Producing Electricity From Waste

Translated by Atefeh Rezvan-Nia
Edited by Mohammad Reza
M. Karimi

The first project for producing electricity from household waste will soon become operational in Tehran.
Announcing this, Mojtaba Abdollahi, the deputy mayor for urban services, said this is the biggest project in the Middle East, Mehr News Agency reported.
“Everyday, more than 7,000 tons of wastes are discharged from homes in Tehran,” he said, adding that poor waste management can give rise to an environmental crisis.
He added that the biggest waste digester system in the Middle East is expected to process huge amounts of waste every day for producing electricity.
Abdollahi said the traditional method of destroying waste was halted in Tehran years ago.
“The wastes are not buried anymore,” he said, adding that the traditional ways of waste destruction can damage the environment.
The official explained that producing energy from waste is one of the biggest projects currently underway in the country.
The digester system has been located in an area of 3,000 hectares and the technology is based on European Standards (CE).
“The capacity of the factory is 300 tons in a working shift,” he said, adding that 200 tons of which will be wet waste that enters the system for conversion into electricity and the rest will be recycled.
Abdollahi said the output of the system will be 2 megawatts-hour of electricity per day and high quality fertilizer.
About 3.5 million tons of waste are produced in the world every day, with Iran’s share being 50,000 tons. It means each Iranian produces about 700 grams of waste every day.
Plastic products comprise a large component of waste in Iran.

No Social Protection for India’s Elderly

At midnight on Oct. 12, 91-year-old George Puthenveettil, a widower living in Kalanjur Village in the Pathanamthita district of the southern Indian state of Kerala, was brutally tortured and ousted from his own house by his only son for “not earning any money”.
The nonagenarian wandered the streets of his village for hours before he reached a shelter in Pathanapuram with the help of neighbors. Police said the son had often beaten and harassed the old man, who was financially dependent on his son, IPS reported.
For many people like George, the sunset years of life turn out to be a traumatic period, in which they find themselves entirely dependent on families or friends due to the absence of a good social security system or government pension plan in India.

Increasing Insecurity
Expressing concern over the increasing insecurity of elders in the country, Dr. Irudaya Rajan, a prominent demographer and chair professor of the research unit on international migration under the Ministry of Indian Overseas Affairs, told IPS that income security is one of the most urgent needs of India’s aging population.
Years ago, “traditional values and religious beliefs were quite supportive of elderly people”, he said.
Today, economic hardships and the faltering nuclear family system are “drastically eroding the support base of aged people”.
“The majority of the elderly tend to work even after the age of retirement due to inadequate social security and financial resources,” Rajan added.
A report on the aging population in India, released by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFP) in New Delhi, said that the country had 90 million elderly people in 2011, with the number expected to grow to 173 million by 2026.
Of the 90 million seniors, 30 million are living alone and 90 percent work for a living.
Experts estimate that only 8 percent of the labor force of about 460 million receives social security from an employer.
Over 94 percent of India’s working population are part of the unorganized sector, which refers to all unlicensed, self-employed or unregistered economic activity such as owner-manned general stores, handicrafts and handloom workers, rural traders and farmers, among many others.

Hardships Abound
Gopal Krishnan, an economist in Chennai, told IPS “There is no social safety coverage for people in the unorganized sector, which accounts for half of the GDP (gross domestic product) of India.”
Analysts point out that India’s aging population is constantly grappling with health issues, economic stress, family problems, uncertain living arrangements, gender disparities, urban-rural differences, displacement and slum-like living conditions.
Dr. Udaya Shankar Mishra, a senior demographer at the Center for Development Studies in Thiruvananthapuram, believes the current ‘profile’ of the aging population of India can change.
“The (perception) of the elderly as a burden can, with suitable policies, be turned into an opportunity to realize active and healthy aging,” he told IPS.
“With limited resources, we need to adopt viable policy changes to manage the crisis of the aged. This calls for a detailed auditing of (all) the affairs of the elderly, primarily health, morbidity and mortality in addition to economic and emotional wellbeing.”
“Research on geriatric health needs to (shift) towards ensuring a better quality of life among future elderly persons. Considering the demographic inversion and its associated challenges, it (is clear) that investments into healthy aging are necessary,” he added.
Data from the 2011 National Census revealed that the percentage of aged living alone or with spouse is as high as 45 percent in Tamil Nadu, Goa, Himachal Pradesh, Maharashtra, Punjab and Kerala.
Healthcare experts have found that the elderly are highly prone to heart diseases, respiratory disorders, renal diseases, diabetes, hypertension, neurological problems and prostate issues.
The National Sample Survey Organization calculates that one out of two elderly people in India suffers from at least one chronic disease, which requires lifelong medication.
The most recent data available, taken for the period 1995-96, revealed that 75 percent of aged individuals are affected by at least one disability relating to sight, hearing, speech, walking, and senility.

Is Your Dirty Kitchen Making You Sick?

A dirty kitchen could be the starting point of all your sicknesses.
Nowadays when both spouses are working, it becomes difficult for people to clean their kitchen everyday. As a result, people fall sick very frequently.
You blame it on a multitude of things, including adulterated food, pollution, etc. But you forget one simple thing; charity begins at home, Banglanews24 reported.
Sickness from food can range from loose motions to severe food poisoning. If your kitchen is dirty, then you are bound to fall sick.
Here are some small things about your kitchen than can make you ill:
Open Containers: When we are in a hurry, we often leave the containers in our kitchen open. This gives all the kitchen pests free access to your food items, spices etc. Never leave a bottle or container open in your kitchen, if you don`t wish to suffer from food poisoning
Rotting Fruit/Vegetables: If some vegetables and fruits are rotting on your kitchen shelves, then you are inviting sickness into your home. When fruits and vegetables become stale, they attract flies and small insects. These insects will infect the other eatables in your kitchen.
Unwashed Food Stains: Whenever you finish cooking, you must wipe the kitchen sill and oven clean. Leaving the kitchen dirty is not a very healthy practice. Old food stains harden and are difficult to clean later. Moreover, these stains attract ants and cockroaches that might infect your food and cause sickness.
Uncovered Food: Just like you need to close all the lids of your containers, you need to cover the cooked food, too. Never leave food uncovered or else the kitchen pests will devour it.
Well-Ventilated Kitchen: In the kitchen, you are cooking on fire or other sources of heat. An immense amount of heat is generated in the kitchen making it warm like pressure cooker. If there is so much heat and moisture in the kitchen, it will favor the growth of microbes. Make sure that your kitchen is well ventilated. Switch on the exhaust fan or open a window when you cook.
Unused Vessels: Whenever you pick up a vessel that has been unused for a long period of time, you need to wash it again. When the vessels or glasses remain on the shelves, they accumulate dust and microbes. If you use them without washing, you may have food poisoning.
A dirty kitchen is a storehouse of infections. If you keep your kitchen spic and span, you can probably live a healthier life.

Doctors Biased Against Fat People

Doctors have similar levels of bias against people who are overweight as the general public, a new study says.
Additionally, physicians are likely not aware of their own biases, the study showed, Livescience.com reported.
“The most striking thing is that physicians are like others in society, and hold negative attitudes about weight,” said study researcher Janice Sabin, an assistant professor at the University of Washington.
“Our study did not look at behavior, so we don’t know whether or not this actually affects the patient-provider relationship,” she added.
Previous research identified weight biases in doctors, but the new study found that their level of bias is similar to that of the public.
Sabin and her colleagues included nearly 360,000 participants in their study, including 2,284 medical doctors.
The researchers used a computer test designed to measure both explicit biases, of which people are aware, and implicit biases, which people do not recognize they hold.
Results showed that female doctors were less biased against obese people than male doctors.
“Even though there was a slight difference, bias was strong among both men and women,” Sabin told MyHealthNewsDaily.

Russia Creates Website Blacklist

Russia’s telecommunications watchdog said it has blacklisted more than 180 websites for offensive content and will block access to the sites within Russia.
The Roskomnadzor agency, operating under a law approved by the Russian Parliament in July, is creating a register of blacklisted websites that aims to protect Russians from harmful content, RIA Novosti reported on Friday.
“Our experts are working hard and today more than 180 websites have been added to the register,” Roskomnadzor Chief Aleksandr Zharov said.
The agency said it is examining a further 6,000 complaints about offensive content by members of the public, who can submit screenshots and URLs of the offending sites.
Under the law, authorities can block access to sites containing child porn, drug-related material and details about how to commit suicide without needing to obtain a court order.
Rights groups have condemned the law and the register as an attempt to crack down on Internet freedom.

5,000 Saudi Girls Under 14 Married Off

More than 5,000 girls below the age of 14 are married off in Saudi Arabia, according to media reports.
“There have been 5,622 marriages where the bride is under the age of 14 in Saudi Arabia,” said Ali Abdul Rahman Al Roumi, a social services academic at Imam Mohammad bin Saud Islamic University.
Roumi added that specifying a legal age would not solve the problem, and may lead to “even bigger problems”, Gulfnews reported.
A number of families from “rural areas” have been marrying their daughters off to older, rich men, according to the Saudi-owned Al Hayat newspaper.
“We must solve this, by at least looking at the difference in age in cases where the bride is young, in which case it can be deceptive,” Roumi said, without specifying what period of time that figure represents.

Hepatitis Hits Refugees In South Sudan

An outbreak of hepatitis E has infected at least 1,050 Sudanese refugees in South Sudan, killing 26 and threatening to spread further among people still arriving in crowded camps, the United Nations said on Friday.
About 175,000 people have already fled to South Sudan to escape fighting in Sudan’s South Kordofan and Blue Nile states, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees said.
Thousands more are expected to cross in coming weeks after the rainy season ends, it added, Reuters reported.
“To date, 26 refugees have died in camps in Upper Nile (state),” UNHCR Spokesman Adrian Edwards told a news briefing in Geneva.
“The capacity to contain an outbreak of hepatitis E among the refugee population is increasingly jeopardized. The risks will grow if, as currently anticipated, we see fresh inflows of refugees from South Kordofan and Blue Nile states,” he said.
The death toll was up from 16 on September 13.
The virus, contracted and spread through contaminated food and water, damages the liver and can be fatal.
To counter the spread of the disease, UNHCR was struggling to provide 15 to 20 liters of safe drinking water per refugee daily and building enough latrines so that each unit is shared by no more than 20 refugees.
Edwards said the agency needs at least $20 million by the end of the year for its South Sudan operation, as only 40 percent of its appeal for $186 million has been received.

Nigeria Flood

Efforts to repair infrastructure and restore livelihoods destroyed by Nigeria’s recent flooding--the worst in five decades--require urgent funding and will take six months or longer.