investigative report: recycling

Popular Mechanics has just published a detailed account on recycling, asking the question, is it worth it?

To resolve the environmental debate once and for all, experts have begun to conduct detailed life-cycle analyses on recycled goods, calculating the energy consumed from the moment they’re picked up by recycling trucks until they are processed into brand-new products. When compared with the amount of energy required to send the same goods to landfills or incinerators and make new products from scratch, the results vary dramatically, depending on the material.

Aluminum, for example, requires 96 percent less energy to make from recycled cans than it does to process from bauxite. At the other end of the spectrum, recycled glass uses only about 21 percent less energy—but it still comes out ahead, according to a study by Washington-based environmental consultant Jeffrey Morris. Recycled plastic bottles use 76 percent less energy and newsprint about 45 percent less, he found. Across the board, the key factor is the energy intensity of extracting virgin materials, which is an order of magnitude higher than that of recovering the same material through recycling. “Even if you doubled the emissions from collecting recyclables, it wouldn’t come close,” Morris says. Overall, he found, it takes 10.4 million Btu to manufacture products from a ton of recyclables, compared to 23.3 million Btu for virgin materials. And all of the collecting, hauling and processing of those recyclables adds just 0.9 million Btu.

That doesn’t mean the system is always efficient. The best recycling is closed-loop: Steel cans and glass bottles are recycled into more cans and bottles, which are in turn recyclable. But some materials are currently “downcycled” into less desirable products that can be recycled no further. Soft-drink bottles made from PET (polyethylene terephthalate), for example, often end up as polyester fibers in clothing or carpets. It is possible to make new PET bottles from recycled stock, but the process is currently more expensive than making them from petroleum. Supply and demand also come into play: Britain imports so much wine that recycled green glass is simply used as construction aggregate; recycling it consumes more energy than just sending the bottles to a landfill.

Seriously, the article is so packed with information it is hard to be brief about it. I highly recommend going to the article HERE, as well as these links: Debunking the myths and Recycling Statistics

The ultimate conclusion is that all recycling is good for the environment. But, not all recycling is good economically; the smaller the city the worse it is. Read the article. Given the amount of time they clearly spent on it, I think everyone should take the time to read it.

america in transition

As we all know, we are in the process of transitioning from one president to another. In this case, we are also transitioning from one political climate to another.

Barack Obama has spoken many times about his concern for the environment and his plan to commit the United States to a green policy. In a move that supports what he has been saying, there was an announcement today about how his stimulus package will include a heavy dose of spending on environmentally friendly projects that will create “green”-collar jobs.

“Clean energy is going to be a foundation for rebuilding the American economy,” said Bracken Hendricks, an analyst at the Democratic-leaning Center for American Progress and an adviser to the presidential-transition team. Generating jobs in concert with cutting pollution will be “a major component” of any economic-recovery plan, Hendricks said.

The plan outlines many things, including a greener infrastructure and public transportation. The hope is that with new policy, the creation of new jobs will follow. Jobs that cannot be outsourced, since the idea is being green and being local.

You can read the whole article HERE, via Bloomberg News

i really don’t know what to think

Lately, I have been reading a lot about Wal-Mart’s to be a more sustainable company; switching to CFL’s, lowering air conditioning, new buildings being LEED certified, and the list really does go on and on.

I just read an article about Wal-Mart’s Personal Sustainability Project (PSP). It is program where employees are encouraged to live a more sustainable life, even going so far as ‘vowing” to do something, or not do something.

Since 2007, all Wal-Mart employees in the US have been asked to take a simple, concrete step to benefit their health, their local community, or the earth. PSP pledges, which can involve work or home life or both, have included vows to drive the speed limit (to save gas), clean up trash, quit smoking, switch to a reusable bottle, or turn off the tap when toothbrushing.

Wal-Mart has reported that 45% of its employees enrolled in the program, and this is with no financial incentive to them. However, maybe there should be? In many cases employees have found things that the stores can do to improve their sustainability (i.e., turning off lights in the breakroom). These changes have saved the company over $1Million dollars.

The criticism is that yes, these employees are doing this on their own, as encouraged by the company. But, the company has a long history of demanding things from their employees without any gain to the employee. So, do you praise the company for implementing green initiatives or do you criticize the company for bullying its staff to change how they live without any benefit except they don’t get fired?

It is an interesting debate. I, personally, have had trouble with ‘ends justify the means’ attitude. We saw with gas prices, that when the cost was high, people were trying to incorporate ‘green’ ideas to keep the personal cost low. Now that prices have gone back down, they are back in their SUV’s having not learned a thing about being sustainable.

I think we will see more and more of this in many other companies, with many more examples. It will be interesting to see what effect it has….

You can find the article HERE, via MotherJones.

this doesn’t bode well

I just saw this article, and thought I should post it. There are two past posts that make this relevant. I have posted about The Elders and I have posted about the problems in Zimbabwe.

Three members of The Elders, including President Jimmy Carter, were denied entrance into Zimbabwe to initiate conversation about the ongoing issues.

“We are very disappointed that the government of Zimbabwe would not permit us to come in, would not cooperate,” former U.S. President Carter said at a news conference in Johannesburg.

It was the first time the 2002 Nobel Peace laureate has been denied permission to carry out a mission in any country, he said.

You can find the full article HERE

good sheet: holiday economy

You know I like my GOOD sheets:

Go to GOOD to see it in full

book review: why we hate us

I am about a chapter away from finishing one of the best books I have read in a long time.

An excerpt: The environment for character education today is rotten. The times are not exactly ripe for etiquette, either. The screaming lack of both virtues contributes enormously to the “why we hate us” saga. We hate weasels and we hate rude people. We should. But – big but – when it comes to character and manners we are obliged to again consider not just what we think of the world, but what we contribute to it. Do we, in public, exhibit good character? Do we have good manners?

I think you can tell by my writing, that I am disheartened by the lack of community. I do not believe in over-consumerism and corportacracy. I get depressed when I see teenagers dressing and speaking inappropriately. I think media has caused issues that will take longer than over night to fix. I do not value a government that lies to us, nor a government that has spends more time campaigning than passing worthwhile legislation.

If any of that resonates with you, then I think you will enjoy this book.

You can find it on Amazon: Why We Hate Us: American Discontent in the New Millennium, by Dick Meyer.

A very quick read, and well worth it!

zimbabwe

A few articles have been released in the last day or two about the terrible situation in Zimbabwe.

MSNBC has a report, “If you rest, you starve”, in which it illustrates how the political climate has left people starving and scavenging for food.

The food crisis began after 2000, when Mugabe launched an often violent campaign to seize white-owned farms and give them to veterans of his guerrilla war against white rule over the former British colony.

Officials from Mugabe’s party toured the Doma district recently and told the new farm owners that the government could not supply their needs. They were advised to make do with what seed they had left, and with animal manure for fertilizer.

On top of that, in another article, Killer Disease hits Zimbabwe, shows how there is a cholera epidemic due to lack of clean water and poorly maintained sewage treatment.

And as the political and economic crisis in Zimbabwe deepens, most hospitals have been forced to close their doors as they can no longer afford drugs, equipment or to pay their staff.

It is expected to get worse due to the start of the rainy season.

I think that the lesson to be learned is that, sadly, we are going to be hearing more and more of these kind of tales. There is enough food, but because of economy and politics it can’t get to the right places. As a result there is a rampant epidemic of a preventable disease.

Sad. So sad.

vroom, vroom

When many of us think about what we can do about climate change, we go to obvious: lightbulbs, recycle, bring a bag, short shower. We demand of our government to invest in clean energy and protect lands.

However, in light of the rumblings of a auto industry bailout, I think an article from The Economist, is an important read: A Survey of Cars in Emerging Markets

We forget that with a growing population comes a growing demand for goods and the infrastructure to match. So what is going to happen when more people want more cars?

…the IMF have calculated that the number of cars worldwide will grow from 600m in 2005 to 2.9 billion in 2050. By 2030, they believe, China’s car fleet will have overtaken America’s (which itself will have increased by 60%), and by 2050 China will have almost as many cars as the entire world has today. India will be catching up fast, with a fleet of 367m, 45 times the number on its congested roads today.

Cars made up an estimated 6.3% of all global emissions in 2000. Eight years later, you know that number is higher and climbing.

This is why it is so important for a green initiative to be built into any auto bailout that either the Bush or Obama Adminstrations would consider. If the estimated car purchase growth becomes reality without a major push to reduce emissions and create fuel efficient, hybrid, or electric cars, we can assume that any net positive effect in other green initiatives will be negated due to autos, alone.

In a way, we should hope for a continued rise in fuel prices, so the desire to own an automobile is lessened.

Read the article, it is very interesting.

change is upon us

I really like Al Gore. He wrote an Op-Ed piece in the NY Times. He is a man that when he talks (or writes), I listen (or read).

The piece is his suggestion for how we should embrace a new energy policy under President Obama’s administration. He outlines a five step plan and all of it seems doable and necessary.

Some excerpts:

As Abraham Lincoln said during America’s darkest hour, “The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew.” In our present case, thinking anew requires discarding an outdated and fatally flawed definition of the problem we face.

One of the five ideas:
Fourth, we should embark on a nationwide effort to retrofit buildings with better insulation and energy-efficient windows and lighting. Approximately 40 percent of carbon dioxide emissions in the United States come from buildings — and stopping that pollution saves money for homeowners and businesses. This initiative should be coupled with the proposal in Congress to help Americans who are burdened by mortgages that exceed the value of their homes.

A conclusion:
Of course, the best way — indeed the only way — to secure a global agreement to safeguard our future is by re-establishing the United States as the country with the moral and political authority to lead the world toward a solution.

I think the whole article is well worth the read and you can find it HERE.

money, money, money

One aspect of the bailout bill is that the US Treasury will have to print much of the money that we agreed to hand out to the banks. A few months ago, I researched the life cycle of producing cold hard cash to determine if it were “green”.

I decided to republish that article just as a friendly reminder that money does not grow on trees. In all honesty, it grows on a GMO cotton bush. Anyway, the article is below.

have you ever thought about the process of making money. And, I don’t mean how to increase the value in your checking account. I am referring to the process of actually making cold hard cash.

I had never thought about it until Ali… he asked for the credit, I’m giving it to him….mentioned it to me and broke down some of the steps of the process. Of course, my ears perked up and I decided to research it. We all think we know the process… ink, paper, printing, cutting, distribution. But let’s look at it from a carbon footprint point of view.

PAPER

I think researching this provided the most interesting bit of information for me. The actual note is made up of 75% cotton and 25% linen. I bet your first thought is that you are happy we aren’t cutting down trees. Ha! Linen is somewhat ecologically okay. It is made from flax, and is labor intensive to manufacture. However, in order to get the longest possible fibers it is hand harvested and it uses bacteria, not chemicals, to decompose the pectin present and free the fibers. These fibers are then woven into cloth and used accordingly. Given the rest of the data I found, let’s say this is the “cleanest” part of making money.

Cotton….what a very different story. I am not even sure where to start on this because I was in such shock when I started researching it.
1.) 80% of cotton production starts with GMO, Monsanto seeds. YOU GET THIS, RIGHT! If you do not support GMO, how it affects farmers, the EPA policies created in support of Monsanto and you make every effort to not financially support this company or comparable companies….TOO BAD! By spending cash you give to Monsanto and the like.
2.) Cotton is one of the top four largest industrialized agricultural industries, behind corn and soy, slightly above canola. U.S produces 19.2 million, 480 lb bales of cotton per year.
3.) It takes 20,000 liters of water to make 1kg of cotton. This is the equivalent to one t-shirt and one pair of jeans.
4.) 2.4% of agriculture is cotton, but it uses 24% of the world’s use of insecticide and 11% of world’s use of pesticide
5.) The agricultural process is bad to the environment through drainage practices and leaching into the soil, application of pesticides, extensive irrigation, dam construction for the irrigation.
6.) 73% of irrigated land comes from fresh water withdrawl. This is pumping water from clean sources to water the crops.
7.) In return, run off to adjacent water sources (wetlands, streams, lakes) contains pesticides, salts, fertilizers, all of which is contaminating out fresh water ecosystems and causing extinction of marine life.
8.) The impact of cotton growing destroys the soil and after time must be abandoned for new locations, leaving acres and acres of dead zones.
9.) 25,000 cotton growers in the US are subsidized at $2 billion per year.
10.) The equipment used is a cotton harvester which costs the farmer $150,000 to purchase. It holds 120 gallons worth of fuel.
11.) Undisclosed amount of labor costs, the fuel those laborers use to get to and from work, the medical issues because the cotton harvesters are dangerous.

And so on, and so on, and so on. And, we haven’t even started printing the money!

Not much to be found about the ink except that it is a magnetic, oil based ink.

PRINTING

The process of printing money is called Intaglio printing. It requires large equipment that is made out of metals and plastic. The metals are copper and zinc and used in the printing presses. The make plates with the image of the currency out of these metals, ink is placed on these plates and the paper runs by them to get the print. The plastic, as we know, is an oil based product.

There is an international law that allows each country to hold a monopoly on the production of their currency. Why do I mention this? Because we purchase our Intaglio printing machine, and the plates with the IMPRINT OF OUR MONEY, from China. Yep. China has the image of our money so they can make the printing presses we use. We pay them $30,000 per machine.

Now, we can factor in the cost of the two Bureau for Engraving and Printing locations. We have one in D.C. and one in Fort Worth. There is the cost of the two facilities:
1.) Resources needed for building Fort Worth and upgrades to D.C. facilities.
2.) Running the plant for money production on two shifts, five days a week; include labor costs as well as cost of running high speed presses for 18hrs/day.
3.) air conditioning/heating costs
4.) electricity costs
5.) employees and their respective carbon impact on the Earth
6.) Resources needed to store notes at controlled temperature

TRANSPORTATION

The money has to get from B.E.P into your hands, right?

Consider fuel costs and usage to get from each location to the Reserve Banks around the country.

1 round trip flight to a destination under 2hrs uses 500lbs of CO2
1 round trip flight to a destination about equal to 4hrs uses 1250lbs of CO2
1 round trip flight to a destination greater than 4hrs uses 2000lbs of CO2

That’s just the flying portion. You can also calculate the fuel costs and usage of driving the money in armored trucks. Keep in mind that these are not transportation vehicles for humans… this is not carpooling. This is paper.

BANKS

I can’t even begin to calculate the carbon footprint of a bank. First off, I have no idea how many banks exist in the U.S. and much of this will be generalization based off the bank I use. Most are probably, at minimum, 2000 sq ft. They more than likely have the air conditioning/heating units on close to 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. They employ, on the average, 25 people per branch who each drive their own cars and park in lots, that I view as a waste of usable land. At least at the bank I use, it is not even a covered parking lot, and is a black top, which I know is contributing to the increased heat of the Earth.

All of this to keep money in circulation. I haven’t even started researching coins, except to know that it costs us 3 pennies to make 1 penny.

Here is the life expectancy of our money:
$1……. 21 months
$5……..16 months
$10……18 months
$20……24 months
$50……55 months
$100…..89 months

This is based on our current population. The more people we have, the more money will be needed and therefore production will have to increase.

The US Treasury estimates that it cost 6.2cents per note to make our money last year. This is a cost of $571 Million dollars per year. TO MAKE MONEY!!

I am not by any means saying that we should all stop using cash. I would never want to guess what that could do to our infrastructure. I would also never want to limit the poor of our country that run their lives mainly on cash and not credit or debit cards. But in the interest of each of us being educated and making wise decisions about even the smallest things we can do to impact our carbon footprint, I felt this was an interesting exercise in breaking down a fundamental need of each American.

Maybe, now, when you go to the ATM, or pull out your wallet to purchase something, you will look at that piece of paper in a different way. Maybe you will see it as a GMO seed contributing to a corporation you choose not to support. Maybe you will see it as a product made by China. Maybe you will see it as the fuel cost to get it from the treasury to your pocket. I don’t care. I just think we need to start seeing it differently.

Some links:
information on environmental impact of cotton

yearly production of money

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