Environment Archives - Foreign policy

Bathroom Renovation – Long Term Investment

Published on November 13, 2019

You want to renovate your old bathroom and give it a new look? That’s great, but you must be aware that this hard work. When it comes to construction work in an apartment, this is considered one of the most challenging.

What You Must Know Before You Start Renovating Your Bathroom?

Before you start, we advise you to make a detailed plan and think about whether you want to change your restroom layout. This is very important because once the tiles are installed, moving the sink or boiler will be impossible. Any subsequent correction and re-replacement will cost you a lot. Also, you need to know that the bathroom renovation will not be done only by one maintenance worker. Depending on the type of work you will need to hire several of them – electricians, plumbers, ceramists, painters, etc.

Make A Detailed Plan

Having a good plan when renovating the bathroom is very important. The contractors must look at the bathroom before performing work. It’s because they have to make an assessment and see what type of work needs to be done. If you already know how you want to arrange the toilet, and whether you want to install additional heating in the bathroom – you can present your plan to the contractors. They will immediately tell you whether such a plan is feasible and at what time. Be careful when choosing sanitary ware you want to buy. Decide whether you want a bathtub or shower, bidet, toilet cup with a low or high-mounting flush, etc. This will be very important when replacing water or sewage pipes. After you have made a plan – you can go shopping.

Removing Old Tiles, Dismantling Installations

If you want to replace electrical and plumbing installation in your bathroom, keep in mind that all existing sanitary facilities must be dismantled. If you decide to glue new tiles over existing ones, we strongly advise you to replace the installation, as bursting pipes in the wall can cause many problems. The whole job of dismantling and demolishing tiles will not take more than a day.

Changing Water Heaters

Sanitary hot water systems and facilities are indispensable in any space intended for longer stays. The basic division of hot water systems is usually local and centralized. In households that do not have a centralized water heating system, electric boilers are most commonly used in the bathroom, which can be either storage or flow-through. They differ in the heating water method.

Storage water heaters can store a certain amount of water accumulated in their tanks, while flow water heaters currently heat the water that flows through them. On the other hand, modern technology brought us new and exceptional tankless water heaters. As written on Cosy Household, these water heaters have proven their advantages, especially when it comes to lowing your energy bill. These water heaters can run more than 3 fixtures at the same time.

For instance 2 showers and a kitchen sink. Therefore, if you’re going to change your old water heater, maybe you should consider upgrading.

Laying Tiles

The installation of ceramic tiles can be done in two ways. One way is to completely remove or tear down old tiles and replace them with new ones. Another way is not to remove the old tiles, and to put new tiles on them with the help of strong adhesive. Regardless of which variant you choose, know that both have proven to be quite good. The whole work of laying the tiles will take about four days, depending on how big your bathroom is. We suggest that you agree with the contractors in detail like whether you want the tiles to go from floor to ceiling because you want to make sure your bathroom will get exactly the look that you envisioned.

Painting the ceiling and sanitary installation

The last stage of the bathroom renovation is painting the ceiling, but also the parts of the walls that are not covered with tiles. When painting, make sure to protect the tiles from possible paint spraying. After the paint has dried, the sanitary features can be installed in the order that the size of the bathroom allows. Be careful not to tighten the screws too much, as this may cause the tiles to crack.

The Cruse of Oak Island Season 7 – New Episode Air Date and Spoilers

Published on November 11, 2019

Environment

Your favorite show “The Curse of Oak Island” returned with a new season just a week ago, and it hyped up all of its large fan bases. By the looks of it, this is going to be probably the best season of them where Lagina brothers are participating because their team is closer to the Money Pit than it has ever been in the previous few seasons.

With the tempo of exploration, a huge chunk of show’s fans is participating that Marty and Rick and their team are going to finally take a look at the mystery that is older than 200 years. All the pointers are leading to that they are going to resolve the Oak Island mystery due to more and more clues are hinting that they are on the right track.

The latest episode is titled “Core Values” and we can expect from the team to spend more time in the swamp because that area was looking very promising at the end of the last episode. Also, they need to prove their suspicion about one anomaly they believe that it is a ship that sunken there a long time ago. Everyone from the team agreed that it looks like a sunken ship on their seismic radar.

Two experts from the team Charles Barkhouse and Gary Drayton did some research on Isaac’s point which is located in the eastern part of the island they are exploring on. Down there, they have found an exceptional discovery.

One item was uncovered, some kind of ancient button that Gary Drayton described as a stardust design. By the looks of its, it belonged to someone of the highest possible rank that lived on the island. This is really interesting because people that lived on the island in the 1700s were mostly farmers.

According to the metal detector expert, Gary Drayton explained that back then having a silver button represented a status symbol of that person. He did some dating and said that it is around from 1650 to 1750. This was an amazing find most definitely. In the next episode, S07E02, this will be more explored and they will share more information on the rarest silver button that was uncovered in the show so far.

Swamp Exploration

As we said, our favorite team of explorers found themselves in the swamp. This will be explored further in the next episode “Core Values” a little bit more than it was in the previous ones. Also, they will have to sample some soil in order to establish a few theses they can continue to work on. Also, a clay that was made by a man was found in the first episode of season seven.

By the looks of it that clay was made to hide the ship from the unwanted guests that are going to look for the treasures. Also, Tony Sampson, a professional diver found a flat rock that looks like a huge platform, and it looks man-made.

The next episode of “The Curse of Oak Island” is going to air on the 12th of November on History Channel.

Paper Bags Vs Plastic Bags, Which Is Better?

Published on June 24, 2019

Environment

Since the state of New York banned single-use plastic bags from all retail stores, it’s time to visit everyone’s favorite question – paper bags or plastic bags?

The answer to this question is far more complicated than anyone could imagine. While everyone agrees that plastic takes decades to decompose, which can become a nasty problem in the future, does everyone agree with the fact that paper requires so much energy and greenhouse gas emissions to produce?

As you can see, neither are perfect for the environment, but which is better? In this article, we are going to try and answer that question.

Paper Bags

We mentioned how paper bags produce more greenhouse gas emissions during production, but does that make them bad? Well, no but they are not perfect eighter. From a global warming point of view, paper bags don’t help themselves much. On the question “how paper bags are made” we can safely say that they are made from trees, which are a reusable resource, but trees are getting chopped down at an enormous rate that it seems like a bad choice. Paper bags require more energy to produce, and they are more expensive to produce than plastic.

Paper bag making machines are the types of machines that produce paper bags. But as one study from Britain’s Environment Agency found, paper bags need to be reused at least three times if we want to match the environmental impact compared to the production process. While paper bags are easily reusable, many people don’t and they just throw them out, which is a huge mistake. The whole idea of paper bags is to be more reusable than plastic bags.

Plastic Bags

Plastic bags are super effective for what they do, but the biggest issue with them is litter. American shoppers use more than 100 billion lightweight polyethylene plastic bags each year, and we can safely say that only a very small percentage of those are recycled. The reason why plastic bags aren’t recycled is that they clog up recycling machines. So what do we do with them? We throw them in landfills waiting to decompose for thousands of years.

However, this is still not the major reason why the world hates plastic bags. The reason why people hate plastic bags is that people don’t dispose of them properly, according to Ketegroup. You can find plastic bags around any street corner in the US, just sitting there for no reason, clogging up waterways and threatening wildlife.

Woven Bags

Multiple studies have been conducted on the topic of woven bags as a substitute for both plastic and paper. Most studies found out that woven, bags are sustainable only if people reuse them and use them frequently.

These bags are made in woven bag making machines, and they cost nothing to produce. Both woven and non-woven bags are made from recycled plastic. However, some are made from cotton, which is very cost-ineffective to produce. Cotton takes time to grow, land, fertilizer, pesticides, which all play their role in the environment. So to conclude on woven bags; if you are going to reuse them, frequently use them, and if you’re going to produce them from recycled plastic bags, then woven bags should be used as a substitute to both plastic and paper.