GREEN GRENADES

I always knew that seeds could be scattered over a field or any patch of land to grow trees. It is a great way to reforest areas and grow more green which is the need of the hour. It got more serious in last couple of decades. There is a certain scientific process involved in scattering of seeds and I recently stumbled upon this phenomenon. It is called 'SEED BOMBING'.  In the simplest ways to explain, this process is about making a ball out of clay/soil with seeds and dropping them where ever you please. The seed bombs are more effective over regular scattering of seeds. There are interesting ways that people have used this phenomenon all over the world. 

In the US, a lady named Liz Chirsty started a green guerilla revolution. She made seed bombs with a balloon filled with fertilizer and tomato seeds. They were tossed over vacant fences of New York suburbs to make the neighbourhood look better. 

In India, a group of young adults collaborate to collect seeds from residents of Mumbai. They ask the citizens to wash and dry the seeds after they have eaten the fruits. Once dried they collect the seeds and keep making seed bombs until the dry season. They scout for areas all over the city for possible guerilla gardening. The seed bombs are then placed in the ground right before the wet season.

Australian gardening guru Jerry Coleby Williams explains how to make seed bombs for southern hemisphere climate.  The process involves one part of compost and one part of clay and seeds to make the bomb. Once the bombs are made, they should be sprinkled with sulphur powder to keep the rats away. 

An innovative way to make seed bombs is with paper. Here is how...

http://joybileefarm.com/make-seed-bombs-recycled-paper/

Seed bombing in urban areas is a great way to reduce urban heat island and also make the city look green. 

ALTERNATIVE EDUCATION

In school, you're taught a lesson and then given a test. In life, you're given a test that teaches you a lesson. - Tom Bodett 

Climate change is a reality and is a life time test for everyone to face in their lives. Climate change has taught us a lesson and now we have to work towards it. In my previous posts I have mentioned few times about the importance of educating people on sustainable living. This was focused particularly towards educating policy makers and adults of the society. Today, I stumbled upon a website which has inspired me to be a part of an institution and contribute towards sculpting the young minds of this generation. Educating and involving children to lead a sustainable living.

http://www.sholaicloaat.org/

The Centre for Learning Organic Agriculture and Appropriate Technology is located in the hills in south of India. Apart from regular academic syllabus, the school focuses on educating the children with organic farming, wood work, engineering etc. The use of technologies ( solar, micro-hydro and bio-gas), water harvesting practices provide the students with an opportunity to research, reflect and study. The school also gives an opportunity to teach the children and I am already toying the idea to teach soon. Similarly, in Australia another community in Sydney involves school children to explore their local urban environment and learn about sustainability. This would have been more fruitful on grass root level if the the schools inculcate the teachings of sustainable living. 

http://www.greenway.org.au/arts-and-community/schools

I cannot stress enough how important it is to educate everyone to lead a sustainable life especially school children. Once American president Abraham Lincoln said..

"The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next "

OBITUARY OF LANDFILLS

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deonar_dumping_ground#/media/File:Mumbai_oli_2016028.jpg

Earlier this year in January, during my regular jog in the morning, the air quality wasn't quite conducive to run. I wondered what changed the weather so drastically. Apparently a fire had broken out in a landfill near Mumbai. The fire broke out at around 3.00 am and within 12 hours the entire city was under smoke. Schools were shut for next few days. Predominantly asthma patients suffered severely during the time. Again, in March another fire broke out. This time the central government woke up to the grave issue and only due to a local political ruckus, the landfill was declared prohibited area. Only no tress passing but not a shut down.

The landfills are popularly known as dumping grounds in India. The particular dumping ground in Mumbai where the fire broke out is the oldest and largest dumping ground in India, set up in 1927. The dumping ground is surviving for close to 9 decades. There have been attempts to bring a shut down on Deonar dumping ground for several years due environmental issues. In February 2012, the local municipal corporation sought permission from Aviation Ministry to increase the height to 164 feet . In 2014 the the waste had reached a height of 18 storey building.The state government attempted to shut down a part of it to generate methane and buy carbon credits. Today, in spite of all the tell - tell signs of environmental issues, the dumping ground is still operational without any hard measures taken to tackle the problem. Though local authorities play a big part in the functioning and monitoring of dumping grounds, some queries regarding dumping ground are still beyond my understanding....

How long can a dumping ground survive? What is the lifespan of a dumping ground? What are the indicators for the closure of a dumping ground? clearly breaking fire is an indicator but what are the other pre indicators?

After doing some research on the internet I found there are different theories and practices involved with dumping grounds. Bad economy is good for life expectancy of landfill. People buy less and produce less waste. So reducing waste is a theory to increase the life expectancy of dumping grounds. Some practices of dumping ground in the US which started in 1950s are dumping more waste than before. Some practices in the U.S. have a life expectancy of 30-50 years. Weight is a primary factor in how long a dump yard will remain open. Dumping grounds have maximum weight limit each year. 

But when do you stop trashing the dump yard? How do you know the tipping point of landfills? These are some of the questions Mumbai municipal corporation need to ponder on and come up with solutions. 

Reference:

http://www.ndtv.com/mumbai-news/another-fire-at-mumbais-deonar-dumping-ground-shiv-sena-alleges-conspiracy-1289453

http://classroom.synonym.com/long-average-landfill-open-7103.html

REHAB FOR ADDICTION OF PLASTIC

We humans have become dependent on plastic for a range of uses, from packaging to products. Reducing our use of plastic bags is an easy place to start getting our addiction under control. 

- David Suzuki (Canadian environmental activist)

I recently moved to Australia and not aware about how garbage disposal system works. My building manager informed me about recycle bins and garbage bins. Red lid for the regular waste, yellow for recycling, blue lid for paper and cardboard waste and green lid for the organic garden waste. This looked pretty straight forward until my flatmate asked me not to put plastic bags in recycling bin. I was dumbfounded while I was shoving a plastic bag into a recycling bin and also guilty of using it in the first place. He said, "plastic bags CANNOT be recycled." Since that day I got very conscious of what goes into each waste bin.

http://garbageguru.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/

The above website helped me understand the waste produced in a household goes into which bin. Few days later I saw a bin outside Woolworths with a sign 'Recycle Plastic Bags'. If council doesn't take plastic bags for recycling how does a super market recycle them. My first thought was 'do they reuse them?' So I had to get to the bottom of this. 

Plastic bags fall into a category of soft plastic. Along with plastic bags any plastic item that can be easily crushed by hand like bread, pasta, chips packet, biscuit packs and trays are all considered as soft plastic. Following are few issues regarding soft plastic which are prevalent in Australia:

• Annually Australians use 3.9 billion plastic bags a year. 
• 28% of Australians think that plastic bags can go into a household recycling bin. (like me) 
• 52% of Australians incorrectly believe that biscuit packs and trays should go in recycling bins. 

The plastic bags or so to say soft plastic is not taken by the council in yellow bin because plastic gets caught in the sorting machines at recycling centres causing breakdowns and delays. In turn increasing the cost of recycling. The 'City of Sydney' suggests to drop all the soft plastic outside Coles into REDcycle collection bins. The REDcycle program will recycle the plastic packaging into useful new products like outdoor furniture. All this is good until you have the luxury to go to Coles often to drop off soft plastic waste. Nearest Coles from where I live is 2km away and I don own a car to move around. Also I do not shop at Coles often because I shop locally and there are no plastic bag disposal bins. 

No matter how hard I try I cannot reduce the soft plastic coming into the house. If I had a composting pit in the backyard then I could have put my wet waste directly into the pit. Since I don't have one I have to put a bin liner on my bin. This only increases soft plastic in regular bin along with other soft plastic generated through cereal packets, bread packets etc. This leads to landfills causing environmental impacts. Now, even if am not a part of 28% ignorant people I am still contributing towards environmental impact by trashing all my soft plastic into regular garbage bin.  Following are few suggestion the local council and The City of Sydney should consider:-

• Provision of bins for soft plastic to make things easier. If not in every house hold then at least in every neighbourhood
• Mandatory composting pit in backyard of all the houses possible to reduce the use of bin liners. Composting pits have sustainable benefits. 
• Educate people about environmental impact by usage of plastic bags and limiting the use of plastic like South Australia, Northern Territory state governments.

It is time we keep a check on our addiction of plastic. 

References:

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/d/david_suzuki.html

http://recyclingweek.planetark.org/recycling-info/softplastics.cfm

http://www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/live/waste-and-recycling/recycling

SUSTAINABLE CUTLERY

http://www.bambuhome.com/ | http://ecopartybox.com.au/ | http://www.biopak.com.au/

All of the above websites have one thing in common. 

Environment friendly disposable cutlery!

Traditionally all the disposal cutlery is made out aluminium, plastic, paper and corrugated fibreboard. Plastic is heavily used to manufacture disposable cutlery amongst the materials listed above. Now, it is not a new phenomena that plastic is not a sustainable material. Hence other alternatives are being implied to cut down the usage of plastic. Aluminium could be an alternative but recycling of aluminium carries high percentage of embodied energy.Also using paper and fibreboard means deforestation and would take 25-30 to replenish the raw material. 

 The above mentioned three companies have gone a step ahead and produced cutlery with partly eco-friendly materials and some with completely eco-friendly medium. The variety of materials used is sugar cane fibres, bamboos, wood,plastarch material which is 70% starch and 30% polypropylene. Basically the materials are annually renewable and have the least environmental impact. Even least environmental impact is an impact. The odds are hard to beat but....

The Edible Cutlery

The edible cutlery can beat the odds and can bio degrade in 3-4 days if not consumed. The shelf life of the edible cutlery is roughly 3 years. If consumed by human and through human waste it can be guided to domestic compost. Making a sustainable journey for edible cutlery. Interestingly, the three companies mentioned above also claim that their cutlery is suitable for home compost or commercial compost. 

Above is a flow chart of how two possibilities of sustainable cutlery reach composting stage. I am intrigued to know scientifically which one carries more embodied energy throughout the process. With not much technical knowledge on embodied energy, I presume the edible cutlery has less impact on the environment as it can be reused; through composting can produce renewable energy and more importantly is biodegradable. 

References:

http://www.bambuhome.com/

http://ecopartybox.com.au/

http://www.biopak.com.au/

http://www.bakeys.com/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-2WiqOtlqg&nohtml5=False 

BHUTAN FOR LIFE

THIS COUNTRY ISN'T JUST CARBON NEUTRAL - IT'S CARBON NEGATIVE

 In the above video Bhutanese PM Tshering Tobgay shares the vision for Bhutan and a dream that can be dreamed by other countries in the world for a carbon neutral world. As the title goes, Bhutan is carbon negative and has net carbon sink for more than 4 million tons of carbon each year. In spite of not contributing to global warming, Bhutan is yet bearing the brunt of it. In association with WWF, Bhutan government is working towards a funding programme called BHUTAN FOR LIFE for the conservation of environment since Bhutan is a global biodiversity hot spot.  

 Bhutan for life is a funding initiative that provides a sustained flow of finance to maintain the country's protected areas and biological corridors for perpetuity (which is 14 years until Bhutanese government takes care of the entire cost without foreign assistance). Bhutan is considered to be a third world country. Hence, 'Bhutan for Life'. The program consists of investments in:

• Strengthening the management of protected areas
• Diversifying eco-tourism activities as the general tourism routes get saturated 
• Protecting and monitoring wildlife and biodiversity
• Supporting people with job creation and income generating opportunities. 

This is a simple model to follow for rest of the world. Most of the governments and policy makers have been taking active steps towards carbon neutrality but their carbon emissions are far too high to achieve neutrality. That is where involving the citizens is a must. At a micro level each individual should know about carbon emissions, carbon sink & carbon neutrality;its impact on the planet. Education of sustainable development is the key towards carbon neutral planet. This is a major element that is missing from the 'Bhutan for Life' funding program for other countries to follow;educating the people for a green future. 

The lack of education on sustainable living is going to set us back.At the moment people are either turning a blind eye to the problem or don know how to live sustainably. Education will help make people change their life styles. Making a documentary like 'An Inconvenient Truth' by Al Gore will open eyes for many.  Instead of horoscope in news paper dailies, editors should have a column on sustainable living. Children at school should be taught about the grave issue on hand. 

The united nations have proposed education of sustainable living but I wonder if it is getting enough eye balls on their web page. The cup of knowledge is filled by one drop at a time. That cup of each 6 billion individuals should be filled sooner than later for a better tomorrow. 

References:

http://www.wwfbhutan.org.bt/bhutan_for_life/

http://www.worldwildlife.org/projects/bhutan-committed-to-conservation

https://www.2degreesnetwork.com/groups/2degrees-community/resources/bhutan-model-rest-world-should-follow/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Lc_dlVrg5M

PROBLEM 'NUMBER ONE AND TWO'

" I think toilets are more important than temples. No matter how many temples we go to, we are not going to get salvation. We need to give priority to toilets and cleanliness."

 - Jairam Ramesh (member of parliament, India)

 Nature calls you whenever it pleases. When nature calls you have to be prepared to face the adversity if you are in a public space. One such close to worse incident happened to me a few weeks back. I was waiting at Railway Square for a friend after office hours. The nature called for number one while I was waiting. I had to attend the men's room before my friend got to Railway Square. Like any regular person I looked for signs for public toilets. No signs possibly visible! Next thought was to ask the guy at the convenience store for the nearest toilets. He suggested McDonalds. I headed to McDonalds only to know that they keep their toilets locked and can be used by their patrons only. Next Stop KFC; the same story repeated. In the process it took me half an hour to figure out that there is one public toilet at the extreme end of the railway station only to realize that it was on the other side of the ticket barriers. Lucky that I had my opal card on me to enter the station. 
 During the last few weeks this incident and public toilets have been haunting me very dearly. It got me thinking on why there is a lack of public toilets in a city like Sydney. Sydney is rated amongst the top 10 most livable cities of the world. After doing some research I stumbled upon Australian Government website about national public toilets and where to find them. Also there are applications for mobile devices for public toilets. This was the find of my life time. 

 https://toiletmap.gov.au/Find 

Only if I knew about this incredible service given by the government on that particular night! It reassured by faith in Sydney to be one of the most livable cities in the world and couldn't be called any less of a Smart City. I was curious to find out on how many public toilets are surrounding the Railway Square. There were a handful of them. The following screen shot from the website shows the list of all toilets. 

Source: https://toiletmap.gov.au/Find

To my disappointment all the above list toilets on the right are in an institution. This means they are in shopping centres, libraries, markets, museums etc. These places are mostly shut at the close of business hours. 

Source : Public Toilet Strategy 2014, City of Sydney

The above pie diagram shows that close to 50% of the toilets are operated by institutions other than the council/government. Where can one go post late evening in hunt for toilets?Clearly there is a lack of free standing public toilets. 

The NSW government has been proposing more public toilets since 2013 as per Nicole Hasham's article 'When nature calls, Sydney responds' in The Sydney Morning Herald. But according to Kylie Galbraith, in the article 'Big wee worries - Lack of public toilets in CBD back on the agenda' on 15th Feb 2016, that the government is far from achieving the goals of having public toilets. The lack of public toilets is evident in...... 

As we step into sustainable cities, the government should provide for basics which include CLEAN PUBLIC TOILETS. Until then always clear the sack before leaving home because you never know where it will explode.  


References:

1. http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/when-nature-calls-sydney-responds-20130717-2q4ke.html

2. http://www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0007/199816/2013-460160-02-Policy-Attachment-C-Public-Toilet-Strategy-Adopted.pdf

3. http://www.theage.com.au/comment/no-relief-in-sight-on-public-toilets-20140815-104ii8.html

4. http://www.northerndailyleader.com.au/story/3729995/big-wee-worries-lack-of-public-toilets-in-cbd-back-on-the-agenda/?cs=157