Hi everyone! Welcome back!

In today’s post, we are going to tackle one of the most infamous materials used for food packaging, styrofoam. When is the last time you saw styrofoam? I’m pretty sure it would not be longer than 2 days ago. Styrofoam was invented in 1941 by Dow, utilising Polystyrene (PS) foam. At first, styrofoam was invented for building docks and insulating homes (Cansler, 2018). However, due to its insulation and lightweight property, it is utilised for food and beverage packaging.

Styrofoam is very prevalent in this era. From 2002 to 2015, about 316 million metric tonnes of PS were produced globally, and more than half of it was thrown in the same year (Cansler, 2018). This single-use behaviour and over-reliant on styrofoam have created numerous environmental pollution around us.

The most famous pollution that we can see everywhere is water and soil pollution from styrofoam that’s lying around us in coastal areas, in rivers, in parks and forests. PS is not bio-degradable and will sit on the ecosystem quietly for hundreds of years.  Animals may eat and choke on it and it may suffocate the plants too, both in water and on land.

Styrofoam debris in the Pacific Beach. Image is taken from pacificbeachcoalition.org

The less famous one, but a more pertinent problem is the ability of styrofoam to bind mercury, a toxic substance, in water. A study carried out by Graca et al. (2014) suggests that the concentration of mercury in water is higher when styrofoam debris is present. As this process is reliant on incoming solar radiation, the concentration of mercury will peak in the summertime. Situated near the equator, Southeast Asian countries such as Singapore will face higher concentrations of mercury all year long. Mercury has toxic effects on the nervous, digestive and immune systems of lungs, kidneys, skin and eyes (WHO, 2017). Below is the list of potential health effects of consumption and inhalation of mercury and its derivatives (methylmercury):

1. Tremor
2. Insomnia
3. Memory loss
4. Neuromuscular effects
5. Headaches
6. Cognitive and Motor dysfunction

The aftermath of the Minamata disaster, the wort mercury poisoning events to date. The image is taken from the Japan Times.

However, noting this property of binding mercury, Mahmoud et al. (2016) has found a way to utilise waste styrofoam into adsorbents to remove toxic substance such as Cadmium, Lead and Mercury from water. By chemically converting styrofoam through nitration and sulfonation, they created a way to remove toxic substances from water. While this experiment is still in the early stage, it presents a huge opportunity to remove pollutants using recycled styrofoam.

That is all for today. I hope you enjoy the reading, Do post your comments, questions, feedback below. Thank you.

Reference

Cansler, C. (2018, July 31). Styrofoam, a practical and problematic creation. Distillations. Retrieved March 20, 2022, from https://www.sciencehistory.org/distillations/styrofoam-a-practical-and-problematic-creation

Graca, B., Bełdowska, M., Wrzesień, P., & Zgrundo, A. (2013). Styrofoam debris as a potential carrier of mercury within ecosystems. Environmental Science and Pollution Research, 21(3), 2263–2271. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-013-2153-4

Mahmoud, M. E., Abdou, A. E., & Ahmed, S. B. (2015). Conversion of waste styrofoam into engineered adsorbents for efficient removal of cadmium, lead and Mercury from water. ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering, 4(3), 819–827. https://doi.org/10.1021/acssuschemeng.5b01149

WHO. (2017). Mercury and Health. World Health Organization. Retrieved March 22, 2022, from https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/mercury-and-health

Hi guys! Welcome back to my blog!

Today, the title may seem controversial, but hopefully, you will come to see my perspective through this post. COVID-19 has affected our livelihood like never before. One of the most prevalent things to do during this pandemic is to take away food or food delivery (Chua & Ang, 2021). This is evident as Foodpanda, one of Singapore’s most prominent food delivery platforms, reported a 50% increase in delivery orders (Ong, 2021). Taking away food and food delivery allows us to protect our health from the rampant and contagious COVID-19. However, this also increases the number of disposable food containers and cutleries we use. This trend is observed not only in Singapore but also in the rest of the world.

According to Thailand Environment Institute, in Bangkok, the average amount of plastic from food packaging increases by 62%, from 2,120 tons in 2019 to 3,440 tons in 2020 (Liu et al., 2021). Single-use plastics are often non-bio-degradable. The increase in non-bio-degradable disposable plastics from food packaging will increase the pressure on our environmental health. Thus, many would often pollute the soil and water, as seen in the pictures below.

Plastic trash polluting a water body (Crawford, 2018)

Soil polluted by plastic waste in Pakistan (Business Times, 2019)

In the next few posts, I will explore the different types of food packaging we usually use and how it pollutes the environment. Stay tuned!

Reference

Chua, N., & Ang, S. (2021, October 7). Demand hots up for online groceries, food deliveries in s’pore amid tightened covid-19 curbs. The Straits Times. Retrieved March 15, 2022, from https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/consumer/demand-hots-up-for-online-groceries-food-deliveries-amid-tightened-covid-19-curbs

Liu, C., Bunditsakulchai, P., & Zhuo, Q. (2021). Impact of covid-19 on food and plastic waste generated by consumers in Bangkok. Sustainability, 13(16), 8988. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13168988

Ong, J. (2021, May 19). Covid-19: With no dining in, food delivery firms report jump in demand but some riders see little change in earnings. TODAY. Retrieved March 15, 2022, from https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/covid-19-no-dining-food-delivery-firms-report-jump-demand-some-riders-see-little-change

Hi! Welcome back to my blog.

Today we are going to talk about various environmental pollution caused by agriculture. Firstly, let’s look at the following graph.

Environmental impacts of food and agriculture (Ritchie & Roser, 2021)

As we have talked about greenhouse gases from agriculture and food waste in the previous blog, we will focus on the 4th graph, eutrophication. Agricultural activities have contributed to 78% of global eutrophication (Ritchie & Roser, 2021). What is eutrophication? Eutrophication is characterised by excessive plant and algal growth due to increasing one or more limiting growth factors for photosynthesis, such as sunlight, carbon dioxide and nutrient fertilisers (Chislock et al., 2013).  Eutrophication is a leading cause of environmental pollution in many freshwater and coastal marine ecosystems (Chislock et al., 2013). How do agricultural activities lead to eutrophication?

Eutrophication in Dianchi Lake in Yunnan Province, China (Chiu, 2018)

Animal faeces and fertilisers contain a lot of nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus (Chiu, 2018). When these waste and the excess fertilisers are not treated properly, the nutrients from these things are transported to nearby lake or ocean. Algae grows better with more nutrients as these nutrients are often the limiting growth factor. As a result, algae bloom occur, a phenomenon that usually accompany eutrophication.

Eutrophication is a problem because it disrupt the ecosystem in that particular water body. The algae used up all the oxygen in the water, leaving none for other aquatic life (Ohm, 2018). The algae bloom also blocks sunlight from reaching photosynthetic aquatic plants, which are often where fishes feed on (Ohm, 2018). This leads to reduction in both plants and fishes population in that particular area. Moreover, some algae may produce toxins which are harmful when ingested in large quantities (Ohm, 2018). Public may need to look for other water sources for safe water consumption.

To avoid eutrophication, treatment facilities need to be established near the agricultural areas. Norms on waste treatment need to also be held up by the public and government. We are lucky that Singapore has not experienced eutrophication due to our low agricultural activities and our top-notch water treatment system. Hopefully, other countries, especially those with lots of agricultural activities may develop better waste and water management facilities to combat the occurrence of eutrophication.