EarthSmiles.net - Stories - Do Air Purifying Plants work?

THE WORLD WAS A DIFFERENT PLACE WHEN EARTHSMILES.NET STARTED... POLITICIANS WERE ONLY THEN LEARNING OF AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH, NEWSPAPERS DIDN'T CARRY MUCH "ECOLOGICAL" NEWS AND CLIMATE CHANGE WAS STILL SOMETHING MOST PEOPLE RECKONED TOOK PLACE IN THE VERY LONG TERM.

"The biggest change since 2009"
Welcome to a lighter, faster, more, responsive EarthSmiles.net. It's not just our look that's changed, there's a lot new under the hood, too. Along with our mix of green and respectful news stories, we'll be serving up quite a few feature articles, promising to keep you as planet-friendly as ever, with EarthSmiles.net specific reports and features as well,

Easy and simple to use
We've cut the clutter. Everything is easier and simpler with less sections (there are actually only two now) navigating the site is easier for you, In these extraordinary times, we have to produce the entire website at our homes, not at the office - and the team has risen to the challenge. With the new format, we have more time to innovate, to create more - and need to maintain less - while providing you with a great experience... we hope!

Long time coming
When EarthSmiles.net started, we had spent a lot of time informing people on what was the planet-friendly thing to do, and exposing greenwash. Making the right lifestyle choices and not going on the way the last century taught us to live. Concepts had to be explained then. Today, that focus has changed. Most ordinary people are well aware of the dangers of pollution, want to eat healthier, and protect rather than harm animals and the wider ecology. What were fringe movements - veganism, for example - are mainstream today. There is still sufficient room to 'green minds,' with basic concepts; but today, providing quality information which allow better choices for the planet, is imperative.

Online, readers have become viewers. EarthSmiles.net has always been providing plenty of visual content - a live web TV progamme used to be hosted every weekend till 2016, and today we have tuned it more for the social media age, maintaining a long format show, but supplemented with a one minute sharable capsule - EarthMinute! which is now in its second year of streaming.

What else has changed?
A decade is a long time and since then, in 2011, we've seen a strong and successful NGO -
Green for Life Foundation - evolve out of our humble beginnings, doing the things close to our hearts, that EarthSmiles.net preached early on in its journey.

From just a way to shout out to the world with our stories and information online, today we have a strong offline presence as well. Schools which wanted to be greener in a meaningful way, far beyond "I love Mother Earth" painting contests, joined our PlanetPoints eco-enable programme, saving energy and stopping pollution on their campuses... and being rewarded for it.* We've even had a stint at greening the biggest of all Bengal's festivals, Durga Puja, under the same programme, guiding and supporting some of the most well-known Pujas in Kolkata also become the greenest.

Today, this outreach continues, under a special Coordinator. New efforts such as Revive, a travelling exhibition in schools, where we bring eco-friendly goods producers in touch with those wanting to buy these responsible - and often cool - recycled and upcycled products. Another campaign Return2Life collects discarded pens from city schools, refills and recirculates them.

The more they remain the same
If there's another passion EarthSmilers have that equals our zeal to give you all the eco-news that we can publish: it is creating eco-friendly gadgets through simple and organic technology anyone can adopt. So far EarthSmiles,net has created, direct solar (thermal) water heaters, sun ovens, a solar "cool box' for veggies, pens made out of recycled paper, and more recently an air purifier we call AirSmiles, that filters out PM2.5 from your homes, at a fraction of the cost of commercial air purifiers with similar abilities.

The dystopian, masked, future predicted may be here, but it is not one of smoggy air and darkened skies; rather, it is bright blue sky and clear air. Only the masks remain. With the protection level of face coverings available on the market ranging from nil to middling, EarthSmiles.net has developed a mask based on CDC specifications, which incorporates a low cost disposable filter material, available in most homes. Read about it here.

We're the All-New EarthSmiles.net

THE WORLD WAS A DIFFERENT PLACE WHEN EARTHSMILES.NET STARTED... POLITICIANS WERE ONLY THEN LEARNING OF AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH, NEWSPAPERS DIDN'T CARRY MUCH "ECOLOGICAL" NEWS AND CLIMATE CHANGE WAS STILL SOMETHING MOST PEOPLE RECKONED TOOK PLACE IN THE VERY LONG TERM.