Farming In Singapore

Urban farming in Singapore - from The New York Times Travel Section -

Green Acres by Singapore’s Skyscrapers

Edwin Koo

Hundred-foot concrete “supertrees” at Gardens by the Bay are dripping with ferns, orchids and bromeliads.

 

July 10, 2013

Green Acres by Singapore’s Skyscrapers

By ADAM H. GRAHAM

In Singapore’s steamy, skyscraper-lined central business district, two American businessmen tackled a messy chili crab lunch at Lau Pa Sat hawker center, one of Singapore’s many street food vendor hubs, one afternoon last fall. Between brow wipes, they described the country as “the Switzerland of Asia.”

It’s true, Switzapore has attracted foreign investors with its solid currency and rigid cleanliness and lured tourists to its high-tech attractions like the 55-story Marina Bay Sands’ Sky Park and splashy Sentosa Island. But where Switzerland is agricultural, this tiny urbanized island imports 93 percent of its food. Though Singapore began as a kampong (farm village), the notion of farming in this densely populated place today seems downright implausible.  

But Singapore’s kampong spirit is rising, most notably over the last two years in its Kranji neighborhood. It is infrequently visited by many tourists but is home to a farm resort and ever-evolving agritourism circuit where locavore thinking has taken hold and begun to redefine Singaporean cuisine and culture. And as the entire 274-square-mile country finds itself enveloped by increasingly thick smog created by wildfires from its Indonesian neighbor, Sumatra, it has begun to seriously ponder issues like food chain supply and to whet ideas about sustainable agriculture. An assortment of new urban farms, farmers’ markets and skyscraping vertical gardens have sprung up across the land, pleasing both residents and tourists in search of authenticity, a quality often seen as lacking in a city lamented by some as too sterile.

“Singapore is a tropical island and home to thousands of native edible plants,” said Ivy Singh, a farmer and restaurateur. “It’s time for us to take back our land and use it for something more Singaporean.”

The most recent addition is Sky Greens, a collection of 120 30-foot towers that opened in late 2012 using a method called “A-Go-Gro Vertical Farming,” which resembles a sort of vegetable-stuffed Ferris wheel, and is designed for leafy greens like spinach and bok choy. Sky Greens is Singapore’s first vertical farm, located in Kranji, 14 miles from Singapore’s central business district, with bus service available every 75 minutes.

The Kranji Heritage Trail, instituted in 2011, includes 34 independent farms and agriculture-related businesses. Seventeen of the trail stops are open to the public, including a poultry farm, a goat farm, frog-breeding aquaculture, a community vegetable garden, a cooking school, and the no-frills D’Kranji Farm Resort, with 19 eco-friendly villas and a spa. A day spent exploring Kranji’s farms is a great antidote to Singapore’s crush of street-food hawkers and urban attractions.

A highlight of the trail is Bollywood Veggies, a cooking school, restaurant and farm owned by Ms. Singh, an outspoken “farmpreneur” and self-proclaimed “gentle warrior.” Ms. Singh, standing in a grove of Cavendish bananas, one of over 20 different banana species on site, reminded visitors that mud-crabs (used in Singapore’s signature chili crab dish) are often imported from Sri Lanka and that Singapore’s famed street food isn’t exactly local. Her restaurant Poison Ivy is helmed by a Cordon Bleu graduate whose indigenous takes on Singaporean comfort food include banana curry, rojak flower chicken, and otah (mashed fish with coconut milk and spices) omelets.

Food hawkers have jumped on the farm bandwagon too. Derrick Ng of the Wang Yuan Fish Soup stalls in the upscale neighborhood of Tampines runs a series of urban gardening projects he calls Generation Green, selling local produce to health shops, restaurants and vendors. As Mr. Ng forges roads back to Singapore’s locavore cuisine, chefs and diners are discovering heirloom vegetables, fruits and long forsaken herbs. The volunteer-driven Ground-Up Initiative (G.U.I.) helps individuals and institutions build and maintain gardens, like the vegetable plots they built at Pathlight, a school for autistic children. This might be commonplace in Copenhagen or Brooklyn, but enticing a generation of skyscraper-raised urbanites to get their hands dirty in soil is no easy feat.  

But Singapore’s national park farm programs are the most remarkable. Hort Park introduced rooftop gardens and vertical vegetable gardens and offers free gardening workshops for visitors and tourists. Sengkang Riverside Park has a fruit tree trail with more than 300 varieties including litchi, mangosteen and durian. Gardens by The Bay, managed by Singapore’s National Parks Board, opened in 2011 on reclaimed land. Its 250 acres are home to a variety of themed vertical gardens and conservatories, including a series of 100-foot concrete “supertrees” that resemble oversize stone palms, each dripping with ferns, orchids and bromeliads and the backdrop to a nightly laser show. In typical Singapore style, the $782 million garden complex is utterly over the top, but within it is an understated Kampong House that emphasizes local vegetation grown in Singapore’s former kampong settlements. All but one of these historic settlements — Kampong Buangkok — was bulldozed during the country’s rapid development.  

That remaining kampong is reached via the Park Connector Trails, a 60-mile network of paths linking the parks. A walk on it is an ideal opportunity to glimpse Singapore’s 2,000 native plants, 295 butterflies, 57 mammals and 370 bird species, a reminder of what came before the skyscrapers, light shows and chili crabs. Sadly, Buangkok, the original urban farm, is under constant threat of demolition. While it remains a symbol of Singapore’s past, it also harbors many lessons for its future.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: July 28, 2013
An article on July 14 about Singapore and its evolving agritourism initiatives misidentified the organization that helps people and institutions build gardens. It is the volunteer-driven Ground-Up Initiative, not the “bespoke urban farm consultancy” at Singapore’s Edible Gardens.

  

http://www.travel.nytimes.com/2013/07/14/travel/green-acres-by-singapores-skyscrapers.html

Home Bio-Digesters For Cooking Gas Production

   Among my primary interests is local energy production and local reuse of organic "waste" - the leftover by-products of our lives - food preparation and landscaping and gardening to name two large contributors to what we call our "garbage".
   Large centralized trash-to-energy plants are built on a model that imitates the status quo - central plant, collection system for raw material that is reliant on truck pick-up/delivery and a distribution method by wire, pipe, truck or rail. As a management system for both "trash" pick-up and energy production, centralized systems require a large amount of energy use, with resulting pollution, for moving things around.
    Centralized energy production also is an incredibly efficient system for the redistribution of wealth. Basically, the purchase of energy never stops - we all need it.Yet it is a product that vanishes at the moment we acquire it - yes we get something, lets say cooked food, that is essential to our well being, but in a few hours, or the next morning we will need more. 
    Imagine instead a system that does not require the purchase of energy because the energy is now locally produced by the user themselves utilizing what they have previously thrown away - things that previously they had to pay to have taken away! A variety of savings appear - both to the individual user and to the larger society. Most immediately for the user is a reduction or elimination of  paying for energy. Further, if energy production is brought to the house or building level, the means of energy production - solar collector or bio-gas generator for example - increase the value of the building they are attached to. Now instead of paying out for energy, money is saved and the value of most people's biggest asset - their house - increases.
    Following is a story from The Banaglore Mirror (India) about one family and their bio-digester -

SELF HELP IS BEST HELP

Nine gas cylinders a year rule does not apply to him

By Niranjan Kaggere

Posted On Monday, July 29, 2013

It’s a problem that has generated more than a whiff of unpleasantness. While most of us ranted and suffered as the garbage kept piling up right outside our doorstep, with contractors refusing to carry out door-to-door collection, a Banashankari resident did what a true civic-minded citizen would have done.

To begin with, he complained to the BBMP commissioner. But after three complaints went unheeded, Satish Bakshi decided not to waste any more time and do it himself. And he came up trumps! Bakshi’s efforts have paid off and today, he and his family savour the sweet smell of success as their indigenously made bio-gas plant lights the kitchen fire thrice a week, and also keeps their vegetable and fruit garden verdant and bountiful.

Bakshi says he watched the garbage assume menacing proportions with every passing day, and it finally struck him that he could extract gas out of it. With the internet as his teaching aid, and a plastic water tank, a useless tyre and other ordinary devices to fuel his dream, he embarked on the project.

SURFING FOR IDEAS

An independent tax consultant, Bakshi tapped the internet for ideas. “I read that the concept of converting garbage into gas had caught on in Pune and Kochi. Since I was setting up my bio-gas plant in a residential area, I needed to avoid foul smell and ensure disposal of residue (slurry) within minimum space and with limited funds. The methods suggested on  line were for a full-fledged bio-gas plant which I couldn’t have set up. But taking a leaf out of those ideas, I thought of experimenting with a plastic water drum installed on my roof,” Bakshi told Bangalore Mirror.

Bakshi’s next step was to put the ubiquitous black water drum to ingenious use. He converted it into a digester tank to generate pure methane and installed a pipeline leading to his kitchen.

Bakshi says he had a plastic tank on the terrace of his house with a capacity of 1,000 litres. “I bought another similar tank of 750-litre capacity. After making a small partition inside the bigger tank to hold the garbage, I inverted the smaller tank upon it, covering the partition. To facilitate the insertion of garbage, a medium-sized opening was made at the centre of the inverted tank. A small hole was drilled on the periphery of the same tank and was fitted with a valve and pipeline to supply the methane gas produced,” he explained.

NEIGHBOURS GOT NO WHIFF

With a gas digester in place, Bakshi poured the garbage into it in the first week of April. Though their experiment had been flagged off, the entire family was on tenterhooks, plagued by fears of the foul smell causing a nuisance to neighbours, especially because it would be nearly 45-50 days before the gas could be produced since the garbage needs time to completely decompose before it can produce methane. “However, no one in the neighbourhood will believe it if I tell them that I have set up a gas digester atop my house. You will not be able to smell any stench unless you peep into the tank.”

He says once the gas is collected inside the inverted tank, it begins to rise — an indicator that it’s ready to be tapped. To tap gas, you need to apply pressure on top of the tank so that it pushes the gas through the pipeline. Once again, Bakshi’s innovations came into play. “To exert pressure, I used a waste tyre of my car and a small boulder. It worked, and I managed to easily pump the gas through the pipe,” he explained.

Their moment of glory could not have been better timed. On June 5, World Environment Day, Bakshi says they could smell methane in the tank. “On that day, I just turned on the valve and held a lighted matchstick to test if it would work. The first sight of the dark blue flame sparked off celebrations in our home,” says Bakshi, adding that very evening they prepared their coffee with the gas from their plant. Though the quantity was very low at first, it improved with every passing day. “Now, we get about two to three hours of constant supply thrice a week, depending on the amount of garbage,” he says.

EVEN THE RESIDUE COUNTS

The solid garbage put into the tank turns into a slurry residue after the extraction of gas. Bakshi has found good use of the residue too. An outlet flushes out the liquid that finds its way into his terrace garden. “I have been growing pineapple, mango, some vegetables, spinach and banana on the rooftop,” he says.

Though they don’t have enough garbage to generate gas on a daily basis, Bakshi says homes that produce 5-6 kg garbage every day can cook using bio-gas and cut down on LPG usage. However, since the gas doesn’t come at great pressure, the burners need to have bigger holes.

Sharing their experiences, Bakshi and his wife, K Aravindavalli, caution against putting seeds of fruits like jackfruit or mango and chicken bones. “If the substance is hard, it will take several months to decompose. Anything that does not decompose will remain at the bottom and eat up space. So, irrespective of the waste, cut it into small pieces, give it a rinse with water and pour into the tank,” Aravindavalli says.

The entire set-up has cost the Bakshis less than Rs 20,000. “It could have been lesser, but since I was doing it on a trial-and-error method, I incurred some extra expenditure,” he says, adding that if BBMP or state government helps with subsidy, a bio-gas plant would be a viable alternative for every household.

A SECRET RECIPE

Thanks to his constant innovation and experimentation, Bakshi reveals he has concocted a mixture of certain organic products which he adds into the garbage tank for speedy fermentation. While he is keeping the recipe a closely guarded secret, he is willing to supply the powder at a nominal rate.

Meanwhile, garbage collection has resumed since last month, but the Bakshi household is no longer dependent on the system. Before starting the project in April, he had approached the BBMP, assuming he needed permission for the bio-gas plant. But he was told there was no such provision, and he could go ahead with it if it did not harm neighbours.

Copyright 2009 Bennett Coleman & Co. Ltd. . All rights reserved.

http://www.bangaloremirror.com/index.aspx?page=article&sectid=1&contentid=20130729201307290117459819d2ec7b6#ftr2 

Cell Phone Toxic Waste

Lot of toxic waste for our convenience - from The New York Times -

May 4, 2013

Where Do Old Cellphones Go to Die?

By LEYLA ACAROGLU

AMERICANS replace their cellphones every 22 months, junking some 150 million old phones in 2010 alone. Ever wondered what happens to all these old phones? The answer isn’t pretty.

In far-flung, mostly impoverished places like Agbogbloshie, Ghana; Delhi, India; and Guiyu, China, children pile e-waste into giant mountains and burn it so they can extract the metals — copper wires, gold and silver threads — inside, which they sell to recycling merchants for only a few dollars. In India, young boys smash computer batteries with mallets to recover cadmium, toxic flecks of which cover their hands and feet as they work. Women spend their days bent over baths of hot lead, “cooking” circuit boards so they can remove slivers of gold inside. Greenpeace, the Basel Action Network and others have posted YouTube videos of young children inhaling the smoke that rises from burned phone casings as they identify and separate different kinds of plastics for recyclers. It is hard to imagine that good health is a by-product of their unregulated industry.

Indeed, most scientists agree that exposure poses serious health risks, especially to pregnant women and children. The World Health Organization reports that even a low level of exposure to lead, cadmium and mercury (all of which can be found in old phones) can cause irreversible neurological damage and threaten the development of a child.

The growing toxic nightmare that is e-waste is not confined to third world outposts. It also poses health problems in the United States where, for several years, the Federal Bureau of Prisons has kept inmates busy processing e-waste. There are concrete steps the government, manufacturers and consumers could take to better dispose of electronic trash and to help prevent the pileup of more e-waste and the hazards e-waste processing poses.

The United States, for example, remains the only industrialized country that has not ratified the Basel Convention, an international treaty that makes it illegal to export or traffic in toxic e-waste. Fully implementing the treaty would be a step toward joining global efforts to contain toxic waste troubles.

The Responsible Electronics Recycling Act, introduced in Congress in 2011, would have made it illegal to export toxic waste from the United States to countries that don’t belong to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The aim was to stop dumping e-waste on the world’s poorest nations and thus to provide an incentive for safer waste management in our own country. The bill had bipartisan support but was never put to a vote.

The European Union provides a model for industrial regulation that would shift the burden of safe product disposal back to the manufacturers that produce electronic goods. Its Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive requires electronic sellers to accept, free of charge, any of their used products brought in by customers for recycling. The goal is to have properly recycled 85 percent of the European Union’s e-waste by 2019. Similarly, Japan requires its electronic manufacturers to establish their own recycling facilities or commission third parties to recycle a range of products, from computers and cellphones to TVs and air-conditioners.

Government or consumer pressure on manufacturers to design electronics with end-of-product-life issues in mind could be enormously helpful. Most cellphones, for example, are deliberately designed to make disassembly difficult. Changes in the way manufacturers glue, screw and solder components together would make it easier to dismantle discarded phones and thus reduce the risks posed by crude recycling techniques like those deployed by Ghanaian children.

THERE are alternative phone service business models that could be beneficial to producers, users and the rest of us. For example, manufacturers could sell products complete with prearranged recycling service or subscriptions that made it possible, for example, for phone user to exchange old units for new ones rather than throwing them away. Under a product service system model, companies recycle old units and repurpose core components. Xerox uses a similar model for its photocopiers, without impact on sales or profits.

In the absence of government regulation or industry initiative, consumers could play a role in determining what happens to products that have outlived their usefulness. Most phones and small electronics are designed with obsolescence in mind. But what if we held on to our gadgets longer and repaired, rather than replaced them? We could recycle the ones we no longer use through certified recycling services like e-Stewards, a nonprofit organization that runs certification programs for e-waste recyclers, ensuring that goods are not improperly exported.

As consumers we need to demand better end-of-life options for our high-tech trash; if manufacturers and government fall down on the job, we, the millions of Americans who own cellphones, should press for safe recycling.

Leyla Acaroglu is a sustainability strategist based in Melbourne, Australia.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: May 12, 2013



http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/05/opinion/sunday/where-do-old-cellphones-go-to-die.html