Heavier taxation on sweets

The Finnish Finance Ministry has made a proposition on an additional tax on candy and sweets, sweetened soft drinks, chocolates and products containing cocoa taking effect by beginning of next year.

The proposition is based on the risen consumption of confectionery, obesity and deteriorating dental health becoming more common amongst the young during the past ten years and a similar tax was actually already in force in Finland between the years of 1926 and 1999.

This additional tax on sugar is estimated to bring in about 120 million more euros a year to the state budget, and also hopefully leading to decreased consumption of confectionery with it resulting in long term savings in dental and health care.

What I wonder here is, why only these items? Why not tax all un-healthy foods more? The higher consumption of junk-food must also have deteriorating effects on the health amongst the population. And why not lower the taxation of healthy foods?

Anyway, today is the car free day for the 11th time in Finland, a day people are encouraged to leave their car at home and use the public transports, go by bike or walk instead. According to what I’ve heard, today, in the city of Jyväskylä 3000 free bus tickets are handed out, and public bus fares are available at a reduced price in the capital region . This in order to encourage better health and exercise routines, as well as being more friendly to the environment.

Waste of resources

I prefer to write my blogs in my own time on my own PC instead of having to do it on-line, as I have to right now.

There still is something wrong and I can not find any faulty options on my browser for this to work, neither text can be imported nor any pictures turn out without error messages turning up on my screen. So in the mean time I apologize for my current lack of my usual witty posts.

Anyway, The Finns are quite lazy about recycling, it hardly exists at all and most of the garbage is just disposed of in big heaps to be buried outside the cities. If I recall it correctly only about 10% of the disposed household garbage is recycled.
Now there is this new ad on the TV, "Operatio maa", which in English would be "Operation Earth", which is a fund raising to save earth, globally.

And nothing seems to be done locally in cities or every man's home. This to me seems like a try to avoid the responsibility to do something about the problem we all will be suffering of, or rather already at present are beginning to feel the aftermath of, global warming.

Wasting 90% of sources that could be made use of, well isn't that the utter waste of time, no to mention resources. In a world that still measures everything important in money this seems quite a peculiar.

Smell of spring

Nice warm, sunny spring weather brings the outdoors person out in me and eventually even I tend to go for a long walk in the sun. The nature is waking up after the winter sleep and snow is melting away fast and all that once was covered unfortunately comes out in the sun too usually smelling bad.

One thing that has been bugging me badly here in Finland is the lack of dustbins, somewhere to dispose of your garbage when in streets of the city, bus stops or in parks. And if there are such garbage bins they tend to be full of crap as they are apparently not emptied often enough. And many of them get kicked down with the garbage rolling around on the ground together with the garbage that did not fit into the full bin. So the garbage just tends to be thrown anywhere as there is nowhere else to put it, not to mention the problem of dogs droppings which always also becomes apparently bad smelling in the spring and as the Finns are a tribe of dog owners, there are quite a few dogs in this country and they seem to be tenderly looked after but not their droppings.

People walk their dogs in mornings and evenings but there is one problem with this idyllic picture, which is almost as bad as was Paris about twenty years ago. The situation in Paris has during the years improved immensely, as they have had campaigns on dogs not doing their number two on the pavement. Nowadays you can almost walk anywhere in Paris without having to step into dogs*t, just one or two not done into the gutter to accidentally tread on.

The dog droppings are almost as big a problem here in Finland, well the dogs normally don’t do it on the pavement, but in all parks you are supposed to pick it up afterwards and there are special containers in which to dispose of the sh*t but in wintertime this tends to be forgotten, or not cared about and as they say; “what is hidden in the snow you can not see”, but forgetting about the part that “it comes out in snow melt the spring”.

Springs smell badly, like a massive lost and found, big heap of of dogsh*t. And that’s exactly what it is and t is all over the place, in ditches on road edges, along pathways and parking lots in residential areas and in parks as well. Fortunately in not too long a time it disintegrates into fertilizer and make the flowers and grass grow. Maybe this is the thought behind the action, if there is any, but the smell of wet lawn combined with dog droppings is just so awful!

As sweet as it comes

As sweet as it comes

Sucralose is a non-caloric sweetener.

It is an approved food additive and is also called E 955 and it is also available as a tabletop sweetener under the brand name SPLENDA. Sucralose is used in diet sodas, yoghurts

It is the only non-caloric sweetener made from sugar, yet it is 600 times sweeter than sucrose which is ordinary sugar. Sucralose tastes like sugar and it has a clean, sweet taste that does not leave an unpleasant aftertaste compared to other artificial sweeteners and it passes rapidly through the body virtually unchanged and it is proven non-toxic to humans in the amounts it is used in food products.

Well, I have enjoyed my occasional use of low-calorie sweeteners as they have tasted artificial which goes well together with the junk food it has been accompanied with but the new Coca Cola being too sweet for my taste as it now contains Sucralose and this little secret pleasure of mine has come to an end but out of a completely different reason.

Sucralose as sweetener may sound good for dieters, but there seems to be a down side to it as 85% of the Sucralose we take in comes out as it was ingested, most of it remains as it was when swallowed and it is neither converted into something else in our digestive tract. So where does it go then?

According to recent Swedish research the Sucralose passes out of us down the toilet ending up in the nature as the today used wastewater treatment processes the have little effect on Sucralose removal rates and the breaking down of the Sucralose molecule is very slow in the nature and there is no knowledge whether the discharge of it into nature has any eco-toxical effects or not.

Soap bubbles

Probably we all are aware of what soap is, that you use it for washing but hoe many of us do know what soap is made of and how it is made?

Fortunately I do have a curious friend who likes to try everything out and is actually following a family tradition in making their own soap, her great grandmother used to make their own during the wars so I have been lucky enough to have the opportunity to see oils and fat combined with lye turn into soap under my eyes. Did you know that soap actually is the salt of the fats and oils?

Depending on the properties of the fats and oils combined in the soap it turns out differently. One oil for big luscious bubbles of the lather, another for it to turn into a hard bar, a third for it to lather even in salt water a fourth one to made the soap more emollient to the skin and so on. The soap can be tailor made to each person’s skin condition with the oils and fats used and also with additives, some to cleanse the skin, others to pamper the skin, revitalize mature skin and so on not forgetting the scenting of your soap bars.

But the soap is not ready when you have mixed the soap mixture with your additives you have to pour it into moulds to cure for at least 3 weeks before all the lye has been neutralized and it is ready for safe use on the skin.

Anyway, I think making your own soap is a good idea, now you can be sure what has been used in it no strange unknown ingredients and even if it is hard work getting husbands, children and pets out of the way as a safety precaution, getting all things needed lined up and ready to go, the tedious cleaning up afterwards, you still can brag about having made your own luxurious soap. And what can me more environmentally friendly than making as much as you need without any excessive waste of anything? You really get what you see here.

So now I have to wait for three weeks to find out how the soap she made turned out, at least the scent was absolutely fantastic even at this early stage.

Useful bacteria

I was watching a science program on the TV the other day and was amazed at how much we can benefit from such small creatures as bacteria. Mostly they have been considered harmful as they cause disease, but we would not have any wine or lovely, smelly cheese or even yoghurt without bacteria.

I was baffled to discover that bacteria are used to restore the façade of limestone of the cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris, France. The bacteria is first sprayed on to the limestone, and then feed by spraying nutrients onto the surface several additional times in order for the bacteria to form new limestone crystals.

And the Chinese apparently are into the use of bio-gas. Sounds funny when “clean energy” is made out of ordinary manure and turning it into fashionable, like it has been done in China is even more hilarious. But one thing though, as long as there is life on earth there is always going to be a fresh supply of manure to use for energy. Fresh manure means fresh energy for cooking, heating of the house and water and even for electricity to light your light bulbs.

There are even bacteria that have genetically been modified into resist radioactivity. The bacteria called Super Conan are kept isolated as it is alien to avoid contamination with other bacteria. As Super Conan is resistant to radioactivity it will come in handy when needed to neutralize radioactive waste sites as it feeds on the radioactivity making it neutral in faster time than it would do on its' own. But I still hope there never will be any need for Super Conan bacteria anywhere.

Power shortages?

If the coming winter is a cold one there might have to be power cuts even in households and not just in the industry.

A very cold winter might stretch Finland's energy resources past the breaking point as Finland does not produce enough power of its own. There is a risk for power cuts especially during the peak season of Christmas when the traditional Xmas sauna is heated up at the same time with the traditional Xmas ham cooked in the ovens. At present power is imported from Russia accounting up to ten percent of Finland's energy needs and the Finnish power supply company Fingrid now says that with Russia turning down its output in order to meet its own power needs there might not be any power left to sell to Finland.

The worst case scenario is that even household power would have to be rationed, this meaning cut of for some time, and the power supply company now hopes that the households will economize the amount of power used during a cold winter. Some electricity is also imported from Sweden but with a cold snap there at the same time as here in Finland, there would be no additional electricity resulting in shortages. As last winter was an exceptionally mild one apart from a couple of short cold snaps Finland didn't experience any power shortages although they were already then expected to happen.

An electricity shortage or rationing of the same will surely make the electricity prices sky rocket.

As I am no sports fan I to my great surprise yesterday found out that The FIS Ski Cross Country Worldcup began its’ season 2007/2008 in Düsseldorf, again, and this for the 4^th time.

Snow in Dusseldorf at this time of the year?!?

End of October a mild autumn, in the middle of the Old town down by the river Rhine? When the leaves still are green? Becoming curious I googled the event and found the official site and read on.

What a waste of energy and resources!

The event was proud to on their official site announce that they are the only event of the cross country season to have a 100% guarantee for snow. The needed 3000 cubic metres of snow for the track is made out of 1500 cubic metres pure drinking-water without any chemical additives. The same amount of water to fill a common 50m swimming pool and the manufacturing of the snow is begun 100 days ahead of the World Cup and the track itself is handmade.

Okay, cleaning the water, making it freeze, storing it cold in order to have the needed amount, moving the snow into place of the track, hand making the track, how much does this cost in energy resources?
Or money for that matter?

And there is lack of pure drinking water in many areas of the world!

I have been feeling bad about it as there is no alternative when showering living in apartment in Finland as the municipalities supply you with water and it is all pure drinking water but this unbelievable wast of resources.

One thing comes to mind though, they are absolutely right, good that the water used is pure and does not pollute the river Rhine in any way as it is quite polluted already. No more additional pollution of the water except for maybe some substances washed down by the melting snow on its’ way down the banks into the river below.

-------------------

You can check out the facts out yourself at the provided link to the official cite of The FIS Ski Cross Country Worldcup in Düsseldorf at: http://www.worldcup-duesseldorf.de/index.php?id=35&L=1

Recycling is not easy

To be able to follow up your electricity consumption, a dozen of households in the capital area have been able to get the meter readings real time by their home computers on the net and as the pilot project try out has turned out so well this is soon going to be reality for all Finnish homes in order to save electricity.

I am looking forward to be able to see in real time what turning off some home appliance will do to the electricity consumption, maybe this would spur even the offspring into doing something about their lights being turned on even when nobody’s in the room.

A lot of TV programs today in Finland are about the issues of how to become more environmentally conscientious. We are taught how to choose the clean form of electricity, how to shop making the proper choices, what produce are environmentally good, what produce have been manufactured in ways thinking of the environment and we are also made believe that recycling is good. Well it would be good if there were enough capacity to recycle all the household waste in an easy way sorting all your waste instead of just chucking it all in the dustbin, which seems to be the general way of treating your garbage.

Sorting your own metal scraps, paper, cardboard, glass, plastics and so fort is hard at present as there are no separate containers in each building, you always have to take the car to do the sorting somewhere centrally, like by the local supermarket.

How hard can it be to have more containers available for the households to do the sorting ourselves at every house?

At present there normally is just is the ordinary bin, one for composting materials, another for recycling of paper and a third one for cardboards. All glass bottles and jars, old batteries have to be taken else where and the hardly exist any recycling of plastic materials or metal from households today. And the left over medicines are to be taken to the pharmacists for extinction.

I am quite confident that in due time people will range their own waste, if provided with the proper facilities in for recycling and the municipalities can stop complaining about not having enough resources. Collecting the garbage several times per week, or maybe even keeping it in separate containers on the trucks could do the trick. As it is now the paper and the household garbage is collected on separate trucks.

I guess it might be time for all of us to begin to act in environmentally good ways on all areas of our life.

Dangerous cooking

The International trade in recycling and scrap metal is growing and the recycling industry in Finland has grown by about 150 percent during the last few years. The one concern now is that the material is exported to countries where the material might not be handled with proper safety precautions and proper care.

Some things I just wonder why you never learn. They say that you learn from making your own mistakes and with experience you grow wiser but I wonder as some things I tend to forget about and do the same mistake over and over again and at least once a summer I wear the wrong shoes going to town.

I have even ruined a whole vacation abroad by putting brand new, and as it happens, half a size too small trainers on, walking in them on a hot summer’s day around sightseeing a big town abroad getting sore feet with blisters that got infected when they burst. I was not able to wear proper shoes until late September that summer, luckily it was a warm autumn that year, and it was not in Finland.

I have had blisters on my feet in the most peculiar places, and I still tend to get them from shoes I have had for years. You know; if you buy good quality shoes you have them for a couple of years and still use them when they come in fashion years later. Shoes that are walked in, that are comfortable on your feet and you supposedly do not get any sores from anymore. Well I still do, the shoes I wore today had been walked in many times this year already, and they were not brand new and here I am again with blisters all over, even under my feet!

Not even acquiring new frequent buyer points I could go for drinks for on a terrace could interest me in going shopping tomorrow as I right now I feel like some scrap you could just throw away!

But I guess that someone has to cook dinner, or cut the salad ingredients and tossing them in a bowl together with some salad dressing.

Don't forget to shower

Greenpeace have for a couple of days had an action against the working conditions and security at Olkiluoto at the construction site of the newest nuclear power plant in Finland. Greenpeace is concerned about the tight timetables of getting the plant built on the cost of the security for the workers and the activists have been hanging up in a crane on the building site in order to protest.

Apart from global warming and climate change there is great concern about the situation of the Baltic Sea becoming more and more polluted with the sea life threatening to disappear completely. Especially bad is the situation of the Finnish Gulf with a lot of waste and sewage water from big cities in non-EU countries being let out into the sea and the southern Baltic Sea with the newly joined but heavily industrialized but less environmentally aware EU countries.

All the countries around the Baltic Sea add more or less to the pollution of the water with artificial fertilizers and pesticides used in the agriculture and the presence of the poisonous blue algae is here to stay. In the most recent gathering by specialist concerned about the condition of the Baltic Sea if the waste water from big cities first were cleaned instead of just poured out into the sea. For many years this has been a great nuisance and nowadays there are algae blooming in many lakes as well being a health hazard if you are not aware of it.

The water temperatures in many lakes here in Finland are unusually warm for being this time of the summer and we might be having the record year of algae blooming at hand this summer so make sure you have a shower after you have been for a swim in the Baltic Sea or in the lakes.

Big talks, no results

The first EU summit for this year was spent discussing the possible cutbacks of carbon oxide emissions and the pollution of the environment.

Every member country is to reduce their emissions best they can and to switch their energy consumption of today such as coal (which is quite inexpensive and even more if you happened to have own resources of it) and oil to a 20% coming from non-polluting and environmentally friendly energy sources until the year 2020 as the goal.

Finland being one of the 4 member countries in the EU already today having reached that goal with 25% of the energy coming from alternative, renewable and non-polluting energy sources such as wind-power and water-power was unhappy with having to make even more cutbacks at the same time with other newer member countries of the EU having not yet reached the same standards, security and consciousness in environmental matters and are desperately doing anything boosting their industry to improve their economy and they are not at all concerned about their green house emissions. So now every member country will have their own, special agenda to follow in the future.

So here we are again, big talks and no visible results. Again.
Should not we all, every human being, be concerned about our own lives? And do our best about this global problem?
Why is so difficult to get people to understand that we have to do something about it right now, as tomorrow is too late! If we all die here on planet earth there is no use of the money anyway!

Saving the environment

We actually just had a discussion about what we in our family can do to do our bit for saving the environment.
As the experts point out, global warming is a fact, the question now is how we can minimize its’ effects.

So we sat down all of us, and guess what, teenagers are not that concerned about doing anything for them to have an earth to live on, the two things they thought of to save on is the one thing they will not do less of!

There was a unanimous no to shorter showers than half an hour to save hot-water.

Okay was to turn off electric appliances from their stand-by power, or to take the bus instead of making mum drive them and buy more local produce or Finnish products to reduce wasted energy on transports. Another thing was to switch off electricity that was not needed, turning off lights and even to use more candle light, as if making candles would not need any heating at all.

And to do my bit I avoided to washing and heating up the sauna during the cold, even though we also have picked up the custom to have a sauna on Saturdays as most Finns.

If everybody did small things they would all add up to a bigger saving of power and electricity, but hey, how many more apart from us even thinks about it? I mean even here in Finland, which is one of the highest educated countries in the world and also doing quite well economically and also considered to be environmentally counscious?

Anyway, now with the temperatures rising to only about -10 degrees instead of the -30 degrees last week, at last I now can get back to my normal household chores with good consciousness, as they tended to pile up during last week.

Just fine

Always at the end of the year all odd statistics tend to pop up.

Like that every inhabitant in Finland make 460 kgs of garbage. Or that of the total amount of wood used in this country 46% was burned up as fuel and only 24% was used into making paper or pulp. And that the weather has been warmest in Finland in 100 years this year being one in the top 15 with 59 days of summer temperatures above 25 degrees Celsius.

And did you know that your Dry Martini glass is either half-empty if you are of a pessimistic nature and half-full if you are of optimistic nature. Just depending on your own attitude and point of view.

So, statistically you are fine if you have one leg up to your crotch in freezing water with ice-cubes floating in it and the other leg up to your crotch in boiling water, as statistically you are not too cold, nor too hot.

?!?