Stop the ants from marching
April 27, 2010
(Photo: Getty Images)
It's definitely unnerving to see a line of ants marching across the kitchen floor. But you don't need to hire an expensive professional exterminator or spray toxic chemicals to banish nuisance ants from your home.
Pesticides can harm your family's health as well as your pets'. Plus, they don't get to the root of the problem.
Instead, try these tips for preventing ants from entering your home in the first place and banishing them once they get there. (Carpenter ants are a more serious problem, so make sure that those aren't what you're seeing inside.)
Keep the ants from coming in
Seal cracks or holes where outdoor ants are entering the house. This will require less than an hour of your time and an inexpensive tube of caulk. It's also a good idea to trim the branches of trees or shrubs that touch your home so that ants can't crawl in through windows and doors.
Sprinkling cinnamon, cayenne pepper, or cloves where ants enter or gravitate to can deter them from moving in. Bay leaves, fresh mint, or peppermint tea bags also work well.
Starve the ants
You'll need to be a fastidious housekeeper while you're trying to get rid of ants because they feast on the tiniest crumbs or drops of water. If ants can't find anything to eat or drink, they will leave.
Keep food in containers with tight-fitting lids. Wash and dry dishes immediately. If you need to leave dishes in the sink, submerge them in soapy water. Wipe down your counters thoroughly. Sweep or vacuum up crumbs often. Take your garbage outside regularly.
Don't leave pet food and water dishes out overnight. If you need to, then place bowls in pans of soapy water.
Fix dripping faucets, leaks, and eliminate any standing water.
Banish ants from your house
Mix a teaspoon of liquid soap and water in a quart-size spray bottle and spray areas where the ants are active. This will drown the ants and destroy the chemical trails left by worker ants so it will prevent more ants from invading your home. Vinegar and water should also do the trick.
The Natural Resource Defense Council recommends making your own ant traps from a mixture of borax, sugar, and water. Be careful with these if you have young children or pets because it's not safe to ingest. Ants can't digest cornmeal properly so that's another way to get rid of them -- sprinkle it around holes or ant trails.
If all else fails and you decide to go for pesticides, use baits in closed cases instead of sprays.
You can also try to locate the nest and destroy the colony. Place honey or syrup on cardboard along ant trails and follow the thick trail of syrup to the nest. If the nest is outside, pour one or more pots of boiling water over it.
Indoor nests can be vacuumed up with a HEPA filter. Add a little cornstarch to the bag to suffocate ants, and dispose of the bag outside of your home.
Environmental journalist Lori Bongiorno shares green-living tips and product reviews with Yahoo! Green's users. Send Lori a question or suggestion for potential use in a future column. Her book, Green Greener Greenest: A Practical Guide to Making Eco-smart Choices a Part of Your Life is available on Yahoo! Shopping and Amazon.com.
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Indonesia harnessing volcano power
April 26, 2010
Indonesia's 17,000 islands are home to hundreds of volcanoes and approximately 40 percent of the earth's geothermal energy potential and the nation's government is ready to harness that hot, clean energy.
The country has set a goal of bringing online 4GW of geothermal capacity by 2014, which will almost quadruple the current capacity of 1,189 MW. If you think that sounds ambitious, you're right. It generally takes three to five years just to complete field exploration and then another three years to actually build a geothermal plant.
And then there's the cost of the project -- $12 billion to be exact. The country is looking to the World Bank, private investors and developed countries like Japan and the U.S. for help raising the money. But once the plants are up and running, they're basically tapping into endless, clean energy with little overhead required.
Plus, this plan will go a long way towards reaching the Indonesian president's goals of cutting emissions to 26 percent below 2005 levels by 2020 and adding 10GW of clean energy capacity by 2014.
via AFP
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Drawing power from Dutch coastal dikes
April 24, 2010
Plans are being considered to turn the famous Dutch dikes into tidal power generators. Although originally built to protect the people and land of the Netherlands, now a committee of various government representatives has issued a recent report including some suggestions to revise the operation of the dikes to create a more pleasant and more natural land behind the dikes, and to provide a source of power. Openings in the series of dikes would provide ideal locations for tidal power plants.
The Netherlands have had protective ocean dikes to guard the coastline since the disaster in 1953 when more than 1800 people were killed and over half a million acres of land was flooded by the North Sea. After this tragedy, the extensive Delta Works were constructed over the next four decades, and the last parts of the project were finally completed in 1997.
Energy, however, is not the primary motivator for this. Instead, it is an interest in restoring the natural condition to estuaries and tidal flats whose character has significantly degraded over the years since the dikes were installed. "Opening water locks would allow the tide to return to now stagnant waters, the report stated. This would be a boon to nature, because certain plants and animals, which have all but disappeared since the estuaries were closed off, can return. Deeper into the delta lies a fresh water basin where smelly algae bloom in the summer. Allowing salt water to reach these outer stretches again could improve conditions for residents and holiday-makers."
In the aftermath of a catastrophe, it is all to easy to focus solely on preventing that tragedy, no matter the cost. "With all the focus on safety after 1953," [committee director Joost] Schrijnen said, "other aspects were neglected." He now wants to change that. "But without sacrificing safety," he added. Turning the dikes into a power generating solution, as well as improving environmental quality seems like a solution that will provide multiple benefits, in addition to protecting the land from the sea.
link: nrc handelsblad
via: Slashdot
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