Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Biome Trust has a new address

Hi all, we have now shifted to a new office located in Vidyaranyapura itself. The address is: 291, 1st Cross, BEL Layout, Vidyaranyapura, Bangalore 560097. Phone number: 080-4113 1908


Saturday, September 22, 2012

Mr Reddy designs and builds a rainwater filter

Mr Reddy one of our very experienced rainwater harvesting contractors decided to put together his own rainwater filter. It had to be of lower cost, easy on maintenance and of course do a good job of the filtration. Made with pipe fittings available in the market. Fully hand crafted - the slots, the tying up of the stainless steel mesh. 

About 6 months of research and trial and error went into putting this filter together. Each design challenge was dealt with a lot of care and effort.  Prevention of leakages, managing peak rainfall and overflow and robustness required a lot of thought and trying out with different materials. 

The most thoughtful add on feature - not available with any other commercial filter in the market - a ready brush to clean it with ! The product is still not in the market - there are enquiries from the local hardware shops though. In Beta testing. Its called KAVERI-RF100 (neatly hand written)

Wishing him all the very best  !!

The inventor and his invention
Slotted PVC pipe with stainless steel mesh


The insides

Explaining the usage

On Chai with Lakshmi

How can a residential layout go about harvesting rainwater

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Wat'er We Doing: A 7 day workshop on Sustainable Water Management for children


A 7 day workshop on Bangalore Water organized by BIOME and CMCA for 13-14 years olds from various schools earlier this year. The workshop included trips to BWSSB STPs, Large Wells, Lakes, Urban Slums, Layouts and interaction with various people vis-a-vis water. The children also performed hands on experiments on ground water and water testing. A blog maintained by the kids detailing their activities is available at http://sciencefestival2012.blogspot.in/. This workshop was part of a larger programme for a French American Science Festival where various schools are exploring issues/solutions around water and sanitation. This is  movie that documents the workshop and will be screened at the festival.

Playspaces for the Visually Impaired

Biome helps design thoughtful and sensitive playspaces for the visually impaired at 2 Blind Schools in Bangalore - Sree Ramana Maharishi Academy for the Blind, JP Nagar and  Mathru Education Trust for the Blind at Yelahanka alongwith Kilikili. With support from Bosch


Sunday, September 9, 2012

Of water tankers and borewell motor thefts


1. Saw perhaps one of the largest water tankers in Bangalore . It could have been 24KL. On Old Airport Road



Tried getting a picture to capture the enormity but could not quite succeed. The tanker was still to be labelled.




2. Heard of 2 strange thefts - one a failed attempt and another one successful. There are thieves out to steal borewell motors. In both cases the people dependent on the borewells had to go without water for a few days after. In the case of the failed attempt - the motor stayed in but got disconnected. In the successful theft the motor was of course gone. City water stories never fail to amaze.