Tuesday, August 5, 2008

You can make a big difference

This is plausibly the most ubiquitous free consumer merchandise available in the earth. It has always been notorious for its qualities specially from the environmentalists. This has been newsworthy in many countries seeking to promulgate environmental pariah.

" The Plastic bags"

Sensationally the aggressive product that can be procured and accorded in compliment with the consumer merchandise. While it may find its use in every household, the ill-effects are least understood or bothered by most of us.

One of the most dangerous economics about Plastic bag:
"it costs $4,000 to process and recycle 1 ton of plastic bags, which can then be sold on the commodities market for $32 (Jared Blumenfeld, director of San Francisco's Department of the Environment as reported by Christian Science Monitor)."
What if plastic grocery bags comes for free, can be understood with its poor quality plastic making it bio non-degradable. Environmentalists fear that it may take 500-1000 years to decompose. The ill-effects range from land to sea, killing animals and sometimes if unattended to, even humans.

By eliminating plastic waste does not mean incinerating the plastic, as its repercussions are at doldrums. There are few options though:
1. Stop production at the source
2. reuse

The least that can be done to the mother Nature and thereby our ecosystem is to stop production at source not by confronting, but stopping the use of plastic bags in our daily chores. This would automatically stop the production.

Kerala highway research institute, India, has come up with a master plan to reuse plastic waste into Road construction. This is certainly a significant milestone by India to make the Globe "Greener". These initiatives should be taken to great heights rather than drafting on inks.

I could recall the days when my mother used to carry a jute bag along with her to shop for groceries, fruits and vegetables. Thanks to the supermarkets in the late 90's to start the 'Plastic plethora' in the minds of the consumer,thereby a devolution of environment.

A bitter pill is always for the best of its cure, so it would be the greatest feat in our life not to resort to plastic bags anymore.

Of course, it would be a step further to call for a complete ban by Judiciary.






Remember PlasTax may be needed for much sought after rejig !


Hasta la vista !!!


Plastic Bags consumed this year:




Courtesy:http://www.reusablebags.com




Need to make better, safer plastic, not shun it completely
Susan Freinkel, IHT

Source: Deccan Herald, March 23, 2011

Need to make better, safer plastic, not shun it completely
Susan Freinkel, IHT

Since the 1930s, when the product first hit the market, there has been a plastic toothbrush in every American bathroom.

But if you are one of the growing number of people seeking to purge plastic from their lives, you can now buy a wooden toothbrush with boar’s-hair bristles, along with other such back-to-the-future products as cloth sandwich wrappers, metal storage containers and leather fly swatters.

The urge to avoid plastic is understandable, given reports of toxic toys and baby bottles, seabirds choking on bottle caps and vast patches of ocean swirling with everlasting synthetic debris. Countless bloggers write about striving — in vain, most discover — to eradicate plastic from their lives. “Eliminating plastic is one of the greenest actions you can do to lower your eco-footprint,” one noted while participating in a recent online challenge to be plastic-free.

Is this true? Shunning plastic may seem key to the ethic of living lightly, but the environmental reality is more complex.

Originally, plastic was hailed for its potential to reduce humankind’s heavy environmental footprint. The earliest plastics were invented as substitutes for dwindling supplies of natural materials like ivory or tortoiseshell. When the American John Wesley Hyatt patented celluloid in 1869, his company pledged that the new manmade material, used in jewellery, combs, buttons and other items, would bring ‘respite’ to the elephant and tortoise because it would “no longer be necessary to ransack the earth in pursuit of substances which are constantly growing scarcer.”

Bakelite, the first true synthetic plastic, was developed a few decades later to replace shellac, then in high demand as an electrical insulator. The lac bugs that produced the sticky resin couldn’t keep up with the country’s rapid electrification.

Today, plastic is perceived as nature’s nemesis. But a generic distaste for plastic can muddy our thinking about the trade-offs involved when we replace plastic with other materials. Take plastic bags, the emblem for all bad things plastic. They clog storm drains, tangle up recycling equipment, litter parks and beaches and threaten wildlife on land and at sea.

A recent expedition researching plastic pollution in the South Atlantic reported that its ship had trouble setting anchor in one site off Brazil because the ocean floor was coated with plastic bags.

Such problems have fuelled bans on bags around the world and in more than a dozen American cities. Unfortunately, as the plastics industry incessantly points out, the bans typically lead to a huge increase in the use of paper bags, which also have environmental drawbacks. But the bigger issue is not what the bags are made from, but what they are made for. Both are designed, absurdly, for that brief one-time trip from the store to the front door. In other words, plastics aren’t necessarily bad for the environment; it’s the way we tend to make and use them that’s the problem.

Single-use products

It’s estimated that half of the nearly 600 billion pounds of plastics produced each year go into single-use products. Some are indisputably valuable, like disposable syringes, which have been a great ally in preventing the spread of infectious diseases like HIV, and even plastic water bottles, which, after disasters like the Japanese tsunami, are critical to saving lives. Yet many disposables, like the bags, drinking straws, packaging and lighters commonly found in beach clean-ups, are essentially prefab litter with a heavy environmental cost.

And there’s another cost. Pouring so much plastic into disposable conveniences has helped to diminish our view of a family of materials we once held in high esteem. Plastic has become synonymous with cheap and worthless, when in fact those chains of hydrocarbons ought to be regarded as among the most valuable substances on the planet. If we understood plastic’s true worth, we would stop wasting it on trivial throwaways and take better advantage of what this versatile material can do for us.

In a world of nearly seven billion souls and counting, we are not going to feed, clothe and house ourselves solely from wood, ore and stone; we need plastics. And in an era when we’re concerned about our carbon footprint, we can appreciate that lightweight plastics take less energy to produce and transport than many other materials. Plastics also make possible green technology like solar panels and lighter cars and planes that burn less fuel. These ‘unnatural’ synthetics, intelligently deployed, could turn out be nature’s best ally.

Yet we can’t hope to achieve plastic’s promise for the 21st century if we stick with wasteful 20th-century habits of plastic production and consumption. We have the technology to make better, safer plastics — forged from renewable sources, rather than finite fossil fuels, using chemicals that inflict minimal or no harm on the planet and our health. We have the public policy tools to build better recycling systems and to hold businesses accountable for the products they put into the market. And we can also take a cue from the plastic purgers about how to cut wasteful plastic out of our daily lives.
We need to rethink plastic. The boar’s-hair toothbrush is not our only alternative.

Saturday, August 2, 2008

De-tour to 'tour de force'

If horrendous traffic is what you are talking about, then you can never forget a hamlet, near DRDO townships, in Bangalore, which is a case in a point.

The Kaggadasapura railway level crossing becomes a sentimental culmination of heated exchanges, nonetheless good Samaritans engaging in mollifying the temperament. The air would not only be chocked with the pollution of the revving pistons but would also see few in the lot competing to generate a high decibel with their automobile horn. Few pockets of this locality survives with bought-out waters.Water (Cauvery Water from Municipality) is meticulously purloined by the 'line-men' to enable them and Water mafias owning tractor trailers, make some fortune. Tractor trailers shuttling on these busy junctions, mostly in peak hours, adding to the woes of the traffic snarl. There would also be scenes of people squabbling on their judgement of defining an "Yellow line".

The situation worsens further if the Level crossing gate is closed for train traffic. The "U" Turn Level crossing perhaps makes it conspicuous for few Samaritans to be aware of traffic regulations,thereby brushing aside a need for a traffic cop at the hotspot.

Courtesy : File photo , " The Hindu"

The level crossing gate is putatively 20feet in width thereby adding to the traffic snarls. Not to mention that this is a prime junction connecting Kaggadasapura to various other parts of the city including K.R.Puram, Whitefield, Outer Ring road and Old Madras road. While there are few alternative routes available, this "U" junction forms the 'shortest path' with no traffic signal installation. No wonder this attracts many automotive into this convoluted trajectory.

But one best part of this hotspot is the relentless attitude of people trying to squeeze themselves to the cause during peak hours everyday, despite the fact that the 'detour' is still a viable option except for the hapless motorists residing in DRDO township.

Dastardly cries "Mutley do something !"
Mutley snickers " sh sh sh sh ..."

Help me identify Mutley and Dastardly :-)


Travails to be continued ...

Monday, July 28, 2008

KSRTC e-Ticket - ONLY ORIGINAL PHOTO ID CARD ?

KSRTC, Karnataka State Transport Corporation, renders a splendid job of ferrying lakhs of passenger a day. With its ever improving fleet and in a constant endeavor to grow upwards, KSRTC has been coming up with various strategies competent with major private players, much to the service of passengers.

The AWATAR (Any Where Any Time Advance Reservation), has painted a new picture of KSRTC's emergence in the Cyber space ticketing. This entails the passengers to book tickets in advance from any part of the world through internet, accrediting it a first transport corporation in India to have implemented this solution for Online ticketing.

These state-of-art ticketing facility is a boon and is aptly tapped by 'Internet-enabled professionals' to book the journey tickets at a click of the mouse. Of course, you may have to be owl-eyed to book tickets yourself without the help of Internet booking agents, for the ticket booking timings are between 21:00hrs and 09:00hrs. Sometimes, luck may favor you to gain access at 'odd' times, which is otherwise the agents' timings.

While there are host of new initiatives being piloted by KSRTC including Bio-diesel for stunted pollution, Weekend-specials and so on... It may have to rethink on policy making especially an already laid one, which at the outset may seem pettifogging, but time we come out of English evasion while promulgating Law and policy. Here is on such instance, which makes passengers welcome to the trouble brewery:

KSRTC website (www.avatar.in) makes it clear in its "Terms and Conditions" juxtaposed near Login page:
The on-duty Conductor (or Driver-cum-Conductor) will verify the Identity Card of the passenger as per the tripsheet and "e-Ticket" during the journey. If the passenger fails to produce the specified Identity Proof in original during the journey, the ticket will be treated as INVALID and the passenger will be treated as "Travelling without Ticket". Photocopies of Identity proof are not allowed.
The conductors coming down heavily on this clause really makes one frown on the system. The ultimate motive behind insisting on Original Photo ID clearly establishes the fact that no right person is deprived of his Journey seat booking. But it also casts aspersion when it culminates to the very point that the right person is deprived of his journey merely for not in possession of the "Original" photo ID card as was entered in the ticket while booking, despite the person ready to prove his identity by many other sources including alternative Photo Identity cards.

The hues and cries of fellow passengers would prove futile for the conductor always sticks to his guns pointing the clause on the ticket to carry the specified Original Photo ID card !

A journey of pleasure is sure to turn a nightmare !!!

I could barely recall my 11th Class (Correct me if I am wrong) English prose, on the chapter " All About a Dog", where the author takes through the travails of a lady with a dog, on a chilly winter, denied access into the bus by the conductor, for the very reason that "Pets are not allowed". The author concludes with his style, as if ' There are hard and fast rules and should apply and can never be bent for the sake of individual. However there are few guidelines which are meant for the convenience of the people and not to trouble them'

As a precautionary measure, netizens, please carry the Original Photo ID card as selected by you during the booking of the "e-ticket", to prove your identity before boarding.

May I call upon People-friendly initiatives to not harass the genuineness of the passenger merely by "Original" Photo ID as laid down in the paper, but provide options to the passenger to prove his identity.

After all a Death-sentence convict is given a last say !


Sunday, March 23, 2008

Irresistible Software -- Freeware (Part I)

A KISS ( "Keep it short and stupid" ) posting
Search strings: Desktop Video Capture, Desktop movements, Desktop video actions, Mouse tracker, Screen video

Have you ever wondered if there is a freeware piece available to capture the actions performed on the desktop ?

Have you ever thought that a software can help you demonstrate the live video based activity on desktop to others?

The answer to these questions: Freez Screen Video Capture
This nifty tool can record the screen activities and sounds into standard avi video files. You may also set the screen capture area. It does contain an option of function keys very useful for sessional recording...

Go to any search engine, preferably, Google, and type this search string:" Freez Screen Video Capture " ...

What are you all waiting for !! Go and try this software.