Environmental Brainstorming: Finding Solutions to Problems

I always try to be environmentally conscious throughout my day - turning off lights, conserving water, recycling the trash that I can and disposing of the rest in a responsible way, but sometimes I think that there are larger steps to make. Sometimes this seems so obvious to me that I think about it myself. I don't know how scientifically qualified I am, but I am interested, and sometimes I think about things. That is how I am. I think and I think and I think that maybe it is time to do something about this.

Here is an example. People talked for years and years about building an electric car, but somehow, no one really made it move forward. There were a few different versions that were heard about here and there but nothing seemed really groundbreaking. I think that it is pretty clear why. The makers of cars and the suppliers of gas were making such a lot of money that no one really put their energy into mass producing a non-gasoline pollution free electric car. Now that everyone is talking about alternative types of automobiles, this industry is starting to heat up and move forward very quickly. It is too bad that there has been such a delay.

Without getting into a big speech here about Global Warming, I think that most of us realize at this point that many of the technologies we now use will begin changing as our world grows more and more environmentally aware .

There are a lot of great eco-friendly technologies out there that are starting to develop, but my feeling is that much more can be accomplished. I think that often, people have new ideas for this rapidly growing field, but they are hesitant to make them or to produce them because they might not be feasible to mass-produce, and therefore not a profitable venture.

I think that a lot of us get great ideas. Sometimes we use those ideas or parts of them, but often the idea fades, and the intensity of the initial concept dissolves into the day to day events that fill our days. One of the things that can cause people not to want to share their ideas is the feeling that they have, somewhere in the front or the back of their minds, that there is a profit to be made from this brainstorm flash- so they keep it to themselves. I would estimate that some of these "great ideas" have real value, but most probably did not see the light of day.

I personally met someone once that had a way of turning a regular car into an alternative fuel driven car that was more eco-friendly, but he was the type of person that was trying to move the project all on his own and it had taken him literally 20 years. It isn't easy.

It takes a special kind of person who can take a great idea and be able to transform it into a physical reality. What if there could be a way to build up a group of individuals that would offer their good ideas back into the community?.

My idea is that somehow that there could be a forum for brainstormers with an eco-friendly predilection. The type of folks that aren't necessarily interested in making a profit, but have an interesting idea or concept that they would like to share. Maybe someone else will be able to build that crazy device that someone thought up, or figure out how to harness a new ecological tool that somebody else dreamed up.

I know that some people may be unwilling to share their ideas, but the feeling that I have is that maybe we could help Mother Nature with a little environmental brainstorming.

One of the things that I find myself thinking about is water conservation. For me, there is no resource more important that water (except maybe clean air) and I think that we have yet to understand what a valuable resource this actually is. I spend so much time thinking about the fact that the water that most people pipe into their toilets is the same water that they pipe into their kitchens. That water could be bottled and would usually be of a much higher quality than many, many places in the world.

The irony of this kills me. We use so much "drinking" water in our toilets. We use this "drinking" water on our lawns and to wash our cars with. It just isn't logical. We don't need to use "drinking" water for all of those things, but that is what we have, and that is what we use. It just doesn't sit right with me. There has to be able to be a way to change this waste of water.

I once had the opportunity to talk with a water expert about this, and I asked him what he thought about the idea of recycling water for public use. He explained that there were a few cities that have tried to build some type of a system, but that the concept worked on pipes that had 2 types of water - pure water and gray water that could be used in many different ways. The concept was expensive because of the fact that 2 water lines had to be installed to homes.

My brainstorm is this. It seems that the only way to do this right would be for someone to build a water recycler that could filter and treat the water for private homes on their own property. It could possibly be located in an underground tank, where all of the water would collect and then possibly pumped into another tank that would be available gray water for the home. This water would have to be treated properly and its uses would have to be carefully understood, but its benefits would be great.

I can imagine a toilet that would recycle water, with possibly a higher pressured spray that could wash the toilet clean with less water. I can imagine different uses for gray water in the household and I can imagine that the water utilities bill would go down. I can imagine that if an eco-friendly toilet system like this was built correctly for a reasonable price, it would be purchased.

Please design it, build it, or buy it; this world needs all the water it can get.