Biodegradable Products does not equals to environmental friendly

When you buy something that has the sign biodegradable on it, it doesn't mean that this product does not have an impact on the earth, often it is a marketing strategy more than anything.

If a biodegradable product end up in landfill, it will produce methane as they biodegrade, methane is a strong green house gas that warm up our planet. Notably, there are landfills that can collect methane gas generate and anaerobic digestion, and produce electricity, but many don't. In those cases, biodegradable products may actually be worse for the environment than ordinary trash.




In many cases however, biodegradable products are more earth-friendly, if they are deposed correctly. The key is to get biodegradable products into composting facilities, they can make the most value our of these materials.

According to scientists however, the best way to mince your environmental foot print, is to reduce how much you consume and throw away in the first place.






http://www.seeker.com/biodegradable-products-damage-environment-too-discovery-news-1765278803.html

Can trees cause pollution?

Having too much of something is often harmful, even trees.

In Japan, cypress and cedar trees are causing massive amounts of nitrogen runoff into local streams. Because algae feed off nitrogen, the amount of algae was significantly increased in these rivers, they produce natural toxins, and deal mechanical damage to other organisms(They sucks oxygen out of the water), therefore harming the environment.

However, it is not because cypress and cedar are naturally harmful to the environment, these are the same type of trees in Amazon forest and keep the planet cool. In fact, these trees are planted artificially for commercial use 50 years ago, at a time when Japan has a large demand for wood. However, later for a number of reasons including labour cost and legislation, Japan began to increasingly import wood.

This leads to an overabundance of trees which causes today's problem. Because older trees use less nitrogen than younger trees, and these forest are so full go older trees that block the sunlight access for younger trees, leaving large amount of nitrogen being washed down to the river and caused algae blooms.

Scientist are proposing that owners of these land should thinner the first and let younger trees grow.

http://www.seeker.com/excess-trees-in-japan-are-harming-the-environment-1769934569.html

A better way to dispose of the biodigester waste

PepsiCo's agriculture team in Turkey has been successful in developing the anaerobic digestion technology. This technology uses a mixture of potato peels, corn kernels and other ingredients used in the company's snack foods to generate electricity and fertiliser in the same time.

The biogas generated by that this anaerobic digestion technology covers approximately 35 percent of the electricity needed to run the company's two Frito-Lay snack food plants.



This process also was able to produce a type of more environment-friendly fertiliser, supplying to its more than 350 contract farmers in Turkey.

To produce the fertiliser, after the the anaerobic digestion process, PepsiCo plants ship the left-overs to an external partner, which composts it for about three weeks to dry it out. Next, nutrients are added and the pellets are produced, packed into bags and shipped to farmers.

"As the team was thinking about what to do with the sludge, another team was looking for new fertilizer approaches that were more sustainable. Together, they found this process." said Ece Aksel, general manager of PepsiCo Turkey.




https://www.greenbiz.com/blog/2013/11/25/pepsico-turns-biodigester-sludge-fertilizer

"environmentally friendly" product.

So I came across this article on the abc website:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-22/food-processing-waste-recycled-as-premium-bottled-water/7325790

Food processing waste recycled as premium bottled water AquaBotanical

This article states that"A watery by-product of fruit and vegetable processing, which used to end up in the sewerage system, is now being served at restaurants as premium drinking water."

"When fresh produce is condensed and turned into concentrate, he collects the water that is removed and purifies it so it is fit for drinking.While he says the process would work for most fruit and vegetables, his early aqua creations have come mainly from carrots and grapes."

Although I believe the intention is good--- to recycle a waste product or a by-product of another food-based application, it simultaneously created another waste: bottled water. As I mentioned before in my journal, bottled water is doing absolutely no good to the environment. 

These plastic water bottles take literally forever to decompose, it is worse if they got incinerated. in many developing country such as india, plastic bottles has become a major environmental problem, because many developed countries ship their waste to these countries, where only 20% of plastic bottles are recycled. 

I am not sure what price tag this product would be put on, but I would imaging it would be much more expensive than an ordinary bottled water, hence I doubt that profit didn't play a major role in his invention.

2 More everyday items that are heating up our climate

As I continue my research, i find out more small things that we didn't really pay attention to but are also ruining the atmosphere in a big way.


1. lighters.

A typical lighter releases about 237 milligrams of carbon dioxide per minute. A typical power plant produces 12,200 kilograms of CO2 in the sam period. The only byproducts of burning the butane from our lighters are water and carbon dioxide, so it is not a pollution to the atmosphere, but just think about how often people use lighters, there are still a large amount of greenhouse gas being emitted.

Not to mention the plastic used to make these lighters is really harmful to the environment. so instead of buying disposable ones perhaps it would be a good option to switch to refillable metal ones.

2. Personal Generators 

engineers have found that firing up diesel backup generators in non-emergency situations triggers rising atmospheric ozone concentrations due to additional nitrogen oxide emissions, another contributor to the lower atmospheric o-zone. Scientist are calling for having diesel generators properly sited with state-of-the-art control technologies to lower nitrogen oxide emissions. Because when people experience power shortage, especially during summer, they tend to turn on their personal diesel generators, resulting high temperature, high electricity demand, high electricity prices, and high pollution levels during those periods.

http://phys.org/news/2015-01-relieve-power-grid-worsen-ozone.html

A Tiny Mobile Home by Snowboarder Mike Basich

Tiny houses is a new trend nowadays, it is exciting to see that some people, instead of going for larger and larger house, their aim is to build a home that is small and extremely efficient, they aim for just enough of everything, minimum footprint.

Mike's tiny home feels a little different than others. According to Mike, His dream is to chase after the perfect snow -- the fresh powdery kind. His ultimate goal was to have a home he could take with him anywhere, and that's exactly what he built.

He used mostly recycled materials, like siding from an old building, a stove he already had in storage, and he purchased a sink and windows from the Habitat for Humanity store. The house has a water tank, hot water heater, furnace, fireplace, stove, and even a skylight, but unfortunately no toilet -- Mike prefers to use the great outdoors as his bathroom.

http://www.seeker.com/taking-a-tiny-home-on-the-road-with-snowboarder-mike-basich-1815160479.html

Air pollution in China, how to improve the air quality? (Series 4/4)

First of all, we have to admit that air pollution is a very complicated problem and can not not solved with one solution.

During the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation 2014, the people in Beijing experience the best air quality in years. The locals call it "APEC Blue". Seems incredible how the quality has improved, but how the Beijing government achieve this? They enforced a serious of law including, temperately shut down all the factories near Beijing, limit the amount of vehicles on the road, construction sites stopped operating, and more frequent of road-cleaning,

Although the result is undeniable, it is clearly not a sustainable way to improve air quality. China is a developing country that heavily rely on its industrial production, and just shut down all factories will cripple the nation's economy.


However, there are things that can certainly be done.


China needs to reduce the emission from the source. Use renewable, clean energy sources (such as solar , wind, hydro ). Stop using coal. Fuel Pretreatment ( such as coal desulfurization ), improve combustion technology. Plants can also help purified the air. 

There is also the issue of Chinese steel factory over producing their products, these factories need to be regulated.

Local citizens need to use more pubic transport, if driving is unavoidable, install exhaust treatment device to their cars.

http://en.people.cn/90882/8519889.html