Unbottling the Bottled Water

Our infatuation with drinking high-priced "natural" water from a bottle rather than from the tap is contributing to global warming and could even qualify as an immoral act. Buying bottled water used to be a sign of water shortages. Now we buy it come rain or shine, no joke intended.

Unfortunately, for something as simple as water there is a huge environmental waste associated with it and one many environmentalist are now asking for us to do away with it or at least cut down on its usage.

Water quality in Singapore are amongst the highest in the world and yet despite rising water bills we fork out an billion of dollars on buying water off the shelvaes every year. That equates to an average of 41 litres per person every year. Second only to carbonated soft drinks in popularity. Furthermore, consumption of bottled water is growing more quickly than that of soft drinks and has more than doubled in the past decade. Bottled water has now overtaken coffee and milk in sales nationally, and is catching up with beer. To some, it’s an affordable luxury. To others, a healthy alternative to sugary drinks. Regardless, many consider it a staple.

It was not always like this though. Only a decade or less ago, if your supply had been cut off or there was a drought then you used to have a bit of a search to find bottles of water in your local store. Now our supermarket shelves are jam packed with water from all kind of distributor.

Why is bottled water so Popular?

It cannot be the taste, since most people cannot tell the difference in a blind tasting. Much bottled water is, in any case, derived from municipal water supplies, though it is sometimes filtered, or has additional minerals added to it. Nor is there any health or nutritional benefit to drinking bottled water over tap water. In fact in a study conducted in the states bottled water was compared with tap water and was found that nearly a quarter of the samples of bottled water had significantly higher levels of bacteria. Another study carried out at the University of Geneva found that bottled water was no better from a nutritional point of view than ordinary tap water.

Wer can contribute the populatity of bottled water to the marketing strategy. Bottled water is undeniably more fashionable and portable than tap water. The practice of carrying a small bottle, pioneered by supermodels, has become commonplace. Of course, tap water is not so abundant in the developing world. And that is ultimately why I find the illogical enthusiasm for bottled water not simply peculiar, but distasteful. For those of us in the developed world, safe water is now so abundant that we can afford to shun the tap water under our noses, and drink bottled water instead: our choice of water has become a lifestyle option. For many people in the developing world, however, access to water remains a matter of life or death.

So why is bottled water so bad?

There is enough oil used in the production process of water bottles in Singapore to keep 10,000 cars on the road for a year. About 1.5 million tons of plastic are expended in the bottling of 89 billion litres of water each year. The total amount of energy used to produce and deliver one bottle of water is the equivalent of filling the same bottle a quarter full of oil. Bottled water for Singaporean consumers produces about 33,200 tons of CO2 emissions each year. Only 10% of water bottles are recycled - most go to landfill. In total we have discarded more than 3 billion empty containers. Having travelled the long distance to reach the shelves at the market place many of it end up being refigerated and chill thus contributing to the soaring electricity costs.

A quarter of bottled water bought travels up to 16,000km to reach our consumers. in addition to the energy cost of producing, bottling, packaging, storing and shipping bottled water, there is also the environmental cost of the millions of tons of oil-derived plastic, from non-renewable sources, needed to make the bottles.

Tap water versus bottled water

In an effort to help turn consumers away from bottled water there has been a growing amount of publicity about its negative impact. However, it is difficult to argue against people drinking water because of its health benefits.

A recent campaign attempted to get round this by trying to get people to carry on drinking water but just not the branded bottled variety. The DIY Bottled Water campaign focused on the difference, or lack of, between tap water and its branded and bottled alternatives. If you could not tell the difference then it was surely time to stop buying it.

In essence it was asking consumers, why are you paying all this money for another bottle of water when you could just refill your own from the tap? The bottled water industry is a triumph of marketing over common sense. It has become a symbol of our disposable culture at its dumbest. In countries such as Singapore, where high quality water is literally on tap, it's time to bin the bottle.

And that is where the arguments against bottled water become so strong for environmental campaigners. We are told that we have an abundant supply of safe drinking water which we are fortunate enough to have available to us all, yet we are consuming millions of bottles of very similar water.Are you willing to give up the bottle?

The Nano Car. An Environmental Nightmare !!

Last January India's Tata Motors unveiled its much anticipated USD $2,500 car which is equivalent to only SGD $ 3,200 an ultra-cheap price tag that brings car ownership into the reach of tens of millions of people. The NANO car is the answer to allowing every Indians into owing its own car, but critics worry the car could overwhelm the country's roads which is notoriously known to be congested and already chocked and create an environmental nightmare.

The NANO ultracheap price tag revolutionise our mentality and long standing perception of car ownership and overnight suddenly brings car ownership into the reach of tens of millions of people across the world instantly. Dubbed "the people's car", the Nano is projected to be the cheapest such vehicle in the world - Its makers promise it will revolutionize the way cars are bought, sold, and driven.

With a snub nose and a sloping roof, the world's cheapest car can fit five people if they squeeze. And the basic version is sparse: there's no radio, no passenger-side mirror and only one windshield wiper. It does not have any air conditioning to cope with the brutal summers temperature. While the price has created a buzz, critics say the Nano could lead to possibly millions more automobiles hitting the roads, adding to mounting air and noise pollution problems in many countries that already have poor environmental condition such as India, Indonesian abd Brazil. Another faction of critics said that that NANO sacrifice quality and safety standards to meet the target price.

Tato, the manufacture of the car however insists that the car meet safety standards and pollute even less than motorcycles, passing domestic and European emission standards and averaging about 50 miles per gallon (20 kilometers per liter).

Nevermind the cheap price and say we take it whole sale that the NANO meets the European Pollution standards, can you imagine the magnitude of problems that the car will caused if thousands and millions of people decides to abandon their bicycles to the seemingly affordable car. Tens of thousand and millions of cars will soon flood the streets that used to be occupied with less cars and hundreds of manually driven mode of transportation. No matter what the industry expert may say that the car is environmentally less polluted, pollution it will still cause, start doing your maths and multiple the number of pollution by ten or twenty folds.

It is no surprise that India is making their own version of cheap markets to rival that of Chinese made Geely which cost USD $ 4000.00. In a few more years to come, we will see the developments of cheaper car which will soon reach into the hands of every people. Governments should start thinking of looking at their road infrastructure to support the increasing number of cars on the road and the amount of CO2 emission that these cars will be emitting. One thing for certain whatever headway that we have gained thus far in reducing the CO2 emission and curbing global warming will be reversed and worsened.

To all of us, we better start saying goodbyes to the ice poles and caps and prepared to embrace for warmer days ahead.

The Water Engine Evolution. Is it fact or fiction?

The end of rising petrol prices doesn't seems to be ending anytime soon and like many other road users and drivers we are growing tired with the ever increasing pump prices which apparently seems to only be heading towards one direction, up. When will we even see the end of the rising petrol prices and the return to its previous more logically accepted oil prices only god knows. Oops.... let me rephrase that only OPEC knows.

No one seems to know why the oil prices went sky rocketing beyond human apprehension. Industry expert contributes the rise of the oil prices to six reasons:

1. Summer demand,
2. Price of crude
3. Price of ethanol
4. Transition from MTBE to ethanol
5. Refinery problems and finally
6. Demand that's not seasonal

As oil prices rise, the quest for ways to replace fossil fuels or at least improve the mileage of modern vehicles becomes increasingly urgent. All around the globe, scientists and inventors slave away in an attempt to squeeze the last few percent of efficiency out of the conventional internal combustion engine because they know that even small improvements can have a big benefit to an auto-maker's bottom line.

At the same time, legions of "garage mechanics" are also working on ways to improve the mileage of your car. with all kinds of crazy devices flooding the market shelves with the promise of slashing your fuel bill by improving your mileage, or maybe even completely eliminating the need to buy gasoline at all.

As we drivers lamented helplessly on how it ache our heart whenever we visit the petrol pump stations and how it hurts deeply our pocket the moment we inserted the nozzle into the tank, there now seems to be a light at the end of a very very long tunnel.

A Japanese company Geneplax recently announced to the world in much hype which has caught everyone like a tidal wave that they have invented an electric-powered and environmentally friendly car that it says runs solely on water. Genepax unveiled the car in the western city of Osaka saying that a liter (2.1 pints) of any kind of water—rain, river or sea—was all you needed to get the engine going for about an hour at a speed of 80 km. The car will continue to run as long as you have a bottle of water to top up from time to time

What makes the water engine technology apart from other inventions such as the CNG and the Electric Car was that it does not require the build up an infrastructure to recharge your batteries. The water technology works once the water is poured into the tank at the back of the car, the a generator breaks it down and uses it to create electrical power.

However before all the hype and fanfare had died down, there now seems to be a different school of thoughts that are gaining momentum on the internet. Many have begin to debunct the water engine technology as a scam.

Sounds almost too good to be true doesn't it? And what is it they say about things that sound too good to be true?

Let's take a closer look at those HHO "hydrogen fuel cells". They are actually nothing more than a simple electrolysis device that uses electricity to split water into its constituent components -- two atoms of hydrogen and one of oxygen and technologicaul invention process that's been around for a very long time.
The gases generated by the electrolysis of water which is also known as Brown's Gas are recombined by way of combustion to release energy. Unfortunately the first law of thermodynamics clearly states that the energy generated by recombining the hydrogen and oxygen through combustion can only ever be equal to the amount of energy it took to separate them.

The delivery of it to the electrolysis cell and then the combustion process, actually resulted in far less recovery of energy from burning the hydrogen than it took to create it. Thus the devices which is said to free us up from the use dependency of bio fuel will actually caused us to use *more* fuel to heat the water in the electrolysis cell and the wires that lead to it.

The introduction of hydrogen and oxygen into your engine's intake can also lead to the car's computer incorrectly adjusting the air/fuel mixture to the point where fuel consumption either worsens further, or damage could be done to your engine.

As usual in the wonderful world of physics, there are no free lunches. But a little scientific fact is not about to stand in the way of those who think they can make money from the current energy crisis, there are still many who insist that we can increase our gas mileage by sucking power from your alternator and using it to create hydrogen.

On hindsight, even if the water techology does work what is stopping to say that water one of the world's natural commodity will sonner or later be as expensive as oil is. We may soon have water carter instead of oil cartels and speculators and traders that will push the cost of water up.

Will the water engine technology join its predecessors of invention, the electric car down the path of silence oblivion. Only time will tell.

Is Caring for the Environment a Shared Responsibility

Wednesday is "Bring Your Own Bag Day" - BYOBD yet another acroymn in a long list of other acroynms that we have to constantly remember. In an effort to reduce wastage of plastic bags and promote resource conservation shoppers are encourage to bring their own shopping bags. Whether the campaign is motivated by environmentally altruistic policies or prompted by the realisation that Singapore's last land fills in Pulau Semakau is fast being used up, 'BYOBD' is yet another effort by the government to go green.

A campaign was launched on 11 February 2006 and took a step forward on 18 April 2007 with the launch of the monthly Bring Your Own Bag Day (BYOBD) every first Wednesday of the month. Shoppers are encouraged to bring their own shopping bags. Otherwise, if you are a plastic bag addict or has fetish for plastic bags, you can purchase reusable bags available at the participating supermarkets or voluntarily donate 10 cents for each plastic bag taken at the checkout counters. Shoppers are also encouraged to decline plastic bags when purchasing only a few small items.

Singapore is not the first to introduce such a campaign. Hong Kong implemented its first No Plastic Bag Day (NPBD) in April 2006 and claimed it as a success, with a reported 62% of shoppers bringing their own bags and a corresponding reduction of 80% of checkout bags issued. It now has a monthly NPBD since June 2006, with almost double the number of participating retailers and participating outlets, compared to the start of the campaign.

Even though plastic bags do not pose a threat to the environment in Singapore, it is still wasteful to use plastic bags excessively with Singaporeans consuming 2.5 billion plastic bags a year, which is equivalent to 625 bags per person annually. With such a figure, Singapore must be a nation of plastic bag junkies. The campaign increased awareness among shoppers on the need to reduce wastage of plastic bags. However, the proportion of shoppers using reusable bags is still in the minority with only 2% of shoppers bring their own bags. Apart from Singapore and Hong Kong, many countries had implemented their own 'BYOBD' such as UK and Canada and China being one of the few new entrants to the global efforts.

A National Environment Agency study revealed that Singaporeans use about 2.5 billion plastic bags each year which is equivalent to 19 million kilogrammes of waste in just plastic bags alone. As plastic bags could not be recycled, they are being incinerated thus producing some 2,900 kg of carbon dioxide the same gas that is responsible for global warming. If we a charge 5 cents tax for each bag that we used, the Government would add an additional $125 million a year in the national coffers. With such an amount, maybe we can consider stopping the GST increase and halting the introduction of more ERP gentries and instead just capitalize on our plastic addiction.

However how has the campaign sink well with Singaporeans? An article in the New Paper recently reported of how a female patron of a supermarket dumped all her groceries and walked out of the stall fuming when she was told that she had to pay for the plastic bags that are being used. Supermarkets cashiers shared of how they sometimes experienced customer displeasure whenever it is 'BOYBD'. Some patrons complained that the campaign has caused much inconvenience to them as they are not able to remember the day due to their busy schedules. In an effort to make the campaign more successful, the 'BOYBD' which was originally slated once a month has been extended to every Wednesday. Several months and many plastics bags later, how successful has the campaign be?

Will this campaign end up short of its intended desire like our own Courtesy Campaign? Truth be known, old habits die hard and it will be difficult to change the mindset of Singaporeans who are so used to be carrying back loads of platic bags after their daily groceries shopping. What makes the campaign less effective is the fact that it only happens once every week. Singaporeans being Singaporeans couldn't possibly remember the significance of Wendnesday being 'BYOBD' till we are at the doorstep of the shop, hacked I dont even remember what I am supposed to be doing tomorrow?

Whether the intent was to cut down on the number of plastic bags used by us, we have began to feel the crunch in the availability of plastic bags at home. The same plastic bags there were used by us on a regular basis to bag our waste before throwing them down the chute. The unintended consequences to this campaign that the government may not have realised that it goes again the earlier campaign of encouraging us to bag our waste.

As we complain of how life is getting more complicated, it will be good for us to ponder ourselves whether caring for the environment is a shared responsibility. Everyone contributes to pollution through sewage, waste, fuel consumption and other activities, so everyone must participate in cleaning it up. Some in the community have argued we should pursue zero waste generation, but that is an unrealistic goal that even the most environmentally advanced countries cannot achieve. Instead, we need to invest in solutions that will minimise the amount of waste requiring disposal in landfills and increase landfill space, namely: increase waste recovery and recycling, develop integrated waste management facilities, extend the life of existing landfills and build new landfills.

Whetever the end result would be, we should play our small part for the environment.