Merhaba from Istanbul, where I am attending the World Water Forum. I say “am attending,” but actually I haven’t got there yet. The closest I’ve come is the masses of police lining the road from the airport protecting some head of state or other, and some more police in the hotel lift who were apparently in my hotel to protect the Iraqi prime minister, who is staying here. I will be speaking tomorrow at 11am in Feshane at Speaker’s Corner (a venue for sanitation and water odds and sods like me); at 4pm at a WSSCC member event, and then at 5pm at a panel on the right to sanitation organized by WaterAid, UN-Habitat and the Swiss Development in Sutluce Congress Centre.
Meanwhile, here’s a BBC report on “biochar,” something I have to my shame never heard of. It creates charcoal from sewage sludge by means of pyrolysis, the chemical decomposition of an organic substance using heat. At the Bingen sewage works in Germany, where biochar is being produced, it is done in a steel box. The resulting charcoal is buried, locking its carbon emissions into the ground for 1000 years. As usual, the downsides are thought to be cost. The endless problem of how to go to scale. Someone bring back Henry Ford and make him a sanitarian.