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Adoption of Clean Technologies: A vailability of our key resources such as water and cultivable land per person are under severe threat as the reserves are shrinking day by day. Increase in population reduces the per capita resources further thereby emphasising the need for better resource management.Currently, we are consuming approximately 140 litres of water per day and have 0.13 hectare of land per person according to World Bank data. Clay brick manufacturing alone consumes nearly 500 million tonnes of top soil every year which threatens to erode nearly one fifth of the total arable land in India. In terms of energy and water use, the Indian brick industry uses nearly 140 billion Kcal and more than 100 million tonnes of water annually. There is a need to take proactive measures to reduce this wasteful use of natural resources. Developing alternative technologies to use waste materials such as fly ash has the potential to: • Reduce top soil erosion • Reduce energy requirement • Reduce consumption of water 150 million tonnes of fly ash produced every year can be a good replacement to the clay usage in the Indian brick industry. A key resource such as water also requires a more focussed conservation and management plan. Water harvesting and adopting technologies that use water more judiciously like drip irrigation and micro water grids can reduce water consumption. Building check dams results in better restoration of water bed levels and a more even spread of water availability across seasons. Another big consumer of water and natural pulp is the
Indian paper industry which We need to think and incorporate changes in designing our products and processes that lead to resource conservation instead of using ‘end of the pipe solutions’ as remedies. We have rapid prototyping and 3d printing replacing the conventional use of material resources and time for product development. Another big need is to conserve and reduce the consumption of power. Decentralised micro or Pico grids have the potential to reduce big distribution costs and last mile costs of power. India imports on an average 16 million tonnes of crude oil every month. Power coming from cleaner energy sources such as biomass and solar systems can reduce fossil fuel consumption. Cost of solar power has dropped from 150 Rupees per Wp to nearly 43 Rupees per Wp in a span of three years which has suddenly changed the equation on return on investment calculations. Reuse, reduce, renew is today’s need and call for tomorrow. Managing our waste and conserving our resources will help us create a sustainable future. q Sharad Saxena
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produces nearly 3.5 million MT of paper
every year consuming 17000 gallons of water and one tree for each tonne
of paper. Replacing conventional paper by stone paper would result in a
huge saving in natural resources.