Author: Eliza Dawn

Pollution from Beauty Products : The Big Picture

Eliza Dawn Leave a Comment

The Beauty Industry gains billions in revenue each year – makeup, skincare products, hair care products, body care products and the likes. More often than not, we close one eye to the pollution arising from the beauty industry because we use the products to boost our confidence and take on the world at our best. However, just by doing so, we neglect our environment – the oceans and even the atmosphere. The Beauty Industry impacts the environment as such:

  1. Plastics and other parts in Packaging
  2. Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) in hairspray and perfumes
  3. Excessive use of Palm Oil in cosmetics
  4. Microbeads in body scrubs

and.. the list goes on.

Each year, the growth of the beauty industry in revenue is sky-high. It is even deemed as recession-proof (Reaney, 2012). The beauty industry has steadily grown into a $500 billion dollar business annually and is set to chart an additional 7% expansion to reach an $863 billion dollar valuation in just the next five years (Rai, 2019). Hence, with such growth and potential, the pollution rate of the beauty industry will only continue to rise if we do not do anything about it.

Furthermore, with the prevalence of pop culture and social media, once a famous artist endorses a certain product, many will claw their way to the nearest Sephora and queue long hours to get their hands on the product. This promotes a culture of unnecessary waste.

As a rational and mindful consumer, we have to be conscious of the environment and support brands who are environmentally friendly from the production stage to the packaging stage.

Our next few blog posts will explore these themes in greater detail.

References

Reaney, P. (2012, July 05). Sales of beauty products get boost from recession. Retrieved October 23, 2020, from https://www.reuters.com/article/us-beauty-sales-recession/sales-of-beauty-products-get-boost-from-recession-idUSBRE86417C20120705

Rai, V. (2019, December 28). Unseen 2019: The ugly side of beauty waste. Retrieved October 23, 2020, from https://www.livemint.com/mint-lounge/features/unseen-2019-the-ugly-side-of-beauty-waste-11577446070730.html

 

The Future of Fast Fashion : Thrifting and other Alternatives

Eliza Dawn 2 Comments

With all the wastage arising from the production of fast fashion clothing and the linear economy, there is a dire need for both producers and consumers to turn to alternatives in order to not further do damage to the Earth. Producers could find alternatives ways to produce clothes sustainably, like how some fast fashion brands like H&M are doing with their Conscious Collection. Clothing brands like Uniqlo are also urging consumers to recycle and donate back their old Uniqlo clothing to generate a fashion circular economy.

The linear “take-make-dispose” model above heavily relies on large quantities of easily accessible resources and energy, including cheap labour, which is becoming increasingly unfit for the reality now, due to its unsustainability. While fast fashion is big business, it is killing the planet, and it is important to reconsider the fashion industry model and our purchasing habits (Ellen MacArthur Foundation, n.d.). This brings us to producers moving towards a more circular economy.

A circular fashion economy is a regenerative system in which clothes are circulated for as long as their maximum value is retained, and then returned safely to the biosphere when they are no longer of use. In a circular model as shown below, products are designed and developed with the next use in mind. Less than 1% of clothing is recycled into new clothing (Fibre2Fashion, 2017). What we should do is to buy fewer clothes and opt for other alternatives, like upcycling and thrift-shopping.

 

As consumers, we also have to do our part in making sure we do not add on to the demand for unsustainable fast fashion. For one, it is a trend now to upcycle clothes and ‘rework’ old clothes to new and trendy ones. There are many new local Instagram pages dedicated to selling reworked clothing like @plop.apparels and @closetlilo. Alternatively, thrift shopping is also a trend now. In Japan, thrifting is an extremely huge thing – more often than not, their prices can be more expensive than typical fast fashion clothes. There are also dedicated streets to thrift shop in Harajuku and Shinjuku.

The world population is approximated to reach nine billion people by 2030. The environment and its resources will struggle to meet human demands like never before. The goal of circular fashion is to ensure that clothes are made from safe and renewable materials, new business models increase their use, and old clothes are turned into new. This also ensures that ecosystems are protected and people are provided with dignified work. Moreover, turning to thrift shopping can also reduce the demand for unsustainable fast fashion practices.

What is your take on this?

References

Ellen MacArthur Foundation. (n.d.). Fashion and the circular economy. Retrieved October 23, 2020, from https://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/explore/fashion-and-the-circular-economy

Fibre2Fashion. (2017). Less than 1% clothing recycled into new clothes: Report. Retrieved October 23, 2020, from https://www.fibre2fashion.com/news/apparel-news/less-than-1-clothing-recycled-into-new-clothes-report-229403-newsdetails.htm

Pollution from Fashion : The Woes of Denim

Eliza Dawn Leave a Comment

We may not purchase our denim jeans often, but their environmental impact is extremely significant. We use a huge amount of water and chemicals to produce denim jeans. 2 billion jeans are produced annually worldwide, and it’s going to take a large-scale sustained effort to make a meaningful change.

Denim was originally made out of wool, but then it shifted to cotton due to trends. However, there are sustainability issues in cotton cultivation and processing. 1500 gallons of water is needed to grow 1.5 pounds of cotton, which is required to produce only a pair of jeans. Denim jeans produce heavy amounts of water, as mentioned above… “cotton, in general, is a very thirsty crop,” says Tatiana Schlossberg, a former environmental reporter at the New York Times. Producing just 1 kilogram (2.2 pounds) of cotton can require up to 7,660 gallons of water, depending on where it’s grown. A cotton crop consumes a lot of chemicals too: 16 percent of all insecticides are used on the plant, and many of them pose significant health risks for farm workers and nearby residents. Denim is usually made with indigo-dyed warp yarn and undyed weft yarn. The indigo dye used was natural and derived from a plant source, but later the trend shifted to synthetic indigo dye. However, as seen from the information below, these dyes pose its own separate environmental pollution threat as well.

Information from Vice (2017)

 

‘Blue River’ in Xintang, China (The Guardian, 2011)

The signature blue dye, indigofera tinctoria, is used to produce the shade of denim blue in jeans today. According to Vice (2011), an average pair of jeans require half an ounce of dye. However, the problem lies in the production of it. In the denim capital of the world in Xintang, China, this pollutive process is very much evident in the rivers and how the production affects the people working and living in the area. Denim jeans production in Xintang, China accounts for one in every three pairs of jeans sold globally. Because of limited regulatory oversight, by 2013 Xintang’s rivers ran a deep blue and smelled foul, a result of manufacturers dumping chemical-laden wastewater directly into local waterways. The picture above shows the river dyed blue from the release of chemicals to the river from jeans production factories. Unsafe amounts of toxic metals like mercury, lead, and copper has been found in the water, which residents rely on for drinking and bathing. Workers and residents have reported rashes, lesions, and, some locals believe, infertility (Guang et al, 2020). Producing only one pair of jeans requires an immense amount of water, energy, and environmental pollution. Apart from the health of the workers, there are also concerns about drinking water for people living downriver. The East River is the source of drinking water for millions of people living in Guangzhou. This threatens the water security of the cities of Dongguan and Shenzhen.

However, it is to note that there are denim brands and other fashion designers that are taking a more sustainable approach to their manufacturing processes.The majority of these processes are fairly new to the denim manufacturing market. With a more inquisitive mind and rational decision-making mindset whilst purchasing your denim, there is hope to the reduction of environmental pollution from denim.

Here’s a full report by Muthu (2017) on the Sustainability in Denim. Areas covered include Denim’s environmental impact, its water footprint, carbon footprint and many more.

References

Schlossberg, T. (2019, September 03). How Fast Fashion Is Destroying the Planet. Retrieved October 22, 2020, from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/03/books/review/how-fast-fashion-is-destroying-the-planet.html

Vice. (2017). Your Jeans Are Ruining the Earth. Retrieved October 22, 2020, from https://www.vice.com/en/article/kzzpjm/your-jeans-are-ruining-the-earth-v24n7

The Guardian. (2011, February 09). The price of success: China blighted by industrial pollution – in pictures. Retrieved October 22, 2020, from https://www.theguardian.com/environment/gallery/2011/feb/09/pollution-china-manufacturing-towns

Guang, L., Mingzhuo, J., & Guang, L. (2020, May 14). The denim capital of the world: So polluted you can’t give the houses away. Retrieved October 22, 2020, from https://chinadialogue.net/en/pollution/6283-the-denim-capital-of-the-world-so-polluted-you-can-t-give-the-houses-away/

Muthu, S. S., & Textile institute. (2017). Sustainability in denim. Duxford, United Kingdom: Woodhead Publishing is an imprint of Elsevier.

Pollution from Fashion : The Big Picture of Fast Fashion

Eliza Dawn Leave a Comment

With regards to the broader issue of pollution, the introduction sparks off the conversation with the question:

“What are the roles and responsibility of individuals in this broad and prevalent issue?”

Unbeknownst to many, fashion, or most specifically Fast-fashion, contributes an alarmingly large percentage towards individual consumer waste – which often leads to pollution in many countries. And by pollution, we do not just only categorise it to landfill pollution – but more specifically, water pollution.

Fast-fashion is termed as the inexpensive use of clothing produced by mass-market retailers in response to the latest trends in fashion, most commonly influenced by pop culture and sudden inspirations from celebrities.

Fast-fashion waste do end up in landfills, with 300,000 tonnes of clothing waste ending up in the UK dumpsters each year, making clothing the largest growing category of waste in the UK (Smithers, 2017). However, water pollution does prove to be a more striking issue. Known to many, and backed by the FreshWaterWatch, Only 2.5% of all the water on Earth is freshwater and more than 97% is saltwater (Water: A Limited Resource?, 2015). This makes water all the more precious. However, with fast-fashion and its water pollution ails, our already reducing source of freshwater gets reduced even further. According to the Environmental Audit Committee, 3781 litres of water is used to wash a pair of Levi’s 501 jeans in its full lifetime (CBBC Newsround, n.d.). That alone is just a single pair of jeans – imagine multiplying this to the millions of jeans produced each year!

To give a more relatable picture to the fashion enthusiasts, ZARA and H&M are said to be one of the very first fast-fashion retailers. But both fashion giants have come a long way ever since. H&M in particular have already started with their own sustainability campaign to address the negative consequences of what they presumably started. In 2011, H&M started the Conscious Campaign to help curb its fast-fashion waste contribution (RecycleNation, 2011). However, it only started gaining more attention in recent years. Below is an excerpt of what their 2019 goal was :

H&M Conscious Exclusive 2019 : “ Throughout the month of April, H&M will not only celebrate their sustainability actions and goals as a company, but also highlight the Conscious Collection in stores all around the world. H&M are proud that the entire collection has been made from sustainably-sourced materials, which not only emphasises the H&M Group’s status as one of the world’s largest users of organic cotton, Tencel and recycled polyester, but also shows the continued efforts, commitment and progress we are making for a sustainable fashion future.”

To bring light to this issue, H&M is not the only one taking active steps to tackle the negative consequences of fast-fashion. Other companies like Rent the Runway – like its namesake, allows consumers to rent from a whole catalogue through an online shop, which is quickly showing its dominance in the fashion world with a booming 10 million active members. Another company would be Patagonia, which advocates an anti-fashion environmental message. At first glance, this might seem odd and off-putting, however, they do rack up sales because of their vision!

Thinking of giving them a try? Check out the links below!

1. Rent the Runway – https://www.renttherunway.com

2. Patagonia – https://www.patagonia.com/environmentalism.html

Find out more about this topic here:

References

Smithers, R. (2017, July 11). UK households binned 300,000 tonnes of clothing in 2016. Retrieved from

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/11/uk-households-binned-300000-tonnes-of-clothing-in-2016

Water: A Limited Resource? (2015, May 13). Retrieved from https://freshwaterwatch.thewaterhub.org/content/water-limited-resource

How your love of fashion could be harming the environment – CBBC Newsround. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/45756754

RecycleNation. (2011, May 13). H&M Launches Conscious Collection. Retrieved from

H&M Launches Conscious Collection

Pollution from Food Consumption : Poultry

Eliza Dawn Leave a Comment

4Fingers, Wingstop, Korean fried chicken, Har Cheong Gai, BBQ Chicken Wings, Nene Chicken and Jollibee…what do they have in common?

Pollution…and yes, chicken wings.


Table from : Singapore Food Agency (2019)

The chicken wing industry or more appropriately known as the poultry industry is a fairly pollutive industry. In Singapore, we consume approximately 190 thousand tonnes of chicken every year – that’s around 34kg chicken per capita per year (from the table above)! This is an ongoing increase from 2017 to 2018 and then to 2019. With this increasing demand for chicken considered economical and healthy in Singapore and the rest of the world, chicken farming has expanded. With the expansion of chicken farms, this means that there are a large concentration of chickens being cooped up in a small area, thus an increase as well in faeces and manure production. Interestingly, chicken manure the improper disposal of chicken manure actually causes environmental pollution (Blue, 2017).

Chicken manure contains nutrients like phosphorus and nitrogen. With excess nutrients like phosphorus and nitrogen in the rivers, this leads to algae bloom. Algae bloom reduces sunlight penetration in water, thus cutting the oxygen supply to underwater plants, also known as eutrophication. This essentially leads  to toxic algal or cyanobacterial blooms, thus oxygen depletion of surface waters, release of toxins, massive fish-kills and harm to the aquatic ecosystem. Chicken manure also contains a large amount of heavy metals. Thus chicken manure runoff to rivers would mean the leakage of heavy metals into freshwater streams. The aquatic life in the river would have excess heavy metals in their body, thus leading to bioaccumulation and biomagnification of heavy metals in the food chain. This might lead to us humans consuming fish or with high levels of heavy metals, which will then be detrimental to our body (UPC, 2009).

Chicken manure also produces nitrogen oxides, a component of smog. Smog is a photochemical haze (smoke and fog) caused by the reaction of ultraviolet radiation on atmospheric pollutants with hydrocarbons and oxides of nitrogen. To reduce the nitrogen emissions from chicken manure, countries have been considering adding digestion-boosting enzymes to chicken feed. According to Casey et al (2006), poultry production operations are a source of numerous airborne contaminants including gases, odour, dust, and microorganisms. Gases and odours are generated from livestock and poultry manure decomposition shortly after it is produced, during storage and treatment, and during land application. Particulate matter and dust are primarily composed of feed and animal matter including hair, feathers, and feces. Microorganisms that populate the gastro-intestinal systems of animals are present in freshly excreted manure. Livestock and poultry buildings may contain concentrations of contaminants that negatively affect human and animal health. Most of these health concerns are associated with chronic or long-term exposure to gases, dust, or microorganisms.

For more information on a case study involving the consequences of pollution in the poultry industry, watch this :

Chicken Waste and Water Pollution

This video, the FRONTLINE: “Poisoned Waters”, highlights the problem of water pollution in the poultry industry, in the context of Chesapeake Bay’s Eastern Shore. They have large-scale chicken farms that dominate the landscape, producing low-cost chicken. However, this means that there is also an excess of chicken manure as a result of this. From the above, this had led to runoff from these farms to rivers and shores like Chesapeake Bay’s Eastern Shore, which are largely unregulated, leading to massive environmental pollution.

References

Singapore Food Agency, 2019. Consumption of Food per Capita. Available at: https://www.sfa.gov.sg/docs/default-source/tools-and-resources/yearly-statistics/per-capita-consumption.pdf [Accessed 2020].

Blue, M.-L., 2017. Ecological Impact of Chicken Farming. Sciencing. Available at: https://sciencing.com/examples-secondary-pollutants-5314906.html [Accessed September 16, 2020].

United Poultry Concerns, 2009. Intensive Poultry Production: Fouling The Environment. United Poultry Concerns. Available at: https://www.upc-online.org/fouling.html [Accessed 2020].

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Casey, Kenneth & Bicudo, José & Schmidt, David & Anshu, Singh & Gay, Susan & Gates, Richard & Jacobson, Larry & Hoff, Steven. (2006). Air quality and emissions from livestock and poultry production/waste management systems.

Pollution from Food Consumption : Metal Straws – Good or Bad?

Eliza Dawn Leave a Comment

With the emergence of various new bubble tea establishments in Singapore and the popularity of coffeehouses like Starbucks and The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, it is not a shock that there is a large number of single-use plastic straws being disposed (not even recycled) in Singapore. These establishments provide plastic straws for their drinks in a ‘take as you go’ manner, where there is no limit of straws you can take per purchase. Because of this, many plastic straws are wasted and disposed unnecessarily.

In Singapore, there are

Are you aware of the incident that started the popularisation of the massive ban of plastic straws?

Plastic straws are but one of the many types of plastic wastes that end up in the oceans. Some of these plastic wastes like straws, from the Turtle Incident above, end up physically harming marine life. Though this incident did spark off a massive movement of the banning of straws, this is just an isolated incident. There could be thousands more of marine life being subjected to such harsh situations because of the amount of plastics, especially plastics straws we consume.

As such, corporations like Starbucks and Burger King begin to listen to the plight of the masses (see document by Jacksonville (2018) below) to gradually reduce and eliminate the use of plastic straws by providing more sustainable options like paper straws. In a more relatable context, The drink stall in The Deck at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences in NUS have also stopped providing plastic straws and instead, gives out paper straws instead for the fruit juices. UTOWN is also a plastic-straw free area where FoodClique and FineFood in UTOWN do not give out plastic straws to consumers (with the exception of GongCha, an outside corporation who has a franchise in UTOWN).

Alternatives of plastic straws have also been made available and popular in the recent years ever since the movement to reduce plastic straws began. Alternatives like bamboo straws, paper straws as mentioned from above and especially metal straws has become popular to the masses.

What are their advantages? For example, bamboo straws and paper straws are compostable unlike plastic straws, and thus at the end of its life cycle, a bulk of bamboo and paper straws would not pollute the earth. Metal straws are eco-friendly in such a way that unlike plastic straws, they are durable and thus can be reused a lot more than once. However, there are also disadvantages.

Pollution from metal straw production is a growing issue that needs to be focused on. Compared to a plastic straw with 1.46g of carbon dioxide emissions, producing one metal straw could release about 217g of carbon dioxide emissions (Woo, 2019). Metal straws are actually unsustainable. Not for its material, but for how it was made – its production stage. Metal straws are made out of nickel that are actually mined, more often than not, unsustainably. One example would be in Palawan, Philippines which was reduced to a wasteland for nickel mining (Freeman, 2019).

Click here for an in-depth list on alternative straws and their advantages and disadvantages.

So…are they good or bad? Well, let’s look at the graphic table below.

 

All straws have their advantages and disadvantages. The above graphic shows that though the movement to ban plastic straws are done in the best interest for the Earth and its continuity, there is a certain group in the community that’s going to be affected by this. The plastic ban would greatly hurt disabled people and those in hospitals recovering after a surgery. Plastic straws, like its cost and production, is very accessible and easy to use. It is positionable, bendy and not a choking hazard. So though it is important for us to reduce the use of plastic straws, it is also important to still produce them for vulnerable groups in the community.

Here’s another blog post that talks more in depth about the issue on the disabled community and plastic straws.

References

Plastic Pollution Coalition. (2015, November 11). The Turtle That Became the Anti-Plastic Straw Poster Child. Retrieved from https://www.plasticpollutioncoalition.org/pft/2015/10/27/the-turtle-that-became-the-anti-plastic-straw-poster-child

Starbucks to Eliminate Plastic Straws Globally by 2020 2018, , Jacksonville.

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Woo, A., 2020. How eco-friendly is a reusable straw? The Straits Times. Available at: https://www.straitstimes.com/lifestyle/how-eco-friendly-is-a-reusable-straw [Accessed September 15, 2020].

Freeman, K., 2019. Metal straws are unsustainable. The Silhouette. Available at: https://www.thesil.ca/metal-straws-are-unsustainable [Accessed September 15, 2020].

 

 

Pollution from Food Consumption : The Big Picture

Eliza Dawn Leave a Comment

The global food system, which encompasses the production, manufacture and distribution of food, is a highly inefficient, fragmented and corrupted industry riddled with imbalances stemming from social disparities. While more than 820 million people went hungry in 2017, in that same year, approximately 1.3 billion tonnes of food, which is one third of all food produced in the world, were either lost or wasted. An incredibly regrettable and unfortunate event, considering how much the environment is at stake when it comes to food production.

In fact, food production and agriculture is constantly named as one of the most contributing factors to habitat loss and deforestation. The mass destruction of forests in the name of harvesting cost us nearly 32 million acres of forests every year, and despite the many promises of corporations to cut down this number, the rate has been steady from years 2001 to 2015. Forest conversions has had other massive consequences; habitat loss of local fauna and flora, loss of biodiversity, climate disturbances and soil erosion are a few on the long list of environmental degradation caused by forest degradation on a massive scale. The price the environment has to pay is phenomenally high considering the fact that a large amount of the food produced does not reach the nearly 1 billion mouths of the under privileged that go hungry every year, and the lucky majority that does have access to the commodity waste it excessively. Not to mention, food waste accounts for 21 percent of the waste stream as they end up mostly in landfills, producing enormous amounts of methane.

In fact, the entire food system is responsible for about a third of all greenhouse gas emissions, which makes this commodity-driven industry highly detrimental to the environment. What can be done to make this system more sustainable and eco-friendly? Several actions can be taken to reduce the destruction of our forests; the rainforest alliance proposes sustainable forestry which recognises that while curbing forest conversion in its entirety may be unrealistic, finding the balance between deforestation and forest growth may control the damage being done. Individuals should make conscious decisions to reduce food wastage, but on a bigger government scale, ethical regulations and laws should be infused into the food system. In 2016, France became the first country to ban supermarket wastage, and many countries followed in their footsteps, and in 2018, the UK government devised a governmental scheme in conjunction with businesses and charities for proper food disposal to curb food wastage.

There are many ways in which the consumption of food and its roots contribute to environmental pollution. This section of the blog will explore areas from the production to the consumer – topics like food packaging single plastic wastes and carbon footprint.

Find out more about this topic here:

  1. About deforestation and agriculture.
    • Infographic: http://www.fao.org/resources/infographics/infographics-details/en/c/425852/
  2. Food waste and the footprint it leaves behind.
  3. The future of food and agriculture.
    • Infographic: http://www.fao.org/resources/infographics/infographics-details/en/c/471471/

Pollution from Food Consumption : Saturated Market in the Sustainable Eco-Market

Eliza Dawn Leave a Comment

Hey guys!

This blog post will talk about the Sustainable Eco-Market in depth and how it is increasingly getting saturated.

The Sustainable Eco-Market refers to the market in which products promote ‘sustainability’ and eco friendliness. Such items include often easily disposable items like reusable straws, reusable containers, tumblers (in replacement for those disposable coffee cups you buy in Starbucks daily! UK disposes 2.5 Billion coffee cups a year! Imagine where all that rubbish can go to…) , reusable grocery bags in replacement of plastic bags and even reusable coffee filters. This post will focus on products related to the food.

For example in Singapore, because of the fast-paced life where many are too busy at work and in school to conjure up a meal from scratch, there is a prevalence of a ‘takeaway culture’. Many would opt for the convenience of ordering from Food Delivery platforms like GrabFood, Food Panda and Deliveroo or takeaway (or ‘Dabao’) from hawker centres and other food establishments instead. More often than not, the food packaging is of disposal plastic containers and utensils. A 6-month Singapore Environment Council Survey (SEC) found that Singapore used 467 million polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles a year and 473 million plastic disposable items like takeaway containers where only less than 20 per cent of these items were recycled.

In 2018, 1.6 million tonnes of domestic waste was disposed, and a third of it is made up of packaging. Of the third, more than half of it were plastic disposables. However, out of all these, only 4% is recycled. More can be done to reduce the dependency on disposable food packaging as well as increasing our recycling rates.

Hence, many initiatives sprung up in the recent years in light of this problem. One of which is Zero Waste SG in 2017, where they started the Bring Your Own (BYO) Singapore movement. BYO movement partnered with 430 retail outlets and offered incentives to customers who bring their own reusable bags, bottles or containers. This reduced approximately 2.5 million plastic disposables. This inspired many individuals to start bringing their own containers (BYO) to hawker centres and other food establishments to reduce food packaging wastes. Interestingly, this also inspired the start-up of many small business owners to start selling reusable lunchboxes and reusable food packaging to promote a ‘sustainable lifestyle’.

However, in Singapore and evidently in the whole world, the market for sustainable and eco-friendly products is increasingly getting saturated. This is where we draw the line between being eco friendly and sustainable to being pollutive and wasteful. There is a growing number of small business jumping on the bandwagon of selling reusable straws, tumblers, lunchboxes and many more to promote a sustainable, eco-friendly and reduced pollutive lifestyle. However, though we do agree that the foundation of this venture is noble as it does promote and advocate for a sustainable shift in lifestyle, the saturation of the market only means that more products are being produced and will end up being wasted and improperly disposed.

What then, can people do?

Shifting to a ‘sustainable lifestyle’ seems like jumping on a trendy bandwagon. Instead of buying a new lunchbox or reusable utensils set, one can just seek what they already have at home. One does not need to purchase a brand new set of ‘reusable’ items when there’s a 99% chance an unused set of lunchbox and utensils is left unused tucked away at the back of the kitchen cabinet.

That is one thing we can do to be a more mindful consumer to reduce unnecessary pollution. Comment down below if you have any more ideas!

 

References

Fearnley-Whittingstall, H., 2016. Viewpoint: The waste mountain of coffee cups. Available at: https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-36882799 [Accessed September 10, 2020].

Hong, J., 2018. Singapore goes through 1.76 billion plastic items a year, recycles less than 20%. The Straits Times. Available at: https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/singapore-goes-through-167-billion-plastic-items-a-year-recycles-less-than-20-per-cent-of [Accessed September 10, 2020].

Towards Zero Waste Singapore, Packaging Waste. Towards Zero Waste Singapore. Available at: https://www.towardszerowaste.gov.sg/waste-streams/packaging-waste/ [Accessed September 10, 2020].

Consupollution : What constitutes pollution from consumption?

Eliza Dawn Leave a Comment

Hey consupollutants!

…Still harsh?

Fret not, our goal is to bring you with us in our blogging journey to transition effectively from a consupollutants to a mindful consumer. As such, for this post, we will delve deeper into what constitutes pollution from consumption. Meaning, what products do we buy in our daily life contribute to environmental pollution?

From our previous blog post, we explored the history and development of consumerism and how that led to the massive purchase of products in our daily lives. Hence, we end up knowingly and unknowingly polluting the environment when we bite into the demand for such products that we consume daily. How do we reduce this?

In this blog, we will focus on specifically on the following in order :

  1. Pollution from Food Consumption
    • We will explore pollution arising from Food Consumption. This includes food packaging, fast food, poultry, seafood and the difference between the pollution from farmed crops and modern ways of farming.
  2. Pollution from Fashion
    • There are many types of pollution arising from fast fashion – from the production all the way to the improper disposal. This section will explore the various types of pollution in the various stages of the clothing cycle.
    • In addition, we will also talk about possible alternatives to fast fashion.
  3. Pollution from Beauty Products
    • Chemical pollution as well as plastic pollution arises from the consumption of beauty products. Such beauty products include makeup, haircare, body care and skin care.
  4. Pollution from Domestic Cleaning Agents
    • Everyday household items also play a part in environmental pollution arising from consumption. This section will explore the dangers of certain products and what we can do to reduce this without implicating our daily use.
  5. Pollution from E-wastes
    • Lastly, we will explore pollution arising from consumption of various electronics.

All these are examples of the prominent categories that we consume on a daily basis – and this is apparent in the way we dispose these items and how the various pollutants brought about by these items are affecting our physical environment as well as us health-wise.

The following posts will talk about all of these in great detail.

See you!

What is Pollution?

Eliza Dawn Leave a Comment

__________________________
C o n s u p o l l u t i o n
[kon – su – puh – lew – shun]
(n.) pollution from the
active consumption of humans
of products in the economy
___________________________

Hello fellow consupollutant! (A very harsh term, no?)

The word consupollutant is a mix of the words Consumption (Consumer) and Pollution (Pollutant)

In this blog, we recognise and acknowledge that all of us are active consumers of products in the market. However, more often than not, we as consumers are not aware or find ourselves indifferent to the product cycle of the things that we purchase. Most of what we purchase are actually active pollutants of the environment! Some of which are our everyday clothes, beauty products and even the food that we eat. Hence, the term consupollutant. However, we want to bring all of you together with us (Eliza and Jocelyn) on a journey to transform ourselves from Consupollutants to Mindful Consumers.

So what is pollution anyway? 

Pollution comes from the Latin word ‘pollutionem’, which means ‘to desecrate, defile’. This broadly fits National Geographic‘s definition where Pollution is seen as the introduction of harmful and toxic materials into the environment. Most of the time, this is the result of anthropogenic factors.

There are many types of pollution – air pollution, water pollution, noise pollution, etc. This blog will discuss how certain products that we consume in our daily lives pollute the environment , be it atmospherically, in the oceans or rivers, and even the food that we eat.

Tune in for the next post about the history of consumption!

For now, here’s an interesting video on pollution 🙂

References :

National Geographic Society. (2012, October 09). Pollution. Retrieved September 04, 2020, from https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/pollution/

CrashCourse . (2013, January 15). Pollution: Crash Course Ecology #11 [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdDSRRCKMiI