FORT MYERS, Fla. - Vice President Joe Biden placed the blame for the ballooning deficit on the Bush administration today, arguing that the previous administration saddled the country with the burden of trillions of dollars in debt.
"Let's get serious here! How did we get this debt? Ladies and gentlemen, they put two wars on a credit card. Not paying a penny, not paying a penny, even though I introduced legislation to pay for that war. They voted against it," Biden said at the Wa-Ke Hatchee Park Recreation Center. "Two, they voted for a new entitlement program without paying one penny for it, and that was clear. Number 3, they added another trillion dollars in the tax cut for the very wealthy, so what's the result? These are the facts, folks, these are the facts.
"The result was by the time the reins got turned back over to Barack [Obama] and me, they had doubled the national debt in eight years, doubled the national debt in eight years," Biden added.
Biden recounted that within the first week of being in office, Larry Summers, a top economic adviser to the president, warned newly inaugurated President Obama of the deficit the country faced.
"We were sitting in the oval office, and Larry Summers, the chief economic adviser, and the economic team came in and said 'Mr. President, looking at this year's budget you are going to have a trillion dollar deficit.' He said, 'I haven't done anything yet,'" Biden said. "I'm serious. They said, 'No, Mr. President, the budget they passed, the budget they passed in October of last year guarantees no matter what you do you're going to have a trillion dollar debt this year in the budget.' A trillion dollar deficit to be precise."
Earlier in the week, the Washington Post fact checked President Obama's claim that the Bush administration's policies accounted for 90 percent of the country's current deficit and rated the assertion as false, since the president also pushed spending increases and tax cuts that added to the deficit.
Biden also claimed the Obama administration has proposed a plan that would reduce the deficit by $4 trillion over 10 years and has already decreased the deficit by $1 trillion
"We've already reduced the deficit. In four years, we'll reduce it by another trillion dollars. Ladies and gentlemen look, there's an easy way to do this. We have to make some difficult decisions. We've made them, but we've got to ask the very wealthy to pay more," Biden said.
"President Obama and Vice President Biden have no credibility on reducing our national debt," Amanda Henneberg, a spokeswoman for Romney, responded in a statement. "Over the last four years, the Obama-Biden team has presided over the largest increase in the national debt of any administration in history. And President Obama's latest spending plan is riddled with accounting gimmicks and tax hikes, rather than policies that will get our long-term debt under control. Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan will take immediate steps to cut spending and put our nation on track toward a balanced budget."
Biden mocked the GOP's concern about the debt, saying, "I love how they bleed over the national debt," but adding that Republicans would be unwilling to sign onto a deficit reduction plan that would promise $10 in cuts in spending in exchange for a dollar increase in revenue.
The vice president honed in on energy, touting the Obama administration's work as well as highlighting what he believes is the GOP's misunderstanding the role conservation plays in energy exploration and expansion.
"I love to hear them talk about their energy policy, which is 'drill baby drill,' right? OK, now let me say something about drilling. You all realize that there are more gas and oil rigs working today, pumping today, than all the rest of the rigs in the entire rest of the world. Do you know that? That's a fact. That's why we're importing less than we have in decades, that's why we're in the position we're moving in," Biden said.
"Ladies and gentlemen, there is an exponential, exponential supply of natural gas done right and renewable energy that's here in this country," he said. "That's why we doubled - and they voted against it - and Romney talked against it, we doubled the fuel economy standards for cars and trucks by 2025. That will save 12 billion barrels of oil over the period of time. I don't know how they don't think conservation is part of this. They, they sure don't know it."
GE Capital Aviation Services Limited (GECAS), the commercial aircraft leasing and financing arm of GE, announced the delivery of a new leased Boeing 777-200LRF aircraft to Ethiopian Airlines.
A second 777-200LRF is scheduled for delivery next month. The aircraft will expand and modernize the carrier?s freighter fleet.
?GECAS helped Ethiopian obtain the aircraft it needed sooner for its freighter fleet modernization, and with all of the capital-investment savings of leasing,? said Jonty Nel, senior vice president and region manager for Africa and the Middle East for GECAS. ?We are delighted to expand our relationship with Ethiopian on the cargo side.?
GECAS currently leases two Boeing 737-700NGs and one 757-200 to Ethiopian, a GECAS customer since 1993.
Ethiopian Cargo Services currently operates six dedicated freighter aircraft -- two 747-200Fs, two MD-11Fs and two 757-260Fs-- on a charter and scheduled basis to more than 40 cargo destinations within Africa and around the world from its hub in Addis Ababa. Typical outgoing cargo includes frozen meat, fruit, semi-processed (finished) leather, vegetables, flowers, carpet and rugs, chilled meat and frozen fish products. Typical incoming cargo includes chemicals, equipment and machinery, spare parts, electronics, garments, medicines and tea.
The 777-200LRF is powered by twin GE90 engines and based on the 777-200LR (long-range) passenger model. It has a revenue payload capability of 229,000 pounds (103.9 tonnes) and provides the same 10-foot (3-m) interior height capacity as the 747 family, allowing for convenient transition of cargo between the models. The airplane's range of 4,895 nautical miles (9,065 km) with a full payload allows Ethiopian to operate with fewer stops, lowering costs and accelerating deliveries.
I recently had the opportunity to try out a bunch of craft supplies from EKSuccess Tools. I was very familiar with the brand because I already owned a paper punch from them and I totally loved it!
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Inside my box of loot was a circle punch, decorative scissors, a border punch, dual tip markers and a bunch of other amazing goodies! I really love how there are project ideas on their packaging. Always needing inspiration to craft, I found it to be a great bonus to their products. Also on their packaging is QR Codes so if you have a smart phone you can scan the codes and get links to tutorials and info about EKSuccess Tools. Very cool!
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I?m really blessed to have such wonderful family and friends in my life and I know sometimes I get so busy that it?s easy to forget to tell people how thankful I am for them and how much they mean to me. I decided to create a simple gift that anyone can make to let people in their life know how much we care.
Here?s my supplies:
(as I worked on my project I would up not using some of the supplies shown but adding other ones instead)
I took my plastic container that I picked up for a dollar and cut out a square from scrapbook paper and then trimmed the paper with a decorative scissor. Once I had the exact size I needed I? glued it to the bottom so that when the container was empty you could see a pretty design underneath it. I used the bone folder from EKSuccess Tools to smooth out all of the bubbles. That is not what this tool is made for but it worked out great!
Next I took my circle punch and used it to cut out half circles (scallops) by only feeding paper in half way. I made a bunch of them so that I could attach them to the outside of the container. I used the repositionable adhesive dispenser to attach them. Worked perfect since I had to take a few off and fix the spacing. I followed up with attaching ribbon over the scallops also using the adhesive dispenser also.? I filled my container with M&M?s (delicious! especially the new candy corn ones!) and created a label for the top that said ?I?m Thankful for You? using a paper punch and the gold dual sided marker.
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EKSuccess Tools can be found at select Walmarts. That was music to my ears. I love going food shopping at Walmart and slipping in some craft supplies that usually go undetected by the hubs. (wink wink)
Be sure to follow EKSuccess Tools on Facebook and for project ideas you can find them on Spotted Canary.
Don?t forget to follow Blueprint Social also. They follow back! :)
Ally's already given you a comprehensive accounting of how the new iPhone 5 and its Apple A6 processor score on Geekbench, HTML5, and Sunspider, so check that out before watching the video.
Devices are more than just numbers, however. How fast something is also represents how long it takes. We all only have a finite amount of time in our day and in our lives, and every second we spend waiting for our phone to boot or reboot, for an app or game to launch, or for a webpage to load, is time we can't spend on getting things done, or taking a much needed break.
So, in the video above Rene and I pit the 2012 iPhone 5 against the 2012 iPad 3, the 2011 iPhone 4S, and the 2010 iPhone 4 so you can not only read about but see the differences.
Spoilers: Overall, the iPhone 5 is a monster. It obliterates everything else in our tests. The iPad 3 actually did worse than we expected, but so much of its power, including its quad-core graphics enabled Apple A5X chipset is spent pushing pixels on that huge Retina display, it shouldn't really come as a surprise. The iPhone 4S held up extremely well. It can't beat with the iPhone 5, obviously, but it remains incredibly competitive. The iPhone 4 didn't do nearly as well. Like the iPad 3, it was the first Retina device in its class and again, a lot of its processor seems to go towards that, not leaving as much available for everything else.
Check out the video above, go over Ally's iPhone 5 benchmark results, and then let me know, how important is raw speed to your daily device usage? Do you always want the latest and the fastest, or are you happy when your tech stays competitive year after year?
Two giant earthquakes in the eastern Indian Ocean have shown geologists that breaking up is easy to do ? for tectonic plates, that is.
The pair of quakes hit on April 11, startling seismologists with their size (magnitudes 8.7 and 8.2) and location (hundreds of kilometers from the active zone that spawned the deadly 2004 magnitude 9.1 earthquake and tsunami). Now, three studies reveal that the April quakes were an indication that one great slab of Earth?s crust is slowly fracturing into two.
The work, reported online September 26 in Nature, confirms that seismic risk remains high in the area.
?You?d be nuts to think it was all over in offshore Sumatra,? says Kerry Sieh, a seismologist at the Earth Observatory of Singapore who was not involved in the new research.
The bigger April quake leapt straight into the record books. It was the largest earthquake ever recorded in the middle of a tectonic plate, rather than at a plate?s edges where most quakes happen. It was also the largest earthquake recorded along a strike-slip fault, in which two chunks of Earth?s crust slide past each other horizontally, like along California?s San Andreas. And it was the most complex strike-slip rupture ever seen, breaking along at least four separate faults interlaced like a geological lattice.?
Add together the 2004 killer Sumatra quake, two nearby great quakes in 2005 and 2007, and these April Indian Ocean quakes, says Sieh, and ?you get the greatest release of seismic energy anywhere on Earth in the past half-century.?.
Blame it on the massive Indo-Australian crustal plate, which stretches from the Himalayas in the north to well below Australia in the south. You can think of the plate like a motorcycle with a sidecar, says Matthias Delescluse, a marine geophysicist at the ?cole Normale Sup?rieure in Paris. The motorcycle ? the part of the plate carrying Australia ? is driving quickly northeast beneath Indonesia. But the sidecar ? the part carrying India ? is slamming into a geological wall of the Himalayas. The motorbike and sidecar are thus shearing apart. Millions of years from now, the Indo-Australian plate will split into an Indian and an Australian plate.
April?s quakes reminded scientists that this is happening, maybe even faster than once thought. The 2004 quake, to the east, sped up the rate of earthquakes across the region and probably hastened the April quakes, Delescluse and his colleagues report in Nature. They calculated how the monster 2004 and 2005 quakes changed stress patterns in the Earth?s crust, and found that releasing stress on the faults diving under Sumatra to the northeast actually raised stress in the strike-slip faults to the southwest, in the Indian Ocean.
In a second Nature paper, seismic records illuminate the complex way the seafloor ruptured in April.
The first April 11 quake unzipped four perpendicular faults one after another in less than two minutes, the scientists found. Each fault ruptured with the equivalent energy of at least a magnitude 8.0 quake in that magnitude 8.7 event. Two hours later, the magnitude 8.2 aftershock struck just south of the main rupture.? ?This was a gee-whiz event for us,? says team member Thorne Lay, a seismologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
But the story wasn?t over once the two quakes were done. They continued to resonate around the globe, triggering big aftershocks as far away as Mexico, a third study finds.
Fred Pollitz, a seismologist at the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park, Calif., became interested in the quakes when his colleagues? pagers kept going off for days afterward with alerts of other big quakes. ?That struck me as rather suspicious,? Pollitz says. So he and his colleagues went through catalogs of global earthquakes, looking for changes in patterns of seismicity.
They found that the number of quakes of magnitude 5.5 or greater, located more than 1,500 kilometers from the April 11 quakes, went up nearly fivefold for six days afterward. The biggest such quake was a magnitude 7 in Baja California, about 22 hours afterward.
Most giant quakes don?t trigger temblors so far away ? or if they do, the triggered quakes are well below magnitude 5. The difference, Pollitz says, lay in the strike-slip nature of the April 11 quakes. This type of fault geometry allows the stress of a crustal movement to propagate much farther across the planet?s surface, compared with deep-diving plates that transmit their energy into the bowels of the Earth. The quick rupture also allowed seismic wave energy to travel out in pulses that ?we believe shook up the faults more efficiently,? Pollitz says.
Though the strike-slip geometry may have triggered other quakes, it also meant that only a few people died in the April 11 events. Horizontal ground movements don?t push the ocean water around in ways that generate a deadly tsunami, like the one that killed a quarter of a million people in 2004.
Still, the seismic risk around Sumatra remains high, because other parts of the plate diving beneath Indonesia have not broken for some time. And the fact that big earthquakes can pop off where they?re not expected, like along strike-slip faults in the east Indian Ocean, suggests to researchers that other surprises lie in store.
The iPhone 5 has been this year's hottest tech item judging by weekend sales, but it looks like legitimate purchases aren't the only way Apple smartphones and devices are moving. Apple product theft in New York City is on the rise so quickly, in fact, that it is outpacing overall crime.
According to Bloomberg:
The Cupertino, California-based company?s products were stolen in a total of 11,447 incidents between Jan. 1 and Sept. 23, an increase of 40 percent over the same period a year earlier, the NYPD said in a statement yesterday. That compares with a 4 percent rise in the total number of crimes in the city for the same period.
40 percent is quite the increase, but it doesn't seem like NYC is the only area affected. On the eve of the iPhone 5 launch, hundreds of iPhone 5 units were stolen in Japan. In the UK, a man stole more than 250 iPhones from a store in South London.
Because of their high street value, resale value and incredible popularity, Apple products tend to be targets for robberies and scams. In New York City, the NYPD stationed police officers at 21 different stores on the iPhone 5's launch day to ensure that any stolen Apple products would be traced quickly.
TIP! Always pay and bills you have in a timely manner and more than the minimum due, this is a good way to reestablish your credit. Many individuals make the minimum payments, but this can lead to debt.
Whatever led you to declare bankruptcy is probably very sad, but that doesn?t mean that you can?t have a better life after bankruptcy. The whole point is to wipe the slate clean and have a new chance at life. Keep reading to see how bankruptcy can actually give you a new lease on life, rather than function as a permanent financial albatross.
TIP! Go to a bankruptcy lawyer for advice, instead of filing on your own. A bankruptcy attorney will advise you of the necessary steps to file bankruptcy as well as represent you in bankruptcy court.
Make sure that you understand everything you can about personal bankruptcy by visiting websites that offer information. The United States Department of Justice and National Association for Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys provide excellent information. As with everything in life, the more you know about filing a claim, the better off you?ll be. You can properly prepare when you know what you?re preparing for.
TIP! Know your rights when filing for bankruptcy. Some debtors will try to tell you your debt with them can not be bankrupted.
Realize that bankruptcy may be better for you when it comes to your credit. Continuing to miss your payments can be really bad on your debt. Bankruptcy stays on your credit for quite some time. On the other hand, you can begin improving your damaged credit immediately. One of the good things about bankruptcy is that you can start fresh.
TIP! Joining an online community with people who are also going through the bankruptcy process can be a great way to feel better. Because of the extra stress involved in a bankruptcy filing, you may feel isolated from your friends.
Try to obtain a second job. As long as you have money coming in and use it to pay down your debts, you will likely be able to work with your creditors and make your own repayment arrangements. They may agree to it, saving you from having to file.
TIP! Don?t wait to file for personal bankruptcy. If filing for personal bankruptcy is the best option, waiting will only make things worse.
Document your questions and concerns prior to sitting down with a bankruptcy attorney. A lawyer?s time could be really expensive. You can save time and money by preparing a list of questions and concerns you have about personal bankruptcy. Make sure you clearly understand the process.
TIP! Do not doddle with whether or not bankruptcy is for you. It can be hard to ask for help but it?s not recommended for you to get further into debt.
Reconsider going through a divorce as it could put you into a rough financial situation. Many people find they need to claim bankruptcy after divorce because they did not see the financial problems that were ahead of them. Rethinking a plan to get divorced is always a good choice.
TIP! Look into the type of bankruptcy you should file for. There are a number of different types of bankruptcy.
Look into filing Chapter 13 bankruptcy. If you are receiving money on a regular basis and your unsecured debt is under $250,000, you may be able to file Chapter 13 bankruptcy. That way, you can hold onto your personal assets and pay back a portion of your debts pursuant to an approved plan. Typically, any plan you develop will last around 3-5 years. Afterwards, any remaining unsecured debts will be discharged. Remember that missing a payment to the plan will result in your case being dismissed.
TIP! Prior to filing, it is important that you know all about bankruptcy laws. For example, it is against the law to transfer any assets from the filer to another for a year before filing.
If you intend to file bankruptcy soon, you may want to discontinue paying all debts. Some bankruptcy rules do not allow you to send money to creditors within three months of filing; this can extend up to a full year if a loved one is involved. Learn the rules regarding bankruptcy before making any final financial decisions.
TIP! After your initial filing, take time to enjoy yourself a bit and get your mind off of it. Many people who undergo this process become way too stressed out.
Educate yourself on all personal bankruptcy laws. If you plan to file for bankruptcy and cannot afford an attorney, you might think about representing yourself. If this is the case, you must fully educate yourself about bankruptcies. Those who do their own bankruptcies often make mistakes that interfere with their ability to secure a discharge. Avoiding mistakes gives you a better chance of having your petition approved.
TIP! It is essential when going through bankruptcy that all of your income and assets are reported openly and honestly. To avoid problems, penalties and future re-filing bans, resist the urge to hide documentation or assets.
If you are about to file for bankruptcy, you have probably been through tough times lately. However, what happens to your life after bankruptcy can have a happy beginning. Actually, by using the advice you?ve learned here, your story of hardship could have a happy ending after all
CINCINNATI, Ohio - Republican vice presidential nominee compared the NFL's replacement referees to President Obama and slammed an apparent blown call during the Green Bay Packers loss to the Seattle Seahawks during Monday Night Football.
A few hours later, Obama tweeted about the lockout and the refs, but he didn't mention Ryan's analogy.
"NFL fans on both sides of the aisle hope the refs' lockout is settled soon. -bo ," is what came from the @BarackObama Twitter feed. A tweet signed "-bo" is supposed to signify it comes personally from the president.
Ryan, who hails from Janesville, Wisc., made clear in Ohio today that he was unhappy with the controversial call as a Packers fan. But he went further, using the refs in a riff on the Obama White House that deviated from his traditional stump speech.
"I'm going to start off with something that was really troubling that occurred last night. Did you guys watch that Packer game last night? I mean give me a break!" Ryan complained. "It is time to get the real refs."
Ryan then drew a parallel between NFL's struggle with replacement referees and President Obama's economic job performance during his term in the White House.
"It reminds me of President Obama and the economy. If you can't get it right, it's time to get out. I half-think that these refs work part-time for the Obama administration and the Budget Office," Ryan said.
"They see the national debt clock staring them in the face, they see a debt crisis, and they just ignore and pretend it didn't even happen. They're trying to pick the winners and losers and they don't even do that very well. Look, we have a big choice to make. It's not an ordinary time."
Ryan wasn't done yet. A short time later, the budget guru told supporters that he and Mitt Romney are out campaigning "trying to deserve this victory" and "show you how we're going to deal with it." "The principles we will use, the policies we will put in place, and we will not duck this issue," he said.
"Unlike the Seattle Seahawks last night, we want to deserve this victory. We want to earn this victory, we want a real victory because we want a mandate to fix this mess in Washington before it gets out of our control." "I'm sorry a Packer fan," Ryan said in an attempt to excuse himself for breaking from his traditional remarks. "I had to get that last one in there."
But it is not a perfect analogy for the Republican ticket. The replacement refs are working during a labor dispute between the unionized referees and NFL owners in which the owners have locked out the refs. Both Ryan and Romney generally favor less powerful unions.
The league announced Tuesday that a review by the NFL officiating department affirmed the controversial ruling from Monday' night's game. The Seahawks win.
Stand by me is a interactive role play in which the characters create the plot. They start of a children and over time create bonds,have adventures, and discover themselves through one another.
Owner:
Game Masters:
Topic Tags:
Forum for completely Out of Character (OOC) discussion, based around whatever is happening In Character (IC). Discuss plans, storylines, and events; Recruit for your roleplaying game, or find a GM for your playergroup. Will add more as question are asked. Thanks to lovechanningforever for giving me the idea for this)What is the plot? Stand By Me: a role play based on life has no plot, per say. It is an interactive role play in which the characters create the problems, solutions, relationships, and overall story line. Our characters are basically living life, and something like that just isn't premeditated...no matter how hard we try to make it.
How should i make my character? For now only show your character as a CHILD. Younger than a teenager, but old enough to talk and think for themselves. We will add to our profiles as our characters grow and change.
Where does this role play take place? In a small town in the US. Where exactly? Well, that's for us to decide in the OOC before we get things started!
Will this be limited? As much as it pains me to do so, yes, this role play will have a limit on players accepted. Although you can create however many characters you are able to handle, I just can't have too many different thoughts and ideas going into this. I have to ensure my dedicated role players are receiving the attention and responses they deserve.
I will allow a maximum of seven role players at this time.
How will you accept players? This is the most important process, and yes, I can be picky when selecting. I will choose my role players on the bases of four categories: Literacy. I can not stress this enough. I am extremely tired of reading short and choppy sentences. Not everyone can write five-eight paragraph responses, and that is perfectly fine, but I promise you, it is possible to write an amazing post with a minimal of three paragraphs if you know how.
* Commitment. It doesn't matter how many role players I have, everyone plays an important part. I beg you, if you join this role play, stick it out through the end...or at least tell us if you will no longer participate.
And yes, I will be looking to see if you are active in the OOC
*Willingness to come up with ideas of your own within reason. Do not play your character(s) off of another. Be creative.
*Imagination. That pretty much speaks for itself.
Also, I placed something really important in the introduction section that MUST be present on your profile to be accepted. Without that, you are wasting my time.
Lastly, incomplete profiles that are submitted will not be accepted...there will be no exceptions.
Will there be limits to what can happen? Of course. Your character can not be the center of attention at all time, nor can they be "perfect". This is life, let's keep things realistic. I know bad things happen, but please do not make your character a sob story.
Is romance a factor in this role play? I'm sure romances will work their way into a plot, but once again keep it realistic. I urge dating among the group, as well as outsiders. There is no "forever" from childhood til death, at least not in this role play.
They will be break ups, betrayal, love triangles...or squares, and anything else you can think of. Do not have a fit if your "love interest" moves on to another sometimes or just ends things. THIS IS ABOUT LIFE and it does happen
Scarlett_Rose
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AIT awarded research grant on sustainable decentralized wastewater management systemsPublic release date: 24-Sep-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Dr. Thammarat Koottatep thamarat@ait.ac.th Asian Institute of Technology
'Reinvent the toilet: For urban poor in Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam'
A team of scientists at the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) in Thailand are set to reinvent the toilet in three developing countries in Asia.
In a bid to find sustainable solutions to the current sanitation problems faced by the urban poor not just in Thailand, but also in Cambodia and Vietnam the researchers have embarked on a five-year project made possible by a US $5-million (150-million Baht) grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in the United States.
AIT was one of 61 grant recipients from the Gates Foundation's Water, Sanitation, & Hygiene Team in 2011. The Environmental Engineering and Management field of study at AIT's School of Environment, Resources and Development is the new project holder for the field research project on "Sustainable Decentralized Wastewater Management Systems" lasting from 2012.
Of the 2.5 billion people without access to sanitation, 75% live in the Asia and Pacific region. In many developing countries, sanitation coverage depends on homeowners investing in toilets with onsite storage systems for human excreta, in the form of a pit or septic tank.
"Having toilets and onsite storage systems are not enough to make sanitation safe and sustainable. All too frequently, onsite storage systems malfunction due to a lack of information on the lifespan, poor operation and maintenance such as desludging," says project leader Dr. Thammarat Koottatep, Associate Professor at the Asian Institute of Technology. It is not uncommon for untreated effluent and the emptied sludge from onsite storage systems, so-called Fecal Sludge, to be discharged into nearby rivers or the neighborhood.
Dr. Thammarat believes the key to providing extensive sanitation coverage is to focus on reinventing innovative, decentralized systems. Decentralized systems provide the advantage of flexibility, in that different treatment technologies can be combined to meet the required goals of treating human excreta and wastewater from homes and businesses. In addition, decentralized systems have the advantage of saving homeowners the cost of connecting to a sewer, and eliminate the environmental burden of transporting large quantities of wastewater to the treatment plant.
The project officially titled Sustainable Decentralized Wastewater Management in Developing Countries. Design, Operation and Monitoring uses a "Market-driven Approach" to ensure the innovative decentralized systems are saleable and affordable to the urban poor.
The 5-year project will be carried out in three phases: Phase I) creating a platform for innovation; Phase II) designing and developing lead options for commercialization; and Phase III) catalyzing commercialization of lead options.
Of the 20 million cubic meters of domestic wastewater produced per day in Thailand, only 1.6 million cubic meters are collected in sewer networks and sent to treatment plants, many of which do not function. The figures for fecal sludge are equally alarming: in Thailand, 60,000 tons of fecal sludge is collected per day, but only 4,500 tons per day (i.e., less than 10%) are treated correctly. This project aims to double the amount of correctly treated fecal sludge, with innovative business models.
The overarching aim of this research is to reinvent decentralized systems and technologies for treatment and safe disposal of human excreta and wastewater from dwellings and businesses close to their sources. The ultimate goal of the project is to catalyze the commercialization of novel, superior decentralized wastewater treatment systems aimed at radically improving sanitation for the poor, particularly in urban areas.
Dr. Thammarat says a market-led approach focused on the needs of potential customers and users will frame technology development and innovation so as to generate bona fide marketplace demand. Products derived from the project will include treatment technologies that are applicable in developing countries and are based on sound scientific, technical and market evidence.
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AIT awarded research grant on sustainable decentralized wastewater management systemsPublic release date: 24-Sep-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Dr. Thammarat Koottatep thamarat@ait.ac.th Asian Institute of Technology
'Reinvent the toilet: For urban poor in Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam'
A team of scientists at the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) in Thailand are set to reinvent the toilet in three developing countries in Asia.
In a bid to find sustainable solutions to the current sanitation problems faced by the urban poor not just in Thailand, but also in Cambodia and Vietnam the researchers have embarked on a five-year project made possible by a US $5-million (150-million Baht) grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in the United States.
AIT was one of 61 grant recipients from the Gates Foundation's Water, Sanitation, & Hygiene Team in 2011. The Environmental Engineering and Management field of study at AIT's School of Environment, Resources and Development is the new project holder for the field research project on "Sustainable Decentralized Wastewater Management Systems" lasting from 2012.
Of the 2.5 billion people without access to sanitation, 75% live in the Asia and Pacific region. In many developing countries, sanitation coverage depends on homeowners investing in toilets with onsite storage systems for human excreta, in the form of a pit or septic tank.
"Having toilets and onsite storage systems are not enough to make sanitation safe and sustainable. All too frequently, onsite storage systems malfunction due to a lack of information on the lifespan, poor operation and maintenance such as desludging," says project leader Dr. Thammarat Koottatep, Associate Professor at the Asian Institute of Technology. It is not uncommon for untreated effluent and the emptied sludge from onsite storage systems, so-called Fecal Sludge, to be discharged into nearby rivers or the neighborhood.
Dr. Thammarat believes the key to providing extensive sanitation coverage is to focus on reinventing innovative, decentralized systems. Decentralized systems provide the advantage of flexibility, in that different treatment technologies can be combined to meet the required goals of treating human excreta and wastewater from homes and businesses. In addition, decentralized systems have the advantage of saving homeowners the cost of connecting to a sewer, and eliminate the environmental burden of transporting large quantities of wastewater to the treatment plant.
The project officially titled Sustainable Decentralized Wastewater Management in Developing Countries. Design, Operation and Monitoring uses a "Market-driven Approach" to ensure the innovative decentralized systems are saleable and affordable to the urban poor.
The 5-year project will be carried out in three phases: Phase I) creating a platform for innovation; Phase II) designing and developing lead options for commercialization; and Phase III) catalyzing commercialization of lead options.
Of the 20 million cubic meters of domestic wastewater produced per day in Thailand, only 1.6 million cubic meters are collected in sewer networks and sent to treatment plants, many of which do not function. The figures for fecal sludge are equally alarming: in Thailand, 60,000 tons of fecal sludge is collected per day, but only 4,500 tons per day (i.e., less than 10%) are treated correctly. This project aims to double the amount of correctly treated fecal sludge, with innovative business models.
The overarching aim of this research is to reinvent decentralized systems and technologies for treatment and safe disposal of human excreta and wastewater from dwellings and businesses close to their sources. The ultimate goal of the project is to catalyze the commercialization of novel, superior decentralized wastewater treatment systems aimed at radically improving sanitation for the poor, particularly in urban areas.
Dr. Thammarat says a market-led approach focused on the needs of potential customers and users will frame technology development and innovation so as to generate bona fide marketplace demand. Products derived from the project will include treatment technologies that are applicable in developing countries and are based on sound scientific, technical and market evidence.
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Public release date: 24-Sep-2012
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