How to Prepare Your Home for Loved Ones with Disability

Preparing a home for living with a disability is not as easy as you think. It requires various considerations to ensure mobility and safety. It is always important to consider the condition of your loved one before setting up your home. Experts recommend different tips for preparing your home for living with a disability. It is also worth investing a little bit on some features of your home such as lighting, doors, acoustic, floor and aesthetics. These features need specific refinement to make your home more accessible and friendly for people with disabilities. Below are a few ways to prepare … Continue reading

Signs You May Have Asbestos in Your House

If you’re buying a home or doing some makeover, you need to be careful about the presence of asbestos on the walls and other surfaces. Asbestos refers to a mixture of naturally-occurring minerals that are used in building materials. However, the use of this mineral is curtailed because exposure to it can lead to a variety of severe diseases. While your naked eye can’t see asbestos due to its colorless and odorless nature, there are ways to determine whether your home is contaminated with this toxic mineral. Keep reading this article to learn a few signs that can indicate the … Continue reading

Heavy Metals in Drinking Water – How to Avoid Drinking Them

Heavy metals naturally occur in our environment. Even so, they aren’t the kind of substances you’ll want in your body. Each of the common heavy metals produces different reactions within the body. In some cases, metals of this nature may contribute to heavy metal poisoning or certain diseases and illnesses. In this article, you will get to know about heavy metals in drinking water and how to avoid drinking them so keep reading. Signs You Have Issues with Heavy Metals It’s not always easy to tell if you have heavy metals in your drinking water. The symptoms related to heavy … Continue reading

كورونا – درس مطلوب فهم بعده البيئي

العالم يحتفل بيوم الأرض العالمي للعام 2020م في ظروف إستثنائية بالغة التعقيد تعيش واقعها الصعب البشرية بسبب جائحة الوباء كورونا وما رافقها من منعطفات خطيرة أكدت على مؤشرات العلاقة غير الموزونة مع النظام البيئي لكوكب الأرض وبعدها الكارثي على الأمن الصحي والبيئي للإنسانية، وبعثت المنعطفات الكارثية رسائل تدعو البشرية للإستفاقة من غفوتها وتبدأ في إعادة حساباتها ومراجعة مواقفها وعنادها التي كانت حتى مرحلة قريبة ترفض التراجع عن خططها الاقتصادية والصناعية المدمرة لكوكب الأرض. جائحة الوباء كورونا سجلت رسائل مهمة في منظومة الأمن الإنساني المرتبطة بمتطلبات الأمن البيئي والاقتصادي والغذائي للبشرية، وتلك الرسائل تؤكد على الضرورة الإستراتيجية في مراجعة مناهج الاستغلال … Continue reading

Impact of COVID-19 on Slums and Informal Settlements

An estimated one billion people across the globe live in slums or informal settlements. As much of the world is already braced and battling with coronavirus crisis, there are others perplexed as to how this one billion people can possibly deal with the current pandemic. The general recommendations to global population are to wash your hands with soap and water for 20 seconds, if sick to self-isolate, and when out and about to practice social distancing of keeping 2 meters away from other persons. Three simple directives or are they? How feasible are these recommendations for people living in informal … Continue reading

Is Lockdown a Viable Option to Control the Coronavirus in Africa?

The African nations have had plenty of recent infectious disease outbreaks such as HIV and Ebola to learn ways of tackling an epidemic. Therefore, they might be better equipped in mental fortitude to handle the current coronavirus crisis. One significant factor that the African people are aware of is that the communities must be actively involved in responding to the virus outbreak. Some nuggets of truth already learnt from previous experience with infectious diseases is that the outbreaks can be released differently in different communities and environments. This is in part due to the social conditions of the people concerned. … Continue reading

The Impact of School Closure on Marginalized Children

We are seeing schools close as a protective measure of reducing the potential exposure to the coronavirus across the globe. This is due to the fact that schools could be a major source of transmission from one child to another child within a classroom, from one classroom to the whole school, to within the families and the greater community. And all at a very speedy rate of transmission of Covid-19. The action of closing schools is an acceptable move in the more developed sectors of the global community as children tend to all have access to the internet, and in … Continue reading

نصائح لتحسين نوعية الهواء داخل المباني

يعتبر تلوث  الهواء الداخلي  واحد من أهم المخاطر البيئية على الصحة العامة في جميع أنحاء العالم ,نظرا لتزايد  عدد من الأمراض المرتبطة  بنوعية  الهواء  داخل  المبنى . وقد وجدت الدراسات أن تركيز الملوثات في الأماكن المغلقة الداخلية  أعلى بكثير مما هي عليه في البيئة الخارجية ، تتراوح  الزيادة  من  مرتين إلي خمس مرات ، وأحيانا مائة مرة أعلى من مستوي  الملوثات في الهواءالطلق. وبما  ان معظم الناس يقضون  80٪ إلى 90٪ من حياتهم في الأماكن المغلقة ، فان  نوعية الهواء الداخلي له اأثر جوهري على الصحة العامة. انخفاض جودة الهواء في الأماكن المغلقة يمكن أن يؤثرعلى نوعية الحيا ة  لشاغل … Continue reading

Water Pollution Worries in the Developing World

Water pollution has become a major concern worldwide, especially in developing countries where around 3.2 million children die each year as a result of unsafe drinking water and poor sanitation. Access to adequate wastewater treatment facilities in the developing countries is very limited. For example, only 209 of India’s 3,119 towns and cities—less than one in ten—have even partial sewage systems and treatment facilities. As a result water bodies in developing nations are often used as open sewers for human waste products and garbage, which is evident at the Ganges River in India which receives over 1.3 billion liters of domestic waste, … Continue reading

فيروس كورونا: فرصة لإعادة النظر

لطالما اعتقدتُ أنّ ما من شيءٍ يحدثُ دون أن يحمل في طياته رسالة ما، إما أن تكون عامة لفئات كثيرة،  أو خاصة لأشخاصٍ معنيين بها، لعقودٍ طويلةٍ بقي الإنسانُ يؤدّي أعماله ومهامه بكفاءةٍ عالية، لكن هل فعلًا كان يبلي بلاءً حسنا في نهاية المطاف؟ بالرجوعِ للأثرِ البيئيّ لمختلفِ الممارسات التنمويّة في مختلفِ القطاعات نجدُ انتهاكًا كبيرًا للبيئة بوتيرة متسارعة، وعلى مر السنوات تكدّست كميات كبيرة من الملوّثات في بيئاتنا بكل مكوناتها، إضافة إلى استمرارنا غير المبرر في ظلّ هذا التطور الهائل الذي وصلنا إليه نكون قد وقّعنا وثيقة دمار كوكبنا بشكلٍ علنيّ وفي وقتٍ قريب جدًّا خاصة بعد التغيّر المناخيّ … Continue reading

Post-Coronavirus World: Human Development Re-defined

The coronavirus pandemic has rejuvenated human traits and values from various angles. Self-care, life balance, personal development, helping others, and considering the environment are just a few of many values and principles that are boiling down these days. Let’s take environmental values as an example with the several statements issued lately about the potential impact of COVID-19 on some of the hot green issues of today, Climate Change and Biodiversity. A few questions come to mind – though I don’t claim to know the answers for: is COVID-19 becoming the nature’s savior from air pollution and GHG emissions? Have we … Continue reading

Bottled Water vs Tap Water: Environmental, Economic and Health Implications

Abstract Global bottled water consumption has increased significantly over the last two decades, exceeding 350 billion liters annually. Bottled water is often perceived as safer and of higher quality than municipal tap water. However, recent scientific research challenges this perception. Studies have revealed the widespread presence of microplastics and nanoplastics in bottled water, while life-cycle analyses demonstrate that bottled water production generates substantially higher carbon emissions compared with tap water distribution systems. This study provides a comprehensive comparison of bottled water and tap water in terms of water quality, environmental impact, and economic cost. The analysis suggests that under properly … Continue reading