Tuesday, 22 November 2016
Wednesday, 16 November 2016
Thursday, 26 May 2016
WHAT CAN BE RECYCLED
On the surface ‘Recycling’ seems clear and simple,
however as you go deeper into the process you
realise that things can get a bit tricky, when you discover that some
glass, paper and lots of plastic can’t be recycled. Actually throwing out items into the
recycling bin that you were convinced can be recycled, but actually can’t be,
can worsen the environment…what a downer!
However since most people are aware of the
importance of recycling and the benefits it can provide to the environment, please continue!
Also note: Recycling regulations vary depending on where you live and what kind of facilities are in your community.
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Wednesday, 25 May 2016
20+ THINGS THAT YOU SHOULD NOT THROW IN THE COMPOST HEAP
1.
Bread – In
this category, cakes and pastas have been included. All forms of residue left
behind are a magnetized attraction for unwanted pests.
2.
Cooking oil – It
is perceived as food by pests. Also its chemical content can upset the balance
of nutrients in the compost.
3.
Dairy products – Like
bread or grain products, these products are also a favoured food source for
pests and can also attract wildlife or flies..
4.
Diseased plants – These
carry fungus and harmful bacteria which can be transferred to the organic
nutrients of the compost heap.
5.
Plants that challenge and invade – Otherwise known as weeds, these plants won’t decompose
but grow instead.
6.
Faeces – The
bacterial content from both human and carnivorous animals, mainly to do with
consumed meat, is hazardous which might contain pathogens.
7.
Meat scraps – Apart
from the bacterial hazard, contents such as blood, bones and fleshy residues
are also attractive to pests.
8.
Heavily coated paper – These
are broadly categorized to include things such as greeting cards, magazines and
writing pads. Apart from its chemical content, its high foil content is
non-compostable.
9.
Coated or Printed paper – One
simple trick to use as a sticky reminder is to simply never print. There is no
longer a need to do this and its impact on the environment remains negative.
10.
Rice – In two parts, rice
is unsuitable for the compost heap. Raw rice is attractive to pests, while
cooked rice is fertile ground for bacteria, potentially harmful to the
compost’s nutrients.
11.
Sawdust – It
is not feasible to identify whether wood has been treated with chemicals and
other harmful ingredients or not. It is better not to toss sawdust into the
compost heap at all.
12.
Used personal items – All
used personal items such as tampons and diapers are soiled with human fluids
and are health hazards.
13.
Tea and Coffee bags – Tea and coffee should only be added in compose pile if
they are bag less. Some bags contain synthetic fibres that do not break down in
a compost pile.
14.
Citrus Peels, onions and garlic scraps – They should be avoided as they might scare of useful
bacteria and insects or kill worms and other organisms..
15.
Coal ash – It
may contain so much sulphur that it may make soil excessively acidic.
16.
Large branches – They take long time to break down. It is better to cut
them down into smaller pieces. The smaller the pieces, the faster they will
break down.
17.
Synthetic Fertilizer – Synthetic fertilizer may upset the balance of
nutrients in the soil and may increase.
18.
Dead animals – They should better be buried underground.
19.
Inorganic materials, such as polyester, plastic, acrylic, rubber etc. – Plastic products take
much longer to compost. So, it’s better to keep them off your compost bins.
20.
Manure from sick animals – Manure is a great product to be used in compost pile.
But this should be used only is you are sure that it hasn’t come from sick
animals or from animals taking antibiotics.
22.
Pretty much anything that is poisonous – This should be a case of stating the obvious.
Proactive measures entail checking product labels.
23.
Not even torn or shredded bits of clothing – Even the tiniest bits of fiber can contain harmful
substances and invariably do contain chemicals. Also, there is the question of
dye from the clothing material’s colorants.
By now you may have come to realize that even the best
intentions have their consequences.
Source: http://www.conserve-energy-future.com/things-that-you-should-never-put-in-compost-heap.php
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Tuesday, 17 May 2016
Monday, 9 May 2016
Differences between Hemp and Marijuana
Industrial Hemp and Marijuana technically comes from the same species of plant -cannabis Sativa, but it is from a different variety or subspecies.
However, since the 1950s hemp has been lumped into the same category of marijuana, and thus the extremely versatile crop was doomed in the United States.
THE MAIN DIFFERENCES ARE:-
Industrial Hemp has low THC levels (the ingredient that makes one high), compared to marijuana specifically cultivated for personal psychoactive use. Whereas marijuana that can be smoked usually contains between five and ten percent THC, industrial hemp contains about one-tenth of that.
The reason for the low THC content in hemp is the most THC is formed in resin glands on the buds and flowers of the female cannabis plant. Industrial hemp is not cultivated to produce buds, and therefore lacks the primary components that forms the marijuana high. Furthermore, industrial hemp has concentrations of a chemical called Cannabidiol (CBD) that has a negative effect on THC and lessens its psychoactive effects when smoked in conjunction.
Industrial hemp variety has a much stronger fibre. This fibre can be used in anything from rope and blankets to paper. Marijuana fibra has a low tensile strength and will break or shred easily, making it a poor fibrous plant when compared to industrial hemp.
Industrial hemp also grows differently than marijuana: Hemp is typically grown upwards, notoutwards, because the focus is not on producing buds but on producing length of stalks. In this way, hemp is a very similar crop to bamboo. The stalk contains the fibre and hard, woody core material that can be used for a variety of purposes, even carpentry.
Generally, THC-producing marijuana plants are grown to an average of five feet in height, whilst industrial hemp on the other hand is grown to a height of ten to fifteen feet before harvest. Also, it is fairly difficult to grow concealed marijuana within industrial hemp crops as the DEA* alleges.
Since industrial hemp is grown so close together and is generally a very narrow, vertical growth crop, any THC-producing marijuana would stick out like a sore thumb. Its wide growth would require a large amount of space to itself in order to get adequate sunlight from beyond the tops of the competing industrial hemp plants.
The two also differ in the areas that they can be effectively grown. THC-producing marijuana must be grown in generally warm and humid environments in order to produce the desired quantity and quality of THC-containing buds. However, since industrial hemp does not contain these buds and the hardy parts of the plant are the more desired, it can be grown in a wider range of areas.Generally, industrial hemp grows best on fields that provide high yields for corn crops. Furthermore, since industrial hemp can use male plants as well as female plants (since the object is not THC production), higher crop yields can result.
Hemp also has little potential to produce high-content THC when pollinated. As long as industrial hemp plants are pollinated by members of their own crop, then the genetics will remain similar with low levels of THC.
One would have to place several marijuana plants in close vicinity in over several generations in order to alter the genetics substantially of the offspring.
Since there are so many differences between industrial hemp and
THC-marijuana, it seems to make sense that it would be a fostered,
rather than demonized crop.
THC-marijuana, it seems to make sense that it would be a fostered,
rather than demonized crop.
For a crop that has little-to-no potential to get people high,
the current attitude is both irresponsible and draconian.
Industrial hemp could transform the economy GLOBALLY in a positive and beneficial way and therefore should be exploited to its full potential!
Source:
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/91602/differences_between_industrial_hemp.html?cat=37 (with some adjustments)
*DEA: The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is a United States federal law enforcement agency under the U.S.Department of Justice, tasked with combating drug smuggling and use within the United States.
Friday, 6 May 2016
HEMP and its very INTERESTING HISTORY...
It was
only during the last century that cannabis hemp has been associated with its
narcotic cousin marijuana and therefore banned in many countries.
8000
BC
For 8000 years or more before
that it was the world’s largest agricultural crop, producing the majority of
our fibre, paper, fabric, lighting oil, medicines, as well as food oil and
protein for both humans and animals.
According to the Columbia History
of the World, “The earliest known woven fabric was apparently of hemp, which
began to be worked in the eighth millennium (8000-7000 BC).”
2800
BC
- It appears from historical evidence that hemp originated in central Asia, between the Himalayas and Siberia, and then spread through the migration of man to all corners of the earth.
- More varieties are found in China than anywhere else and a statement from the “Lu Shi”, a Chinese text from the Sung dynasty (500 AD) says that Emperor Shen Nung (2800 BC) first taught the Chinese people to cultivate “ma” (hemp) for fibre.
- There is no evidence of the Chinese using cannabis as a drug, only for fibre, food from the seeds and later as fuel.
- Hemp was grown as a fibre crop in Northern India since at least the eighth century, and according to Mahayana Buddhist legends, Buddha lived on a single hemp seed a day during his path to enlightenment. More recently cannabis in India was produced almost exclusively for its drug content, and this is where the name Indian Hemp, referring to marijuana, comes from.
- Herodotus (450 BC) wrote that the Thracians and Scythians used hemp extensively, and it was most likely that the Scythians introduced hemp to Europe during their westward migration (around 1500 BC).
100
AD
- It was around 100 A.D. that the plant was named Cannabis Sativa by the Roman surgeon Dioscorides who described various medicinal uses.
- At the same time Pliny wrote a manual on farming hemp and explained its industrial uses.
- In Japan, hemp or “Asa” has a long history, and is believed to have first been introduced by Chinese merchants. It is fundamental in many of the Shinto religions rituals and has been used as a clothing and food source for many thousands of years.
1500
- The incredible diversity and usefulness of the hemp plant accelerated its spread to almost every continent and culture. Because of its strength and durability as a fabric and cord, it was used almost exclusively in the sails and rigging on the ships that left Europe to discover the world. King Phillip of Spain (1564) even ordered that hemp be cultivated throughout his empire, and many wars were fought over the supply of it.
- Wherever the explorers landed, hemp was one of the first seeds they propagated as it grew so quickly and could meet so many of their requirements for clothing, food and fuel. Hemp soon spread from Europe to North and South America in the 1500’s and at a later stage Australia where many people survived a famine in the 1800’s by eating hemp seed as protein and hemp leaves as roughage.
- As with everywhere else that hemp was cultivated, it fast became the crop of choice in the new colonies in North America, many of them making hemp cultivation mandatory for all farmers. To promote it further, hemp was even accepted as legal tender and taxes could be paid with hemp.
- Hemp had become so important that George Washington urged farmers to sow the hemp seed everywhere, growing it himself, and Thomas Jefferson called hemp a “necessity”. The American Declaration of Independence was drafted on hemp paper, as well as the first pair of Levi jeans being constructed out of robust hemp fabric.
1800
Hemp continued to flourish and
meet many of the needs of the colonialists until the middle of the
19th century when new tropical fibres were introduced, the petrochemical age began, steamships replaced sails and the toxic sulphur and chlorine processes to make paper from wood pulp was developed.
19th century when new tropical fibres were introduced, the petrochemical age began, steamships replaced sails and the toxic sulphur and chlorine processes to make paper from wood pulp was developed.
The Encyclopaedia Britannica of 1856 stated: “But it is not as a narcotic and
excitant that the hemp plant is most useful to mankind; it is as an advancer
rather than a retarder of civilization that its utility is made most manifest.”
1930
- It continued in its rightful place as an important agricultural crop until the 1930’s when new machinery was invented to break the hemp, process the fibre and convert the hurds into paper. This drew the attention of the synthetic fibre producers (nylon had just been invented) and the paper and cotton industry magnates, who believed that they stood to lose billions of dollars if hemp’s commercial potential was fully exploited.
- They were largely responsible for the “reefer madness” propaganda campaign that, in 1937, resulted in the outlawing of this natural fibre and, with this, their natural competition. They achieved this by demonising and outlawing the narcotic marijuana and thereby banishing the entire cannabis family, including hemp and its many thousands of legitimate uses.
- It was around this time that Henry Ford invented a car (Ford Hemp Car) that had a body made of hemp composites and ran on hemp fuel, in an aim to fulfil his dream of “growing automobiles from the soil”. But because of hemp being banned at the time, and the advances made with the petrochemical industry, petrol was soon the prevailing fuel for motor vehicles, a move that has cost the planet dearly and will continue to do so until we move back to environmentally responsible fuel sources.
1940
– 1955
A few years later, during the
Second World War, the legislation was again changed when the Japanese
cut off the supplies of Manila hemp needed for uniforms and ropes. The USDA then promoted hemp again with a film “Hemp for Victory”, that urged farmers to grow the crop to meet the fibre demands. After a brief return to favour, hemp was again banned in 1955, and it remains so in the States to this day.
cut off the supplies of Manila hemp needed for uniforms and ropes. The USDA then promoted hemp again with a film “Hemp for Victory”, that urged farmers to grow the crop to meet the fibre demands. After a brief return to favour, hemp was again banned in 1955, and it remains so in the States to this day.
Today
- The USA’s attitude towards hemp has influenced many others to adopt similar legislation. Part of the USA’s criteria for foreign aid is the dismantling of the receiving country’s drug industry. Seeing as hemp and marijuana are seen as the same by the US government, a hemp industry would deny any country access to valuable foreign aid.
- Recently many countries have recognised hemp’s potential and its value as an environmentally responsible crop. More than 30 nations, including England, France, Germany, China and Canada now have a legal hemp industry, and many more are undertaking research in a move towards a change in legislation.
- Although hemp has lost out on nearly a century of technology and market development, farmers and businesses are rediscovering its incredible potential across the planet. As hemp research and cultivation resumes, many more uses for it will be discovered.
- The search is on for alternatives to pesticide greedy cotton, forest-destroying paper, war-generating and polluting petrochemicals and nutritionally devoid western diets.
- Although hemp is only part of the solution, many believe that it is the only known renewable natural resource that can meet nearly all our requirements to move back to a healthier, greener planet.
Hemp, known in other languages as asa, hanf, hamp, chanvre, bhang, canamo, kannab or cannabis, is thought to be one of the earliest plants cultivated for the production of a textile fibre.
Sources: http://invegrow.com/history/
1) Hemp Today – Ed Rosenthal
2) The Emperor Wears No Clothes – Jack Herer
3) Hemp – Lyster E. Dewey (Yearbook of USDA 1913)
4) The Hemp Report – www.votehemp.com
5) Global Hemp (www.globalhemp.com)
6) Hempology.org
2) The Emperor Wears No Clothes – Jack Herer
3) Hemp – Lyster E. Dewey (Yearbook of USDA 1913)
4) The Hemp Report – www.votehemp.com
5) Global Hemp (www.globalhemp.com)
6) Hempology.org
Friday, 15 April 2016
WHY ARE WE NOT USING HEMP?
WHAT IS HEMP OR MORE COMMONLY REFERRED TO AS INDUSTRIAL HEMP?
It is a commonly used term for high-growing industrial varieties of the Cannabis plant and its products, which include fibre, oil and seed.
Hemp is refined into products such as hemp seed foods, hemp oil, wax, resin, rope, cloth, pulp, paper and fuel.
Industrial Hemp is not to be confused with the close relative cannabis, which is also a Cannabis plant, but is widely used as a recreational drug and medicine.
THE BENEFITS OF USING HEMP:
AT PRESENT...
Hemp stalks and seeds are used by industrial/commercial companies for textiles, foods, papers, body care products, detergents, plastics and building materials.
Today hemp for commercial use is grown mostly by China, Hungary, England, Canada, Australia, France, Italy, Spain, Holland, Germany, Poland, Romania, Russia, Ukraine and India and throughout Asia.
It is a commonly used term for high-growing industrial varieties of the Cannabis plant and its products, which include fibre, oil and seed.Hemp is refined into products such as hemp seed foods, hemp oil, wax, resin, rope, cloth, pulp, paper and fuel.
Industrial Hemp is not to be confused with the close relative cannabis, which is also a Cannabis plant, but is widely used as a recreational drug and medicine.
THE BENEFITS OF USING HEMP:
- Hemp fibre is the longest, strongest and most durable of all natural fibres.
- Hemp cultivation requires no chemicals, pesticides or herbicides and controls erosion of the topsoil and produces oxygen.
- Grown in rotation with other crops such as corn and legumes, hemp farming is completely sustainable.
- Hemp produces four times as much fibre per acre as pine trees.
- Hemp tree-free paper can be recycled up to seven times, compared with three times for pine-pulp based papers.
- Hemp is easy to grow, and actually conditions the soil where it grows.
- The seed and seed-oil are HIGH IN PROTEIN, ESSENTIAL FATTY AND AMINO ACIDS AND VITAMINS.
- Hemp would be an ideal source of biomass for fuel and hemp Ethanol burns very cleanly.
- Hemp and humanity have been linked for over 10, 000 years.
- Hemp was our first agricultural crop, and remained the planet's largest crop and most important industry until late last century.
- Furthermore, hemp can be used to replace many potentially harmful products, such as tree paper, (the processed of which used chlorine bleach, which results in the waste product 'polychlorinated dibenzodioxins', popularly known as 'dioxins', which are carcinogenic and contribute to deforestation, cosmetics and plastic, most of which are petroleum-based and do not decompose easily. The strongest chemical needed to whiten the already light hemp paper is non-toxic hydrogen peroxide.
AT PRESENT...Hemp stalks and seeds are used by industrial/commercial companies for textiles, foods, papers, body care products, detergents, plastics and building materials.
Today hemp for commercial use is grown mostly by China, Hungary, England, Canada, Australia, France, Italy, Spain, Holland, Germany, Poland, Romania, Russia, Ukraine and India and throughout Asia.
The difference between - Hemp and Marijuana: both
come from the same plant - Cannabis Sativa L. However, it is from a
different variety, or subspecies that contains many important differences.
Industrial
hemp contains only about 0.3% - 1.5% THC (Tetrahydrocannabinoids, the
intoxicating ingredients that make you high) while marijuana contains about 5%
- 10% or more THC.
In order to get a psychoactive effect, one would need to smoke ten or twelve hemp cigarettes over a very short period of time.
In order to get a psychoactive effect, one would need to smoke ten or twelve hemp cigarettes over a very short period of time.
“Industrial
hemp could transform the economy of the ‘Whole World’ in a positive and
beneficial way, and therefore should be exploited to its full potential.”
Friday, 8 April 2016
Thursday, 7 April 2016
WHY SHOULD WE RECYCLE?
One of the ways to do this is ‘recycling’.
By not separating and recycling we are
overloading the Mother Earth. Everything
then goes and gets thrown into the already full landfills.
Landfills are actually huge holes made in
Mother Earth. So basically, what we are doing is burying our garbage into Mother
Earth and hoping it will all go away. But actually it can’t since most of the
garbage is manmade ‘plastic’ – which of course - non bio-degradable.
And since we are now running out of landfill
space – the garbage is being deposited into the ocean – example: the Great
Pacific garbage patch and many others and we are already aware of the effect and
damage this is causing on the Marine mammals.
Lets all try our best to help heal our Mother Earth by doing our bit - Reduce, Reuse, Recycle - the best way forward...
POLYSTYRENE FOAM/ STYROFOAM & RECYCLING
DID YOU KNOW?
Polystyrene foam just can’t be recycled and made to take another form or mould again (as the general plastic) because it’s
already expanded.
In order to make polystyrene cups etc. one needs to
use virgin polystyrene beads.
There are TWO
MAIN TYPES OF POLYSTYRENE in use today – rigid polystyrene, and expanded
polystyrene (also known as Styrofoam or polystyrene foam).
Ø RIGID POLYSTYRENE (PS) – example: yoghurt tubs – is just polystyrene plastic, with no air
bubbles added. This is much easier to recycle, and can simply be melted and
moulded into new containers and other products.
THE PROCESS TO MAKE:
Small
beads of the polymer polystyrene are steamed with chemicals until they expanded
to 50 times their original volume. After cooling and settling, the pre-expanded
beads are then blown into a mould until the mould is completely filled and all
of the beads have fused together - such as that of a drink cup.
BENEFITS
The finished product is a lightweight, inexpensive material that
is about 95% to 98% air. The insulating properties and cheap
manufacturing costs of EPS have made it a popular choice for businesses.
DISADVANTAGES
·
Polystyrene foam gets lodged in the intestines of
marine animals and that causes blockages that can be lethal. (Think about how
we worry about a mild blockage from eating the wrong thing; imagine eating a
ball of Styrofoam.)
·
Polystyrene foams essentially act like little
pollutant sponges, picking up and concentrating some of the nastiest
contaminants in the ocean, then something like a sea turtle comes along and
eats this thinking it is a jellyfish.
·
Some of these plastic-feeding fish may be ending up
back on our tables.
THERMAL RECYCLING (an option)
In this process, the recycled EPS is burned in
municipal incinerators, leaving behind carbon dioxide and water vapours. This
makes it a good fuel for waste-to-energy programs that use heat. While thermal
recycling could be an effective re-use of polystyrene waste, its cost of
transporting loads of light, bulky polystyrene to recycling centres could be
very costly.
SO HOW TO DISPOSE OF USED POLYSTYRENE?
Ø Polystyrene containers
such as yoghurt tubs etc. can and should be recycled.
However polystyrene foam is very rarely accepted for recycling. There are a few companies that specialise in recycling expanded polystyrene, you could contact your local municipality or look it up on the internet.
Otherwise, these items have been placed in the general waste bin, which then gets dumped into the already full landfills and if this is not possible then it ends up in the ocean.
However polystyrene foam is very rarely accepted for recycling. There are a few companies that specialise in recycling expanded polystyrene, you could contact your local municipality or look it up on the internet.
Otherwise, these items have been placed in the general waste bin, which then gets dumped into the already full landfills and if this is not possible then it ends up in the ocean.
WHAT ARE THE ALTERNATIVES TO USING POLYSTYRENE FOAM?
Paper-based alternatives…or
A more recyclable compound such as polypropylene
is an alternative.
Polypropylene is a
resin-based substance that is often used for plastic takeaway containers. While
polypropylene is more easily recycled than polystyrene, it is also more
expensive.
SOLUTION:
Polystyrene foam has to replace with a more
viable alternative OR a more economical and viable solution should be found to
have them recycled and be enforced as a rule worldwide.
"INDUSTRIAL HEMP is the perfect SOLUTION"
Source:
Why New York banned polystyrene foam
Wednesday, 9 March 2016
Friday, 4 March 2016
Tuesday, 19 January 2016
Plastic bag issue at the shopping counter …
Remember, once you accept
that bag, you are now liable for the rest of its future (will you hide it away
in the cupboard or will you pass it onto to someone else or reuse it or will it
go straight into the bin? 
Whichever
route we take…it will end up in a landfill-further sickening Mother Earth or our precious oceans.
Therefore, by accepting that plastic bag we are inviting more problems
and hurting Mother Earth further, so the ‘ball’, okay, should i say... the
‘plastic bag’ lies in our hands…
Please, let's say “No thank you” to the use of plastic bags/packets!
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