Dengan Biofilter, Limbah "Septic Tank" Jadi Jernih

http://health.kompas.com/read/2015/11/25/111254223/Dengan.Biofilter.Limbah.Septic.Tank.Jadi.Jernih


Abie Wiwoho, Pendiri IPAL Center menunjukkan septic tank biofilter di depan rumah warga Kelurahan Semper Barat, CIlincing, Jakarta Utara, Selasa (24/11/2015).

JAKARTA, KOMPAS.com — Septic tank  atau tangki kotoran biasanya ada di belakang rumah atau di tempat tersembunyi. Namun, septic tankwarga kelurahan Semper Barat, Cilincing, Jakarta Utara, ini berada tepat di depan pintu rumah. Lebih dari itu, septic tank yang dibangun menggunakan teknologi ramah lingkungan biofilter.

Abie Wiwoho, pendiri Instalasi Pengolahan Air Limbah (IPAL) Center, menjelaskan, teknologi biofilter membuat limbah yang mengalir keseptic tank diubah menjadi jernih sehingga tidak mencemari lingkungan.

“Di dalamnya ada penyaring ‘sarang tawon’. Airnya jadi bening sehingga sudah aman ketika dibuang ke lingkungan,” terang Abie saat ditemui di lokasi pembuatan biofilter di Semper Barat, Jakarta Utara, Selasa (24/11/2015).

Septic tank dibangun dengan ukuran 2 meter x 1 meter x 2 meter karena menyesuaikan lahan permukiman warga yang sempit. Limbah cair rumah tangga yang berasal dari kamar mandi, dapur, dan cucian pakaian mengalir ke septic tank tersebut.

Warsih, warga kelurahan Semper Barat yang depan rumahnya dibangunseptic tank biofilter, mengaku lingkungannya menjadi lebih bersih. 

“Jadi enggak terlalu bau, jadi lancar, bersih. Biasanya kalau bikin septic tank pindah-pindah. Kalau penuh, pindah,” kata Warsih.

Septic tank itu digunakan bersama 4 kepala keluarga (KK). Namun, saat ini digunakan lebih dari 4 KK sehingga hasil pengolahan limbar cair sudah tidak terlalu bening. “Idealnya hanya 4 KK untuk limbah cair murni, bukan industri,” kata Abie.

Di Kelurahan Semper Barat, sudah dibangun 2 unit biofilter, yakni di RT 01 dan RT 05. Biofilter juga dibangun satu unit di Kelurahan Penjaringan, Jakarta Utara.  

Abie mengatakan, biofilter ini merupakan percontohan yang dibangun di permukiman. Harapannya, biofilter digunakan oleh masyarakat lebih banyak lagi sehingga limbah cair tidak mencemari lingkungan karena sudah diurai terlebih dahulu.

Penulis: Dian Maharani

Editor: Lusia Kus Anna

space saver

Muebles para ahorrar espacio

Posted by Raul Brindis on Wednesday, 8 July 2015

The coming era of unlimited — and free — clean energy

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/innovations/wp/2014/09/19/the-coming-era-of-unlimited-and-free-clean-energy/

By Vivek Wadhwa


Solar energy is ready for primetime. (Nicky Loh/Bloomberg)

In the 1980s, leading consultants were skeptical about cellular phones.  McKinsey & Company noted that the handsets were heavy, batteries didn’t last long, coverage was patchy, and the cost per minute was exorbitant.  It predicted that in 20 years the total market size would be about 900,000 units, and advised AT&T to pull out.  McKinsey was wrong, of course.  There were more than 100 million cellular phones in use in 2000; there are billions now.  Costs have fallen so far that even the poor — all over world — can afford a cellular phone.

The experts are saying the same about solar energy now.  They note that after decades of development, solar power hardly supplies 1 percent of the world’s energy needs.  They say that solar is inefficient, too expensive to install, and unreliable, and will fail without government subsidies.  They too are wrong.  Solar will be as ubiquitous as cellular phones are.

Futurist Ray Kurzweil notes that solar power has been doubling every two years for the past 30 years — as costs have been dropping. He says solar energy is only six doublings — or less than 14 years — away from meeting 100 percent of today’s energy needs. Energy usage will keep increasing, so this is a moving target.  But, by Kurzweil’s estimates, inexpensive renewable sources will provide more energy than the world needs in less than 20 years.  Even then, we will be using only one part in 10,000 of the sunlight that falls on the Earth.

In places such as Germany, Spain, Portugal, Australia, and the Southwest United States, residential-scale solar production has already reached “grid parity” with average residential electricity prices.  In other words, it costs no more in the long term to install solar panels than to buy electricity from utility companies.  The prices of solar panels have fallen 75 percent in the past five years alone and will fall much further as the technologies to create them improve and scale of production increases.  By 2020, solar energy will be price-competitive with energy generated from fossil fuels on an unsubsidized basis in most parts of the world.  Within the next decade, it will cost a fraction of what fossil-fuel-based alternatives do.

It isn’t just solar production that is advancing at a rapid rate; there are also technologies to harness the power of wind, biomass, thermal, tidal, and waste-breakdown energy, and research projects all over the world are working on improving their efficiency and effectiveness.  Wind power, for example, has also come down sharply in price and is now competitive with the cost of new coal-burning power plants in the United States.  It will, without doubt, give solar energy a run for its money.  There will be breakthroughs in many different technologies, and these will accelerate overall progress.

Despite the skepticism of experts and criticism by naysayers, there is little doubt that we are heading into an era of unlimited and almost free clean energy.  This has profound implications.

First, there will be disruption of the entire fossil-fuel industry, starting with utility companies — which will face declining demand and then bankruptcy.  Several of them see the writing on the wall.  The smart ones are embracing solar and wind power.  Others are lobbying to stop the progress of solar power — at all costs.  Witness how groups in Oklahoma persuaded lawmakers to approve a surcharge on solar installations; the limited victory that groupsbacked by the Koch brothers won in Arizona to impose a $5 per month surcharge; and the battles being waged in other states.  They are fighting a losing battle, however, because the advances aren’t confined to the United States. Countries such as Germany, China, and Japan are leading the charge in the adoption of clean energies.  Solar installations still depend on other power sources to supply energy when the sun isn’t shining, but battery-storage technologies will improve so much over the next two decades that homes won’t be dependent on the utility companies.  We will go from debating incentives for installing clean energies to debating subsidies for utility companies to keep their operations going.

The environment will surely benefit from the elimination of fossil fuels, which will also boost most sectors of the economy.  Electric cars will become cheaper to operate than fossil-fuel-burning ones, for example.  We will be able to create unlimited clean water — by boiling ocean water and condensing it.  With inexpensive energy, our farmers can also grow hydroponic fruits and vegetables in vertical farms located near consumers.  Imagine skyscrapers located in cities that grow food in glass buildings without the need for pesticides, and that recycle nutrients and materials to ensure there is no ecological impact.  We will have the energy needed to 3D-print our everyday goods and to heat our homes.

We are surely heading into the era of abundance that Peter Diamandis has written about — the era when the basic needs of humanity are met through advancing technologies. The challenge for mankind will be to share this abundance, ensuring that these technologies make the world a better place.

Vivek Wadhwa is a fellow at Rock Center for Corporate Governance at Stanford University, director of research at Center for Entrepreneurship and Research Commercialization at Duke, and distinguished fellow at Singularity University. His past appointments include Harvard Law School, University of California Berkeley, and Emory University.

Pelaku Usaha Kayu Belum Maksimal Terapkan SVLK. Apa Kendalanya?

http://www.mongabay.co.id/2015/08/07/pelaku-usaha-kayu-belum-maksimal-terapkan-svlk-apa-kendalanya/
by Petrus Riski


Pengerjaan produk kursi dari bahan kayu jati untuk pasar ekspor. Foto: Petrus Riski

Pelaksanaan Sistem Verifikasi Legalitas Kayu (SVLK) belum bisa dijalankan secara optimal oleh pelaku usaha perkayuan di Indonesia. Mahalnya biaya pengurusan sertifikasi dan kurangnya sosialisasi membuat pelaku usaha terutama kelas menengah ke bawah merasa belum perlu menerapkan SVLK.

Bambang Mardi Priyono, Foresty Specialis Hadfield Indonesia, lembaga konsultan yang ditunjuk menyusun Desain Monitoring Dampak Implementasi SVLK, menuturkan pemantauan dampak implementasi SVLK dilakukan untuk mengetahui dampak negatif dan positif pelaksanaan SVLK sejak 2009 lalu.

Monitoring ini terkait kesiapan pelaku usaha perkayuan di Indonesia yang hendak mengekspor hasil kayunya demi memenuhi permintaan pasar dunia. Masih banyaknya industri kecil menengah yang belum memenuhi persyaratan SVLK menjadi alasan pemantauan ini dilakukan. “Ada beberapa pihak yang menyatakan implementasi SVLK justru menambah biaya dan persoalan. Kalau ini benar harus dicarikan solusinya,” ujar Bambang di Surabaya, Selasa (4/8/15).

Selama ini, pelaku usaha perkayuan, menganggap SVLK belum menjadi syarat ekspor kayu ke Eropa. “Padahal, masyarakat Eropa memberi tekanan tinggi pada pemerintahnya agar hanya menerima kayu yang legal saja. Ini harus diperhatikan pengusaha kita,” lanjut Bambang.

Kepala Bidang Bina Produksi Kehutanan, Dinas Kehutanan Provinsi Jawa Timur, Maryono menegaskan, kebutuhan pengusaha kayu akan SVLK merupakan tuntutan pasar yang ditunjang peraturan pemerintah.

Maryono mengakui, selama ini baru industri besar yang memiliki akses untuk memperoleh sertifikasi SVLK bagi usahanya secara mudah. Sementara industri kecil menengah maupun kelompok dan perorangan masih terbatas. “Pemerintah provinsi mendukung dengan dana pancingan untuk mengurus sertifikasi dan kami juga melakukan sosialisasi.”

Ekspor kayu dari Jawa Timur ke Eropa dan Amerika, menurut Maryono, tergolong besar karena potensi kayu dan desain produknya disukai pasar luar negeri. “Kedepannya kami berharap tidak ada lagi kayu ilegal yang dipakai untuk usaha,” paparnya.

Kayu jati gelondongan yang berada di tempat pemotongan kayu di Bantul, Yogyakarta. Foto: Petrus Riski

Minimnya implementasi SVLK di Jawa Timur diakui Muhammad Ichwan, aktivis lingkungan dari Jaringan Pemantau Independen Kehutanan. Hasil monitoring yang dilakukannya dalam sebulan terakhir, menunjukkan adanya kayu log asal luar Jawa yang tidak memiliki V-Legal seperti yang disyaratkan dalam SVLK.

“Peredaran kayu log antar pulau harusnya ada pembukuan, di-barcode, atau harus ada dokumen V-Legal yang menyertai. Pantau selama 10 yang kami lakukan di pelabuhan Gresik, Surabaya, tidak ada satu pun kayu log yang dibubuhkan V-Legal atau barcodeV-Legal. Artinya belum tentu kayu-kayu yang masuk ke Surabaya itu legal,” kata Ichwan.

Selain belum adanya tanda V-Legal, menurut Ichwan, banyak industri kehutanan baik primer, lanjutan, maupun industri kecil dan besar terindikasi melakukan pelanggaran dengan titip bendera ekspor. “Ini tidak boleh dilakukan. Kami beberapa kali menemukan pelanggaran berkaitan dengan persyaratan SVLK,” imbuhnya.

Ichwan menilai SVLK merupakan sistem yang sangat membantu dalam upaya menjaga kelestarian lingkungan dengan mencegah perusahaan menebang jayu hutan yang tidak sesuai dengan ketentuan SVLK. “Sistemnya sudah bagus, hanya pelaksanaannya yang mesti dikawal.”

Pentingnya memiliki SVLK sebagai garansi produk kayu diterima di pasar Eropa diakui Rumekso Setyadi, Pemilik Usaha Mebel Kayu Jati Enclave Craft, Bantul, Yogyakarta. Menurutnya, keberadaan SVLK sudah menjadi syarat mutlak pasar mebel dunia, demi memastikan kayu yang dipakai itu legal.

“Kalau ada purchasing order dari buyer Eropa, mereka selalu mencantumkan wood declaration. Berdasarkan regulasi, setiap barang yang ada kayunya harus menggunakan SVLK, ini alasan mengapa kami mengurus SVLK,” tuturnya.

Menurut Rumekso, keuntungannya yang diperoleh dari sistem ini diantaranya adalah manajemen bahan baku lebih tertib dan sistematis, serta barang yang dijual mempunya nilai lebih karena kayu yang digunakan legal dan bersertifikat. “Ini merupakan salah satu pertimbangan buyer, karena SVLK biasanya selalu ditanyakan,” tandasnya.

Rain Water Harvesting

https://www.facebook.com/Rain.Water.Harvesting.Benefits

Harvesting System:

Broadly rainwater can be harvested for two purposes:

• Storing rainwater for ready use in containers above or below ground
• Charged into the soil for withdrawal later (groundwater recharging)

Source: A Water Harvesting Manual For Urban Areas

From where to harvest rain

Rainwater harvesting can be harvested from the following surfaces:

Rooftops: 

If buildings with impervious roofs are already in place, the catchment area is effectively available free of charge and they provide a supply at the point of consumption.

Paved and unpaved areas 

i.e., landscapes, open fields, parks, stormwater drains, roads and pavements and other open areas can be effectively used to harvest the runoff. The main advantage in using ground as collecting surface is that water can be collected from a larger area. This is particularly advantageous in areas of low rainfall.

Waterbodies: 

The potential of lakes, tanks and ponds to store rainwater is immense. The harvested rainwater can not only be used to meet water requirements of the city, it also recharges groundwater aquifers.

Stormwater drains: 

Most of the residential colonies have proper network of stormwater drains. If maintained neatly, these offer a simple and cost effective means for harvesting rainwater.

Whether to store rainwater or use it for recharge:

The decision whether to store or recharge water depends on the rainfall pattern and the potential to do so, in a particular region. 

The sub-surface geology also plays an important role in making this decision.

For example, Delhi, Rajasthan and Gujarat where the total annual rainfall occurs during 3 or 4 months, are examples of places where groundwater recharge is usually practiced. In places like Kerala, Mizoram, Tamil Nadu and Bangalore where rain falls throughout the year barring a few dry periods, one can depend on a small sized tank for storing rainwater, since the period between two spells of rain is short. Wherever sub-strata is impermeable recharging will not be feasible. Hence, it would be ideal to opt for storage.

Source: A Water Harvesting Manual For Urban Areas

In places where the groundwater is saline or not of potable standards, the alternate system could be that of storing rainwater.

Beyond generalisations, it is the requirement that governs the choice of water harvesting technique. For example, in Ahemadabad, which has limited number of rainy days as that of Delhi, traditional rainwater harvesting tanks, known as tankas, are used to store rainwater even today in residential areas, temples and hotels.

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172 Sq Ft Dream Castle

How cities can be protected from sea-level rise

https://agenda.weforum.org/2015/07/how-cities-can-be-protected-from-sea-level-rise/?utm_content=bufferf036a&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

By Sally Brown

Extreme storms and rising sea levels will threaten the existence of coastal cities worldwide, unless preventative action is undertaken. With population growth and sea-level rise set to continue, research has estimated that by 2050, we can expect more than US$1 trillion worth of damages per year to be incurred by 136 of the world’s largest cities, if there is no attempt to adapt.

The game changer came in 2005, when we saw one of the most active hurricane seasons in US history. Hurricane Katrina, the fifth hurricane of that season, resulted in nearly 1,600 deaths. Almost half of these fatalities occurred in New Orleans: 80% of the city was flooded, at a cost of US$40 billion. When the water subsided, so did the population: ten years on, the city that used to house 500,000 is now home to only 300,000 people.

There are a number of ways to go about changing cities to account for rising sea levels: we can raise coastal defences, build houses on stilts, or simply move cities and their populations away from the coast. Which of these strategies works best was one of many questions set out in Climate Change: A Risk Assessment – a new report led by Sir David King and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

Constant threat

Globally, sea levels have been remarkably stable since civilisation started to develop several thousand years ago. During the 20th century, sea levels rose about 17cm, at an average rate of 1.8mm per year. Over the past few decades, that rate has doubled to more than 3mm per year. This trend is expected to continue and accelerate. According to the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Changereport, the sea level is projected to rise up to 1m by 2100. If the large ice sheets ofGreenland and Antarctica melted, even higher rises are considered possible, albeit highly uncertain.

Importantly, if carbon emissions are stabilised, or even decrease, the sea level will continue to rise for many centuries, as the deep ocean slowly warms and the large ice sheets reach a new equilibrium. Simply put, sea-level rise is here to stay. It is likely to lead to greater flooding, salinisation (the build up of salt in surface and groundwater) and erosion in coastal areas, affecting millions of people worldwide and costing billions of dollars of damage.

The high costs of economic damage and loss of life are becoming less acceptable in a world where extreme weather events can be accurately forecast and coastal protection is possible. In many parts of the world, damages and loss of life remain high, as seen during Typhoon Haiyan, which hit the Philippines in 2013. Preparing coastal cities for extreme events and adapting them to cope with sea-level rise remains challenging: King’s report highlights the engineering, financial and socio-political limits of the adaptation challenge.

But cities are starting to embrace these challenges. For example, last year, Bostonput forward the bold, novel idea of becoming an American Venice – a city full of canals to hold water as sea levels rise. New York has considered building a barrier to keep water out, in light of the fact that, with a 1m rise in the sea level, a 1-in-100 year event (that is, a severe storm one would expect to occur once every 100 years) could become 200 times more likely to occur.

London has also developed a range of flexible options that would protect the Thames Estuary against up to 5m of sea-level rise. These include raising defences, implementing flood storage and constructing a new and bigger Thames Barrier further downstream.

Developing better cities

In developing countries, few cities are preparing for sea-level rise, despite the awareness that this is a long-term hazard. Developing cities also frequently have rapid population growth. In Shanghai and Kolkata more than 400,000 people live less than 2m above the present-day sea level. A rise of 1m will increase the frequency of a current 1-in-100 year event by 40 times in Shanghai, and about 1,000 times in Kolkata.

Local ground subsidence is another factor to worry about. This involves the sinking of the land relative to the sea due to natural and sometimes human processes (such as groundwater withdrawal). Local ground subsidence will worsen conditions in about a quarter of coastal cities – namely, those built on susceptible deltaic soils (those at the mouth of a river).

Small islands and their cities are also under serious threat from sea-level rise as they are low-lying, remote and dispersed in their territories, and often have limited financial resources. Far from being a green, spacious island, Malé – the capital of the Maldives – is one of the world’s most densely populated cities. Building protective structures is one way of reducing the impacts of extreme events: Malé is surrounded by a sea wall and giant tetrapods (a four-pronged concentrate structure about 2m high). But a lack of space limits future coastal protection.

To overcome this, a new island has been constructed, Hulhumalé, with sea-level rise also in mind. The solution to sea-level rise is simply to build upwards: The island was raised to 2m above present day sea level to protect against storms. This buys time, but moving into the late 21st or early 22nd century this may not be enough. Other Maldivian islands are following suit, with the Safer Islands programme selectively raising parts of islands. This may help the parts of the country, but clearly much more work is required to ensure the long-term prospects of this fragile island nation.

Ultimately, these case studies show us that there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to adapting cities to rising sea levels. Rather, the best bet for cities to adapt against rising sea levels is to dare to be different. Both engineering design, government authorities and social attitudes must acknowledge that change needs to occur, if we’re to avoid disaster.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article. Publication does not imply endorsement of views by the World Economic Forum.

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Author: Sally Brown is Research Fellow at University of Southampton. Ivan Haigh is Lecturer in Coastal Oceanography at University of Southampton. Robert Nicholls is Professor of Coastal Engineering at University of Southampton.

Image: Cityscape of Cape Town in South Africa. REUTERS/Euroluftbild.de.