Category Archives: Green Planet
Hong Kong’s air quality getting worse
Air pollution levels in Hong Kong were the worst ever last year, the South China Morning Post reported on January 10, a finding that may further undermine the city’s role as an Asian financial center as business executives relocate because of health concerns.
Worsening air quality in Hong Kong caused by vehicle emissions and industrial pollution from the neighboring Pearl River Delta is already forcing many in the financial community to move to Singapore.
Readings at three roadside monitoring stations in Hong Kong’s Central, Causeway Bay and Mong Kok commercial districts showed that pollution levels were above the 100 mark more than 20 per cent of the time, the newspaper said, citing the city’s Environmental Protection Department.
This was 10 times worse than in 2005, when very high readings were recorded only two per cent of the time, it said. The station in Central business district, home to the Asia head- quarters of global banks such as HSBC Holdings Plc and Goldman Sachs Group Inc, showed the worst figures, with excessive readings a quarter of the time, the report said. Hourly readings are taken at the roadside stations throughout the year on major pollutants such as respirable suspended particles and nitrogen oxides. A reading above 100 means at least one pollutant fails air quality objectives. 
Environmentalists renewed their calls for the immediate introduction of new air quality objectives, claiming that the government had deliberately delayed their introduction to ease the way for major infrastructure projects, the newspaper said.
The department blamed the figures on unfavorable weather conditions, worsening background, pollution and the number of aging vehicles on streets. The newspaper quoted the government as saying a number of measures were being considered to help improve air quality, and new air quality objectives would be discussed by Hong Kong’s legislature soon.
CO2 sucker could just clean the air
Researchers in California have produced a cheap plastic capable of removing large amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air. Down the road, the new material could enable the development of large-scale batteries and even form the basis of “artificial trees” that lower atmospheric concentrations of CO2 in an effort to stave off catastrophic climate change.
These long-term goals attracted the researchers, led by George Olah, a chemist at the University of Southern California (USC) in Los Angeles. Olah, who won the 1994 Nobel Prize in chemistry, has long envisioned future society relying primarily on fuel made from methanol, a simple liquid alcohol. As easily recoverable fossil fuels become scarce in the decades to come, he suggests that society could harvest atmospheric CO2 and combine it with hydrogen stripped from water to generate a methanol fuel for myriad uses.
Olah and his colleagues also work on making cheap, iron-based batteries that can store excess power generated by renewable energy sources and feed it into the electrical grid during times of peak demand. To function, the iron batteries grab oxygen from the air. But if even tiny amounts of CO2 get into the reaction, it kills the battery. In recent years, researchers have come up with good CO2 absorbers made from porous solids called zeolites and metal organic frameworks. But they’re expensive. So Olah and his colleagues set out to find a cheaper alternative.
They turned to polyethylenimine (PEI), a cheap polymer that is a decent CO2 absorber. But it only grabs CO2 at its surface. To boost PEI’s surface area, the USC team dissolved the polymer in a methanol solvent and spread it atop a batch of fumed silica, industrially produced porous solid made from microscopic droplets of glass fused together. When solvent evaporated, it left solid PEI with a high surface area.
When the researchers tested the new material’s CO2-grabbing abilities, they found that in humid air each gram of the material sopped up an average of 1.72 nanomoles of CO2. That’s above the 1.44 nanomoles per gram absorbed by a recent rival made from aminosilica and among the highest levels of CO2 absorption from air ever tested, the team reported in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. Once saturated with CO2, the PEI-silica combo is easy to regenerate. The CO2 floats away after polymer is heated to 85 degree Celsius. Other solid CO2 absorbers must be heated to over 800 degree Celsius to drive off the CO2.
Computer sandals
Computer parts do not necessarily need to be thrown away, once their lifespan is over. Instead, you could recycle them and turn them into useful products, like pair of sandals.
Created by Steven Rodrig, the data sandals were made from PC mother boards, ribbon wire and a bunch of other thrown away computer parts. Also, these are highly detailed and completely wearable.
Wearing these to a geek convention though is sure to have the spotlight turned on you, as passers-by go “Ooohh!”. Available for $350.00 on Etsy, these sandals seem to be a pretty great way to recycle old computers!
About Plastic bags, will you use it?
Consider the Following Shocking Facts About Plastic Shopping Bags:
• Plastic bags are made of polyethylene
• Polyethylene is a petroleum product
• Production contributes to air pollution and energy consumption
• It takes 1000 years for polyethylene bags to break down
• As polyethylene breaks down, toxic substances leach into the soil and enter the food chain
• Approximately 1 billion seabirds and mammals die per year by ingesting plastic bags
• Plastic bags are often mistaken as food by marine mammals. 100,000 marine mammals die yearly by eating plastic bags. 
• These animals suffer a painful death, the plastic wraps around their intestines or they choke to death
• Plastic bag choke landfills
• Plastic bags are carried by the wind into forests, ponds, rivers, and lakes
So, will you use plastic shopping bag again?
Bugs clean up Gulf of Mexico oil spill
More than a year after the world’s biggest oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, questions linger about how it disappeared so quickly. Bacterial microbes inside the slick degraded the oil at a very fast rate, researchers found. The first ever study investigating the role of bugs in breaking down the slick has given answers that represent surprisingly good news and a head-scratching mystery.
Studying samples from the surface slick and surrounding Gulf waters, scientists of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) found that bacterial microbes inside the slick degraded the oil at a rate five times faster than microbes outside the slick. They accounted in large part for the disappearance of the slick some three weeks after Deep-water Horizon’s Macondo well was shut off, says Environmental Research Letters.
At the same time, researchers observed no increase in the number of microbes inside the slick —something that would be expected as a by-product of increased consumption, or respiration, of the oil, according to a Woods Hole statement.
In this process, respiration combines food (oil in this case) and oxygen to create carbon dioxide and energy. “What did they do with the energy they gained from this increased respiration?” asked WHOI chemist Benjamin Van Mooy, senior study author. “They didn’t use it to multiply. It’s a real mystery,” he said.
Mooy and his team were nearly equally taken aback by the ability of the microbes to chow down on the oil in the first place. Going into the study, he said, “We thought microbe respiration was going to be minimal.” 
This was because nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus — usually essential to enable microbes to grow and make new cells — were scarce in the water and oil in the slick. “We thought the microbes would not be able to respond,” Mooy said.
But the WHOI researchers found, to the contrary, that the bacteria not only responded, but did so at a very high rate. They discovered this by using a special sensor called an oxygen optode to track the changing oxygen levels in water samples taken from the slick.
house from plastic bottles
Argentine man makes house from plastic bottles
A man in Argentina who built his house and furniture out of plastic bottles has been so successful that he is now teaching other people how to do the same.
Alfredo Santa Cruz survived during Argentina’s economic crash in 2001 by sorting through rubbish heaps in search of items he could sell but now he has found a new way of making a living.
Wendy Urquhart reports.
More details on BBC News website
Other uses of cat litter
Did you know that cat litter can be used for many other things around your household? Even if you don’t have any cats around, you can still stock up cat litter at home for these surprising uses
Prevent grease fires
Don’t let a grease fire spoil your next barbecue. Pour a layer of cat litter into the bottom of your grill for worry-free outdoor cooking experience. Get rid of that musty smell when you open the closet door. Just place a shallow box filled wi
th cat litter in each musty closet or room. Cat litter works great as a deodorant.
Preserve flowers
The fragrance and beauty of freshly cut flowers is such a fleeting thing. You can’t save the smell, but you can preserve their beauty by drying your flowers on a bed of cat litter in an airtight container for seven to 10 days.
Keep tents must-free
Keep tents and sleeping bags fresh smelling and free of must when not in use. Pour cat litter into an old sock, tie the end, and store inside the bag or tent.
Repel moles
Moles may hate the smell of soiled cat litter even more than you do. Pour some down their tunnels to send them scurrying to find new homes.
Make grease spots disappear
Get rid of ugly grease and oil spots in your driveway or on your garage floor. Simply cover them with cat litter. If the spots are fresh, the litter will soak up most of the oil right away.
Warm Arctic releases toxic chemicals
The researchers warn that the amount of the poisons in the polar region is unknown and their release could “undermine global efforts to reduce environmental and human exposure to them”.
The chemicals seeping out as temperatures rise include the pesticides DDT, lindane and chlordane as well as the industrial chemicals PCBs and the fungicide hexa-chlorobenzene (HCB). All of these are known as persistent organic pollutants (Pops), and are banned under the 2004 Stockholm convention.
Pops can cause cancers and birth defects and take a long time to degrade. Over past decades, the low temperatures in the Arctic trapped volatile Pops in ice and cold water. But scientists in Canada and Norway have discovered that global warming is freeing the Pops again. They examined measurements of Pops in the air between 1993 and 2009 at the Zeppelin research station in Svalbaard and Alert weather station in northern Canada. After allowing for the decline in global emissions of Pops, the team showed that the toxic chemicals are being remobilized by rising temperatures and the retreat of the sea ice, which exposes more water to the sun. The scientists’ work is published in the journal Nature Climate Change. Hayley Hung, at the air quality research division of Environment Canada and one of the teams, said their work provided the first evidence of the remobilization of Pops in the Arctic. “But this is the beginning of a story,” she said.
“The next step is to find out how much is in the Arctic, how much will leak out and how quickly.”
Other uses of Egg
Eggs, mainly restricted to kitchens have other surprising uses also. Some of the other uses of eggs, which you will find interesting and might be unknown to you are as follows:
• Make a facial: If you have dry skin that needs moisturizing, separate the egg and beat the yolk. Oily skin takes the egg white, to which a bit of lemon or honey can be added. For normal skin, use the entire egg. Apply the beaten egg, relax and wait 30 minutes, then rinse. You will love your new fresh face.
• Use as glue: Out of regular white glue? Egg whites can act as a glue substitute when gluing paper or light cardboard together.
• Add to compost: Eggshells are a great addition to your compost because they are rich in calcium — a nutrient that helps plants. Crushing them before you put them in your compost heap will help them break down faster.
• Water your plants: After boiling eggs, do not pour the water down the drain. In- stead, let it cool; and then water plants with the nutrient-filled water. 
• Start seeds: Plant seeds in eggshells. Place the eggshell halves in the carton, fill each with soil, and press seeds inside. The seeds will draw extra nutrients from the eggshells. Once the seedlings are about three inches tall, they are ready to be transplanted into your garden. Remove them from the shell before you put them in the ground. Then crush the eggshells and put them in your compost.
Indian state Andra Pradesh may turn into world’s top emitter
A single Indian state is to build a new fleet of coal-power stations that could make it one of the world’s top 20 emitters of carbon emissions on a par with countries such as Spain or Poland.
The proposed coal plants in the south-eastern state of Andhra Pradesh are part of a wider Indian ‘coal rush’ to bring power to the country’s hundreds of millions living without electricity. They face opposition from local people and environmental NGOs who warn of farmland being turned over to opencast mines and coasts being threatened with pollution from ports that will handle coal.
In an echo of the Chinese economy in the 1990s which depended on the exploitation of vast reserves of coal, India last year approved plans for 173 coal fired power stations expected to provide an extra 80-100 giga watts (GW) of electricity capacity within a few years. Many are expected to be fuelled by cheap coal im- ported from Australia, Indonesia and southern Africa, but applications to mine more than 600m tons of coals in India have been lodged.
The epicenter is Andhra Pradesh which, with a population of 84.7 million people, is now expanding its power production by 800 per cent. Seven major and more than 30 smaller coal-powered power stations are planned, together intended to have a capacity of 56GW. In comparison, the UK’s installed electricity capacity is 75GW, but is expected to rise to 100GW in the next two decades. The largest plant, expected to be opened in two years, will be the $4bn Krishnapatnam power station, India’s first ‘ultra mega’ class of coal-fired power station. With four GW, capacity it will be one of the world’s 25 biggest electricity sources, capable of powering seven million middle-class homes. But, say activists, the Indian coal rush is being met by opposition, deaths and violent repression. Local protesters in Andhra Pradesh say that the power will mostly be exported to large cities, heavy industry and neighboring states, while local people are left with a legacy of pollution and toxic dumps. 
“In many areas locals have protested against proposed coal plants,” Babu Rao, a former Indi- an government official turned anti-coal activist, said. Growing frustration at the government’s decision to block the expansion of coal mines in some of India’s most heavily polluted coalfield areas is thought to have contributed to this week’s removal of Jairam Ramesh from the environment ministry.
Ramesh was blamed by the coal and power ministries for de- laying mine expansion approvals and for India not meeting its coal production targets. Ramesh relaxed rules for coal developers under intense pressure in the days before he was moved, but bans on new mining in several hundred blocks with a potential of over 600m tons of coal remain.