Friday, March 25, 2011
War
I eyeballed an article in the papers the other day, but forgot to take note of it. Jumped on the web to see if I could find it... apparently the US Marines in Afghanistan use 800,000 gallons of fuel a DAY??!!! Geez.
Doinky Doodles
This shop got mention in the papers today - had a quick squiz at the site http://www.doinkydoodles.com, basically a quaint little shop whose owner reworks second hand clothing into new items. I might bring down my old boxers and turn them into patchwork pillowcases.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Plastic - Too good to throw away
Excellent article in the Straits Times today by a Susan Freinkel who is noted as being the author of "Plastic: A Toxic Love Story" (forthcoming). Gives an interesting perspective on plastic and its origins:
Some excerpts, which I thought were very well written and very insightful (reminder to get myself a copy of her book":
"Originally, plastic was hailed for its potential to reduce humankind's heavy environmental footprint. The earliest plastics were invented as substitutes for dwindling supplies of natural materials like ivory or tortoise shell... When the American John Wesley Hyatt patented celluloid in 1869, his company pledged that the new man-made material, used in jewellery, combs, buttons and other items, would bring 'respite' to the elephant and tortoise because it would 'no longer be necessary to ransack the earth in pursuit of substances which are constantly growing scarcer'."
"Today, plastic is perceived as nature's nemesis. But a generic distaste for plastic can muddy our thinking about the trade-offs involved when we replace plastic with other materials."
"Unfortunately, as the plastics industry incessantly points out, the bans typically lead to a huge increase in the use of paper bags, which also have environmental drawbacks. But the bigger issue is not what the bags are made from, but what they are made for. Both are designed, absurdly, for that brief one-time trip from the store to the front door. In other words, plastics are not necessarily bad for the environment: It is the way we tend to make and use them that is the problem."
"Plastic has become synonymous with cheap and worthless, when in fact those chains of hydrocarbons ought to be regarded as one of the most valuable substances on the planet. If we understood plastic's true worth, we would stop wasting it on trivial throwaways and take better advantage of what this versatile material can do for us... appreciate that lightweight plastics take less energy to produce and transport than many other materials."
"Yeet we cannot hope to achieve plastic's promise for the 21st century if we stick with wasteful 20th century habits of plastic production and consumption."
She also mentions "cloth sandwich wrappers" as one of the products that people are buying to reduce plastic usage. Cool!
Some excerpts, which I thought were very well written and very insightful (reminder to get myself a copy of her book":
"Originally, plastic was hailed for its potential to reduce humankind's heavy environmental footprint. The earliest plastics were invented as substitutes for dwindling supplies of natural materials like ivory or tortoise shell... When the American John Wesley Hyatt patented celluloid in 1869, his company pledged that the new man-made material, used in jewellery, combs, buttons and other items, would bring 'respite' to the elephant and tortoise because it would 'no longer be necessary to ransack the earth in pursuit of substances which are constantly growing scarcer'."
"Today, plastic is perceived as nature's nemesis. But a generic distaste for plastic can muddy our thinking about the trade-offs involved when we replace plastic with other materials."
"Unfortunately, as the plastics industry incessantly points out, the bans typically lead to a huge increase in the use of paper bags, which also have environmental drawbacks. But the bigger issue is not what the bags are made from, but what they are made for. Both are designed, absurdly, for that brief one-time trip from the store to the front door. In other words, plastics are not necessarily bad for the environment: It is the way we tend to make and use them that is the problem."
"Plastic has become synonymous with cheap and worthless, when in fact those chains of hydrocarbons ought to be regarded as one of the most valuable substances on the planet. If we understood plastic's true worth, we would stop wasting it on trivial throwaways and take better advantage of what this versatile material can do for us... appreciate that lightweight plastics take less energy to produce and transport than many other materials."
"Yeet we cannot hope to achieve plastic's promise for the 21st century if we stick with wasteful 20th century habits of plastic production and consumption."
She also mentions "cloth sandwich wrappers" as one of the products that people are buying to reduce plastic usage. Cool!
Monday, March 21, 2011
Simply Living
Had some time to kill before dinner at Bonta for Restaurant Week (dinner was very unexciting)and did a quick walk around River Valley. Saw a colourful shopfront amidst the dodgy pubs and wandered into Simply Living. Nice little space, offering a range of "eco and ethical lifestyle choices through products that are environment-safe, encourage reusing, recycling and reducing, and/or support fair trade practices" (got that from their business card).
In other words - a range of bags and carriers made from recycled materials (think Freitag, except these used things like Cambodian fishnets, inner tyre tubes, etc), small selection of organic foods, various fair trade items, eco friendly cleaning products, etc etc. Check out http://www.simplylivinglifeshop.com/ for more info. Chris Chua who was manning the shop was very engaging and clearly passionate about what he is doing.
One thing that did catch my eye was a a range of products produced by a Singapore Management University initiative, in conjunction with a plastics company in Jakarta. Basically a range of functional items (notepad holder, coin purse, pencil case, etc) produced from discarded plastic. Very colourful, very cool.
In other words - a range of bags and carriers made from recycled materials (think Freitag, except these used things like Cambodian fishnets, inner tyre tubes, etc), small selection of organic foods, various fair trade items, eco friendly cleaning products, etc etc. Check out http://www.simplylivinglifeshop.com/ for more info. Chris Chua who was manning the shop was very engaging and clearly passionate about what he is doing.
One thing that did catch my eye was a a range of products produced by a Singapore Management University initiative, in conjunction with a plastics company in Jakarta. Basically a range of functional items (notepad holder, coin purse, pencil case, etc) produced from discarded plastic. Very colourful, very cool.
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Mighty Wallet
Saw this Mighty Wallet in a bookshop the other day. Packaging said it is made of Tyvek, and "recyclable".
I jumped on the net and went to http://www.tyvek.com/ figuring (mistakenly) that it was the company manufacturing the wallets. Got routed to a Dupont site - Tyvek it turns out is a material produced by Dupont (like Kevlar etc).
I thought initially wow cool a recyclable wallet. But then after having a quick look at the Dupont website at http://www2.dupont.com/Tyvek/en_US/sales_support/recycling.html and http://recycletyvek.wm.com/home.cfm, it seems you can't just pop it into a recycling bin for paper or plastic - you need to get a Waste Management Tyvek Kit! How lame is that? And how is that recycling if you need to get a kit to recycle? Fine if you are doing it on a big scale... but in this case, for the dude with the Mighty Wallet, buying a kit hardly makes sense. Or what if you live in an area where there isn't a Tyvek recycling programme?
Note - A quick check on Wikipedia notes that "Despite the fact that some Tyvek products are marked with the #2 resin-code for HDPE, it is not usually collected with plastic bottles as part of municipal curbside recycling programs." - Wonder why that is?
Airline ziplock bags for liquids aerosols and gels
I have always had issues with this requirement, for a number of reasons: (i) what must be the phenomenal number of transparent ziplock bags it produced, (ii) what must be the equally phenomenal number of "security sealed" bags it produced (for when you buy liquids at airport duty free), (iii) the inconvenience it causes especially if you don't want to have check-in baggage, (iv) the hassle of having to go find travel sized bottles of stuff to fit within the 100ml rule. and (v) the fact that I have never quite been convinced what exactly this requirement was supposed to accomplish.
At the beginning, my discomfort / annoyance was mitigated by the fact that the policy was strictly policed, and I always figured there was probably some good reason (that I wasn't able to see) for it.
But on a couple of recent trips (and probably for quite some time back now that I think about it) I noticed that airport shops were still giving out these transparent ziplock bags, but no one was checking and no one seemed to care that ALL your LAGs were actually in these little bags.
Which made me think again - what could this rule possibly have hoped to accomplish? Even when it was strictly being policed, if you had say forgotten to put a bottle of some liquid in the ziplock bag, it would show up on the x-ray machine and they would inspect anyway.
The only thing I can think of is that requiring people to put their liquids in this little bag would make it faster for customs officials to examine all your LAGs and make sure you weren't carrying a potential bomb. But since there is no penalty for not putting all your liquids in the ziplock, I'm sure a lot of people don't do it, in which case why not just rely on the x-ray machine? Second, why limit bottle sizes to 100ml? (the requirement is for LAGs to be in containers of maximum size of 100ml, and to be in a ziplock back of size 1L) Why not just determine the maximum acceptable volume of LAGs per person (presumably a bit less than 1L since you wouldnt be able to fit 10 x 100ml bottles in a 1L bag due to packaging) and cap it based on that?
Having said all that, I accept that policy setting (especially for something as international and on such a large scale as airline travel) is extremely difficult and you will never have something that everyone agrees with.
But now that the rule is not being strictly policed, why not just scrap it altogether.
At the beginning, my discomfort / annoyance was mitigated by the fact that the policy was strictly policed, and I always figured there was probably some good reason (that I wasn't able to see) for it.
But on a couple of recent trips (and probably for quite some time back now that I think about it) I noticed that airport shops were still giving out these transparent ziplock bags, but no one was checking and no one seemed to care that ALL your LAGs were actually in these little bags.
Which made me think again - what could this rule possibly have hoped to accomplish? Even when it was strictly being policed, if you had say forgotten to put a bottle of some liquid in the ziplock bag, it would show up on the x-ray machine and they would inspect anyway.
The only thing I can think of is that requiring people to put their liquids in this little bag would make it faster for customs officials to examine all your LAGs and make sure you weren't carrying a potential bomb. But since there is no penalty for not putting all your liquids in the ziplock, I'm sure a lot of people don't do it, in which case why not just rely on the x-ray machine? Second, why limit bottle sizes to 100ml? (the requirement is for LAGs to be in containers of maximum size of 100ml, and to be in a ziplock back of size 1L) Why not just determine the maximum acceptable volume of LAGs per person (presumably a bit less than 1L since you wouldnt be able to fit 10 x 100ml bottles in a 1L bag due to packaging) and cap it based on that?
Having said all that, I accept that policy setting (especially for something as international and on such a large scale as airline travel) is extremely difficult and you will never have something that everyone agrees with.
But now that the rule is not being strictly policed, why not just scrap it altogether.
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