I am transitioning all the Epic stuff to Not My Problem. Everything would be on a Substack link in a few days- newsletters, podcasts, and services I provide.

And everything would be under notmyproblem.earth.

Glad I could get this domain name.

Moving onto this week’s content. So today, we have-

• I turned Vegan for one reason and decided to stay for another

• This startup is making it easier for people to share stuff

• An app that tells you how safe the outside air is

• How are countries using their water resources?

• What I’ve been listening to?

🥗 Why did I turn vegan and decided to stay one?

If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be vegetarian- Paul McCartney

I turned vegan for the planet. I know my individual contributions won’t cut it.

But I stayed vegan because I cannot pretend anymore.

I cannot pretend that animals are not sentient.

I cannot pretend that they feel no pain.

I cannot pretend that they are just raw materials for factories.

I cannot pretend that they are raised in inhuman conditions.

I cannot pretend that most of them never see daylight.

I cannot pretend that cows are impregnated every 4 months.

I cannot pretend that chicks are killed because they are male.

I am done pretending.

To solve most of our pressing issues, we need to stop pretending that everything is fine.

Because it is not.

We cannot solve these unless we keep pretending that everything is OK.

I can’t see what option you chose, so feel free :)

🤝 Making sharing stuff easier

Primest delivery…A few weeks ago, we ordered an iron box. And instead of one, we got two. We were in no mood to fill in the return request, tape up the package, print a return slip, and walk to Canada Post. So we just put it on the ‘Buy Nothing’ local group on Facebook. Within hours, someone from the neighborhood came and picked it up. Faster than Amazon delivery, eh?

Anybody?… There are a lot of items that our neighbors are not using or consuming anymore. And they would love to give it away. But they don’t know how to do that? And that’s where Olio comes in. It started as a food-sharing app in 2015, where neighbors could share surplus food with each other. But since then it has evolved into different verticals-

• It allows local grocery stores and restaurants to list their surplus food.

• People can put up non-food items for borrowing or sharing.

• They even have a ‘made’ section where users can buy and sell local homemade food and handmade crafts.

Huge impact…There’s also a ‘wanted’ section where consumers can put in specific products that they are looking for. The app has over five million users who have shared 25 million portions of food and 3 million non-food items, preventing all of them from ending up in the trash.

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🫁An app that tells you whether it’s safe(air pollution-wise) to step outside

Did you know?…Air pollution is at an all-time high. Transportation is one of the biggest contributors to the problem. But did you know that exhaust emissions are not the only emissions caused by transportation? There are other factors like wear on tires, brake pads, and road surfaces. They account for non-exhaustive emissions. Even your EV has this.

Know your impact…Wear on tires and brakes produces fine particles, which depend on the type of journey, weather, and driving style. The Geco Air app calculates emissions of fine particles associated with wear on tires and brakes and measures the environmental footprint of each driver’s journey. 

• It takes into account factors like mass, the center of gravity, size of the tires of the vehicle.

• It combines that with the journey information provided by the GPS system every second.

• And calculates the resulting emission and the “clean mobility score” for each journey.

How can you improve?… Based on these inputs, it provides users with an ideal driving style to adopt, compared with their usual driving, in real-time. As a result, it helps them reduce the emission of polluting particles (NOx, CO, and particles) and CO2. These simple, practical, and personalized tips can help you make a cleaner drive.

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🚰 Water usage across the world

In the map below, the darkest-colored countries are the ones that are withdrawing the most freshwater for their usage.

But I think it makes more sense to see the above graph in relation to the below one.

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👂What I’ve been listening to?

Thanks for reading today’s edition. If you have any thoughts or questions, feel free to write to me by replying to this email.

Have a great weekend😊