recycling opportunity
From:
Reid Priedhorsky
Date:
Dec 03 20:31 UTC
Short link
Shawn Isenhart wrote:
>
> Recycling plastic is about more than just reclaiming the petroleum and
> energy that went into creating the plastic - it is also about reducing
> the amount of solid waste created.
I definitely agree, but still: neither recycling the plastic nor
reducing landfill waste is the real goal (that's "saving the planet" or
sustainability or something along those lines).
> In the above mentioned examples, I
> think recycling plastic makes sense:
>
> 1) Shipping the plastic doesn't take up any more energy than would be
> used normally, because the planes are going to be flying regardless of
> if a collection of plastic cups are on board
Well, you displace another package of similar size/weight. Shippers
scale capacity to meet demand, so I think it's fair to model an
individual mailing as a small fraction of one gigantic "special trip".
> 2) Hauling the plastic to your daughter's house is fine, since you'd
> presumably be visiting her anyway
Right: no special trip here.
> 3) Bringing the plastic with as you go to Eastside Co-op is fine if you
> do it as one of your existing errands that you would be out-and-about
> doing anyway (though I don't think I would recommend making a trip until
> you had a reasonable supply of plastic to drop off, and if you combined
> it with your grocery shopping it would be even more efficient - which is
> what we did this weekend.)
Again, no special trips here. :)
Incidentally, this is why it's OK to blast the heat in your car as high
as you want (as opposed to the thermostat in your house): it uses waste
heat from the engine that will be just dumped into the atmosphere if you
don't put it into the cab.
Along those lines, many modern cars automatically turn on the air
conditioning when you turn on the defrost. Frequently this is not
necessary, and you can manually turn off the A/C to save the energy
required to drive the compressor (this is taken from an engine belt and
goes into driving the wheels if the A/C is off).
Take care,
.