Rainwater Capture

Even though water is so cheap, some of my neighbors think it's worthwhile collecting rainwater. The lady who lives here says she uses it for mopping the floor and watering plants - not, it seems, for flushing the toilet.

Not Everyone Is Recycling...

Recently I attended a health promotion event where people were encouraged to take long walks. The reward for completing the course? A bottle of mineral water. As you can see, not everyone recycled the bottle after drinking the water...

Disposable Chopsticks & Convenience Stores

The Taiwan News reports that the Environmental Protection Administration is urging the public to stop using disposable chopsticks, so as to reduce the volume of disposable eating utensils:

According to EPA Minister Stephen Shu-hung Shen, the administration is suggesting that individuals take their own reusable chopsticks when eating out, and that workers, who constitute a major consumer group at convenience stores, take non-disposable chopsticks to their workplaces.

Shen said the Taiwan public uses 5 billion disposable chopsticks per year, with the largest number dispensed at convenience stores.

In its bid to reduce the volume of disposable utensils, the EPA plans to meet with convenience store operators in June to discuss the possibility of discontinuing the practice of providing customers with disposable eating utensils, Shen said.

According to the article, if a restaurant provides 100 pairs of disposable chopsticks per day to its customers, it generates 12 kilos of trash. The article also quotes a lady who says firms giving "environmentally friendly chopsticks" to their employees are frequently wasting resources, as often those chopsticks are not used.

It takes a while to kick the habit of disposable chopsticks. Remembering to take them with you every time you go out is the first step; then you need to remember to use them. Now, after a few months of trying, I get it right about 80 percent of the time.

The bring-your-own-chopsticks movement is nothing new, of course. This article has a great photo of a truckload of used sticks awaiting disposal...

50 Ways To Help The Planet - A Checklist

Take a look at this and see what else you can do for the environment. To put a more local twist on some of the 50 items, rather than worrying about coffee stirrers (no. 44), we should be worrying about disposable chopsticks and plastic straws.

Few people in Taiwan use dishwashers, so no. 3 isn't of much relevance here. The recycling rate for glass (no. 5) isn't very good; discarded Whisbih bottles are all over the place. No. 7 urges people to dry their clothes on a line, not in a dryer. One advantage of Taiwan's warm climate is that people here don't need dryers.

I'm already vegetarian at least one day a week (no. 8). A lot of Taiwanese are vegetarian twice a month for religious reasons. As for buying local (no. 22), I do when it comes to beer. No. 24 is "invest in your own coffee cup." For Taiwan, this should be "invest in your own tea cup," as millions of styrofoam cups are thrown away each day.

There are no excuses the lack of telecommuting in Taiwan (no. 33), as this article explains. Plastic bags are massively overused in Taiwan (no. 40), but there's hope they can be made to decompose.

I don't pay my bills online (no. 47). I'm not sure how this can be done in Taiwan. I do know that if you pay automatically by bank arrangement, they still mail you a receipt. Here in Taiwan, bank statements mailed out at regular intervals (no. 48) are rare. Banks and the post office issue account holders with a passbook which gets updated everytime you deposit or withdraw money.

Hide From The Climate

From a class with nine- and ten-year-olds the day before yesterday:

Teacher: Which season do you like?

Student: I like summer, because I can turn on the air-conditioning.

I'm always amazed at the number of Taiwanese who can't endure the heat here, even though they grew up here (and grew up without air-conditioning, in many cases). Environmental education has some way to go, of course. Still, I've achieved one thing with the kids I teach English to: Now, if they buy tea on the way to class, they know not to get one of those useless-for-anything-else cup-sized plastic bags.

Beer Miles

More than once, I've heard foreigners in Taiwan decry the environmental carelessness of Taiwanese, and then head to a hypermarket or convenience store to buy beer that's been shipped in from North America, Ireland or Germany...

I minimize my beer miles by drinking the local stuff. Bottles are better than cans (for the planet, and in terms of taste) if you take them back to the store for reuse.

Look at a can or bottle of Taiwan Beer, and you'll notice a letter beside the production date: A, B, or C. The letter tells you where it was brewed. A is Miaoli County (just south of Hsinchu); B is Taichung County; C is Tainan County. My beer is always from C. I know the brewery, it's about 15 kilometers from my house. In terms of food miles, that isn't bad.

Earth Day, The Premier & Me

As I type this, government buildings and schools which turned off their lights for an hour to mark Earth Day should be turning them back on. I'll be watching the TV news tonight to see who among Taiwan's great-and-good rode a bicycle to work, or took public transportation.

According to the China Post:

"Only one car will escort the premier to his office, rather than the usual three..."

Also, some members of the Cabinet are going vegetarian for the day. No indication that any of them turned off the air-conditioning in their offices, walked to work, or even worked from home. If Taiwan really wants to cut CO2 emissions and reduce traffic congestion, attitudes to telecommuting are going to have to change.

What have I done? Well, I used my bicycle this morning rather than the motorcycle or car. I remembered to bring my own chopsticks for lunch. I picked up nine small glass bottles that someone dumped beside the road (they'll go in the recycling truck this evening). And I turned the computer off between 8 am and 2 pm (usually it stays on, though typically I don't get much work done in that period).

Coconut-Fiber Brushes

My wife has been buying these at the local morning market. They're for washing dishes. They're billed as eco-friendly because you don't need to use any detergent - something in the coconut fiber is said to remove oil and grease from pots and dishes. They seem to work well. Also, when you're done with the brush, you can dispose of it naturally - every part can decompose, except for a tiny piece of wire, and the plastic bag it comes in.

Scientists have been experimenting with biodegradable plastic bags made partly of coconut fiber. Also, here in South Taiwan, coconut fiber mats have been used on slopelands to hold soil in place until plants and trees have taken root; this was done along the banks of the Love River.

I'm curious: Was the coconut fiber imported or grown here in Taiwan? How efficiently are the coconut palms used? According to some sources, nearly all parts of the coconut palm are useful.

Toxic Agents On Disposable Chopsticks

Disposable chopsticks may not have other people's saliva or soap suds on them, but that doesn't mean using them is good for your health, according to this article.

A consumers' group leader is quoted as saying: "The best solution is to use your own pair of reusable chopsticks to protect the environment and your health."

How clean are the paper or plastic bags that are given out by hot-food vendors and people selling fruit and vegetables in markets? That's something I'd like to know.

Greening Your Taiwan Home

The always-excellent Tree Hugger has an article called Greening Your Rental. Most of it is applicable to Taiwan.

The ten ways in which you can reduce your impact on the environment through your home are: Location (live near your place of work, and/or near somewhere with public transportation); Living in a small or shared abode (but apartments in Taiwan seem to be getting bigger); Working with your landlord to increase energy efficiency (you can do some things yourself, such as plugging drafts to make air-conditioning more efficient); Good lifestyle habits (turning off appliances when they're not being used); Using renewable power (Taiwan is a good place for solar stoves, but I've never seen one in the flesh; you'd need a big balcony or access to the roof); Replacing incandescent lights with compact fluorescents or LEDs (but what happens to incandescent bulbs that go into the trash?); Saving water (even if the pricing system offers no incentive); Redecorating only with eco-friendly paints; And buying secondhand furniture (there aren't many used-furniture stores in Taiwan, but dumpster diving is a possibility).

Earth Hour 2008

Earth Hour 2008 will be in a little over two weeks, on Saturday, March 29th. Of course, you needn't wait until then to turn off unnecessary lights and appliances.

Homemade Pesticide

Cigarettes are good at killing people, so it's no surprise they're also good at killing pests. My wife has begun collecting cigarette butts to make pesticide for her garden. She soaks them in water for several days (see photo), then adds more water to the solution before spraying.

It's a technique one of her cousins, who smokes, told her about.

The pesticide itself may be no better for the environment than commercially-produced stuff, but at least it doesn't come in a plastic container, no energy was consumed in its making, and it hasn't been trucked hundreds of kilometers from factory to customer.