Taiping is among the top 3 most sustainable cities in the world, according to the 2019 Sustainable Top 100 Destination Awards, right behind Ljubljana, Slovenia and Vancouver, Canada in the “Best of Cities” category!
ITB Berlin hosted the most prestigious Awards Ceremony for Sustainable Destinations. This event is dedicated to recognizing innovation and good practices in tourism management: islands, towns, regions and whole countries. The award winners have been selected by a Jury representing 12 international organizations.
Taiping rated as one of the top green destinations.
The town’s Municipal Council president Datuk Abd Rahim Md Ariff received the award.
Taiping Municipal Council president Datuk Abd Rahim Md Ariff said, “This is the first time we received a prestigious international award. This achievement is due to the hard work of the community and all relevant governmental agencies.”
“The council always works hard to make Taiping a popular tourist destination,” Abd Rahim added.
The “Best of Cities” category of the awards recognizes cities that show leadership in urban sustainability and in avoiding disruptive over-tourism.
Taiping is the second largest town in Perak after the state capital Ipoh. The town also is known as the wettest town in Peninsular Malaysia. Its unusual rainfall has also blessed its Lake Gardens with a fertile and splendid collection of flora and century-old rain trees. Itis characterized by aging buildings and clear blue skies with high chances of rain.
Green Destinations, a non-profit organization that focuses on the efforts of creating sustainable tourism, leading global cooperation between experts, listed Taiping on its 100 Sustainable Cities list in December 2018.
Taiping used to be a thriving tin-mining town that lost its luster with the rise of Ipoh and Kuala Lumpur as cities.
Taiping has previously been recognized as the Best Destination Manager 2016 by the Tourism Promotion Board for the Asia Pacific; besides having received the Malaysia Tourism Council Gold Award 2017 in Best Heritage and Eco Travel Destination Category and Malaysia Tourism Council Gold Award 2018 for the Best Tourism Promotion Campaign.
For those who have not visited Taiping, it is time to consider visiting this beautiful city!
With so many people /over 7.5 billion people/ sharing limited resources on our planet is important and people have to do whatever they can to help conserve and protect the environment.
How to Become More Environmentally Friendly
To help you get started on going green we put together just a few ideas on how to be environmentally friendly.
According to Wikipedia,
“Environmentally friendly, environment-friendly, eco-friendly, nature-friendly, and green are marketing claims referring to goods and services, laws, guidelines and policies that inflict reduced, minimal, or no harm at all, upon ecosystems or the environment.”
Here are some of the practically effortless ways you can become environmentally friendly and show more care to our earth.
Photo credit: nature.com
Reduce your meat consumption
Adding alternative food, such as more eco-friendly protein sources, to your diet — beans, nuts, and soy products are a few options. Today more and more young people are adopting a vegetarian and vegan lifestyle. But if you are struggling with switching your diet and reducing meat consumption, a good start would be flexitarian diet, where you reduce meat consumption to two or three days a week. This is a painless way to consume less meat and improve your health, reduce your carbon footprint and protect the environment.
Dispose of Chemicals Correctly
There are many different types of hazardous waste, such as ignitability, corrosivity, reactivity, toxicity. And some chemical products can be hazardous after they’ve been disposed of.
Hazardous chemicals like paint, oil, ammonia and other chemical solutions when disposed openly, can cause pollution in the air and water. The polluted air and water can have serious consequences on human health.
Many household cleaners, including medications, aren’t safe and environmentally friendly to put down the drain. These things cause pollution that is more difficult for water treatment centers to remove from the water. Keep your water supply clean and free from pollution!
Reduce Energy Consumption
Make sure you turn off what you aren’t using
To save energy, make sure lights, TVs and other electronics are turned off when you aren’t using them. You can further save energy by unplugging the appliances you don’t use frequently. Use LED bulbs.
You can help to reduce food waste by simply, using a stainless steel lunchbox to keep your leftovers for your next meal. This way you not only save time and money but also cut down on waste.
Swap plastic water bottle with a stainless steel bottle
This not only helps you save some money in the long run but also helps reduce plastic use.
The plastic ends up in the ocean, where it damages marine life and forms enormous plastic islands with the size of Texas. A simple stainless steel water bottle is a sturdy and cost-effective alternative to buying bottled water.
Buy Recycled Products
When you shopping, online or from the store, try to buy products that are made up of recycled materials with minimal packaging i.e. the product should be environment-friendly. Check if the product was made from recycled materials or the use of plastics or chemicals was involved in its production.
Use Your Car Less
The average American puts more than 10,000 miles on their car each year, with the largest share of miles coming from commuting to and from work most days of the week. All of that adds up to some serious pollution and lasting environmental damage. Many cities have or are in the process of adding improved public transit systems. Using public transit and going green means fewer vehicles on the road, lower emissions, cleaner air, and — bonus — a chance to avoid feeling road rage when someone cuts you off in rush hour traffic.
Use a carpooling service like BlaBlaCar to find other travelers going in the same direction. Not only you are helping the environment, but it also allows you to split travel costs.
Photo credit: Freepik
Use Reusable Shopping Bags
Plastic grocery bags are really harmful to the environment and wildlife, and it can take over a century to break down. Next time you go to the store bring with you environmentally friendly reusable grocery bags. If you forget to bring your reusable bags and end up using plastic ones, take them to a drop off area where they can be recycled properly. Plastic bags should not end up in the landfill or on the ground
Replace Paper Tower with Cloth
As Oceanconservancy stated more than 13 billion pounds of paper towels are used in the United States alone each year. Unfortunately, paper towels cannot be recycled because they are usually made from already recycled paper pulp. So next time when you think of reaching for a paper towel to wipe up a spill, use an eco-friendly dishcloth.
Turn off the tap
Get rid of the bad and start turning off the faucet while brushing their teeth or shaving. It saves a ton of water in the long run.
Some of the pollutants slowly trickling into the oceans are the chemicals in many sunscreens. As swimmers jump into the sea, their sunscreen washes away and filters into the water. Scientists who have become aware of the dangerous effect these chemicals have on coral reefs have developed the best reef-safe sunscreen brands to protect you and the ever-important marine life that inhabits our oceans. Knowing coral reef safe sunscreen information will help keep the sea beautiful and alive.
“Eighty-five percent of the Caribbean coral reefs died before 1999 or 2000. That wasn’t global warming. It’s pollution,” says Dr. Craig A. Downs, Ph.D., executive director of Haereticus Environmental Laboratory.
Making an eco-savvy choice, therefore, and using reef-safe sunscreen matter. And not only for the corals.
Dr. Downs and his group began taking a gander at particular synthetic concoctions and found that oxybenzone and octinoxate are the principle guilty parties. The reason they are so generally utilized in sunscreen is that they assimilate the unsafe UV beams. For humans, oxybenzone and octinoxate are chemical sunscreen ingredients that keep harmful UV rays from penetrating the skin, killing cells, and causing a burn. However, they have the opposite effect on coral reefs. These reefs, which are generally bright colors, end up bleaching to bone white under the harsh rays of the sun when they come into contact with these chemicals.
Oxybenzone, for example, is toxic in four different ways: it causes damage to the DNA that may lead to cancer and developmental abnormalities, it is an endocrine disruptor, it causes deformations in juvenile corals, and, lastly, it leads to bleaching.
Dr. Downs points out that certain preservatives found in sunscreens are also toxic: parabens such as the commonly used methyl paraben and butyl paraben, or phenoxyethanol
Another safe alternative to oxybenzone and octinoxate is non-nano titanium dioxide. Before purchasing your next bottle of sunscreen, also check the list of for any of the toxic preservatives we mentioned.
Hawaii is planning on banning certain sunscreens in 2021 that contain harmful compounds. In addition to oxybenzone and octinoxate, read the label on your sunscreen to see if it contains any of these other destructive chemicals: homosalate, octisalate, octocrylene, avobenzone, dimethicone, parabens, BHT, nanoparticles, propylene glycol, and retinyl palmitate.
Here are five reasons why your choice of sunscreen matters.
Sunscreens washed off into the ocean each year change the chemical composition of the water and make it a thriving place for viruses and bacteria. Some of these viruses attack corals, causing them to expel their life-giving algae, a situation that causes coral bleaching and the viruses spread to the surrounding coral communities.
2. Chemical Sunscreen Ingredients Can Bleach or Kill Corals
Besides viruses, research has also shown that some ingredients in chemical sunscreens can cause coral bleaching and potentially kill these organisms.
While most countries implementing sunscreen bans fight against oxybenzone and octinoxate alone, scientists have identified that butylparaben and 4-methylbenzylidene camphor can also have a similar action.
Using a sunscreen free of these ingredients is essential if we want to preserve the integrity of the marine ecosystem.
3. Chemical Sunscreen Can Harm More Than Corals
The compounds that cause coral bleaching can also affect other forms of marine life. Fish are also affected by oxybenzone and octinoxate.
Here is one example from Dr. Downs, who was on a working visit at the Bahamas, he was conversing with an administration worker at supper who shared how much he loved the coconut kind of the neighborhood angle they were eating on.
“We solicited the gourmet expert what kind from flavoring he put in it, and he stated, ‘simply salt.’ The coconut was some recombinant aroma of sunscreen. That is a substance aroma. It’s a terrible, dependable scent that will amass in life forms thus we were tasting it in the fish,” Dr. Downs explained.
So what can you do next time you hit the beach to prevent further damage? First of all, forget about aerosols.
These substances act as hormone disruptors and induce feminization in male fish. This leads to the interruption of their sexual activity, affecting the reproduction of many species
4. Sunscreen Pollution Threatens Local Economies
The death of coral reefs leaves many species of fish and crustaceans without a habitat; a situation that leads to the death of this marine wildlife. Combined with the affected fish reproduction, chemical sunscreens contribute to the extinction of many fish species.
This has two important consequences: famous diving spots become sterile and unattractive and less fishing possibilities for local businesses who base their subsistence on fishing.
5. Chemical Sunscreens Affect Humans Too
Chemicals in sunscreen are not only bad for the environment. They are bad for humans too. Besides rashes and allergic reactions, researchers also investigate the carcinogenic effects of both oxybenzone and octinoxate.
Other chemicals typically used in these products also act as hormone disruptors and can affect both fetuses if used by pregnant women as well as infants and toddlers.
Considering the negative impact chemical sunscreens have on both us and the environment, changing our habits and using an eco-friendly approach matters.
Photo credit: XL Catlin Seaview Survey/AP
Natural mineral sunscreens are undoubtedly a better choice; furthermore, you can use other eco-friendly ways to protect yourself from the sun while also safeguarding the global economy and our ecosystem.
Another option to help preserve the environment is to purchase sunscreen safe for coral reefs. Badger Balm is a family-run business that is committed to creating effective sunblock powered by nature to protect the world. One of the best reef safe sunscreen brands, their rigorous standards for their products makes it safe for children, adults, and the ocean, slowing the killing of coral reefs. In addition to other natural body products, they offer kids, sports, active and daily sunscreen safe for coral reefs so that no matter when you put it on, it’ll protect your skin and the environment.
Raw Elements was founded by an ocean lifeguard who daily watched beachgoers slather on chemicals that would wash off in the ocean, killing coral reefs. This set him on a journey to create sunscreen safe for coral reefs. To further protect more of the environment, they offer some sunscreens in plastic-free packaging to reduce the amount of waste that pollutes the land and sea. Their natural sunblocks are designed with safety and nature in mind at every step of production.
Raw Love sunscreen is made using coral reef safe sunscreen information for people who love jumping into the ocean to swim, dive, or surf. With all-natural ingredients, their sunscreen will protect your skin from the damaging effects of sun exposure, in addition to protecting the ocean. While they don’t offer the range of sunblock options as other best reef safe sunscreen brands, their product is both effective and safe for humans and marine life.
Having coral reef safe sunscreen information can help you make informed decisions when it comes to purchasing sunblock for your beach vacation.
Remember to double check the sunscreen ingredients and the label – each of our decisions matter to save the coral reefs!
