When it comes to going green, the long-term benefits certainly outweigh the short-term cost costs involved. The difficulty for most is to bear this in mind and make a conscious decision to make an investment for the future – for an enhanced quality of life.

Cost of going eco-friendly for food

Food is a daily essential, and going eco-friendly in the food category entails making changes to your diet – like using products that are made with sustainable methods, and avoiding produce that depend largely on industrial, synthetic substances like fertilisers, pesticides, antibiotics and hormones. This means consuming food that is organic.

However, organic food products tend to be more expensive than non-organic ones. This is also due to additional costs that are spent to get organic food certified. Besides purchasing organic food, the other option is to grow your own organic herbs, fruits and vegetables. By making a dedicated change towards an eco-friendlier diet, you are not only improving your health and your loved ones’, you are also contributing to a cleaner and greener environment and future.

Ultimately, investing in eco-friendly (organic) food may be more expensive than regular ones at present, but because you will be healthier in the future, you will be spending less on visits to the doctor and medication. These savings made in the long run will cumulatively outweigh the “costs” incurred.

Cost of going eco-friendly for energy

Today we are still highly dependent on fossil fuels. The available technologies to tap on these non-renewable energy sources are much more advanced and sophisticated than the infrastructure for renewable energy sources like solar and wind power. As a result, fossil fuels are much more cost-effective than the alternative renewable energies.

Nevertheless, the use of fossil fuels has caused loads of environmental problems – air pollution, global warming and disastrous climate change-induced events like floods, droughts and heat waves and severe, abnormal reversal of weather cycles. Not only do these occurrences endanger the lives of you and your loved ones, they also jeopardise the survival of humanity and other living species. We may not see the full-ranging impact of climate change right now, but its adverse effects are manifesting bit by bit, before our eyes. The threatened survival of our entire Earth could be the price we pay tomorrow, for the savings we make today from using cheaper fossil fuels – let’s ask ourselves if this is worthwhile.

It would be unrealistic to have fossil fuels totally replaced, particularly when the resources to tap on renewable energy sources are not developed to desired levels of efficiency yet. However, if more countries could invest time and money into such renewable energy plants, our reliance on fossil fuels would gradually be reduced, benefiting our environment and the lives of future generations in the longer term. Also, as fossil fuels become more scarce, their costs would also increase. Renewable energy sources would certainly play a great alternative if the world’s leaders are far-sighted about it.

The situation can be applied to a more micro level, in an individual household.

For example, an energy-saving refrigerator may be more expensive at the point of purchase, but the amount of savings in utility bills will exceed that significantly, over the years.

To conclude, being eco-friendly is without a doubt more expensive a lifestyle, but treat it as an investment for the future – for it’ll definitely bring about greater savings later down the road, with more rewards reaped. bio-home firmly believes in the principle of eco-friendliness, and we do so by creating a range of eco-friendly cleaning products that adds tremendous value to your life and your living environment. Find out more here.

The post Does it cost more to be eco-friendly? appeared first on bio-home by Lam Soon.

The concept behind “eco-friendly” is to live with the intent and purpose of conserving resources while reducing the contribution of harm to the environment (e.g. pollution, global warming) through our interactions with it. This involves being conscious of how we use resources through engaging in eco-friendly practices, creating more sustainable relationships between ourselves and our natural environment.

How to become eco-friendly?

The very first step is to change our existing pattern of consumption. This entails transforming our habits like how we dispose of waste materials, how much packaging we use because of our shopping, whether we often drive as compared with taking public transport or opting for carpooling.

The second step examines the degree of our carbon footprint that we have little or no control over due to our living circumstances, such as the type of employment we have, living in an apartment versus a house, and channeling our actions with the responsibility to minimise the carbon footprint to our utmost best.

The last step involves proactively pursuing connections with other eco-friendly individual, businesses and communities, choosing and creating social networks that support and encourage our own efforts. This step, by far, is probably the most difficult – to live in and support a sustainable economy where we may not have many of the conveniences that we are accustomed to, can be a personal challenge to face.

5 steps to become more eco-friendly

1. 3Rs of Waste Hierarchy

The 3Rs of Waste Hierarchy can improve the entire waste management process. For example, taking a quick shower instead of a long bath (Reducing water wastage); using water that is left over from floor cleaning to water plants (Reuse); purifying rainwater for human consumption (recycle). In general, reduce what is manufactured and consumed to lessen the quantity of waste generated; reuse items for different purposes rather than discard them instantaneously; recycle items like paper, metals, glass and plastic, which can be reconditioned into new, functional objects.

Regarding recycling, we can also be more environmentally responsible by looking out for the recycling symbol when we do our shopping. Small, conscious steps like carrying a grocery bag instead of plastic bags go a long way in controlling the amount of waste that we create.

2. Conserve Energy

Besides water, electricity also constitutes our daily energy consumption. Simple routines like switching off the lights when they are not in use, proper wiring insulation to prevent unnecessary current loss, maximising our use of daylight, purchasing energy-efficient lighting equipment and gadgets, go a long way in conserving energy.

3. Find Alternatives to Driving

To reduce our carbon footprint and save fuel, consider taking public transport for commuting or pool with family members, friends and colleagues. If we have time to spare and the destination which we need to get to is not too far away, walking on foot or riding a bicycle is definitely the most eco-friendly approach.

4. Purchase Locally Grown Products

When we produce or purchase locally grown products, we are reducing our carbon footprint in the form of using less packaging and plastic bags, and reducing the dependence on industrial farming, which can be detrimental to the environment with the pollution it causes. Also, when we shop at farmers’ markets that retail organic fruits, vegetables and meat, we are also getting more nutritious and wholesome meals for ourselves, not just helping the environment.

The concept of thinking locally does not apply to food only. When we purchase locally-manufactured green products like toys, furniture or leather goods, we are putting money back into our own community and helping homegrown brands fulfil their eco-friendly practices. For business owners going the eco-friendly route, it means being conscious of the waste products that our business can potentially create and the manner in which resources are used – for example, using packaging materials or conducting advertising that reduces any adverse impact on the environment.

5. Engage in Gardening

Deforestation on a massive scale has reduced the Earth’s forested area significantly, leading to adverse consequences like soil erosion, loss of natural habits for millions of forest species and threatening their existence, desertification, global warming. On an individual level, we can do our part by gardening – our way of “reforestation” – as going green. One immediate way we can make an impact is to start doing so right in our own garden or backyard. We can also volunteer with local green projects or get involved in recycling programs, as part of our sustainability efforts.

bio-home advocates the eco-friendly movement with our product range designed to help create a more sustainable environment for its customers. Find out more here.

The post What does it mean to be eco-friendly? appeared first on bio-home by Lam Soon.

See contest details at the end of this article.

A giant virus that is long dormant known as Mollivirus sibericum has been revived after more than 30,000 years. While it isn’t harmful to humans, its survival beneath the permafrost gives rise to suggestions that many long-forgotten viruses are lying beneath in wait that is still unknown to us.

According to the researchers, their findings suggest that prehistory ‘live’ viruses are not rare happenings. “We cannot rule out that distant viruses of ancient Siberian human populations could re-emerge as Arctic permafrost layers’ melt and are disrupted by industrial activities.”

Fortunately, most unearthed ancient viruses are harmful only to other single-celled organisms. However, Professor Jean-Michel Claverie warned that some infectious particles can still lead to the “resurgence of potentially pathogenic viruses in Arctic regions” in the presence of a receptive and suitable host.

Said the professor: “If we are not careful, and we industrialise these areas without putting safeguards in place, we run the risk of one day waking up viruses such as smallpox that we thought were eradicated.”

bio-home is giving away 12 pairs of tickets to Frozen Planet in Concert by the Singapore Symphony Orchestra. Simply spend $8 on bio-home products to participate. You will need to upload your receipt over at bio-home here.

The post Frankenvirus – The resurgence of ancient viruses as a result of climate change appeared first on bio-home by Lam Soon.

Those born in 2015 can expect a lifespan of around 71.4 years (73.8 years for females; 69.1 years for males). The country with the longest lifespan is Japan at 84, followed by Switzerland, Singapore, Australia and Spain.

Africa still has the shortest lifespan. Those born last year in Sierra Leone are expected to live for just over 50 years. Babies in Angola, Central African Republic, Chad and Ivory Coast are expected to do only marginally better.

Life expectancy experienced a drop in the 1990s due to Aids in Africa and health problems related to alcoholism in Eastern Europe following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Efforts including malaria control, the availability of drugs against HIV and better child survival led to a substantial increase in life expectancy in the African region. Figures have shown an increase of 9.4 years to an average of 60 years.

Margaret Chan, the director-general of the WHO, says that providing primary healthcare for those in need is the prerequisite for future improvements.

“The world has made great strides in reducing the needless suffering and premature deaths that arise from preventable and treatable diseases,” said Chan. “But the gains have been uneven. Supporting countries to move towards universal health coverage based on strong primary care is the best thing we can do to make sure no one is left behind.”

According to the report, some households have to pay for healthcare that is more than 25% of their household income, which is impossible.

The latest issue of the WHO’s World Health Statistics came up with these figures, highlighting the gaps needed to be covered before new UN sustainable development targets can be reached.

However, healthy life expectancy differs from life expectancy. Newborn babies can expect a healthy lifespan of just over 63 years, almost eight years before the average age of death. This figure is highly variable when comparing the more and less affluent countries.

Some data below from the report shows the leading causes of death and ill-health affecting the probability of meeting sustainable development goals.

303,000 women die due to complications of pregnancy and childbirth.

5.9 million children die before their fifth birthday.

2 million people are newly infected with HIV, and there are 9.6 million new TB cases and 214 million malaria cases.

1.7 billion people need treatment for neglected tropical diseases.

More than 10 million people die before the age of 70 due to cardiovascular diseases and cancer.

800, 000 people commit suicide.

1.25 million people die from road traffic injuries.

4.3 million people die due to air pollution caused by cooking fuels.

3 million people die due to outdoor pollution.

475,000 people are murdered, 80% of them men.

Figures retrieved from the Guardian.

The post Global life expectancy is set to increase to 71.4 years. appeared first on bio-home by Lam Soon.

By 2050, the world population is projected to hit 9.7 billion people, with two-thirds living in urban areas. This shift in lifestyle will inevitably result in pollution, leading to more health problems such as cancer and cardiovascular diseases.

As troubling as this may sound, current population trends are already changing the global health scene, which can mean bigger and more pressing issues.

Combine population growth with other pressures such as climate change and human migration, some parts of the world will encounter unparalleled levels of urban density. Megacities like Mexico City and Lagos are becoming more mainstream, and with that, there will be a rise in urban epidemic and a new age of infectious diseases.

Currently, the big cities in developing countries are pushing our ability to curb the spread of infectious disease. Ebola and Zika in urban communities are challenging our knowledge of how common diseases are spread. There is a need to reassess and update risk assessments for fatal pathogens with epidemic potential, safeguarding ourselves with the means to deal with urban outbreaks when they occur.

Theoretically speaking, cities should be able to handle infectious disease better than rural districts. Wealthy nations will naturally have more resources healthcare, finances and facilities wise. They will also have a stable electricity supply, access to refrigeration, sanitation and better supply-chain management to manage vaccines and other important medication.

In truth, low-income countries are inadequately resourced with lacking health systems. This explains why Ebola, a relatively not contagious disease spread quickly in West Africa, while it was curbed almost immediately in North America and Europe.

With lacking health systems, higher population numbers make it harder to curb outbreaks. Vaccination is the best and most cost-effective defence against infectious diseases, but challenges are surfacing. In the past, one in five children living in rural areas misses out on a full course of basic vaccinations. Now, many of these kids live in marginalised urban communities in the middle of cities, hiding in plain sight. This is a major blindspot and weak link in the restriction of urban epidemics.

This is almost unavoidable in Africa, as the population is projected to double by 2050, and quadruple by 2100 – from 1.2 billion to 4.4 billion. This population explosion will drive people towards the cities as desertification, land degradation, rising sea levels and famine continue to displace around 60 million between 2014 and 2020.

Regarding global health security, more people in less space places tremendous strains on already insufficient sanitation. This provides an abundant breeding space for infectious diseases and insect carriers. Concurrently, the sheer scale of cities will possibly stress vaccine supplies, drastically limiting abilities to respond to outbreaks. Angola is already suffering from a major urban outbreak of yellow fever in decades.

The scale and spread of infectious diseases can be unpredictable. In Angola, 8 million had to be vaccinated to stop the current outbreak. Thankfully, there were enough doses to go around, but this means dipping into supplies intended for future prevention. If another major outbreak happens in another major city, supplies might be seriously threatened.

Viruses are spread all the more quickly as people travel in and out of different countries. The yellow fever disease in Angola has already made appearances in Kinshasa, Beijing and Nairobi.

As cities grow and population, the risk and extent of outbreaks will rise, along with vaccinations needed to keep them in check. To avoid outbreaks, we should reduce the gaps in which infection can spread. This will include routine immunisation coverage and uncovering urban blind spots. Vaccination does also have to be continuously monitored to ensure that there is enough to counter worst-case scenarios.

Projected scenarios will need to be accurate in predicting scales of diseases, which might not always be linear. One prime example is Zika, where its full risks were only known after it spread to dense urban areas. Despite knowing this, it was too late for the thousands that were infected.

This article was originally written by Dr Seth Berkley, CEO of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance for the Guardian.

The post Global health on the decline – rapid urbanisation threatens living space appeared first on bio-home by Lam Soon.

According to NASA scientists, global temperatures currently are much higher than the first half of 2015. The director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies Gavin Schmidt said that 2016 temperatures have far exceeded that of 2015, where the first six months yielded the highest half-year temperature.

Their calculations projected a 99% probability that the full year of 2016 will be hotter than 2015.

Last year’s Paris climate treaty for nations to limit climate change comes with a set of temperature targets, and the world is playing with these targets.

Part of the rise in temperatures this year is associated with El Niño, as warming waters in the Pacific Ocean pump lots of heat into the atmosphere.

As El Niño is now ending, water temperatures in the Pacific are expected to drop leading into 2017, but temperatures will remain historically high.

The first six months of 2016 showed an average temperature of 1.3 degree Celsius, or 2.3 degrees Fahrenheit above the 1880 average. That was when records were kept globally, and showed temperatures around 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels.

Excluding Antartica, all parts of the planet experienced warming during the first half of 2016.

In the Arctic, warming was exceptionally high, which affected sea ice coverage.

According to scientist Walt Meier from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, the geographical extent of Arctic ice this year was the lowest since 1979, as warmer temperatures caused ice to start melting two months earlier than usual.

He said: “It’s been an extreme beginning to the year for sea ice”. It is unclear whether this year will exceed records for the lowest sea-ice extent, beating records in 2012.

The increase of 1.5 degrees Celsius is special because of the Paris climate treaty in December, where nations pledged to limit the increase in global temperatures to that amount above preindustrial levels.

While we are already at that target, Dr Schmidt said that the Paris target refers to continuous temperatures over an extended period.

“I certainly would not say that we have now gotten to that initial Paris number and are going to stay there,” he said. “But I think it’s fair to say that we are dancing with that lower target.”

The post Global temperatures to hit another record this year appeared first on bio-home by Lam Soon.

Vertical farming isn’t a new concept. Most of the action takes place inside warehouses where plants are grown with ultra-efficient systems. Take countries like Chicago, Kyoto and Singapore for example. This concept from Aprilli Design Studios, however, approaches this a different way. They make use of decks to allow plants to grow outdoors on the sides of a giant skyscraper.

This is not the first tower with greenery on the sides, but this idea is one of the first using this technique to produce food. Says architects Steve Lee and See Yoon Park: “Our version of the vertical farm was intended to become an independent, open-to-air structure which would be purely focusing on farming activities and sustainable functions such as generating renewable energy and performing air, and water filtration”.

The skyscraper is shaped like an enormous tree covered with leaf-like platforms that total to 24 acres of space dedicated to the growing of fruit trees and other plants. The “trunk” or middle of the tree is an indoor hydroponic farm for greens, solar panels and wind turbines at the top provide the place with energy. Rainwater will also be captured and filtered through a manmade wetland before being returned to a stream nearby.

The architects visualised the tower standing in the midst of Downtown Seoul in South Korea. To them, it seemed ideal for testing the prototype considering the densely populated area suffering from results of rapid urbanisation.

“With the support of hydroponic farming technology, space could efficiently host more than 5,000 fruit trees,” the architects explain. “Vertical farming is more than an issue of economic feasibility since it can provide more trees than average urban parks, helping resolve urban environmental issues such as air pollution, water runoff and heat island effects, and bringing back balance to the urban ecology.”

On top of providing crops, this design can bring about gardens, parks and a farmer’s market providing fresh local fruit in a city where such crops are usually costly.

Since vertical farming is not new to South Korea, both Lee and Park are hoping that the Urban Skyfarm will attract more attention and be a prototype proposal. They believe vertical farming holds the answer to solving food shortage issues and helps tackle environmental problems arising from urbanisation.

The post A new way to feed the city – growing crops in a skyscraper. appeared first on bio-home by Lam Soon.

The pilot – Smog Free Project was launched in Rotterdam, and is now coming to China. This project is made of two parts: a 7m tall tower sucks up polluted air and cleans it at nano-level, and the extracted carbon from smog particles is turned into diamonds.

“It started with a dream, the dream of clean air for everyone.” – Daan Roosegaarde at the World Economic Forum

He explained that inspiration for the project came while he gazed out of a hotel window in Beijing.

He said: “On Saturday, I could see the world around me, the cars, the trees, the people. But on Wednesday it was completely covered in smog, with pollution, and that image made me a little bit sad.”

In the end, a dangerous environment is created – one where children are unable to go out and where the air we breathe is hazardous.

With help from the Beijing government, Roosegarde has launched his project in China. According to him, areas that have been cleansed are 70-75% cleaner than other parts of the city.

32% of Beijing’s smog is carbon. Add to that 30 minutes of pressure, and this can be turned into diamonds. To Roosegarde as a designer, he says that the smog is something to be used, that even such things should not be wasted.

The diamonds will be made into jewellery and proceeds will fund the building of more such towers.

This project will be making its rounds to other cities after Beijing.

The post Let’s turn China’s smog into diamonds. Crazy idea? Think again. appeared first on bio-home by Lam Soon.

Said Susan Solomon, an atmospheric chemist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge: “We can now be confident that the things we’ve done have put the planet on a path to heal,”. She was also surprised at the speed at which the healing took place, proving that collective efforts do have a major impact.

In Antarctica, ozone loss only starts getting serious around September. This is the beginning of the southern spring when light returns. During winter, nitric acid and water condense out and form wisps of clouds. The surfaces of the cloud particles host chemical reactions that release chlorine originating from CFCs, which will destroy the ozone after reacting with light.

Video courtesy of Science Magazine

Instead of measuring the size of the ozone hole in October, Solomon and her colleagues started earlier in September. They discovered that the hole has shrunk by 4 million square kilometers since 2000.

The researchers used a 3D atmospheric model to determine the cause of recovery, be it chemical or weather. This model helped explain the record ozone hole in October 2015, an outlier in the shrinking trend. It showed that this was due to the eruption of the Calbuco volcano in southern Chile just six months before, confirming that the reduction of chlorine and bromine chemicals were the factors contributing to the healing of the layer.

At the South Pole: staff getting ready to release a balloon carrying an ozone instrument up to 20 miles in the atmosphere.

Source

However, scientists have to consider that only half of the shrinkage was due to the drop in chlorine and bromine levels. Weather does play a part, such as volcanic eruptions, but these effects on average should not cause any changes or trends, meaning that the other 50% is unexplained. Paul Newman, who runs NASA’s Arctic Ozone Watch website at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland says that Solomon has uncovered a “real scientific puzzle here”, it might suggest a problem with the model or a real shift in polar weather due to climate change.

For Solomon, this result concludes full circle the study determining stratospheric clouds as the chlorine reaction sites, hence playing a vital role in the scientific assessments of the Montreal Protocol and following reports.

The post Our efforts have paid off: the ozone layer is on the mend appeared first on bio-home by Lam Soon.

Bhutan is indeed an inspiring country!

The post The world’s first carbon negative country appeared first on bio-home by Lam Soon.