This is already the episode 6's review for saving Gaia! Sorry for the very late posting. This week episode’s is titled as grey to green. Honestly, I am not very good with colors, so I do not know how to mixed paints to change grey to green. No worries, today’s review is not going to teach you how to mixed paint. Today there are 3 places which I will bring you traveling too, so are you ready? Get ready, we are traveling on foot to be environmentally friendly, but do not leave your carbon footprints, this entry will bring you to 4 places by the text (tax) road.

Our 1st destination, not very far away from the land you are on, Singapore, it is offshore from Singapore but it belongs to Singapore and it is made by what you throw away in your bin. Look in your bin and try to visualize. Let’s stop all the crapping, here, is Semakau landfill.

As landfill has defined it, it is made up of our rubbish that we throw everyday. So how big is it? It is 63 million m3 capacity and 3.5 square km area. But what exactly is it made up off? It is made up of 54 tons of ashes from our daily incinerations. It is 8km off our main land and it is form by enclosing Pulau Semakau and a small adjacent island (Pulau Sakeng) with a rock bund. The main purpose of having the rock bund around is to prevent toxin from leaking into the sea from land. With one layer of ashes and a 2nd layer of soil it has created into a nature for animals. And gladly thanks to the birds, there are plants growing on it. The birds carry seeds by eating fruits and unknowingly planted them there, so they are great farmers. With that there are plants growing on it, how can it not attract animals to live? As it is near the sea, interesting creatures, coral reefs have come by and start treating the whole new place as their habitat. So this is like a man made habitat. On top of that they have planted 40’000 saplings 9 years ago to build the mangrove that they have destroyed, so now they are growing healthy and they have also been a good indicator of water pollutions. But of course with so many projects that went on, there is a price tag to everything, the government paid the price, pumping in US4.81 million dollars. After so many words, let’s look at some great scenery of the place before I bring you our next destination.

Semakau land:


Mangrove:


Living creatures:




Photos credit to: http://tidechaser.blogspot.com/2007_08_01_archive.html

Enough time by the beach. Now let me bring you a little country. There is little India in Singapore, but do you know there is a little Singapore in Philippines? It is the city of Marikina. It used to be the dirtiest town, but now it is a clean and green city, that is why it is named as “Little Singapore”. How can a city make a drastic change? It is possible for a country to change, as long as you allow the citizens to see the long term benefits they will work towards that goal. Just like towards a child, by giving it reward if he/she does well will motivate them to work towards their goals. That links me to the next point; everything brings down to the level of children. In school they have a program known as eco saver program. Where on Friday is known as the eco day, so each kid is supposes to bring recyclables to school. With that they will measure the weight of it and give points to the children which are written on the eco passport. The children can then redeem the point for stationary items on an eco-save mobile store. Records show that individual savings or points earned, within a school year period, ranged from 50.00 to 1,800.00points, which helped reduce household expenses on school supplies. It was 1 point for 1 dollar. Do not look down on these kids, with what they have collected they have reduce 238tons of waste from the landfills they have also decreased the cost incurred in the disposal of local solid waste. The 50 truckload-trips a day to the dumpsite went down to an average of 30 trips a day and has also contributed to traffic decongestion, less air pollution, and energy conservation. Moreover, the program has provided junk shops within the city with a regular supply of recyclable materials. There was no financial equity from the participants. They only have to bring recyclables from their households. This made it easier for the city government to elicit enthusiastic participation. But it is the positive impact of the initiative that has encouraged them to help sustain it.

With enough obsessions on children, let me bring you to Seoul South Korea, our 2nd last destination. If you were to go there a few years back you would be choked by the amount of thick haze. The haze is so thick till it has prevents 15% of sun ray from going into Earth. But today it is a clean and green country. The magic behind it is having a supporting government who is willing to pump in millions of money to create a better living area. It is not a easy job, Seoul was ranked as the top 30 in air pollution. With dust and particles in the air, it is not even advisable to wear white shirts, as it will turn grey in no time. But now, the buses run on CNG which is a cleaner and cheaper alternative, the air are more breathable. They had also successfully retained 74% of the land for conservation, and also having a man made forest. It manages to keep the wild life alive. With that they keep tree transplanting active and continuously grow plants in the nursery for transplanting. Here is a picture of the man made forest with wild animals closed up with humans.


Now to our final destination, must have been tiring for your eyes to read till here. Chill chill, taken a toilet break? There is nothing much left, our last destination, Li Jiang, China. A place with 1400 residents, they are the ones who have shown that we need not to have great money to go green. What they had was a solar powered water heater, gas stove that runs by biogas from animals waste. They started not long ago in year 2005. they used to use firewood to operate their stove, but now they uses animal waste, with that they have decrease the firewood usage from 4000kg to 1500kg. they people thee never thought of going green, as to them it is expensive, but after being expose to it, they realize if they were to cut down lesser trees on top of the mountain, it will prevent soil erosion which had crash some of their houses. So this is more of a being practical than being green.

With that I end your trip from all the traveling. Sorry to keep you eyes so tiring…=D

7:16 PM sHaRiLyN LiM