By Colin Hastings​

With recent heavy pollution in Thailand weighing on people’s minds, we spoke with local entrepreneur couple Peter and Jeng Wainman, founders of the brand Pipper Standard, about how embracing natural products at home can help protect your family.
 
EARLIER this year, Chiang Mai earned the dubious distinction of being the world’s most polluted city, with Bangkok trailing not far behind. As residents in these cities became increasingly concerned about the hazardous levels of air pollution, some started to check the official PM2.5 airquality index daily, or even hourly, as if it was the common weather report.
 
Peter Wainman, a U.S. businessman who lives in Bangkok with his wife Jeng and 5-year-old son Ricky, knew he couldn’t remain idle. Wainman suffered debilitating asthma and allergies in the past, and as the air worsened in the Thai capital he moved quickly to “fortify” his home and office, installing multiple air purifiers and buying a portable pollution monitor.
 
Reducing exposure to harmful chemicals, whether airborne or in everyday products, and helping others do the same, is one of Wainman’s life missions. He and Jeng are the founders of Equator Pure Nature, the Bangkokbased “cleantech” company that manufactures and sells the Pipper Standard brand of natural, hypoallergenic home cleaning products. The company’s motto is “A Healthy Environment Starts at Home”
 
Their technology is patented globally across approximately 70% of the world’s GDP, including in the U.S., Europe and China. “To our knowledge, we’re the only commercial natural cleaning brand in the world with patented technology,” Wainman says.
 
Amidst rapid urbanization and industrialization across Asia, ordinary citizens are losing control over the quality of the air they breathe—and
not only in the famously polluted cities of India and China, but throughout much of developed East Asia and Southeast Asia as well. “But we have the ability to eliminate pollution inside our homes,” says Wainman. Let’s start with pollution because that seems to be of people’s minds.
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What is the health impact on this, in your view?

Jeng: Well, in the short term the panic speaks for itself. Earlier this year, people were seriously worried about the deteriorating air quality. No one knew when—or even if—it was going to improve. But pollution here isn’t an isolated, one-time problem. We’ve been dealing with it for years, and as a result we’ve seen allergy and asthma rates skyrocket, along with respiratory and other health issues. These problems are increasing across all age groups over time, but they’re particularly bad among children. As a mother, that concerns me.
 
More than a quarter of Thais have allergies today, including approximately 49% of children in greater Bangkok. The question is: What can we do to help our children? How can we reverse these trends? That’s something we ask ourselves every day. One obvious answer seems to be to limit their exposure to the pollution and chemicals that are contributing to these problems.

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CPS CHAPS welcomes CPS Coffee, created as a smart décor coffee bar adjacent to any CPS CHAPS shopping haven. The latest CPS Coffee is at Terminal 21, adding to branches at Central World and ICONSIAM. The coffee is ground from specially selected beans, blended and houseroasted.
 
The menu also includes dark cocoa with Thai tea, cold brew chai or green tea and tasty sweet and savoury snacks. CPS Coffee at Terminal 21 opens from 7am to 10pm.

Since the signing of the Bowring Treaty with England in 1855, Siam began to officially open the country to trade with foreigners, especially Europeans.

The major products traded were wood, animal skins, rice, spices and forest products from Siam, while products imported into the country included technological advanced machinery, various consumables and furniture. During the 18 years of King Rama IV's reign, foreigners, both Westerners and Chinese, established trade and made contact with hundreds of civil servants.
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Therefore an exchange of culture occurred with the Siamese people, particularly among the upper classes such as the titled aristocracy. Various trade businesses were founded by foreigners from Europe, and shops had been set up to sell goods to the Siamese. By the time of the reign of King Rama V, King Chulalongkorn, trade had become more prosperous. As the government of Siam now required the fruits of modern science and new technology from Europe, it became necessary to employ foreigners to serve in the country, and expert engineers, architects, officers in five different foreign affairs departments, and in military accounting systems were all especially welcomed.

This resulted in quite active European groups in Siamese society. They generally could be found grouped together at the end of Charoenkrung Road and stretching into Silom and Sathorn where they maintained a strong presence along these roadsides.

Within these groups, and to facilitate meetings with the Europeans, a new culture was created which is now widespread in Thai society. The traditions of relaxing on the beach, outdoor sports such as tennis or badminton, socializing, drinking, and eating during the evenings were taken on by the men.  Most importantly, the afternoon tea culture of the western women was also adopted.

The first evidence of this appears in the long cookbook of dainties and desserts included in the lessons of Wang Lang Lady (girls’ school), now known as Wattana Wittaya Academy, which was published for the first time in the year of the Bangkok Era 119, or 1899.

Beautiful and remote, Arunachal Pradesh on India’s far eastern border is home to the country’s greatest biodiversity, with as many as 600 species of orchids, one third of its plants of India, along with numerous mammals and over half of India’s 1,300 birds. But there’s a sense of urgency to explore the region as rapid development threatens its isolation
 
SURROUNDED by Bhutan to the west, China/Tibet to the north, Myanmar to the east, and the Indian state of Assam to the South, Arunachal Pradesh, is one of the most sparsely populated states of India and one of the world’s least-explored regions.
 
Being the easternmost state of India, Arunachal Pradesh is truly the place where the sun first rises. It is the largest of the northeastern states and much of it has hardly been explored or catalogued. Ethnic and linguistic diversity in the state may be the highest, not only in India, but perhaps in any comparablysized Asian region.​