ENVIRONMENT Waste not! If you want to help secure the...

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Before you throw awayempty egg cartons,consider these optionsfor reusing them...

1. Egg cartons are agreat organisationaltool. You can use themto store trinkets,stationery, drawing pins,and even mouthfresheners

2. You can use them assmall pots to help seedssprout.

3. If you love dabbling inarts and crafts with kids,egg cartons can serve asgreat paint cups.

4. If you are reallyinnovative, turn youregg cartons into eye-catching flower lights.

“Sustainability is about ecology, economy and equity.” Ralph Bicknese02

1. Bob-tailed sheep-dog2. Eagle 3. Meerkats 4. Lemurs5. Cotton-top tamarin (a type of monkey)

Got an idea to conserve the environment? Mail us at

toinie175@gmail.com

REUSING EGGCARTONS

ENVIRONMENT

Air pollution is not justresponsible for affectinghuman health, it can alsoslow down the growth of trees, a recent study suggests

The study was published in the journal,‘Science of the Total Environment’

The research, conducted by re-searchers of a university inSao Paulo, in Brazil, hasshown that atmospheric pol-lutants restrict tree growth

and the ecosystem services provided bytrees, such as filtering pollution by ab-sorbing airborne metals in their bark,assimilating CO2, reducing the heat is-land effect by diminishing solar radia-tion, mitigating stormwater runoff, andcontrolling humidity.

“We found that in years when lev-els of particulate matter in the atmos-phere were higher, for example, start-ed later in their lives to provide ecosys-tem services that play an importantrole in reducing urban pollution andmitigating or adapting the city to cli-mate change,” said Giuliano Maselli

Locosselli, one of the researchers andfirst author on the study.

Using as a model the Tipuana tree(Tipuana tipu), also known as Rosewoodor Tipu, a tall tree with a large spread-ing canopy, the researchers measuredthe impact of air pollution and weatheron the tree’s growth in Sao Paulo. Theyanalysed samples of 41 tipuanas aged 36on average located in the vicinity of anindustrial area.

By analysing the chemical compo-sition of the bark and the size of thegrowth rings, the researchers were ableto measure variations in air pollutionlevels based on the various chemical el-

ements to which the trees were exposedduring their development and estimatehow this factor influenced tree growth.

“The tipuana is an excellent mark-er that clearly represents levels of airpollution by heavy metals and otherchemical elements in the city,” Locos-selli said.

“Trees exposed directly to high lev-els of pollution from the factories in thearea grew less in terms of trunk diame-ter development throughout their livesthan plants exposed to medium and lowlevels,” Locosselli said. “Under normalgrowth conditions, a tipuana’s chest-height diameter can reach 1 metre.” ANI

Waste not! If you want to help secure the future of the planetIf there’s one vital, butlittle appreciated,subject in any discussionon climate change, it’swaste: how to define it,create less of it, dealwith it without addingmore pollution to theplanet or the atmosphere

THE PROCESS:1. Collect pre-consumerorganic foodwaste.

2. Feed wasteto the larvaein a con-trolled envi-ronment.

3. Separatethe liveinsects fromthe wastematerial.

4. Harvestprotein con-taining-insects andprocess them.

T he issue has gained someacceptance, whether in theform of plastic straw bansor anxiety about e-com-

merce-related cardboard piling up.But experts say these aren’t neces-sarily the biggest problems.Reducing the damage from wastemight require expanding the tradi-tional definition of waste — not justas old-fashioned garbage, but as aresult of wild inefficiency in allkinds of systems, which oftenresults in emissions of greenhousegases, among other problems.Companies and organisationsaround the world are taking on thechallenge. Some are using materialstraditionally considered waste andmaking them into something entire-ly new — and often unrelated — totheir original purpose. Others areavoiding the creation of wastethrough greater efficiency and newtechnologies. Here are two exam-ples of efforts underway:

ENTOCYCLEA company carries out an experi-ment for the animal feed industry

When Keiran Whitaker wasworking as a scuba divinginstructor, witnessing the

destruction of tropical rainforests,often because of industrial food pro-duction, he decided he needed to puthis environmental design degree togood use. “We’re obliterating ournatural ecosystems predominantlyto produce monocrops that go intothe industrial food web, and what’sbad on land is even worse under wa-ter,” he said, referring to the de-struction of rainforests and thebleaching of coral reefs.

According to a 2013 study fromthe University of Minnesota’s In-stitute on the Environment, justunder 40 per cent of global cropcalories are used to feed animals,most of them from corn and soy-beans grown at an industrial scale.It’s a particularly inefficient wayto feed people: it takes about 100calories of grain to produce justthree calories worth of beef, or 12of chicken.

So he is trying to fix the system,

mostly by changing the food ourfood eats. The result is Entocycle,Whitaker’s startup based in Lon-don, which takes pre-consumer lo-cal food waste — created in the man-ufacturing of food products — andfeeds it to Black Soldier fly larvae,which eat the waste and convert itto protein.

He said about 97 per cent of theinsects are then ground into a flourhigh in amino acids, which, com-bined with other ingredients, canbe made into feed pellets for ani-mals. The flies’ excrement, known

as frass, can be used as crop fer-tiliser. Eventually, the insect flourcould be directly consumed by peo-ple. (While that might make somepeople cringe, Whitaker said he’snot “grossed out” by the insects.)

Timothy G Benton, a professorat the University of Leeds, who isfocused on food security and sus-tainability, said he doubted that acompany like Entocycle could doenough to transform the food sys-tem. But Whitaker, the chief exec-utive, is more hopeful. If his mod-el takes off (it is currently not pro-ducing at scale), more land couldbe used to feed people.

SPINNOVAThe company produces clothing fibre fromplant-sourced viscose rayon and cotton

A ccording to its government, Finland’sforests have about 10 trees for everyperson in the world. It is perhaps not

surprising then that a company aiming toreinvent the way we make clothing fromwood is Finnish. The second and third mostcommon textile fibres are already madefrom plants — cotton and viscose rayon.

Most viscose rayon is made from woodpulp, but the process of making it typicallyuses so many chemicals in such vast quanti-ties that some experts said it shouldn’t real-

ly count as a natural plant fibre..Enter Spinnova, a Finnish textile fibre

company founded by two former physicists,Janne Poranen and Juha Salmela, whoused to work in pulp and paper develop-ment and research at Finland’s nationalresearch centre.

After learning how spiders make silk,Salmela wondered if it might be possible tospin plant fibre in the same way. It is.Spinnova uses a mechanical method to pro-duce fibre, currently in a pilot stage. Theyuse wood pulp harvested from Brazilianwood, in partnership with Suzano, one ofthe world’s largest paper pulp producersand one of Spinnova’s shareholders. Theforestry practices and the wood pulp pro-duced is certified as sustainable by theForest Stewardship Council. This has a cli-mate benefit as well because forests(especially well-managed ones) absorbmuch of the carbon dioxide released intothe atmosphere. Spinnova plans to eventu-

ally use agricultural waste material anddiscarded clothing to produce fibres.EXTRACTS FROM AN NYT FEATURE

Spinnova’s processuses about 99 per centless water than cottonproduction (one studyshowed that it takes

about 2,900 gallons ofwater to make a pair of

jeans), without anyharmful chemicals

Most viscose rayon ismade from wood pulp,

but the process ofmaking it typically uses

so many chemicals insuch vast quantities

that some experts saidit shouldn’t reallycount as a natural

plant fibre

A 2013 study saysjust under 40 per

cent of global cropcalories are used tofeed animals, mostof them from corn

and soybeans...

The researchersused 41 Tipuana treesfor their experiment

to measure theimpact of air pollu-tion and weather on

the growth of thesaid trees

THE DESI WAY TOCOOL YOUR CAR

As is known, temperatures in theIndian summer, especially Gujarat,regularly reach around 42 degreesCelsius. To beat the summer heat,Sejalben Shah, a resident ofAhmedabad, tried a novel experi-ment by coating her car in cowdung to keep the vehicle fromoverheating. Shah said she mixedthe cow dung with mud to keepherself cool when she is drivingwith the windows open, and with-out using air conditioning. AFP

How air pollutionaffects growth of trees

Photo: Getty Images

Photo: Getty Images

First all-electric police carhits Australia roads

Australia’s first all-elec-tric police car hit theroads in the state of Vic-toria in June, one of thefirst jurisdictions in the

world to take the landmark step.The fully electric ‘Tesla Model X’

will perform highway patrol opera-tional duties as part of a feasibilitystudy into using more ‘intelligent ve-hicles’ for policing, Xinhua newsagency reported.

“This vehicle is unlike any oth-er Victoria police has ever had in itsfleet and could well be the future ofroad policing in this state, countryand the world,” Road Policing Com-

mand Assistant CommissionerStephen Leane said.

“Our highway patrol cars areequipped with cutting-edge tech-nology and this car gives us the op-portunity to investigate havingthese technologies in a fully inte-grated in-car system which has thepotential of streamlining the roadpolicing effort.” Victoria Police areworking with engineers from Tes-la, the US automotive and energycompany, to integrate police soft-ware directly into the vehicle's on-board system, hopefully giving of-ficers a more intuitive and easier-to-use interface. IANS

BUSINESS INSIDER

The RainforestAction Network hasfound that about 120million trees from exist-ing forests are cut down fortextiles every year.

KeiranWhitaker

Photos: www.entocycle.com