Shirley Zindler, of Sebastopol, California, lifts up the jowls of Martha, a Neapolitan mastiff, during the World's Ugliest Dog Contest at the Sonoma-Marin Fair on Friday in Petaluma, California. Photo: Eric Risberg / Associated Press
PETALUMA, California — A 125-pound gentle giant named Martha on Friday night was crowned the winner of the 29th annual World’s Ugliest Dog Contest.
The gassy Neapolitan Mastiff was a favorite of the Northern California crowd from the start, often plopping down on her side on stage with her droopy face spread across the ground when she was supposed to be showing off.
She was rescued when she was nearly blind, but after several surgeries can see again, according to her handler Shirley Zindler.
She lumbered away with USD$1,500 (50,000 baht), a flashy trophy and a trip to New York for media appearances, all things she could hardly care less about.
She beat out 13 other dogs, most of them the kind of older, smaller dogs who dominate the competition.
Moe, a 16-year-old Brussels Griffon-pug mix who was the oldest in the competition, came in second. He had lost his hearing and sight but his sense of smell is strong and he was enjoying all the smells at the Sonoma-Marin Fair where the contest is held, including funnel cakes and other fried goodies.
Chase, a 14-year-old Chinese Crested-Harke mix, came in third.
Many of the contestants were adopted. Monkey, a 6-year-old Brussels Griffon, and Icky, an 8-year-old unknown breed, were both rescued from the homes of hoarders.
These dogs — some with acne, others with tongues permanently sticking out — are used to getting called ugly. But for their owners, it was love at first sight.
“He’s my sexy boy,” Vicky Adler, of Davis, California, said of her 8-year-old Chinese Crested named Zoomer.
The contestants were judged on first impressions, unusual attributes, personality and audience reaction.
Martha, a Neapolitan mastiff, walks down the red carpet during the World’s Ugliest Dog Contest at the Sonoma-Marin Fair on Friday in Petaluma, Calif. Martha, of Sebastopol, Calif., was the winner of the event. Photo: Eric Risberg / APMartha, a Neapolitan mastiff, competes while being escorted by Shirley Zindler in the World’s Ugliest Dog Contest at the Sonoma-Marin Fair on Friday in Petaluma, Calif. Martha was named the winner of the contest. Photo: Eric Risberg / AP
Traffic moves past the 73-story, 335.3-meter Wilshire Grand Center, on Thursday in Los Angeles. Photo: Jae C. Hong / Associated Press
LOS ANGELES — The tallest building west of the Mississippi River opened its doors on Friday in once-stodgy downtown Los Angeles, which is sprouting a crop of new skyscrapers.
Here are some things to know about the Wilshire Grand Center:
How Tall is Tall?
The 73-story building has a huge spire that brings its height to 335 meters), topping the nearby U.S. Bank Tower by more than 80 feet. The Bank Tower had held the height record since 1989.
Critics might argue that a spire rising nearly 200 feet above the top of the building should not count, but it meets the criteria of the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, which lists the world’s tallest buildings based on the “architectural top of the building.” A 2-foot lightning rod at the very top, however, doesn’t count.
The skyscraper is still dwarfed by buildings on the East Coast and overseas. In the United States, One World Trade Center is 1,776 feet tall, making it the sixth-largest completed building in the world. The tallest building, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, rises 2,717 feet, or more than a half-mile high.
No Flattop, Please
The tower features a 100-foot-tall, sail-shaped crown built of glass and steel. It is the first modern high-rise in Los Angeles without a flat roof. Since 1974, high-rise buildings had to have helicopter pads in case of fires or other emergencies. The Wilshire Center obtained Fire Department permission to use other safety features, including a special landing platform and a dedicated elevator for firefighters. The city ended the flat-roof requirement in 2015.
Lights, Action, Entertainment
The building’s spine and sail have programmable LEDs that can provide colorful illumination and visuals. In a test last month, the LEDs glowed and flowed with rainbow colors.
The tower also includes an 889-room InterContinental hotel where rooms will go for about USD$400 (13,600 baht) a night; some 32,516sqm of office space; a shopping mall and an observation deck.
Restaurants range from the open-air, rooftop Spire 73 offering “chic fire pits” and signature cocktails to La Boucherie, with stratospheric steak prices and a wine list with 1,200 selections.
Construction
The building, located in the Financial District, cost about $1.2 billion to build. Construction began in 2014.
It reached a milestone that year when 16,208 cubic meters of concrete, weighing 37 million kilograms, were poured over a span of 18 hours to create the foundation. That broke the Guinness World Record for a continuous pour set during the 1999 construction of The Venetian hotel and casino in Las Vegas.
The record was eclipsed again this April when a foundation for a mall was poured in the United Arab Emirates.
Construction work on the tower was shut down for two days last year when an electrician killed himself by jumping from the 53rd floor.
The tower includes a massive, stabilizing central core and braces designed to act as shock absorbers to withstand gusty Santa Ana winds and earthquakes. Southern California has dozens of faults, and the building is designed to withstand about a magnitude-7.5 temblor.
Jobs, Jobs, Jobs
The building construction provided about 11,000 jobs. Los Angeles County Supervisor Hilda Solis says the tower and its many tenants will provide about 1,750 permanent jobs and the tourism and business it may bring could provide another 122,000 jobs indirectly.
Another Brick in the Sprawl
The Wilshire Grand Center is part of a construction boom in the resurgent downtown area that for decades emptied out at night as commuters headed for the suburbs.
The opening of the Staples Center arena in 1999 helped anchor redevelopment projects in the surrounding area. The Walt Disney Concert Hall, an internationally known architectural landmark designed by Frank Gehry, opened in 2003.
Vacant office buildings have become pricey lofts and apartments, a new art museum opened and with changes to density and zoning laws, plans are moving ahead to create gigantic complexes of residences, hotels and shopping districts. About 150 building projects are in the works, including some 20 skyscrapers of 35 stories or more.
The site of a landslide Saturday in China's Sichuan province. Photo: Maoxian.gov.cn
BEIJING — Around 100 people are feared buried by a landslide that crashed into their homes in southwestern China early Saturday, a county government said.
The landslide from a mountain fell onto the village of Xinmo at about 6 a.m., burying some 40 homes, the government of Mao county in Sichuan province said. The landslide blocked a 2 kilometer (1.24 mile)-section of a river.
Search and rescue efforts were underway. State broadcaster CCTV said more than 400 rescuers, including police, are involved.
Photos posted on the site showed piles of rubble and large rocks while emergency responders helped a woman by the road.
Ekachai Hongkangwan in an undated photo. Photo: Ekachai Hongkangwan
BANGKOK — A political activist was taken into military custody Saturday morning for attempting to place a replica of the plaque commemorating the June 24, 1932, revolt at the spot where the original mysteriously disappeared from earlier this year.
Ekachai Hongkangwan, a 42-year-old activist working with political prisoners and lese majeste detainees, contacted a reporter at 8:48am to say he had been taken away by half a dozen police inside a nondescript van and was about to enter the 11th Military Circle in Bangkok, where opponents of the military regime are held in a special prison on the army base.
Ekachai said he brought a life-size bronze replica of the plaque which sat undisturbed for decades until it was secretly removed and replaced in April with another bearing a royalist message. He said he planned to place the replica atop the new plaque.
“I’m feel really fed up. They don’t try to look for the old plaque and instead are protecting the new one. This is nonsense,” said Ekachai on the phone, sounding more frustrated than fearful.
Ekachai, himself a former lese majeste convict imprisoned nearly three years, said he had planned the move for some time, and someone donated him the life-size replica of the original plaque.
Ekachai said he arrived at the Royal Plaza where the original plaque was removed with the replica plaque and 10 kilograms of cement in a metal paint bucket but was spotted and apprehended by police while he was approaching the spot.
Asked whether he expected to be arrested, Ekachai said he thought so.
“I thought so too. They don’t search for the old plaque, and we don’t know who owns the new one,” he said, shortly before the phone conversation ended.
Junta spokesman Col. Winthai Suvari wasn’t immediately available for comment.
Soldiers hand out out the People's Party Declaration to a crowd of civilians in Bangkok on June 24, 1932.
Nearly every nation that went through a revolution has a founding manifesto. For the United States, it’s the Declaration of Independence. For France, it’s the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.
For Thailand, it might have been the leaflets handed out to curious onlookers on Bangkok streets in the morning of June 24, 1932, by the revolutionaries who brought down the absolute monarchy that day and replaced it with parliamentary democracy. Filled with fiery condemnations of the royal government, it even accused it of leaching the people’s blood.
“Those of royal blood do nothing, just go on sucking blood,” part of the statement reads. “Whatever money they have they deposit overseas and prepare to flee leaving the people hungry while the country decays. All this is certainly evil.”
But the statement, known as the People’s Party Declaration, never obtained the same regard and soon faded into obscurity, similar to so many other legacies of the revolution itself. This year, those legacies are more exposed than ever.
In April, the plaque marking the spot where the coup makers announced the end of the king’s direct rule went missing – a disappearance the media are discouraged from investigating. Because of the ever-harsher interpretation and enforcement of the royal defamation law, reading the People’s Party declaration aloud in public today seems unimaginable.
But it remains part of the historical record, and to mark the 85th anniversary of the revolution, the usual public observance of which has been banned, Khaosod English is publishing an English translation of the declaration in full.
Note: The translation is lifted from historian Chris Baker’s book “Pridi by Pridi,” with later improvements added by linguist Junya Lek Yimprasert.
All the people,
When this king succeeded his elder brother, people at first hoped that his government would bring peace and security, but matters have not turned out as they hoped. The king maintains his power above the law as before. He appoints court relatives and toadies without merit or knowledge to important positions, without listening to the voice of the people. He allows officials to use the power of their office dishonestly, to take bribes in public construction and procurement, and seek profit from changes in the prices of money, which squanders the wealth of the country. He elevates those of royal blood to have more privileged rights than the people. He governs without principle. The country’s affairs are left to the mercy of fate, as can be seen from the depression of the economy and the hardships of making a living – something the people know all about already.
The government of the king above the law is unable to bring about recovery. This inability to find solutions is because the government of the king has not governed the country for the people, as other governments have done. The government of the king has treated the people as slaves (or as they called them, peasants and serfs), as animals not as human beings. Therefore, instead of helping the people, it plants rice on the backs of the people. It can be seen that from the taxes that are squeezed from the people that the King is deducting many million of Baht per year for his own expenses, while the people must sweat blood in order to find just a little money. At the time for paying government tax or personal tax, if they have no money the government seizes their property or forces them into public works, while those of royal blood are sleeping and eating happily. No country in the world gave its royalty so much money as this, except the Tsar and the German Kaiser, whose nations have already overthrown their thrones.
The King’s government has governed by deceiving and not being straightforward with the people. For example, by saying the King’s government would improve livelihood in this way and that, but time has passed, people have waited, and nothing has happened, nothing has been done seriously. Furthermore the people who should be shown gratitude for paying the taxes that royalty eats have been told they cannot yet have a voice in politics because they are ignorant. Such words from government are unacceptable. If the people are ignorant, the King is ignorant too, as we are all from the same nation. That people do not know what royalty knows is because royalty blocks them from full education in fear that if the people have education they will know the evil of royalty and not allow them to plant rice on their backs.
Let all people know that our country belongs to the people – not to the king, as has been deceitfully claimed. It was the ancestors of the people who returned the independence of
the country from the hands of the enemy. Those of royal blood just reap where they have not sown and sweep up wealth and property worth many hundred millions. Where did all these monies come from? From the method of farming rice on the backs of the people.
The country is facing hardship. Farmers and soldier’s parents have to give up their paddy fields because cultivating brings no benefit. The government does not help. Everywhere the government lays off workers. Students who have completed their studies and soldiers released from the reserves have no employment, and go hungry according to fate. These things are the result of the government of the king above the law that oppresses minor civil servants, ordinary soldiers and clerks. They are not given pensions when discharged from service. In truth the monies that have been amassed by the government should used to run the country by providing work. This would be a fitting way to pay back the people who have been paying taxes for a long time to make royalty rich. But those of royal blood do nothing, just go on sucking blood. Whatever money they have they deposit overseas and prepare to flee leaving the people hungry while the country decays. All this is certainly evil.
Therefore the people, government officials, soldiers, and citizens who know about these evil actions of the government have joined together to establish the People’s Party and have already seized power from the government of the king. The People’s Party sees that to correct this evil it must establish government by assembly, so that many minds can debate and contribute, which is better than just one mind. As for the Head of State of the country, the People’s Party has no wish to snatch the throne. Hence it invites this king to retain the position. But he must be under the law of the constitution for governing the country, and cannot do anything independently without the approval of the assembly of people’s representatives.
The People’s Party has already informed the king of this view and at the present time is waiting for a response. If the king replies with a refusal or does not reply within the time set, for the selfish reason that his power will be reduced, it will be regarded as treason to the nation, and it will be necessary for the country to have a republican form of government, that is, the Head of State will be an ordinary person appointed by Parliament to hold the position for a fixed term. By this method the people can hope to be looked after in the best way, everyone will have employment because our country is a country of natural abundance. When we have seized the money which those of royal blood have amassed from planting rice on the backs of the people, and use these many hundreds of millions for nurturing the country, the country will certainly flourish. The People’s Party will govern and implement projects based on knowledge, not act like a blind man as the government of the king above the law has done. The People’s Party will:
1. maintain securely the independence of the country in all forms including political, judicial, and economic etc.;
2. maintain public safety within the country and greatly reduce crime;
3. improve the economic well-being of the people by the new government finding employment for all, and drawing up a national economic plan, not leaving the people to go hungry;
4. provide the people with equal rights (so that those of royal blood do not have more rights than the people as at present);
5. provide the people with liberty and freedom, as far as this does not conflict with the above four principles;
6. provide the people with full education.
All the people should be ready to help the People’s Party successfully to carry out its work which will be for eternity. The People’s Party asks everyone who did not participate in seizing power from the government of the king above the law to remain peaceful and keep working for their living. Do not do anything to obstruct the People’s Party. By doing thus, the people will help the country, the people, and their own children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. The country will have complete independence. People will have safety. Everyone must have employment and need not starve. Everyone will have equal rights and freedom from being peasants, serfs and slaves of royalty. The time has ended when those of royal blood can plant rice on the backs of the people. The things which everyone desires, the greatest happiness and progress which can be called si-ariya,
will arise for everyone.
BANGKOK — After the junta chief exempted the 179 billion baht, high-speed railway project from 10 laws and orders last week, questions have flown over who will be held accountable if something goes wrong.
A Chulalongkorn University law lecturer on Thursday gave a simple answer: “It depends on the boldness of the courts.”
“If we use the same standard as in the rice subsidy case, then when there are losses, those who approved it will have to take responsibility,” Narongdech Srukhosit said, comparing the project to the subsidy former Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra has been ordered to pay billions of baht to cover its losses.
Narongdech’s comments came Thursday at a panel discussion on the campus of Chulalongkorn University which touched on all aspects of the controversial project, from its legal issues and economic viability to China’s sharing of knowledge and technology.
One point of discussion was the order issued last weekunder Article 44, the absolute junta’s power clause preserved in the newly ratified constitution. The order gave legal cover to violating laws and regulations that had prevented the project, a high-speed rail line connecting Bangkok and Korat, from moving forward.
Minister Akhom Termpittayapaisit, at left, sits beside Wang Xiaotao, vice-chairman of the Chinese National Development and Reform Commission. Photo: Logisticnews / Facebook
Narongdech said the legal protection granted by the junta order closed all means of review, as the courts deemed it legitimate and constitutional – and refused to review numerous complaints filed challenging it.
Though the military government said it was just a procedural means to expedite the process by exempting the project from obligatory bidding and procurement processes, the law expert said its vague language has broader implications.
“They should have written specifically which articles they would like [the project] exempted from,” he said during a Thursday panel discussion. “What they wrote will exempt it from the whole inspection process.”
One of the rationales provided by the military government is that extralegal authority is needed to indemnify Thai officials from the legal consequences so they can take necessary actions to get the stalled project moving.
But, Narongdech contended, it had more to do with protecting the regime’s Chinese partners from legal accountability and only shielded Thai authorities from prosecution in matters of bidding and procurement.
“If the Thai staff is found to be corrupt in other steps, they can still face charges,” he said.
The government has argued that despite exempting the project from 10 laws and regs – including some junta orders – it also ordered that the project comply with the “Integrity Pact,” a set of principles from Transparency International.
Narongdech said that was an empty gesture, given that all the laws that would make punishment possible were voided by Prayuth’s use of Article 44.
Beyond the legal issues, Thursday’s panel included an array of experts dissecting the deal.
A university economics professor raised concerns about the transfer of technology and expertise, as well as the rail line’s actual financial benefits.
Thai junta chairman and Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing, 9 November 2014
Economist Nuannoi Treerat said if the government does not think about the bigger picture of the national transport system and invests solely in one piece, it is unlikely to succeed.
For example, Nuannoi said she had yet to see real estimates of what fares would be and how they could compete with those of low-cost airlines.
She also asked: Why stop at Korat?
“Korat is just the gateway. How do people commute after they get there?” she said. “If they have to continue on another transportation system, they would probably just have taken the highway from the start.”
Engineering lecturer Sompong Sirisoponsilp said the government should have a specific plan for transferring the expertise needed to maintain this system and future ones.
A Chinese studies lecturer with a skeptical view of Thailand’s partner in the deal warned that the government must assure its contracts are well-written and include transfer of know-how.
“We have come this far,” Vorasak Mahatdhanobol said. “So I only wish the government see through China.”
Anti-coup activists criticize National Human Rights Commission at a Dec. 12, 2014, awards ceremony.
BANGKOK — All six members of the National Human Rights Commission will likely be removed by the interim legislature in a move proponents say will strengthen the body and critics worry will see them replaced with junta-cozy appointees.
The Constitution Drafting Committee has submitted a bill for consideration by the National Legislative Assembly that would remove all commission members. While the interim legislature is evaluating the measure, it has already garnered mixed reactions.
Porpenh Khongkachonkiet, a prominent human rights activist and director of a human rights advocacy group focused on the Deep South, said removing the existing commissioners before their terms end in 2022 does not guarantee a more independent body, which has been criticized as flaccid in defending civil rights.
“Change is needed, but not through ‘set zero,’” said Porpen of the Cross Cultural Foundation, using a Thai neologism referring to the recent reconstitution of the Election Commission.
The new members would be nominated by a 10-person selection committee then approved by the the junta-appointed legislature if elections have not yet been held. If the replacements come after promised elections, the junta-selected senate would confirm their appointments.
It’s being presented as a fresh start and political reset in the same way dissolving the Election Commission earlier this month. The idea originated in the junta-appointed Constitution Drafting Committee. Their rationale was that the current commission members were not diverse enough and not as capable, as the organization was downgraded at the international level in January 2016 by the Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions.
The National Human Rights Commission is a nominally independent body established in 2001 nearly a decade after at least 52 people were killed in 1992’s Black May popular uprising against the military regime in power at the time. It’s status was downgraded last year by the international accreditation body from “A” to “B.”
Charter commission spokesman Norachit Sinhaseni said the process and committee that put in place the current membership were not “as varied as it should be under the Paris Principles,” which set the standards for human rights commissions.
Norachit said the reset is about setting higher standards and qualifications for independent bodies, including the rights commission. He acknowledged that they have been criticized for going too far “to the point where we have been ridiculed that the qualifications are too high.”
Those standards include, he said, a requirement that candidates must have resigned from active membership in a political party for a 10 years to qualify for the job.
Other criteria include having at least a decade of experience working in the human rights field and holding a university degree.
As to who will nominate new members, the selection committee will consist of three representatives from human rights organizations and one apiece from a public health organization, the Lawyers Council and a media association. The speaker of the House of Representatives and presidents of the Supreme and Supreme Administrative courts will also sit on the selection committee. Those nine members will appoint a human rights scholar to fill the 10th seat.
Asked how members selected by junta appointees could be trusted to act impartially and independently, Norachit suggested there would be accountability, though none of those involved in appointing members are publicly elected.
“Then we’re saying that those bodies responsible for selecting will be held responsible by the public,” he said.
The spokesman added that there’s his body of junta-appointed charter drafters could do about criticism their proposal will be decided by other junta appointees, free of public accountability.
“I don’t think we can do anything about that,” he said.
Higher Standards Questioned
On Tuesday, 157 human rights groups, activists and academics issued a joint letter to the charter commission and legislature citing perceived flaws in the bill.
It pointed out that the draft includes no guarantees on gender parity and called for removing health care and public health representatives from the selection committee, saying they are not directly relevant to the commission’s mission.
The group also stressed that it’s not the commission’s duty to defend Thailand’s human rights record in the international arena. Article 44 of the draft law states that the commission must take action “without delay” to defend Thailand if “there exists incorrect or unfair” information about the human rights situation in the kingdom.
Willing to Vacate But Uncertain About Future
Two of the current six commissioners said they are willing to leave their posts if the assembly passes the bill.
Tuanjai Deetes, a commissioner in charge of ethnic rights, said she’s ready to abide by any decision.
“If the rules are changed, I will embrace it,” said Tuanjai, who was appointed in November 2015. “It’s okay for me personally. I can continue to work [in the field] even without the position.”
Tuanjai does have her concerns. She cited Article 24, which bars commissioners from accepting free air travel, accommodation or a per diem from foreign states or foreign NGOs as a hindrance to occupational development for commission members. Tuanjai said the restriction would prevent them from accepting UN invitations to attend workshops and training, which would undermine the resource-limited commission. She said the draft bill also stipulates that subcommittees could only be set up when truly necessary, which may reduce expert participation and consultation made possible by the present array of subcommittees.
Angkhana Neelapaijit, the commissioner in charge of civil and political rights, was likewise critical of some provisions but ready to accept the assembly’s decision.
Angkha said if the selection process happens before elections are held and new members are approved by the junta-appointed assembly, it could lead to doubts about their independence.
“If they want to be impartial, they should wait until after elections,” she said.
A wastewater treatment plant on Friday at a CP-owned meat processing plant in Bangkok’s Bang Na district.
BANGKOK — A university veterinary intern, plant worker and three security guards died Friday morning after falling into a wastewater treatment pond at a food processing plant belonging to the nation’s largest corporate conglomerate.
The bodies of three men and two women were pulled out of the treatment pond at about 11am. The incident began after Pantika Tasuwan, the Chulalongkorn University intern, fell into the pond and the other four attempted a rescue.
The employee and three security guards leaped into the pond but were overwhelmed by hydrogen sulfide and suffocated to death, Lt. Col. Phumwattana Ritthong of Bang Na police said.
The four would-be rescuers were identified as Pornchai Boonban, Charnchai Pantunakin, Lakchanok Saentaweesuk and Chatri Srisannakorn.
The Bang Na plant is owned by Charoen Pokphand Foods, a subsidiary of CP Group.
Four were pronounced dead on the scene while a fifth later died at the Bang Na 1 Hospital.
By Martin Sturzenegger (Translation by Rosemarie Graffagnini)
Tages-Anzeiger, Switzerland
Zurich — If the banana trees at Zoo Zurich are particularly lush, it’s thanks to a fertiliser with an unusual ingredient: human waste. In the spring of 2016, zoo employees cleared a bamboo grove in Zurich’s Masaola Rainforest to plant the trees. Within a few months the saplings had reached an impressive height and produced a cornucopia of yellow fruit. “We were really surprised how fast the plants put down roots,” says Martin Bauert, curator of the tropical area of Zoo Zurich.
The reason for this fast growth has a name – terra preta – which is Portuguese for black soil. It is a particularly fertile substrate created from compost, charcoal (biochar) and human faeces.
The zoo pioneered its use some 18 months ago and, as Bauert says, “the ground vegetation has hugely improved”. In the future, the entire artificial rainforest is to be based on terra preta. And soon the black soil will also fertilise the zoo’s elephant park. The animals will then roam grounds that contain human excrements. Not that they will take exception to it – terra preta smells anything but vile.
Torsten Much (left, blue hoodie) and Marc Haueter (right, black hoodie, beard) Greenport in Kreuzlingen, Switzerland
Tobias Müller knows this first-hand. In 2015, the carpenter, inventor, and jack of all trades joined forces with his friends Marc Haueter, Torsten Much, and Anja Lippuner to establish Greenport, the company that provides Zoo Zurich with the fertile substrate. “We wanted to break some taboos with our products,” Müller explains. It’s a totally natural cycle, he says. Faeces turn to soil and urine to fertiliser, which in turn provide the basis for producing food.
To obtain the raw material, the start-up team developed a mobile dry toilet, the Greenport. Müller, 38, leads the way through the company warehouse, an old barn in Birmensdorf near Zurich. Toilets are crowding the place. They come in a variety of models, from a single cabin to a dual-size urinal to a wheelchair-accessible version. They are rented out to open-air concerts, markets, food fairs, or weddings.
Handmade from fir logs, the toilets exude a certain rustic cosiness, which the cheaper plastic models of the competition are lacking. “We wanted to create a privy with a homely feel to it – a toilet with charm.”
The human waste drops into a container, which Team Müller carts to a pyrolysis facility. Pyrolysis is the chemical decomposition of organic materials through the application of heat. The nutrient-rich matter is exposed to temperatures of up to 800 degrees Celsius. This destroys toxic germs, viruses and hormones but leaves nutrients, trace elements and water intact. The process yields charcoal (biochar) with a high storage capacity, which extracts toxic substances from the soil and returns water or carbon dioxide to it. The biochar is then supplemented with compost and soil organisms to obtain the terra preta.
“We take human waste back to where it belongs – nature,” Tobias Müller says. Greenport practises in miniature what science has tried to work out on a much grander scale: how to recover valuable substances from sludge. The human race needs to find a way to make bodily waste more productive, Müller says.
In Switzerland alone, sewage treatment generates 200,000 tonnes of sludge each year. Sludge used to be utilised by farmers to fertilise their soils. But this meant that heavy metals such as lead or zinc, traces of detergents and medical drugs as well as germs and viruses made it into agrarian food production. Which is why the Federal Office for the Environment (BAFU) intervened in 2006. Now the potentially valuable raw material is incinerated.
According to a BAFU study, 6,000 tonnes of phosphorus – a high-grade nutrient for the production of fertilisers – could be recovered each year from sludge and sludge ash. However, the legal basis for recycling the sludge in large quantities does not exist so far. Müller calls this “an ecological lunacy”.
For the moment, the annual production of terra preta is limited to 200 cubic metres, though Müller’s start-up may well show a way for production on an industrial scale. One and a half years after Greenport’s foundation, initial investments into production have been amortized, and Müller envisages the creation of a partner-network-system with branches across Switzerland. “Rented toilets are a market of billions. If we can have a small part of it, we’re satisfied”, he says.
The idea for Greenport was born seven years ago, when Müller bought a piece of land that had lost its topsoil – dead land, in other words. “I wanted to regenerate it within a reasonable time frame.” Müller did some internet research and came upon a dark, fertile soil that once upon a time had secured the livelihoods of the indigenous peoples in the Amazon basin: terra preta de índio – Indian black soil. A mixture of charcoal, compost, bones, fish bones, and human faeces. Müller became inspired and began experimenting. “We are profiting from know-how that had been built across thousands of years but later was lost.”
However, the sustainability cycle was still incomplete– what to do with the urine? The answer was found last year, at the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (Eawag) in Dübendorf, an offshoot of ETH Zurich. The institute launched a product called Aurin, a urine-based fertiliser, in February 2016. Greenport now provides the liquid raw material and Eawag takes care of the biological process. Ten litres of urine yield about 0.5 litres of high-quality plant fertiliser. “It was the one piece of the jigsaw puzzle that was still missing,” Tobias Müller says. And it helped create what is presumably the world’s most environmentally-friendly privy.
SAN FRANCISCO, California — Sisters Morgan and Caitria O’Neill never expected a tornado would hit their small hometown in Massachusetts — or that when it did, recovering from the disaster would change their lives.
On June 1, 2011, a pair of twisters ripped across western portions of the state, shocking residents with their suddenness and violence, and causing the state’s first tornado-related deaths in 16 years.
One of the tornadoes, categorized as a huge EF3 with winds estimated at 160 mph, roared through the O’Neills’ hometown of Monson, Mass., seriously damaging their house. Almost immediately, the devastation threw both Morgan, then 24, and Caitria, then 22, into the role of disaster recovery experts.
“We just started answering questions and making decisions, because someone, anyone, had to,” Morgan said. “On June 1, we weren’t disaster experts, but on June 3 of that year, we started faking it.” In those frantic first few days, “we built our recovery machine,” she said.
What began as a way to help their community get back on its feet after a disaster six years ago evolved into recovers.org, a free, easy-to-use “recovery-in-a-box” website to help other cities and towns quickly organize disaster relief.
It can be rolled out in minutes, helping local relief organizers turn interest in helping into organized action, said Chris Kuryak, the project’s chief operating officer. “It’s something that could be deployed after every disaster by any local organizer,” he said.
The sisters designed the website to help local folks manage volunteers and donations, track data about the disaster, and apply for grants and request aid through official channels such as FEMA, the Salvation Army or Red Cross.
Photo: Recovers / Facebook
It also links volunteers with victims, allowing both groups to alert the other of what’s needed and their ability to help.
But the site isn’t just for the locals: Often after a disaster, people around the nation and the world, moved by photos and news stories, seek to help but don’t know how. Recovers.org lets people everywhere know what’s needed most and how best to donate it.
What is key, the O’Neill sisters say, is to capture public attention immediately after the disaster, before attention turns to another event. After a natural disaster, there’s only a tiny window before the world turns its sympathy (and donations) elsewhere — so it’s important to be prepared for every aspect of recovery, they say.
“After a disaster, there’s a flood of goodwill,” Kuryak said. “There are people who want to donate and people who want to volunteer.”
Victims have seven days to capture 50% of the web searches about a disaster, according to Google Trends, said Caitria, now 28 and a researcher at Facebook. Recovers.org helps local populations respond immediately from disasters while waiting for government and other non-profit organizations to mobilize.
Some communities deploy the site as a preparation tool, but most places find the site after disaster strikes, Kuryak said.
Recovers employees
The organization now hosts more than 200 recovers sites for communities around the world. Each website has all the functions needed in one place — from hot shower locations to hot meals, sign ups to donate or volunteer, and ways to privately request help.
The software has been used for large and small disaster recovery/organizing efforts both natural and man-made, from a flood in a small town in Alberta, Canada, to wildfires in Big Sur, to Superstorm Sandy.
Last month, when massive flooding struck Neosho, Mo., the town used a recovers.org site to organize its recovery effort.
In Lismore, Australia, following a direct hit from a tropical cyclone in March, Maddy Braddon of Lismore Helping Hands, a volunteer group in the city, said the website became an “instrumental tool” to help more than 1,000 people affected by the disaster.
“Having a purpose-built website that channels the immense number of requests for help and offers of help made our recovery job easier and more efficient,” she said.
Recovers.org sites also cover low-income countries such as Malawi, India and the Philippines, where some challenges exist, including reliable Internet connectivity and a language barrier, Kuryak said. “Though low connectivity does not preclude the usefulness of a Recovers site, it does make collecting needs, donations and volunteers through the site more difficult,” he said.
Another challenge can be local support and traction, Kuryak said. “Similar to a problem we’ve seen in U.S. communities, when a site in a low-income community does not have support from local organizations or government, then the effectiveness of the site is reduced,” he said. “Having ‘buy-in’ from local organizations and government increases both the awareness and trustworthiness of a Recovers site. Since Recovers is not an internationally recognized name, many new users are skeptical of using it.”
The site itself is a volunteer effort. The next goal is to transition to a non-profit organization. “We hope to fundraise such that we can again hire a small staff to be truly on-call, helping monitor and manage the platform during large and often international disasters,” Morgan, now 30 and an atmospheric scientist at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, said.
“People should know that they can rely on these sites in their time of need,” she added. “If we can empower communities, and especially local residents within them, with the right tools after a disaster, they can become the experts.”
“This experience changed our lives, and now we’re trying to change the experience.”
