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).