) in order to achieve such outstanding results.

This video can be downloaded here: http://www.ashdenawards.org/winners/s... Shaanxi Mothers won an Ashden Award for Sustainable Energy in 2006. To find out more visit the link above and check out the Ashden Awards Blog http://ashdenawards.blogspot.com

The Shaanxi Mothers' Environmental Protection Volunteer Association (Shaanxi Mothers) is led by its founder Mrs Wang Mingying. It has installed 1,294 biogas plants in rural farming households in the Shaanxi Province of China since 1999. The plants produce biogas from pig and human waste.

The extensive use of wood and coal that has helped to fuel China's rapid economic growth has led to serious environmental damage. In Shaanxi Province (west China), soil erosion on the hillsides is widespread and springtime flow in the rivers has diminished to a fraction of the 'normal' flow. Erosion leads to dust storms and poor outdoor air quality. The use of coal and wood on open fires produces significant pollution. Faced with these problems, the Chinese Government has restricted tree-felling and ordered the re-forestation of the terraced hillsides. Farmers are paid to plant trees and ensure that they survive, and are encouraged to keep pigs. Subsidies are provided to encourage the use of biogas.

Shaanxi Mothers promotes the use of biogas plants connected to the pigsties. These plants provide clean fuel for cooking and lighting, improve sanitation and hygiene and help prevent further environmental degradation. The solid residue from the plants is a valuable fertiliser. Users pay about one third of the cost of the plant which can be covered by the savings they make on fuel and fertiliser within one to two years. Subsidies from the government and Shaanxi Mothers provide the remainder of the cost.

The Ashden Award to the Shaanxi Mothers' Environmental Protection Volunteer Association recognises the tremendous commitment of a small volunteer organisation in bringing the health and environmental benefits of biogas to rural communities in China.

This video can be downloaded here: http://www.ashdenawards.org/winners/b... BIOTECH won an Ashden Award for Sustainable Energy in 2007. To find out more visit the link above and check out the Ashden Awards Blog http://ashdenawards.blogspot.com

BIOTECH has succeeded in tackling the problem of the dumping of food waste in the streets of Kerala through the installation of biogas plants that use the food waste to produce gas for cooking and, in some cases, electricity for lighting; the residue serves as a fertiliser. To date BIOTECH has built and installed an impressive 12,000 domestic plants (160 of which also use human waste from latrines to avoid contamination of ground water), 220 institutional plants and 17 municipal plants that use waste from markets to power generators. The disposal of food waste and the production of clean energy are not the only benefits of BIOTECH's scheme. The plants also replace the equivalent of about 3.7 tonnes/day of LPG and diesel which in turn results in the saving of about 3,700 tonnes/year of CO2, with further savings from the reduction in methane production as a result of the uncontrolled decomposition of waste, and from the transport of LPG.