The avocado, before it reaches a European supermarket shelf, has emitted 1,3 kilograms of CO2. The avocado's production consumes 60 gallons of water. The fruit is often thrown away as household waste. Each stage of the supply chain for food is affected by waste, but the household food waste rate is the highest. British households waste approximately 6.7 million tons of food every year. This is equivalent to 32% of the total amount of food purchased. Food waste in the home is notoriously difficult for households to manage. According to studies, consumers are often unaware of the environmental impact of food waste and are rarely...

Australia is among the ten worst countries in the OECD for solid waste generation. Construction is the leading contributor to our national waste pile, with a third of it being (potentially recyclable) junk. In 2001, the Department of Environmental Heritage named Australia as the country with the largest amount of solid waste. The Productivity Commission has found, more recently, that Australia's recycling rate of 35% is much lower than the other OECD nations. Austria, Belgium and the Netherlands recycle respectively 61, 60, 56 and 56 percent of their waste. In 2006-2007, the construction and demolition industry accounted for over a...

In an effort to reduce the use of plastic bags, England introduced a five-penny charge on them almost a year back. In 2014 alone, British supermarkets used 8 billion single-use bags. It is estimated that 58,000 tons of plastic were used in 2014, with most of it ending up as litter on roads or in waterways. This has clear environmental implications: Synthetic plastic bags take hundreds of years to decompose, while those that block drainage and waterways have an immediate impact on wildlife. The use of these substances is a growing problem, and governments around the globe have attempted to...

Every year, Australian households throw away about 2,5 million tonnes of food. The majority (73%) of the food waste is disposed in landfill. Methane is produced when food waste in landfills rots. This is expensive and contributes to the increase in greenhouse gas emissions . Reducing household food waste and diverting it away from landfills saves money and improves food security. It also benefits the environment. We need to know how people produce and dispose of waste food in order to address this problem. In we found that households fall into three categories, based on how much food is wasted, whether it...

Recycling water is a necessity in a world where water is becoming increasingly scarce. Inevitably, this will mean that we'll have to use wastewater in order to grow the food needed. Will we ever be comfortable with using wastewater to produce food? This is already happening, but there is more that can be done to protect communities from the dangers associated with using untreated wastewater. Wastewater is used for food production primarily to manage water shortages and costs. The exponential population growth and climate change have severely compromised the availability of water in many regions, from the Middle East to Africa, Southeast...

Apple released the iPhone 12 without an accompanying charging cable or earbuds . users have strongly criticised Apple for this decision. Users will need to buy these accessories separately if they are needed. Apple's goal is to lower its carbon footprint. It is the first mobile phone released by a major manufacturer without a charger. Samsung was reported to have considered a similar move earlier this year. However, it never followed through. Apple could save money by abandoning chargers, but the move would have a positive effect on the environment. Australians buy, on average every 18-24 months, a new phone. About 23 million phones are...

In 2018, the latest collaborative campaign, Pulau Plastik, or more loosely translated, Plastic Island, to raise awareness of the dangers of single-use polythene in Bali was launched to address these issues. The main focus of the campaign is to reduce single-use plastic consumption and advocate better policies. According to the 2019 Impact Assessment Report, the campaign was successful in increasing public awareness about plastic waste. Balinese must take action to make this awareness real. After Pulau Plastik campaign The Pulau Plastik includes a four-episode mini-series as well as a feature-length documentary. In the 2019 survey, all respondents (including those in the control groups who had not watched the series)...

Recent climate news has been overwhelmingly pessimistic. Climate scientists and policy experts declared recently that we only have three more years before we need to drastically reduce carbon emissions. A widely-circulated article in New York Magazine detailed the most catastrophic consequences of climate change for this century if business continues as usual. The article was attacked by critics who claimed that messages of doom and gloom are counterproductive and disempowering. Are they? Is there a more effective way to inform people of the urgency to act on climate change? My colleagues and I have gained some insights into these questions by creating a mini-series of...

The demand for methamphetamine, ecstasy, and other psychoactive substances by wealthy urban residents in East Asia and beyond is reviving organized crime in this region. The recent scale of drug seizures in China's Guangdong Province is staggering. It's increased by 50% over the past year. In Lufeng, on the coast, in January 2015, 2.2 tons of liquid and solid methamphetamine bound for Shanghai was discovered. In May of that year, 1.3 tons of ketamine, along with 2.7 tons of its precursors, were found in the city of Yangjiang. The black tea was bound for Southeast Asia. ASEAN is a young regional security agency that has just begun...

The issue also led the United Nations (UN), which is made up of representatives from 173 nations, to adopt a global resolution on plastic waste. Even if we took all the necessary measures to end plastic production today, there would still be around 5 billion tonnes in landfills and the environment. Researchers have shown that plastics can be disintegrated into microplastics - small particles with different shapes, densities, and mechanical and chemical properties. Microplastics are toxic because of their high surface area and small size. Scientists have looked to nature as a way to fight the plastic crisis for decades. We could avoid future...