Nowadays, populations throughout the world have grown rapidly, rural areas are becoming less populated and urban centers are rampant, reflecting constraints on the availability of resources to meet their needs. Territories that have environmental problems are more complex than that presented in recent years. In this way, urban growth represents a negative aspect for sustainability, but technology emerges as an important instrument that contributes to the sustainable development of cities. One can see this in the documentary by FIE which focuses on Sustainability in London. They clearly explain the meaning of sustainability, which I thought I knew what it meant until now. I really thought sustainability was all about recycling and being eco-friendly. This documentary gives us a clear insight on the problems London is facing right now, how they are working on a more sustainable environment, and presenting future alternatives/projects that might just make the world as a whole a more sustainable place.
Can you actually get potable water from the sewage sludge? Yes! If I heard this question I would say no right away, but impressively two engineers and Bill Gates managed to create a machine called the Janicki Omniprocessor. This machine extracts the water from the wastewater through a drying process. Then the dry waste is burned to generate steam and this is the one that produces the electric energy. Meanwhile, the water extracted during the drying process is filtered and cleaned to make it safe to drink. This machine also produces a little bit of ash, which I found pretty interesting. This would be a great relief for a lot of countries, that don’t have access to pure/potable water. Not only would it help countries who don’t have access to drinkable water, but it would also “reinvent the sewage treatment plant”, since “Today, in many places without modern sewage systems, truckers take the waste from latrines and dump it into the nearest river or the ocean—or at a treatment facility that doesn’t actually treat the sewage” (Gates). Sadly, “It might be many years before the processor is being used widely” (Gates), but once this is a worldwide machine in a lot of countries, this will be an advantage for all of us and the environment.
Another point of the documentary that really caught my attention was how here in London they try to create a community who supports sustainability. Coming from a place where sustainability awareness and recycling are still things that need to be developed, this was something that really caught my attention. I like how in the documentary they show different ways in which they encourage people to avoid polluting the environment. Thanks to this part of the documentary, I figured out that here in London they are aware of throwing the trash away because personally I feel like here they lack trashcans in some parts of the city. I researched more on different things that are hosted here in London to promote sustainability, and according to the website Londonist, a couple of months ago, they hosted a ‘Green’ Fair, which consisted of “live music and DJs, theatre, dance and an 80 piece wind orchestra (that’s wind instruments, not powered by. If breath doesn’t count as wind). There’ll be talks and workshops on sustainable living and green issues like biofuels, and you can find out what permaculture is. There are events for kids and cyclists plus lots of shopping opportunities” (Holdsworth). Not only that, but it is important to note that the festival “is powered by renewable energy and they give away trees to offset carbon generated by delivering infrastructure to the site” (Holdsworth).
It was impressive to see that for the London olympics of 2012, the stadiums were made thinking about sustainability. I did not know that until I watched this documentary. It is interesting to see that this was taken into consideration, since I remember that for the olympics of 2008 in Beijing, there was a lot of controversy because of the massive amounts of air pollution there. Now, in the documentary they talk mostly about how the Velodrome was made considering the environment/sustainability. I was really curious as to what some of the other stadiums had that made them more eco-friendly. For example, the Basketball arena was built taken into consideration, that if the stadium would not be used for anything after the Olympics, some parts would be reused or recycled. Another example is the Aquatic Centre. Its pools contained “10 million litres of water” (Smith), but they made sure that “Low-flow showers and hand basin taps, and low-flush toilets” (Smith) were installed in this stadium to save water.
Overall, this was a pretty good documentary, it was informative, yet entertaining. I would definitely recommend this to other people, especially people back home, in Panama. As I already mentioned, back home, we don’t really have much of a background on what sustainability is and we don’t promote a lot both sustainability and recycling. There is still a lot to learn, and this would be a good way to educate people. This also made me realize that sometimes what we might think that some things are not useful anymore or trash, but actually these can be used in efficient ways. As the old saying says “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure” (Gates).