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.