Don't just sing, lets take actions...

Micheal sang "Heal The World".  Just look at the lyrics and the message that he was trying to sent out, it is "for you and for me and the entire human race".  When this song was published back then, the environmental awareness was not as strong as what loud as what we see today.  Wait a minute, I can still see flyers coming into mail boxes, promotions of products and services still stuff out the entire mail box, it is frustrations and dissapointments regardless of so much money and advertisements on not to cut down trees for all these junk mails.  We are in  "fine" city, can we can impose a fine since education takes too long and too much effort required before it is effective.  AarrrgggHHH...
Maybe we can create employment by getting people to impose law and actions for those who try to use flyers for advertisement.  Who say we can't, well we did it to band chewing gums, hahaha..

Be a good model

I often ask myself have I done my part in being a green ambassador.  My effort is very limited.  Then I realized, it is a lot easier to communicate these idea through religious gatherings.  The Christians believes loving thy neighbours so they care for all creatures great and small.  It will be sinful to waste so that goes hand in hand with being eco- friendly to our environment.
The Buddhist strongly supports being contented and not asking for more, so that compliments the whole green ideas.  The Muslims believe in living with harmony and treasure Allah's gift of nature.  The more they believe to live in simplicity.  These wisdom was past down from our ancestors where going green ideas was not even heard of.  As long as one belongs to any of these communities, it is already the key to all successful green projects.
As an individual, I believe in working closely with schools support group,  joining the residential support community and to continue to share both offline and online the green ideas so that more people can be more environmentally conscious.  As long as we can be a good model in these communities, we can make a difference to our environmental changes.

How much are you charged for water usage?

In Singapore, we receive our utility bill on monthly basis.  We trust the computer systems and there are too much tiny figures that is too nitty gritty for us to bother.  Majority are not aware that we are charged with 2 scales.  The water usage is what we draw from the taps ( including sanitary outlets), the unit then breakdown into 2 category for waterborne fee, one into sewerage system and another into waste water treatment.  That is regardless of what purpose you draw the water from the tap for. It is presumed that it will all go back into the waste system.  But in reality, we consumed these water for cooking, drinking, watering plants, washing, etc.  How much was really back into the waste systems, no one ever question. To date we are paying S$1.17 per Cu M, but in actual rate we are paying S$1.45 per Cu M, S$0.28 extra went to waterborne fee.

So next time before you turn on your tap, do think twice because every drop is precious.

Are you ready to move forwards?

A Japanese reporter shared how her grandma walked her an hour journey back to where she discarded her sweet wrapper ( on the street). The sweet wrapper might be left in its proper disposal now but the good habit was carried forwards for generations.
It is no longer important for me to remember where I learn this incident but all I know is that I have social responsibility to sent this message out to the world. One person's power is weak but if you do not share, no one will be able to hear.
I recall watching a very sad sight I saw on the MRT. I caught a glimpse of a frail elderly with her son wrapping his arms tightly around her, hoping that she won't lost her balance while the train moved off, nobody gave them a seat. I watched helplessly as the door shuts in front of me. When I had the chance to share this incident with the MP of my estate, he acted promptly and constantly following up on the service rendered to help commuters of MRT, he is now an active spokesman for the MRT. My emphasis is that if one person decide to go green and set good examples of sharing, the positive results will always be in folds.
I have decided to move forward and set 2 target goals :
1) I started group in Facebook call "Lets do our part in saving the earth "
2) Start baking workshop that modify recipes to zero animal content ingredient to remind people what they are consuming. Natural landscapes are excavated for animal farming to meet the need of mankind consumption, that contributes to further global warming.
I hope there will be more people opening up to share their green ideas so that more mankind can start to benefit.

Watch what you dispose.

Let's face it, NEW water are toilet water. We need to cling on to some survival alternative if one day our fresh water supply cuts off from supplier. So I became very conscious of what I drain down the waste system. But what about unconscious act that will be done to the recycle system. Someone just dispose some acids into the toilet bowl forgetting that we now survive with it. We need to educate everyone on how to discard all these toxic waste before it poison the whole water recycling process.
So lets start with using natural bleach.
Cloth whitening
Add a cup of lemon juice to the wash cycle. it will whiten your laundry detergent.
Stains removing from Clothing
Rub the stain with coarse salt and lemon juice.Leave the garment out in the sun for several hours and wash as usual.
To Remove Stains from Hard Surfaces
Mix baking soda and lemon juice and apply on the hard stained surface. Allow it to sit for few hours and wipe clean. Repeat if the stains are too stubborn.

Sanitizing
Slice the lemon to use the surface to rub on the things you want to sanitize. Wipe clean.The citric acid in lemons is very effective stain remover, bleach and sanitizer.
The natural compound of lemon is:
* chlorine-free
* gentle on all objects and surfaces
* natural sanitizer
* effective whitener/ stain remover
* fume-free
* kid and pet-safe

However, please remember these:
Marble surfaces has chemical reaction and etch the surface.

Life's Top Priority

By varying degree, we are all living in a consumer driven environment. Advertisements create wants and not needs. Items like time and effort saving devices, higher sensory equipments for example 3D enable equipments and virtual reality game devices, we need to find a place for the new item. Inevitably the new item needs additional gadgets to maintain it. The new item is preferred to older belongings, prompting the temptations to buy other new compatibles to achieve the aesthetic look, etc.
It is impossible for one to live a life of strict self-denial or to forgo the earthly needs. But it is possible to reduce our material possessions to what we really need and want...within our budget. We can reuse (or re-purpose)Some of our existing belongings that are still in good conditions. That will also help ourselves to de-clutter our limited living space.
Here are some recycling ideas:
# Garage sale - one mans garbage is another man's treasure. one can start a garage sale or to donate to charity. Always choose to buy from garage sale before you decide to buy a totally new item. That will reduce the needs for getting new item.
# Buy local product - cutting down imported goods will reduce the needs of natural fuel for transportation.
# Sell your used product online to local customers.
# Buy durable products - so that it will reduce the needs of replacing the product to often.
# Donate to the needy
# Ensure all disposals are properly organized for recyclers to takeover.

When the going gets though, the tough gets going

I thought it was really cool when my last visit in China seeing supermarkets stop giving plastic bags to shoppers. The A4 size card board I discarded was disappeared in sight for less then 30 min because someone has pick it up to sell to recyclers. After The Nation has taken in more than a million of immigrants, the society behaviour had the spill over effects. We have an Elderly Chinese lady picking up flyers every morning at the mailboxes for resell. These flyers were usually clean up by the sweepers and dump into our garbage bins. They ended up being burnt into ashes. Our garbage has turn into their gold. They will get 15 cents per kg of papers collected from the buyer and they tend to compare to almost 5 times of the value of their hometown's currency. So next time before you dump the flyers into the bins, do reconsider giving it to these people and let them earn some money and create one less waste.

Creating the right environment

I was very impressed by this primary school name Northview Primary School in Yishun. I felt a cool breeze coming through when I step into the school compound during a sun scorching afternoon at 33 degree Celcius. My second visit to the school impressed me with the effort to bring green concepts to the students. It was raining and I saw there were more than 10 units of heavy duty 55 gallon drum placed to collect rain water. The school has 4 levels with hanging plants along the classrooms corridors. These measures are the best way to educate our younger generations to be environmentally conscious and be proactive when occasion arises. This drives me deeper in thoughts. We are constantly yearning for better results and higher academical achievement for our children, and very often we lost the most important element that is affecting our daily lives. If most of our neighborhood schools can practice the same as Northview Primary School. We will be able to create a more conscious society and more improvement can be expected in near future.

Are we doing enough?

We learned about 7 blind men trying to figure out how an elephant looks like. Each has his own perspective of the element from their derivations. None of them were totally incorrect and neither of them were totally right. I always remind myself to look at things with all aspects and angles, it would not be fair to stigmatized any society for being socially conscious about going green.
I felt that it was an irony that the developing countries, which has lesser of information technology and knowledge , are doing a lot more than our developed societies. The Filipinos pick up used chips foil bags and sow them into recycled bags. The Chinese buy die cut disposable diaper waste pieces from The States to recycle into fan blades. These are people using any limited resources available for them to recycle for SURVIVAL. On the contrary, when you try to visit any fast food restaurant on weekend mornings in Singapore, the places are packed with families swamping in to buy breakfast using foam packaging for hotcakes and breakfast sets. The unrecyclable garbage created was beyond imaginations. You will probably be the center of attractions if you walk in with a self prepared container to pack your own hotcakes for takeout. It is a true but a painful reality that I need to mock at myself as a Singaporean. Be it conscious or not, it has become a fact that the poorer one is, the more effort they have put in going green.
On the other hand, there are developed countries that is relentlessly promoting going green at national level. Japan has very organized recycling system and is constantly still trying to improve on it.
So are we doing enough? The answer starts at oneself, the three Golden "R" ie Reduce, Reuse and Recycle is for you to start now and don't wait for somebody to do it.

plastic bottles

I was in Vietnam 6 years ago and saw how they collect the plastic drink bottle and churn them into plastic chips for recycling. I started to be more conscious about recycling and reusing these bottles.
These are some ways I recycle the bottles:
Stationary holders - by trimming away the top, I use the bottom part to store stationary.
storage of detergent - I buy detergents in huge containers in order to cut down the demand for more small plastics container. The used plastic bottle are then use to portion them into smaller containers.
Ice blocks - I like to fill up the bottle with water and store them into freezer. It will come in handy if I want ice to keep the items in my cooler chilled while going for picnics.
Art pieces - I always save some unique looking bottle and transform them into ships, boats or even dinosaur figurines for my son's school projects.

Papers are precious

These are a few of the things I do to reduce, reuse and recycle papers:
1 Use both side of the envelops.
I will turn the inside out of all the envelops I received and turn them inside out and glue them back into an envelop again. If it is plain, I will use them like any other new envelop. If the inside has designs, I will save them to store small pieces of receipts for tax purposes.
2 We get mailers and advertisements in print and when they used only 1 side of the paper,
I will save it use the other empty side. If they are very thick and glossy, I will fold them into paper boxes to store away small items like paper clips or batteries.
3 Old magazines
Cut the old magazines in same size long diamond shape strips. Glue one side and roll the glued side up. It will form a nice colors cocoon. I did as many as I can let the to dry. After collecting about 200pcs, I will chain them up in strings and use it as curtains.