Smart Teflon non-stick cook wares, what is that about them?
They help us to cook fast, saves energy and makes the whole process hassle free. Apart from this proverbial applications Teflon products are also used in apparels, automotive fabrics, exterior coatings, home furnishings, upholstery, sealants, cables and in semiconductor manufacturing.
Our fellow non-stick cook wares are usually coated with PTFE (Polytetrafluroethyelene) fluropolymer and sometimes with other fluropolymers over metal surface. We might be ingesting these fluropolymers along with the food we cook on them. Do we have PTFE on our daily menu?
PTFE has a melting point above 300 degrees and it will start to fume out above 250 degrees, usually we don’t cook at these temperatures knowingly, but broiling and use of fat/oil, frying meat etc can very well happen at these temperatures. Even though the raw material manufacturer doesn’t recommend these practices, how many of us are aware of this; when we can get a plenty of non-stick frying pans in this country. These degraded fumes are lethal to birds (claims the Teflon manufacturer) and can lead to flu-like symptoms in humans.
Well, then we have this PFOA (Perflurooctanic acid), also known as C8 used to make PTFE which is a likely carcinogen. Till date, PFOA don’t have any practical alternative. It can accumulate in human blood, has a very long half life in humans and does not break down in the environment. PFOA is used only during manufacture of PTFE and a traceable amount of it remains in the finished product, how bad is that traceable amount is a question mark.
In 2004, a renowned company in US settled 300 million dollars in a law suit filed by the residents living around its chemical plant producing PTFE, for contaminating the drinking water in that locality. Access to literatures, analysis reports on PTFE and PFOA are very limited. These chemicals are still undergoing rigorous safety reviews across various countries and organizations.
And to conclude, we still don’t know how bad PTFE and PFOA are.
28.11.08
25.11.08
End of Life - Facts
Maruti claims it’s newly launched A-star complies with European Union’s ELV (End of Life vehicle) standard.
ELV restricts the use of hazardous materials like lead, mercury, cadmium, PVC and chrome. Reuse and recovery will have to achieve 85% of the vehicle’s weight and reuse and recycling by 80% according to this norm, and these target levels will be revised and raised in another one year to 95% and 85% respectively.
MSIL’s adoption of ELV is good move in a right direction. It will bring out a lot of awareness if they had intricate details in their corporate web page.
Here is the sad side to this story:
In Indian situations, we have a real mystery towards a product’s end of life.
A product can be recyclable, but who is going to recycle it in a safe and sustainable way. Inappropriate recycling methods can cause more pollution than the product could have caused during its entire life. Hopefully we will have stringent environmental standards and technology for recycling in our country at least before A-star reaching its end of life.
Hard facts:
we recycled only 0.25% of electronic waste we generated last year in a safe way. Another 4.75% was recycled in the informal sector in urban slums contaminating the surrounding environment, and causing vulnerable diseases to people including children working in those scrap yards. It is rather evident that we don’t have a system in place to cope up even a 100% safe product around.
There is no proposed regulation or legislation for recycling in our country, and is not yet on the political agenda. By the way, you must be wondering what happened to the remaining 95% of electronic waste?!
ELV restricts the use of hazardous materials like lead, mercury, cadmium, PVC and chrome. Reuse and recovery will have to achieve 85% of the vehicle’s weight and reuse and recycling by 80% according to this norm, and these target levels will be revised and raised in another one year to 95% and 85% respectively.
MSIL’s adoption of ELV is good move in a right direction. It will bring out a lot of awareness if they had intricate details in their corporate web page.
Here is the sad side to this story:
In Indian situations, we have a real mystery towards a product’s end of life.
A product can be recyclable, but who is going to recycle it in a safe and sustainable way. Inappropriate recycling methods can cause more pollution than the product could have caused during its entire life. Hopefully we will have stringent environmental standards and technology for recycling in our country at least before A-star reaching its end of life.
Hard facts:
we recycled only 0.25% of electronic waste we generated last year in a safe way. Another 4.75% was recycled in the informal sector in urban slums contaminating the surrounding environment, and causing vulnerable diseases to people including children working in those scrap yards. It is rather evident that we don’t have a system in place to cope up even a 100% safe product around.
There is no proposed regulation or legislation for recycling in our country, and is not yet on the political agenda. By the way, you must be wondering what happened to the remaining 95% of electronic waste?!
24.11.08
Sensible design
A sensible way of designing products, when we started, we did not have many points to start off. There are number of modules and design methodologies practiced across the globe to preach sustainable design. We hardly had anything to benchmark with, at least in Indian situations. But to be sure that the outcome of any design process should enable us to remain in a natural context. Our conception and expression should be environmentally sensitive and be a responsible realization.
we need,
- Perpetual product aesthetics provoking owner’s pride and desire to retain them, indirectly living ahead it’s planned life cycle.
- Nutrient raw materials with infinite life cycle.
- Healthy chemicals nourishing humans and environment with positive impact through out their existence.
- Safe and endless feed of waste as food to nurture the natural cycle or the industrial cycle.
- Congenial industries with subtle systems, and pleasant places for people to work.
- Industries with the working principle of a tree and their effluents to cherish the environment around.
- Efficient utilization of renewable energy resources which are abundant and untapped.
We need products and services to create positive environmental impact, social equity and economical wealth.
20.11.08
PVC! - a known culprit
Vinyl chloride, a class I carcinogen is the monomer used to produce PVC. Humans have high probability of acquiring cancer due to vinyl chloride exposure. As a matter of fact 13% of death in this world happens because of cancer.
PVC is not bio-degradable like many other polymers. It is cost prohibitive to recycle PVC in a safe way, because of the number and types of additives used in its production. Less than 1% of PVC is recycled across the world. Its contents can leech out in to the environment at any point of their life cycle.
Phthalates are used as plasticizers to soften PVC, their content usually range from 1 to 40% in proportion with other additives. It can be found in soft toys, medical equipments like tubes & blood bags, cosmetics, surface coatings etc. Phthalates can leech out during use, causes liver and kidney damage and reproductive system damages.
PCB (Polychlorobiphenyl) is added as a stabilizing additive in flexible PVC. Dioxins and PCBs are produced as by-products when PVC is produced or burned. Production of PCB is completely banned in many countries since 1970 because of its adverse health effects. Dioxins can persist in the environment and can travel long distances.
Phthalates, PCB and Dioxins are identified as potential endocrine disrupters and carcinogens.
PVC is declared as ‘contaminant’ even before 10 years in many countries. Still many Indian majors are strategizing their timelines to phase out hazardous substances.
PVC is a commonly used insulation on electrical wires, used abundantly in construction applications, medical applications, automobile interiors, many forms of cards (smart cards, credit cards etc), and in clothing and footwear to name a few.
PVC is not bio-degradable like many other polymers. It is cost prohibitive to recycle PVC in a safe way, because of the number and types of additives used in its production. Less than 1% of PVC is recycled across the world. Its contents can leech out in to the environment at any point of their life cycle.
Phthalates are used as plasticizers to soften PVC, their content usually range from 1 to 40% in proportion with other additives. It can be found in soft toys, medical equipments like tubes & blood bags, cosmetics, surface coatings etc. Phthalates can leech out during use, causes liver and kidney damage and reproductive system damages.
PCB (Polychlorobiphenyl) is added as a stabilizing additive in flexible PVC. Dioxins and PCBs are produced as by-products when PVC is produced or burned. Production of PCB is completely banned in many countries since 1970 because of its adverse health effects. Dioxins can persist in the environment and can travel long distances.
Phthalates, PCB and Dioxins are identified as potential endocrine disrupters and carcinogens.
PVC is declared as ‘contaminant’ even before 10 years in many countries. Still many Indian majors are strategizing their timelines to phase out hazardous substances.
PVC is a commonly used insulation on electrical wires, used abundantly in construction applications, medical applications, automobile interiors, many forms of cards (smart cards, credit cards etc), and in clothing and footwear to name a few.
17.11.08
Design paradigm
How many times we questioned ourselves while buying a product or service about it’s what/whereabouts.
Do these products have chemicals safe to me and the environment?
I can’t feel good if these products around me in office and home are off-gassing chemicals harmful enough to cause inherent damage to my children and theirs.
Whether their raw materials extracted in a nutrient manner?
It’s not a pleasant picture if our future generation have to pay a premium for things which are today’s most common stuff which will become scarce tomorrow and it is just because we have this luxury.
Whether they are processed and produced in a healthy way to the environment?
I will carry home a feeling of social inequity along with the product, if their production and process methods were spoiling the surrounding waterways and smoking out harmful gases, while I live peacefully.
Whether their place of manufacturing/production has healthy occupational standards?
It is a feeling of guilt comes free with the product when you are aware that those fellow workers making things you desire have to tangle with soup of chemicals while you bring home a beautiful stuff.
Were they shipped to locations in an eco-friendly way?
With all these fighting for fossil fuels, I don’t want my product to be shipped half way across the world, allowing my next generation to fight and drill in obsolete places for few more drums of oil.
What will happen to the product when I am finished using it?
How about throwing them away in the middle of some ocean creating a floating soup to bio-accumulate in aquatic lives or creating a landfill near by so that our grandchildren can’t plant a single tree around.
That’s so much for me to know while buying a product, but it is high time we start to ask for these? How do we change this fundamental design paradigm?
Sustainable footprint
It all started with the philosophical, perhaps a selfish question. What will I leave for my future generation? May be more money and assets than my father did, may be fame/name (good or bad), and may be what.
I don’t have many things under my control, do I? Still I will fight it out with life for the betterment of my future generation, and this is supposed to be a sustainable development? Satisfying my present needs without depriving the needs of future generation. This is what every other human being does! Everybody wants to leave a footprint in this world.
But what is that we are actually leaving for our children and grandchildren? We never really have to worry about these questions any more; we unconsciously are leaving enough footprints for them to witness our existence in this world, like what?
Warmed up earth, devastated natural resources, polluted atmosphere and huge stack of landfills. Will you call this sustainable development?
We humans have grown together massively like never before in last two centuries. We developed countries together, controlled/killed diseases together. We did everything for our own comfort, but at what cost? We’ve started facing the world of limits.
We have melted so much of glaciers that 40% of world’s drinking water source is going to be obsolete in another half century.
We have burned enough fossil fuels to witness carbon-dioxide levels never seen in last 650,000 years.
We used our mother nature’s forest, oil, mineral deposits, how many of us have planted a single sapling?
We have more than 80,000 chemicals in production and use today; only about 15,000 chemicals have been analyzed for its safety to environment and humankind.
This is just a sneak peek of the entire picture we’ve painted so far; this is what we are leaving for the generations to come. This is the footprint we are leaving in this world.
I don’t have many things under my control, do I? Still I will fight it out with life for the betterment of my future generation, and this is supposed to be a sustainable development? Satisfying my present needs without depriving the needs of future generation. This is what every other human being does! Everybody wants to leave a footprint in this world.
But what is that we are actually leaving for our children and grandchildren? We never really have to worry about these questions any more; we unconsciously are leaving enough footprints for them to witness our existence in this world, like what?
Warmed up earth, devastated natural resources, polluted atmosphere and huge stack of landfills. Will you call this sustainable development?
We humans have grown together massively like never before in last two centuries. We developed countries together, controlled/killed diseases together. We did everything for our own comfort, but at what cost? We’ve started facing the world of limits.
We have melted so much of glaciers that 40% of world’s drinking water source is going to be obsolete in another half century.
We have burned enough fossil fuels to witness carbon-dioxide levels never seen in last 650,000 years.
We used our mother nature’s forest, oil, mineral deposits, how many of us have planted a single sapling?
We have more than 80,000 chemicals in production and use today; only about 15,000 chemicals have been analyzed for its safety to environment and humankind.
This is just a sneak peek of the entire picture we’ve painted so far; this is what we are leaving for the generations to come. This is the footprint we are leaving in this world.