Covid-19, taking place in the end of 2019, has made the whole world suffer, but do you know that the death toll of air pollution is actually a lot more than that of Covid-19?
According to WHO, 9 out of 10 people live in the areas where the air is severely polluted. If this doesn’t terrify you, there’s another one. As reported by the Guardian, more than 91% of people on the earth are breathing deadly air.
Air pollution takes about 4.2 million lives every year globally, and how bad it is? According to the January, 2021 data of Our World in Data, COVID-19 breakout has caused 2.08 million deaths. It should be easy for you to know which one is deadlier. But please note, air pollution is nothing like Covid-19, it cannot be solved just by wearing masks or getting vaccines.
Taiwanese people usually refer air pollution as PM 2.5, because the diameter of the suspended air particles is smaller than or equal to 2.5 microns. They cannot be seen through bare eyes, but they will get into your lungs with every breath you take and then damage your respiratory tract, vascular system and trigger asthma, cancer, pulmonary and cardiovascular diseases. You may have heard these for a thousand times and it’s nothing but a cliché.
BUT, more and more researches have confirmed the link between air pollution and higher covid-19 death rates. It’s proved that long exposure to poor-quality air increases the chances of getting covid-19 and die afterwards. Another testing in the Netherlands clearly states that the mortality rate of covid-19 goes up by 17% with just a slight rise of particles in the air. Air pollution, also know as smog, causes around 4.2 million deaths globally, which exceeds the mortality rate of covid-19 and the number of people killed in car accident worldwide.
Conforming to WHO, there are two main reasons for air pollution. One is rapid industrialization and the second is fossil fuel-burning transportation. People rely heavily on fossil fuels with industrial progressing which continuously emits too much chemical substances like carbon monoxide, sulphur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide into the air, leaving human body impossible to purify by themselves.
91% of the people around the globe live in air-polluted areas, isn’t that almost everywhere? YES, from the two main reasons discussed above, we can know that air-pollution problems take place in industrial countries. the more progressive of the industrialization, the more serious the air pollution. To be specific, where are there? Venezuela and Brazil in South America, the Balkans in Southern Europe, Croatia in Central Europe, and those in Eastern Europe. Ukraine, Indonesia and Vietnam in Southeast Asia, South Korea in Northeast Asia. It’s practically covering the whole world. After all, only 9% of lucky people in the world get to breathe high quality air.
So, what suggestion and solution do we get after all? Air pollution needs people’s immediate action just like what we do to covid-19. It depends on two points to solve, first, effective, and practical policy-making. Second, development and use of new energy and low carbon fuels.This is not a pipe dream. Both of EU and EPA of the USA indicate the same solutions to air pollution.
Alternative fuels and clean energy may sound banal to you, but they are antidote to our environment undeniably. Speaking of alternative fuels and clean energy, it’s DGM’s duty. Therefore, let’s take a look at the progress Taiwan government and we have made on coping with air pollution.
Globalization brings about major issues like automation replacing manpower, environmental catastrophe, widening gap between rich and poor, climate change, etc....to address these problems, SDG was established by the UN in 2005, which become the underlying developing goals in recent years.
17 SDGs can be divided into diverse categories,such as humanities and society (1-6 items), economics and finance (7-10 items),environmental ecology (11-15 items), and spiritual values (16-17 items). Let’s focus on the topic concerning air pollution now.
First one is the eleventh item called Sustainable Cities & Communities. The purpose is to promote urban and peri-urban agriculture and improve urban food systems, urban sanitation, water quality,wastewater management, nutrition, and humanitarian measures to respond to urban crises. And the goal is to reduce the adverse effects of urban people on the environment, including paying special attention to air quality, and urban and other waste management by 2030.
The second one is the twelfth item called Responsible consumption and production, whereby the purpose sets to encourage consumers to change and adopt a nutritious and safe diet with a low carbon footprint.Reducing food loss and waste is currently a topic of global concern.
And respectively lists the goals like,
From above, three key conclusions can be made which are proper waste management, low carbon footprint, and sustainable development. Do you know what do apple, Microsoft and Motorola have in common? These companies all make profits again from their own electronic waste or end-of-life devices. They regard these wastes as platinum, rather than debts that need to be paid for recovery. Coincidentally, these three major technology companies are cooperating with Hong Kong's Li Tong Group (LTG). LTG is the world's leading reverse supply chain management service company.
It has recently become a life-saving straw for corporate success. Why? According to the latest statistics of the United Nations, the total amount of e-waste generated globally in 2019 was 53.6 million tons, an increase of 21% within 5 years; it is expected to reach 74 million tons in 2030. According to the latest "2020 Global E-waste Monitoring Report", The global e-waste recycling and reuse rate is only 17.4%, and most of the rest goes to landfills. If these e-wastes are not properly treated, they will be a malignant tumor in the environment. However,it is not only about recycling, but also for further "reuse." Reverse supply chain management pays more attention to the dismantling of e-waste components and the innovative application of products that have already ended their life cycles to re-enter the economic market to create value.
An effective reverse supply chain can not only improve customer satisfaction, comply with environmental protection trends, but also increase corporate profits. The success of these large technology companies is not without reason, because they understand how to create a win-win situation for the three parties
We have been persevering on UCO collecting throughout Taiwan since 2013. We collect from catering businesses, food stands and department stores, and systematically and efficiently recycled these UCO. We cooperated with businesses and the government to establish a good production and sales recycling cycle, so that waste cooking oil is not discharged randomly. Not only that, we processed the recycled UCO into clean industrial oil (fuel raw material), obtained ISCC certification, and sold them to European and American countries to convert them into high-added value biodiesel. Transforming the UCO to low-carbon biodiesel, HVO (third-generation biodiesel), SAF (sustainable aviation fuel), and reduce the frequency of mining and burning fossil fuels. Compared with traditional diesel, it can reduce GHG by 850-85%.
Recycling and creating more values from the wastes to help the earth have always been DGM’s core value. DGM stands for "Don’t Go to Mars". How is this idea coming up? In 2020,many countries and large companies have launched missions to Mars and made the slogan of emigrating to Mars. It seems very cool, but let’s think calmly about why the idea of going to Mars came into being. Isn’t it because we, human, make some great irreversible messes on earth? With a global population of 7.8 billion, can we all move to Mars? Or will you and I be sacrificed to stay on earth? If we can't go to Mars, we want to do something for our hometown,communities and the earth, so that we can continue to live on earth with the people we love. Based on this concept, R&D team of DGM diligently committees to faster and more efficient recycling methods, making recycling a simple and convenient thing, and even you and I can earn money by recycling. We always believe that the problem of the earth must be solved at its root, and that the solution is to establish a continuously recycling supply chain. We strive to prevent improper disposal of global waste and strive to find a hope in waste.We wish that by recycling and providing clean fuel materials, we can stay on the earth for a longer time. The world may not be shaken by us, but we still wanna shout out: We are not going to Mars, so we recycle.
