HeidelbergCement has signed the ‘Pledge for Access to Safe Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) at the Workplace’, a scheme developed by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), which promotes sustainable practices.
By signing the so-called WASH Pledge, HeidelbergCement is aiming to ensure access to drinking water as well as sanitation and hygiene for all employees.
“With this statement we reinforce our commitment to provide a safe workplace to our employees.
Besides, it is also in line with our Sustainability Commitments 2030, which we published already last year.
We aim to comply with all requirements of the WASH Pledge at all our 3000 sites within the next three years,” said Bernd Scheifele, Chairman of the Managing Board of HeidelbergCement.
The company has already gained first experience with the implementation of the WASH Pledge at its Indian subsidiary Zuari Cement.
Based on this, respective measures will now be implemented throughout the whole group.
By means of a self-assessment tool provided by the WBCSD, signatories have to review their success of implementation.
General compliance with local laws and regulations, workplace water supply, workplace sanitation, and workplace hygiene must be assessed, and the results of the self-assessment have to be published.
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Water experts from the Southern African Development community (SADC) are meeting in the Namibian capital Windhoek for a two-day workshop to share experiences and discuss opportunities for investment on transboundary cooperation within river basins in the region.The experts are meeting for the 8th SADC River Basin Organisations (RBOs) Meeting being held under the theme: “Securing Strategic Investments to Realise the Benefits of Transboundary Water Cooperation”.
The regional RBOs series of workshops are organised every two years with the aim for strengthening regional water integration and cooperation.
There are 15 shared river basins in the SADC region, with only six are functional or in operational phase.
Speaking during the opening of the workshop, Namibia’s permanent secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Forestry (MAWF), Percy Misika called investment in water supply infrastructure to ensure industrialisation and economic development in the region.
“All SADC member states share one or more river basins with exemption of our oceanic member states.
These are resources available to us to transform our economies to the level of industrialised and developed nations.
It however requires financial commitments if we are top realise such dreams,” said Misika.
He said investing in extensive water supply infrastructure “is needed to ensure industrialisation and economic development.” The workshop is convened by the Permanent Okavango River Basin Water Commission (OKACOM) in partnership with the SADC Secretariat, the Global Water Partnership Southern Africa, and c as the host.
According to SADC, out of 280 million people in the region, only 60 percent have access to clean drinking water.
“Despite being assessed, documented and understood, the benefits of transboundary water cooperation have not been communicated well in the region,” Ramoeli said.

People have been dealing with unaffordable water and incorrect water bills for years, and now the Mayor might be looking to privatize the water system.
It’s when private corporations take control over public water utilities.
Water corporations often advertise themselves as a “solution” to municipal budget problems and aging water systems, but in reality, post-privatization, most communities face HIGHER water rates, WORSE service, and FEWER jobs.
When private companies come in to operate a water or sewer system, there is one main motivation: profit.
And most importantly, Suez would set the water rates.
In Baltimore, Suez hired a distinctly named lobbyist, American Joe Miedusiewski, to help make its pitch.
Corporations should know that convincing a city wrought with water affordability issues to privatize is not going to be easy.
If given to Suez, the “solutions” proposed could certainly include the long-term lease of the entire system.
Bayonne signed a 40-year concession lease with Suez in 2012.
When water corporations come in, they come in to profit.

In response to an increased rate of contaminants found in private wells across Long Island’s East End, lawmakers are calling on aid from Albany to provide clean drinking water to residents.
Polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, are rapidly becoming a threat to the East End’s various private wells.
According to the EPA, the presence of PFAS in human beings can cause low infant birth weights, detrimental effects on the immune system, cancer and thyroid hormone disruption.
To combat this threat, Thiele and Sen. Kenneth LaValle, R-Port Jefferson, are calling on the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and the New York State Department of Health to assist in decontamination of private wells.
It can be soil removal, putting ground water into separate wells, but always at the forefront of our mind is protecting public health.” It is not clear how long the cleanup will take, or how costly it may be.
Instead, the Department of Environmental Conservation is looking for a responsible party or organization which would then reimburse the state for any costs incurred during their cleanup efforts.
According to the DEC, this responsible party seems to be the U.S. Department of Defense, which operated the Air National Guard base at Gabreski airport, which was declared a Superfund site in 2016.
Sites like these often use flame retardant foams containing PFAS, which can seep into the groundwater.
However, LaValle said the issue of contamination has spread beyond the immediate area surrounding the Gabreski base, affecting both East and West Hampton, as well as properties in East Quogue.
“I think the state and county have been very proactive in finding areas where these chemicals exist but we need a more comprehensive plan to extend public water to these affected areas,” LaValle said.

On Saturday, May 19, people from around the globe will unite through the world’s biggest 6K for clean water, World Vision’s Global 6K for Water, and walk or run 6 kilometers for an extraordinary cause, stated World Vision in a recent press release.
On Saturday, May 19, people from around the globe will unite through the world’s biggest 6K for clean water, World Vision’s Global 6K for Water, and walk or run 6 kilometers for an extraordinary cause, stated World Vision in a recent press release.
“Last year, over 28,000 people in countries around the world ran and walked to bring clean water to those in need.
Participating in World Vision’s Global 6K, every step taken is one they won’t have to, said Colquitt.
Each registration (adults, $50; children, $25 if 18 or younger) provides lasting clean water to a child, the release said.
The $50 registration fee provides clean water for one person, so when more people sign up, more children will be freed of the deadly diseases and the treacherous walks that come with a lack of clean water.
Clean water frees children from deadly diseases, liberates women and children from a life spent gathering dirty water, and opens the door to education, a promising future, and a full life.
World Vision is the largest nongovernmental provider of clean water in the developing world, reaching one new person with clean water every 10 seconds and reaching three more schools every day with clean water.
In 2017, World Vision provided access to clean water to 3.2 million people, the release states.
Register or learn more today by visiting worldvision6k.org.

Keonjhar: Even as temperatures keep on soaring, water crisis gripped Gopalpur Udrasahi under Ghatagaon block in Keonjhar.
The tribal families living here have no access to safe drinking water while they have to consume the contaminated water which they collect from an abandoned well on a farmland.
Women carrying water in pitchers and buckets and staggering in precarious foot racks is a common sight here.
“We have been suffering from acute water scarcity over the years.
We have no option but to drink water from that abandoned well.
They said, “There is no protective wall around the well.
Though they have been living on the land for generations, the government has not yet provided them land pattas.
The village is near to NH-20, but an approach road is a necessity, the residents added.
“Crops and houses and other properties are damaged by elephants every year, but no compensation is paid for the loss,” alleged Benjamin Munda.
The villagers demanded that the government should take immediate step to make provision of safe drinking water.

Stewardship Week is a week set aside annually to promote stewardship, or the conservation and the wise use of our natural resources, such as water, soil, forests and habitat.
It serves as a reminder that each individual has the ability to conserve our natural resources and improve our world.
Water is one of our most precious resources and we all live in a watershed.
There are 2,100 watersheds in the continental U.S.
Having available, clean water is important to everyone, whether it be for drinking water, recreation, irrigation, manufacturing, or habitat for wildlife.
Only 3 percent is fresh water.
The earth is considered to be pretty much a closed system, like a terrarium.
As a whole, it neither really gains nor loses water.
The water we have now is the same water that existed in the time of dinosaurs.
The water is constantly moving and changing form, from liquid to vapor and ice.

MADISON (WKOW) — Several Madison elementary and middle schools will get "hydration stations" next week in an effort to promote healthy living.
The drinking fountain and water bottle filling stations are from the "Got Water?"
project — a joint effort between Madison Water Utility, the Healthy Kids Collaborative and the Madison Metropolitan School District.
The group hopes the hydration stations will encourage children to drink more water by giving them easy access to refill water bottles.
The hydration stations are a part of Drinking Water Week in Madison schools.
The program runs next week and will highlight the value of safe, reliable drinking water and promote other healthy habits like getting more exercise and cutting back on sugary drinks.
Thanks to the partnership, half of Madison’s elementary schools and three Madison middle schools now have hydration stations.
They started adding stations to schools in 2015.
Schools with stations include Huegel, Leopold, Elvehjem Allis, Lindbergh, Lake View, Orchard Ridge, Falk, Schenk, Gompers, Glendale, Kennedy, Muir, Crestwood, Lapham and Lowell elementary schools and Wright, Sherman and Cherokee Heights middle schools.

This series is an antidote, an attempt to show that there is plenty of hope, as our journalists scour the planet looking for pioneers, trailblazers, best practice, unsung heroes, ideas that work, ideas that might and innovations whose time might have come.
Readers can follow up with our Further Reading guides and can also recommend other projects, people and progress that we should report on by contacting us at theupside@theguardian.com Was this helpful?
“It was the most talked about thing in Cape Town for months when it needed to be,” says Priya Reddy, the city’s communication director.
“It was not a pretty solution, but it was not a pretty problem.” Cape Town’s water use dropped from 600m litres per day in mid 2017 to 507m litres per day at the end of April.
The Western Cape’s multi-pronged response to its water crisis – from farming innovations to reducing urban water use to diversifying water supply sources – could serve as a blueprint for cities that find themselves, like Cape Town, looking at near-empty dams.
“We have pushed the limits far more than most other cities,” says Deputy Mayor Ian Neilson, who is in charge of the city’s water crisis response.
“This is the one that makes me the most depressed,” says Derick van Zyl pointing to a long row of parched trees in his apple orchard.
“It was about being honest with the public,” Neilson says.
Though day zero is out of the immediate picture, the major dams that supply water to the Western Cape are still only about 20% full.
“When somebody first tells you about it, you think it’s a crazy idea,” says Nick Sloane, a ship salvager who has been pitching the idea of the iceberg plan.

A newly-formed group of concerned residents, He Tangata, is calling on councillors to be clear about what they are deciding on after a degree of uncertainty in the public domain about what they are actually debating.
Many submissions during the hearings process extolled the virtues of fixing the district’s drinking water supply woes, supporters saying investment would lead to such improvements.
* Hurunui group lodges complaint about district council bias over water scheme * Council hears Hurunui Water Project submissions * Hurunui District Council agrees to buy shares in controversial water scheme In fact, the council will only be able to purchase wet shares if there are any available, and many dry shareholders will be farmers desperate for water on their properties.
He Tangata chair Nadia Maxwell wrote to councillors this week, highlighting this and other issues.
"He Tangata is very concerned that the CEO’s report once again stated one of the major benefits to the community from this investment would be the ability to utilise water for the district water schemes.
Dobbie is clearly in support of the council buying shares, and he and council’s CFO carried out the due diligence, signing non-disclosure agreements with HWP, meaning councillors have had to trust their judgment on whether the proposal is sound.
In it she emphasised that the council had to be clear due diligence had been carried out.
"Only we as Governance can judge whether this has been done.
The notice remains on the table after council agreed to look into how the investigations would be funded.
Harris said once deliberations had taken place and further clarification on matters arising had been conducted, she believed she would have the information needed to make a decision.