Too Much Of A Good Thing?

Saw something on Facebook today from my friend Olivia Choong, who runs a Sustainable PR company (funnily enough I think the company is very creatively called Sustainable PR)  - "Unfortunately, they didn't include my criticism of H&M as a fast fashion brand, and even if they are the largest buyers of organic cotton, that we can't keep having new clothing at this rate because it is not sustainable".

Which goes to the heart of the problem.. rationalising need. After all, 10 organic t-shirts, eco-friendly as they may be (relative to a regular cotton t-shirt) is still, 10 t-shirts.

So yes, rationalising need and reducing waste - something that we should all try to do. Olivia's comment made me think about something I read in Jim Roger's Adverture Capitalist (for those of you who haven't read it,  in summary he and his wife pimp out a Mercedes SLK and drive round the world) - "I knew instantly when I walked through my door that I wanted to simplify my life. I wanted to clean out the stables of clutter and junk. I wanted never to buy anything again."

G.R.I.N

It had to happen - a recycling initiative with a cringe worthy acronym.

This one is run by Veolia - I had a quick look at the site: in summary it seems like points are awarded based on the weight of recyclables collected at specified collection bins (no points awarded if there are more than 50% of non-recyclables and contaminated items in the bin), which are in turn tagged to the address of the landed household or HDB block (at this stage, only within Tanglin Bukit Merah and Pasir Ris - Tampines). These points can then be redeemed for rewards - reward vendors at this stage appear to be Ben & Jerry's, Home-Fix, Greenviron, Purple Sage, and Skechers.

You also need to create an account to receive your points. Your account is tied to your SP Services account number. What is not clear is how points are allocated within a residential block - does every resident within the block get the points based on the total weight of collected recyclables? Or is it averaged among the number of residents in the block (which would presumably be more fair, since there are a lot more people in a residential block than there are in a landed household). One other thing I found weird was that landed households get a 120L bin, whereas HDB blocks get a 660L recycling bin... but surely there are more than 5.5x the number of people in a HDB block than in a landed household?

Vege wall

Saw this - literally - green wall at the renovated 6 Battery Road lobby. Not sure what environmental benefits it has (presumably fresh oxygen in the day time, temperature regulation of sorts possibly...) but it was literally green.

New all in one recycling bins

New Veolia recycling bins (well not so new now... but I'm just putting this up) seem to eat everything - no more separate bins for paper / plastic / glass.

Roots & Shoots

A program by Jane Goodall to educate youth, link here.

"Want a way out of the recession? Create jobs by saving resources"

Saw this in the Business Times today. Author is "visiting senior research fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore, and the author of 'How Asia can Shape the World: From the Era of Plenty to the Era of Scarcities'. He is also adjunct professor at the Singapore Management University & Copenhagen Business School." Not sure I follow the arguments in the article, might have to pick up the book one day.

"The core is high labour costs with low prices on protecting the environment and saving resources. This reflects a perception of scarce labour and abundant resources. The result is efforts to save labour (increase conventional productivity) and hold the floodgates open for use of resources. And it worked; that's why unemployement refuses to fall - we are successful in our endeavours to reduce labour per unit of output. On top of that, current wage levels make it cost-effective to invest in emerging economies. Resources are still priced in as a plentiful factor irrespective of recent hikes in commodity prices telling a different story. The price mechanism does not punish, as it should, using more resources than necessary per unit of output. Despite various financial incentives, it is cheap to pollute; consequently, waste flows into the environment. The combined result is unemployment, resource waste and deterioration of the environment... The new paradigm calls for exactly the opposite. Rising scarcities of commodities make it profitable to cut down o nthe use of resources in the production process. Abundance of labour... calls for more use of manpower. The key is to face the music and start the politically agonosing, economically necessary and ecologically imperative process of changing relative factor prices. Labour costs (wages) must fall relative to commodity prices - otherwise it won't happen and we will stay where we are right now, like it or not."

Waste Management In Taipei

A piece in the Straits Times print edition today (Monday, 11 Apr 2011): "Trash war: Sweet smell of success". The article details Taipei's waste management system, and caught my as a Taiwanese friend had mentioned it some time back in conversation. - System was started in 2000. - 2,500 collection points at street corners throughout the city, for trash and recyclables. - Collection daily except Wed and Sat. - Most residents or shopkeeps outsource the dumping and sorting of waste to private trash collectors for a monthly fee. - 56 fixed collection centres located across Taipei City, for people who are unable to meet the scheduled pickup and whose residence / office have not outsourced their trash collection activities. - "Pay-as-you-throw" system requires households and businesses to put waste in government issue blue garbage bags sold bfor between NT$1.35 and NT$45 each, depending on size. Residents who use unauthorised bags can be fined up to NT$6,000. - Recyclables are sorted (BY HAND!) into 7 categories: PET bottles, glass bottles, plastics, aluminium and ferrous metals, paper, food scraps, clothing. Recyclables are collected free of charge.

And the results?

- Taipei's 2.7m people produced 1,619 tonnes of trash a day in 2010 vs 3,695 tonnes before 2000

- Recycling rates up from 2.4% to 43%

- Taipei's only landfill is now an ecological park, having been idle since the beginning of 2011- 3 incineration plants operating at below capacity because of less-than-expected trash

- Taipei residents pay on average NT$51 a month in 2010 vs NT$144 a decade ago

- Per capita CO2 emissions were 4.2 tonnes in 2008, lower than the average of 4.6 tonnes among 22 major Asian cities surveyed by the EIU in 2010

- System costs government NT$3.1bn a year to run, vs revenues of NT$400m from the sale of garbage bags

I think the charging for collection bags, even if for only a nominal fee, is nifty as it accomplishes 2 things - (1) the nominal charge will make most people conscious about their volume of general waste, and (2) more importantly though, it will make people conscious about separating recyclables from the general trash pool (so they use less of the chargeable trash bags). It is amazing how many people still do not make an effort to recycle, and recycling has to start from consciousness at the individual level.