Aye

Dubai - Ghost town in the making?

Dubai represents the modern UAE. It is the most liberal and "progressive" of the Arab Emirates; semi-secular comes to mind.

With a visibly fininte (less than 10 years if I'm not wrong) supply of oil, Dubai's rulers decided to fashion a modern city in the desert in order to reduce dependence on oil. A transition to entertainment, finance (ambitions were to become a financial centre straddling Europe and Asia) and services. Ample, easy money saw an influx of foreign "talent" (0% tax was also a draw), and a massive number of entertainment, housing, and commercial developments. The scale of construction was staggering - at the height of the boom, it was estimated that almost 25% of the world's construction cranes were operating out of Dubai.

Fast forward to post-crisis Dubai. The problem with Dubai is that it does not have a real economy to support all the development that is going on. The "build it and they will come" philosophy does not always work. Following the crisis, many foreigners have left (indigneous population is something like 200,000 - hardly enough to sustain everything that has been built). There is a major glut of housing, to be worsened as more supply comes onstream in the coming year. Many completed developments have sub-par finishing and build quality, while a lot of projects under construction are likely to be halted as developers struggle to remain solvent. If completed, they are likely to remain empty.

Thats a lot of energy, resources, cement, etc etc pumped into what may potentially be a ghost town in the making. I am definitely going back in 10 years to see what has become of the city.

Origo - www.olivegreen.com.sg

Saw a van today with an Origo decal and the link www.olivegreen.com.sg. The company manufactures tableware / bags / packaging from corn and yam "bioplastic" (not sure if it is related to that company Winrigo I posted about some time back). Composition for most products seems to be 70/30 corn and yam starch / PP, except for their CornBag, which is 40/60. The website has some pretty interesting info on green packing alternatives and also how / why the product is made the way it is (e.g. why PP is required).

A couple of points:
1. I'm not sure I agree with their discussion of "Food Shortage" under the "Environmental / Health Info" tab...
2. Under the "Process" tab, it says "All PP in CornBag™ is biodegradable" though I don't really understand how the PP can be any more biodegradeable than that used in other plastic bags.

Chairs for the future

So I finally got myself these chairs! I've loved them from the first time I laid eyes on them - form, function, and everything the company stands for (their website is pretty spiffy too). 80% recycled aluminium, guaranteed for 150 years (fine gimmicky and it'll probably cost me as much as the chair if something ever goes wrong and I need to send it back to them in the US), perfect for humid Singapore, no "consumable" chair parts (e.g. fabric that may need to be cleaned / re-upholstered, leather that needs special care products). My kids are gonna inherit these.

Paperless statements

Paperless statements make a lot of sense. Let me count the ways...:

1. You can only print your statement if you want / need to.

2. You can print it scaled down - I print mine 2 pages per side, double sided, i.e. 4 pages fit onto one sheet of paper.

3. No envelope is used in the process.

4. The billing company can't spam you with marketing material (well fine maybe they still can, in a separate mail, but at least you aren't making it easy for them). I used to get thick thick glossy promotional flyers all the time with my statements. Nasty.

5. One less item in the postal logistics train translates to some fuel savings. Yup sounds negligible for one measly letter, but if you multiply it...

Electronic cables, power adaptors, etc etc

All these accessories from old electronics! Cables, adaptors, plugs, etc etc - does ANYONE know how I can get rid of this stuff responsibly? Its very difficult for me to throw stuff away unless I know it is being well taken care off, and I am starting to accumulate a whole load of junk...

Clever packaging

May I draw your attention to the line that goes "Same Amount of Granola. Less Box.". I thought that was a pretty clever tagline. Everyone should think about their product and how it is packaged. These guys are trying.

On BBQs

So I went to a birthday BBQ the other day. A couple of observations:

1. It is fairly common nowadays for people to get BBQ packs that come with marinaded meat, charcoal, plates / forks, equipment. The thing that struck me about this BBQ pack were the cheap tongs provided - thin, flimsy, and only good for one use.

2. A lot of well intentioned people brought extra food, and in the end there was a whole lot of uncooked food that no one wanted to take back. No points for guessing where it went.

My takeaways for future BBQs I organise?

1. I'm getting my own BBQ equipment, so I can choose the disposable cutlery / plates / cups (hopefully easily biodegradeable), and so I can bring along my own tongs that can be washed and re-used rather than trashed after one use. People are getting lazy... and convenience typically comes at a price to the environment.

2. A little planning never hurt - strict instructions on who should bring what, so there isn't too much extra food that goes to waste.

Green Drinks

Friend runs this in Singapore (sggreendrinks.wordpress.com; main Green Drinks global site at www.greendrinks.org). It is a great platform. It isn't a campaign, which means that people go there voluntarily, which means there is genuine passion / interest. And that is the only real way to spread environmental consciousness. We here in Singapore are big on campaigns, and have run campaigns in the past on sharing and caring, kindness (www.kindness.sg) and national courtesy although I for one have always believed that certain things cannot be forced on people - you can only either (i) inspire people, or else (ii) affect them if you are close to them / they feel affinity for you, i.e. friends or family.

Winrigo

Article in the Business Times today about Winrigo, an SME that produces biodegradeable plastic bags using a blend of polymer resin and wheat husks. Always thought polymer resins were not biodegradeable, though I guess some aren't. http://www.winrigo.com.sg/

Children's toys

A recent trip to Toys R Us reminded me how worried children's toys make me. A very large number of them appear to be badly made, lots of plastic, buttons that make sounds when pressed but spoil easily, books that talk but also spoil easily... etc etc you get my point. And kids go through so much of this crap these days... where does it all go? Not good.

Straws (drinking ones)

Paid a rare visit to McDonalds for a Filet o Fish meal yesterday. Forgot to pick up a straw, and because the restaurant was crowded decided not to go get one and just drink from the cup instead. Made me wonder why I ever get a straw in the first place, since I drink from the cup at home and it really isn't that hard. And given how many people eat at McDonalds... if even 50% of customers stopped using straws... well thats a lot of plastic.

Zero-waste (in relation to clothing)

A new term (to me) in the Urban supplement of the Straits Times today. Zero-waste. According to the article - "Apparel industry professionals say that about 15 to 20 per cent of the fabric used to produce clothing winds up in landfills because it is cheaper to dump the scraps than to recycle them."

Zero-waste design aims to minimise fabric wastage when cutting garment patterns.

CO2 cleaning

A friend told me about a relatively new cleaning technology. CO2 cleaning. I turned net-gopher for 15 mins, and so it turns out there are a bunch of professional laundry cleaning systems -

1. Traditional "dry" cleaning using perchloroethylene ("perc") as a solvent, which is not so good for the environment and neither for humans (perc is carcinogenic).
2. Wet cleaning, which uses water. Like at home, but the machines are more gentle.
3. Cleaning using alternative solvents such as hydrocarbon and silicone, though my quick internet reading seems to indicate clothes cleaned in hydrocarbon emit VOCs (bad), while silicone cleaning is still being evaluated for health risks.
4. CO2 cleaning, which uses a mix of gaseous / liquid CO2 as a solvent, is good for the environment and apparently produces the best cleaning results.

Consumerism - does buying more expensive stuff help?

Is there something to be said for buying quality? If not super premium, then maybe a tier above the cheapest stuff?

Are relatively pricier items better made, in a better process? E.g. cheap foods may be grown with lots of pesticides, fertilisers, etc, while cheap clothing may be dyed or produced with harsher dyes, or cheap products may just generally have cheaper production facilities without proper treatment / disposal facilities, since presumably larger corporations, in particular listed ones, have more public visibility and consequently would be careful to tread more carefully. Fine fine someone is going to point out Nike employing child labour, or Foxconn running Chinese workers in depression-inducing sweat shops... but wouldn't (logically) the premise of bigger company = more scrutiny = better practices hold true? Don't get me , I'm not talking about buying brands, I'm talking about buying quality. Bit of a difference.

Then there's also the issue of quality. I know this is a bit of a generalisation, but its generally true that cheap things don't usually last as long, after which they would need to be thrown out. Besides lasting longer, chances are that quality stuff is probably easier to repair (since parts / service are more likely to be available).

Community farming and permaculture

This post is the result of a rather timely coincidence of 2 events - (i) basil procurement to cook a Thai dish, minced pork with basil, and (ii) an article on community gardening in the August issue of Appetite magazine (published by Edipresse Singapore).

Basil procurement

A recent attempt was made to cook basil with pork (a Thai dish) a few weeks ago. This typically entailed the usual trip to the supermarket to buy pork and basil, and the subsequent rumblings about how expensive basil is in Singapore - S$3.00 gets you 30g of basil, and unfortuantely also a plastic packaging. There is also the occasional risk of having no choice but to buy limp, not-fresh basil if the stock has been sitting there for a few days. Buying a basil pot from the supermarket (S$3.50-4.00)was always an option, however having witnessed several failed supermarket-basil-pot growings, I have never been too keen on this.

This time round, I decided to hit the nursery (plant nursery). Lucked out, and picked up Bobby the basil plant. For S$8.00, you get a pot that is several times the size of those sold in the supermarkets, and a healthy, robust plant with a big head of basil.

Of course, basil plants don't grow that well indoors, so a few days ago I embarked on Project Replant Bobby - to transplant him in the grounds of my apartment block. I was rather afraid that the gardener might mistake him for a weed if I put him straight in the ground, and thankfully a quick tour of the garden found me a huge abandoned pot under a tree, which is where Bobby now resides.



Appetite magazine article on community farming

Get the full article in the August issue of Appetite magazine. The piece was on community farming in Australia, and a couple of excerpts talk about the environmental impact of modern farming methods: "The nation's food production is increasingly falling into the hands of large corporations which advocate broad-acre farming. This means mechanisation and high dosages of pesticides and fertilisers which are also high consumers of energy... Clive Blazey founder of Australia's largest gardening club (Digger's Club), suggests that produce sold in supermarkets is mostly grown with chemicals... picked unripe and then transported thousands of kilometres... contribute to 30 per cent of the nation's carbon dioxide emissions."

Interesting. Definitely agreed that small scale farming will probably use less pesticides since you can control what goes into the ground, and households could even turn scrap food into compost if they were so inclined. Agreed too that transportation costs would be lower to some extent, even though the initial outlay to setup many many small community gardens (e.g. transportation of soil etc) would presumably be less efficient than large scale farming, though this would be a once off thing only. Not sure how accurate this 30% emissions figure is, it sounds rather high to me. And of course, home grown veges don't need to be wrapped in nasty plastic!

The resident environmental oracle asked - why doesn't Singapore have community gardens at the top of all HDB blocks? Not having ever worked for the HDB, I will hazard a few guesses:
1. The HDB probably isn't interested in the environment.
2. Security issues, since presumably some common equipment e.g. water tanks, heaters, etc are located at the top of the building.
3. Ownership - how would this happen? Communal? Rent to top bidder? If the former, then there will likely be disputes e.g. how to split the space, how to allocate the veges, etc. If the latter, then the issue of who will manage the bidding process, collection of rent, etc.

Mix and match (recyclables)

So have a look at this plastic carrier. Has a nice "Recyclable" sign, but the handles are re-inforced with cardboard. So:

1. What happens if you bung the plastic carrier in a plastics recycling bin? What happens when it gets to the recycling plant? Obviously there can't be some dude who stands there sorting through everything, and stripping paper bits from plastic bags? (same goes for those paper envelopes that have plastic windows)

2. Assuming plastic bags with paper are put into the plastics recycling bin, does the paper contaminate the plastics? And vice-versa? (of course, I'm well aware that there are plenty of idiots who throw all sorts of crap in recycling bins)

3. Should the conscientious recycler go to the trouble of removing paper bits from plastic carriers, and plastic windows from paper envelopes? Where does one draw the line? And how effective is being super conscientious anyway?

4. On that note.... here in Singapore we have all these recycling bins located in public places, and I'd go so far as to say probably 99% of them are "contaminated" with stuff that isn't supposed to be in there, e.g. food in the paper bin, paper in the plastic bin, plastic in the paper bin, etc. What happens once it gets to the plant? Is / can it be sorted? Are the efforts of the conscientious recycles thwarted by the actions of the careless?

Green technology adoption

If only the adoption of green technology was as rapid as the adoption of Apple gadgetry. Especially for simple ideas that are easy to implement and make 100% sense. Case in point - the Japanese toilet bowl pictured below. When the bowl is flushed, water flows first to a tap at the top of the cistern (the top of the cistern is also a basin) where the user washes his hands. The water then flows from the basin into the cistern, where it is used for the next flush. Simple, brilliant, and saves plenty water. Yet, apart from Japan, this eco-bowl is hardly seen. Strange.

Greenhouse Perth

Off to Perth tonight for a short break, was looking online for new places and found this - http://www.greenhouseperth.com/food/background/ - great background about the concept and what it hopes to do.

Please read it!

On the hunt for... electronics disposal

I find it very difficult to throw stuff away, unless either (i) I know it is being recycled or re-used (of course, I wonder about whether the item makes it to and through the recycling process successfully, but that is another story), or (ii) there is nothing else I can do with it other than throw it away.

I've accumulated a bunch of stuff in the house, notably a fair bit of electronics and the associated peripherals (cables, adaptors, etc). Can someone please tell me the best and most environmentally friendly way to get rid of all this crap?

Public Environmental Policy

Someone asked me - why doesn't the Singapore government do more in the way of incentivising private enterprise to be more environmentally conscious, e.g. by offering tax rebates to energy efficient / green rated buildings (apparently the US does this), or else just outright banning the use of plastic bags.

Am thinking through this and will put my thoughts down once I have them.

Postscript 19 Aug 2010 - Article in the papers today about the HDB conducting a mass tender to replace light bulbs with LED bulbs, some of which will also have motion sensor technology. And in the papers on 18 Aug 2010, an article about how new buildings (though not sure if all over Singapore or only in certain areas like Marina) have to be Platinum Green Mark (Green Mark is a building certification scheme by the Building and Construction Authority of Singapore that grades buildings on environmental design and performance, more info at http://www.bca.gov.sg/greenmark/green_mark_buildings.html). Not sure there are actually actual fiscal benefits for Green Mark certification though.

Building Design

If you've ever had to renovate a place, you may have realised the inherent flaws and massive massive wastage in building design and renovation.

My 2 big gripes are -

1. Concealed water piping

What happens when concealed water pipes burst or leak? First of all you waste a shit load of time trying to figure out where the leak is. Then, because the pipes are embedded, replacing part of a concealed water pipe isn't really an option. What options is the poor homeowner left with? Running exposed pipes, or else hacking the wall tiles and re-running the concealed piping.

My thoughts - is there a way to use ducts or conduits embedded in the wall, and then to run water pipes in these ducts / conduits?

2. Built in furniture

Built in cupboards, built in wardrobes... the biggest waste because they can't be taken with you when you leave. I saw some beautiful non built-in kitchen cabinets in a food magazine the other day (sadly the brand has slipped my mind and I didn't get a copy of the article) and kind of regretted not using movable furniture for my kitchen.

My thoughts - I think most people will continue to go with built in furniture, since it is pretty common and having something built in probably seems more permanent and consequently "more like home". Only thing I can think of is this - if you are moving into a new place, and there is built in furniture, rather than tearing it all out and replacing it, perhaps you can get away with just replacing the doors and the inside shelves. Alternatively, if you are building a new place, have a think to see whether that piece of furniture absolutely needs to be built it. E.g. a kitchen island could be a free standing type (and maybe bolted to the floor if you feel a need) rather than built it, so you can bring it along with you if / when you move.

Postscript - found the beautiful non built-in kitchen cabinets, unfortunately they are by Bulthaup and probably a tad expensive for most homeowners. Food for thought nonetheless.

Drycleaners

Picked up a load of dry cleaning today, and am finally getting round to write this long overdue post.

Its always amazed me how much plastic bags / plastic / waste in general is involved in the drycleaning process. Just using my drycleaner as an example - first up, clothes are wrapped in a transparent plastic bag to protect them (some drycleaners go so far as to make sure there aren't more than say 2 clothing items per transparent bag). Second, there're the hangers - I make it a point to return these to the drycleaners, though I'm sure a lot of people don't. Third - When my laundry is delivered to me (the cleaner is just round the corner from the office), the pieces come bagged in a big white plastic bag, and I've only just recently succeeded in convincing the lady at the shop that she is capable of delivering to me without using this white plastic bag.

Takeaways?
- Return those hangers.
- Try and reduce as much plastic usage as possible.
- Try and dryclean as little as possible. I'm making it a point to find just regular cotton trousers that I can wash myself at home, and save drycleaning for essentials like suits and ties.