The Orchard Road shopping area in Singapore on Nov. 17, 2018. TkKurikawa / iStock Editorial / Getty Images Plus
By John Bryson
On Jan. 1, Singapore introduced a "no smoking zone" along a three kilometer (approximately 1.9 mile) stretch of Orchard Road—one of the city's busiest shopping districts. It sounds controversial—restricting people's right to smoke in public spaces, as a way of tackling air pollution and improving public health. But smoking is not actually banned down the length of Orchard Road: instead, smokers will be concentrated in 40 designated smoking areas, spaced 100 to 200 meters (approximately 330 to 660 feet) apart.
The two largest global brands of capsule coffee, Nespresso and Keurig, are regarded by many as environmental nightmares. Billions of the throwaway nonrecyclable plastic products currently clutter waste dumps, waterways and city streets. Both inventor of the "K-cups" John Sylvan and former Nespresso CEO Jean-Paul Gaillard have publicly bemoaned the environmental consequences of the products they once championed. Sylvan has stated that the disposable (but not biodegradable) coffee capsule is "like a cigarette for coffee, a single-serve delivery mechanism for an addictive substance."
