Maintaining the Fight against Disposable Plastic

After 4 weeks, I would re-soundingly say my PSP goals were a success.  I significantly reduced the amount of plastic waste I threw away on a daily bases and more importantly, I feel as though I’m much more aware of what I buy and the environmental consequences they pose.  Although I did relapse a bit here and there as I did have to resort to using disposable plastic bags on a few grocery trips, I’m making sure they’re reused as dog dropping bags or in some other capacity around our house.  Or better yet, I could drop them off the next time I go to the store in a plastic bag recycling bin.  This experience has really shown me it doesn’t take much more effort to reduce, reuse, and recycle many of the items you’d normally throw away and it feels great knowing your actions, although they may be small in the grand scheme of things, have positive effects on the environment instead of adverse ones.

Overview of my 3 Goals

Making the switch to reusable bags:  This goal was by far the hardest for me to keep.  I started out with a plan to store reusable cloth bags in a few locations such as my car so I wouldn’t forget them on grocery trips and it worked great.  The problem arose when I went to the store more spur of the moment like if I needed a few things for dinner or some beer and drinks for a hot day.  Instead of increasing my supply of cloth bags each time this happened, I just bit my lip and used a plastic bag or two.

Using Tupperware instead of disposable Ziploc bags:  Very easy alternative choice to make and one that kept my food fresher and more organized in my backpack.  It’s actually quite amazing that ever since I started my PSP, I haven’t used a single Ziploc bag.  It helps that we currently don’t have any in our house but I also went against using them earlier in the week when I went hiking with my family.  Instead I just threw everything in a single Tupperware container rather than wasting a couple disposable bags.

Reusable water bottles over disposable ones:  Another achievable goal that was simple to make the switch to.  We have loads of reusable bottles in our cupboards that got infrequent use so it was only a matter of making sure I always brought one with me to school.  Like I mentioned in my last post, I also took things a step further and instead of buying single bottles of Gatorade at the store, I decided to buy a large tub of Gatorade powder.  Now I can mix my own Gatorade at home and pour it in reusable bottles in lieu of continually purchasing more single-use plastic bottles that I would ultimately end up recycling.

The Impact of Reducing Plastic Use

Environmentally, it all starts with what I buy as nearly everything is eventually thrown out.  By reducing plastic waste at the source, less will have the chance of being released into the environment and less energy and resources would be devoted to recycling.  Plastic bags in particular use up 4% of the world’s oil and gas in their production while pumping out tons of greenhouse gases annually.  Likewise, plastic bottle production creates harmful emissions and they are oftentimes harder to recycle fully as the bottles themselves are a combination of different plastics.  They have to endure many reduction cycles to totally break down all the kinds of plastic.  Most plastics aren’t biodegradable and are extremely durable, allowing them to settle in our environment for thousands of years (Hopewell, 2009).  Just knowing I practice more of an integrated waste management system where I try to recycle everything I can feels me with joy and more knowing that my recycling habits are starting to rub off on my roommates.

Socially, I know my newfound desire to limit my plastic waste and practice the three Rs (reduce, reuse, recycle) is effecting everyone around me.  I’ve got my roommates thinking more about their ecological footprints, set up additional recycling bags in our house to encourage recycling over throwing things away, and convinced friends to buy their own set of reusable cloth bags.  A few days ago, I even persuaded a woman in the checkout line at Winco to purchase a few reusable bags after she saw our stack in the cart.  Although it’s still fairly uncommon to see people bring their own reusable bags to the super market, it definitely stands out when you see it and no doubt raises the eyebrows of other shoppers, hopefully making them think about changing their own habits.  I’m curious to see how the new plastic bag ban in Corvallis will shape up when it takes effect next year.  While it may just turn into a minor inconvenience for people to pay an extra $0.05 per paper bag, it has the chance to make a real impact on the disposable plastic industry if people make the switch to reusable bags and use them for many purposes (Hall, 2012).

Overall, I’d estimate my monthly savings to be around $5 by not buying any disposable plastic bags.  While it’s a modest savings, soon I’ll increasing that amount as my reusable cloth bags will start earning me money since I’ve used them about 7 times since I bought them (they cost $0.80 each initially but Winco credits you $0.10 per use).  If more people started using reusable bags too, that would definitely send a message as less would be produced and the annual costs retailers would spend on them, about $4 billion a year, would decrease.  It would also immensely reduce the amount of bags littering the environment, since only about 5% of disposable bags get recycled, while likewise improving ecosystems like oceans and streams where bags tend to end up (reuseit.com, 2012).  Lessening emissions from plastic producing plants additionally diminishes atmosphere pollution and improves overall health for both humans and animals as plastic toxins aren’t passed up the food chain as much as before.

 

Continuing the Good Fight

Reflecting on my PSP, I don’t see why I’d stop working to depreciate my daily disposable plastic use now.  It doesn’t require me to alter my lifestyle very much and it just makes sense to use what you already own like Tupperware containers instead of buying and going through loads of disposable Ziploc bags.  Since the only real down for me was sometimes not having a reusable bag on hand during impromptu store runs, I really want to seek out and find a smaller reusable bag I can take with me anywhere.  I noticed a few of my classmates had some that fit into small pouches so I’m excited to find something similar I can easily slip into a back pocket or toss effortlessly into my backpack.

While I think my PSP fit well into my daily routine, after looking over other student’s blogs, it’s clear that I could easily add further sustainable habits to it.  Biking to school, limiting my water use during showers, and eating locally and/or organically more often are thing I’m certainly going to try to do more on a consistent bases.  There are also many other small changes I could make to improve sustainability like air dry clothes and unplug most appliances and electronics when they aren’t in use.

Comprehensively, I thoroughly enjoyed learning more about becoming a more sustainable individual and just how much a simple action like reducing disposable plastic bag use can potentially improve environmental, social, and health conditions if widely practiced.  It was shocking to learn about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch growing off our shores in the Pacific Ocean and how it’s actually the jobs of some people in lesser developed countries to sift through our trash for reusable and valuable items (Dorigo 2012).  The numbers about recycling in the U.S. were further evidence that we’re still fairly ignorant about the recycling process with respect to other countries such as Norway and Austria which have committed to reduce their resource waste by 75% (Miller and Spoolman 429).  While its encouraging cities around the U.S. like Portland and San Francisco have banned plastic bags in stores and are working to become more sustainable, this isn’t good enough.  I personally want to see harsher bans on plastic bags and faster transitions to reusable bags.  More stiff taxes and other measures should be implemented by our government.  Ample money should also be devoted to environmental cleanup and restoration as our country is the #1 polluter in the world.  I can only hope that during my lifetime our country will progress towards a more sustainable one.  We need to stop thinking so economically for once and worry more about the harm we’re causing to mother Earth.

References

Dorigo, Enrico.  Will Banning Plastic Bags Help The Environment?  Science 2.0.  Web.  24 Jan. 2012.  <http://www.science20.com/enrico_dorigo/will_banning_plastic_bags_help_environment-75598&gt;.

Facts about the Plastic Bag Pandemic.  Reuseit.com.  Web.  10 Aug.  2012. <http://www.reuseit.com/learn-more/top-facts/plastic-bag-facts&gt;.

Hall, Bennett.  City Council approves ban on plastic bags.  Corvallis Gazette-Times.  Web.  19 June 2012. <http://www.gazettetimes.com/news/local/article_a7e20cd2-b9ea-11e1-a3b1001a4bcf887a.html&gt;.

Hopewell, Jefferson, Dvorak, Robert, and Edward Kosior.  “Plastics recycling: challenges and opportunities.”  Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society (2009):  v.364(1526).  Web.  27 July, 2009.  doi: 10.1098/rstb.2008.0311.

Miller, Tyler G., and Scott E. Spoolman.  Environmental Science.  14^th ed.  Belmont: Brooks/Cole, 2010.  Print.

Whats your shade of Grey?

As pressures on freshwater resources grow around the world and supplies become increasingly scarce, new efforts are needed to identify alternative ways of meeting the global water needs. Greywater reclamation is an alternative to potable water and has great implication to reducing the amount of water used from the major waterways throughout the globe. When greywater is reused either onsite or nearby, it has the potential to reduce the demand for new water supply, reduce the energy and carbon footprint of water services, and meet a wide range of social and economic needs (Allen, Christian-Smith & Palaniappan, 2010). The big picture of this project would be to eventually reduce reuse and recycle the water that is being utilized for single applications and reclaim that water for alternative applications. Matching water quality to specific water needs, reuse of non-potable water or greywater we can significantly reduce the amount of potable water used daily for applications that include landscaping and toilet flushing.

This project is a no nonsense appliance that performs all the work needed to reclaim greywater. I basically do little work and this system does it all. My experiences from these last four weeks are that this project can be completed by anyone and with a little amount of elbow grease this system can be installed in anyone’s home. This system benefit’s the homeowner as it allows the owner to save money associated with water bills. The environmental impacts associated with this system are minimal when proper design, use and maintained systems are utilized. The public health risks associated with the use of domestic greywater on lawns and gardens is considered to have a low risk of transmitting disease to humans, although people’s susceptibility to disease varies (www.health.act.gov.au). Overall the impacts associated with social impacts more so seen by the individual homeowner is directly related to the impacts seen by the environment. When the homeowner reclaims greywater, the environment benefits as the ecosystems associated with water habitats are not being degraded. The preformance of treatment processes, reuse possibilities, operation and maintenance requirements, along with cost and constraints associated with implementing constructed wetlands for the treatment of secondary and tertiary treatment of wastewater and stormwarter have beneficial affects ( Mackie, Woszcynski, Farmer, Walsh & Gagnon, 2009, p. 1406-1418).

I will be continuing this system with some modified upgrades that will maintain this system for the long term to include a filtration system (not necessary), but my impacts alone with help with the reduction of pumping water from the major waterways throughout the country and underground aquifers. Alone if I save about 400 gallons a week from reclaimed laundry water, reused toilet water and shower water this alone with save 20,8000 gallons a year and this can be used to water lawns and gardens. However, think about this, the average swimming pool takes 18,000-20,000 gallons of water to fill (www.http://texas.sierraclub.org/press/facts3.pdf). So, by saving 400 gallons of water a week, you could ideally fill a swimming pool and if everyone was to start this reclamation system image the amount of water we can save.

In conclusion, the reuse of greywater for irrigation is a plausible idea and a easy way for individuals to save water habitats and ecosystems throughout globe. Hundreds of gallons of water can be saved as I’ve shown just by utilizing this system. The only downfall as of right now is that limited amount of time has been spent studying and researching this new technology. However, one study by Jackson et al. (2006) found no significant difference in bacterial levels on plant surfaces grown in plots irrigated with greywater, tap water, or hydroponic solution. Knowing this and the future possibilities, I see no reason why everyone shouldn’t being to utilize a system similar to the one I installed. The application is self sustaining and provides long term sustainability for the planet. We all need to begin to reuse our grey water for irrigation, begin today! The future depends on you!

References:

Mackie, A., Woszczynski, M., Farmer, H., M.E. Walsh M.E., & G.A. Gagnon, G.A., (2009). Water Reclamation and Reuse. Water Environment Research, 81(10), 1406-1418

Jackson, S., Rodda, N., & Salukazana, L (2006). Microbiological assessment of food crops irrigated with domestic greywater. Water S.A, 32(5), 700-704

www.http://texas.sierraclub.org/press/facts3.pdf

http://www.health.act.gov.au

Week 4: Final reflection of reducing, reusing and recycling paper use at home

Week 4 : Review of my PSP

My big picture view of personal sustainability project is to understand the importance of paper use for sustainable environment. Reducing, reusing, and recycling paper are important factors for maintaining cleaning environment into the future meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations for their needs. Also, it can replenish the earth’s resources at the rate at which we use them which has been difficult to reach as the world’s population grows. In a more broad sense, every way we use paper as humans are applied to sustainability. However, we are not using it with the most sustainable way. Most people still print one side without thinking before printing or copying. They get paper copy of receipts, bills, books without reusing, reducing, and recycling paper.  I used to act the same but now I know and understand the importance of sustainability and as more people are educated and learned to do similar project, it would change our way of lives.

Figure 1. US Map Art Made From Cereal Boxes and paper

 

Experience

My PSP experience of reducing, reusing, and recycling paper makes me feel good about environment and myself for what I have done. I felt that everyone can do this because I could do this. It was little more inconvenient at first since I had to keep tracking of my waste. But now, nothing bothers me anymore since I am used to the new habits. I just need further modification depending on my living and working environment. I did not spend any initial costs or effort for reducing paper use at home. The benefits of the recycling were changing my lifestyle to be more sustainable, affecting and persuading people showing my behaviors, and economic benefits from reducing and paper and ink usage in addition to clean environment. Another good thing was that I was also benefited by the reduced consumption.

________________________________________________________________

 

Social and environmental, economic, and impacts.

 

Environmental effects of my change would reduce greenhouse gas emissions that can contribute to climate change by avoiding methane emissions and reducing energy required for a number of paper products, extend the fiber supply and contributes to carbon sequestration, save considerable landfill space, reduces energy and water consumption used in paper production, and decrease the need for disposal (i.e., landfill or incineration which decreases the amount of CO2 produced). (Miller, 2012, p 411.)

The U.S. Recycling Economic Information (REI) Study in 2001 studied the economic and social benefits of recycling to the national economy. The study reported that the recycling and reuse industry employed 1.1 million people, generated an annual payroll of $37 billion and gross $236 billion in annual sales. Another 1.4 million jobs are “indirectly” supported by the recycling and reuse industry, resulting in an annual payroll of about $52 billion and about $173 billion in annual receipts. Spending by employees of the recycling and reuse industry indirectly leaded to another 1.5 million jobs with $41 billion and $146 billion for payroll and receipts respectively. In addition, the recycling and reuse industry generated about $12.9 billion in federal, state and local taxes. Also, the recycling and reuse industry created about $12.9 billion in federal, state and local taxes. (DHEC, n.d, p.1-2)

During my project, actual monetary cost was not produced. Instead, my effort and consumed time were the opportunistic cost for sustainability. According to one report, I assumed that I recycle as much as average person to calculate labor cost of recycling. I assumed that I use 15 minutes for sorting and carrying, and 14 minutes of cleaning every week. By using an average labor costs after tax of USD 5.82 per hour, I calculated the total monetary costs per week was $ 2.813. (Berglund, 2005, p. 560-569) Also, I calculated saving of A4 paper consumption considering double sided printing and printing 2 pages per page. Theoretically it should reduce the cost for printing paper to 1/4 compared to original consumption. My tissue consumption per week decreased to 1/3 from 6 rolls per week which takes $11.99. But now I only spend approximately $3.00. If I assume that I will keep this habit throughout a year, I can reduce $467.48 ($623.48-$156) per year or more depending on my effort. The benefit of doing my PSP action is that it makes me feel good for my sustainable actions and reduce the consumption of money that I usually spend for paper.

The most important point in these impacts are related and connected to sustainability. The economic activity is based on the necessary of human development when the environment changes by social development. The period change of human social economy development will inevitably cause corresponding huge change of environment, which embodies the change of the relationship between economy and environment. Therefore, it’s significantly important of this topic for promoting sustainable development of society, economy and environment. (Liu, 2009, p. 42-46)

However, still many arguments are in debate in ecological and social economics, around what the human being can contribute to implement sustainable development. Virtue ethics are also involved to a different understanding of the human being, society, and economy. Bina & Guadez Vaz concluded that reflecting on the challenge with government institutions and education is the way to focus on egoistical behavior in conflict with altruism, justice, and responsibility for society and the environment. (Bina & Guadez Vaz, 2011)

    

Figure 3. Interrelationship between social, economic, and environmental factor for sustainability

 

Conclusion

I want to add one method for reusing which is using recycled paper. As AF&PA reported that in 1988, about 25 percent of the raw materials used at US paper mills was recovered paper. In 1999, AF&PA reported that figure rose to 36.3 percent and has remained around 36-37 percent through 2007. More than three quarters of America’s paper mills use recovered fiber to make some or all of their products. Approximately 140 mills use recovered paper exclusively. As a result, virtually all types of paper products contain some recycled fiber.

Compared to downs, there are so many up in my experience. It can be just seen as nothing more than personal reducing, recycling, and reusing paper. If others start doing the same thing, it will affect our environment surprisingly. Many people also noticed the problem and inform various and fun ways of recycling, reducing, and reusing paper.

Figure 4. Chair, boat, shelf, and house products made by recycled paper can help inform other people about reusing and recycling paper.

For now, my ultimate purpose of PSP in the future is to keep it up. I will try to keep it up with my project looking up other helpful tools, program, and education. I will be taking ongoing effort while making fun of it. Keeping up communication with others though different types of communication such as social network systems would also be helpful for promoting collaborative revolution.

Modification and improvement through evaluation (whether what’s working and what is not depending on the environment) will be required to edit my life-long project with each short achievable goal that enables setting the next ones with progress and movement. Flexibility, being positive, and active engaging, and adjustments are necessary to modify my project.

Being collaborative is another important issue since crowd power is a lot more effective than individual power as depicted in Rachel Botsman’s TED talk. Through establishing collaborative behavior and trust in our system, we can include everyone and ensure that my project is not dependent on one individual to succeed. (Botsmen,2010)The 3R program needs responsibility and participation of all people to renew their thoughts, behaviors, and lifestyle. We destroyed the environment. Therefore we need to reduce, reuse, and recycle confidential paper waste in the most cost effective manner possible for environmental sustainability.

 

 

Figure 5. People and Environment

Reference

Berglund, C. (2005, May 10). The assessment of households’ recycling costs: The role of personal motives. Ecological  Economics, 56(4), 560-569.

Botsman, R. (Producer). (2010). The case for collaborative consumption [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/rachel_botsman_the_case_for_collaborative_consumption.html

F Y I For Your Information… Economic Benefits of Recycling (OR-0591 3/08). (n.d). Retrieved from DHEC’s Office of Solid Waste Reduction and Recycling. Retrieved from: http://www.scdhec.gov/environment/lwm/recycle/pubs/economic_benefits_of_recycling.pdf

Liu, H. (2009, May 1). Investigation of Relationship between Economy and Environment. Journal of geography and geology, 1(1), 42-26. Retrieved from http://www.ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/jgg/article/view/1823

Miller, T. G., & Spoolman, S. (2012). Environmental science (14 ed.). Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole.

Bina, O., & Guedez Vaz, S. (2011, October 30). Humans, environment and economies: From vicious relationships to virtuous responsibility. Ecological Economics, 72, 170-178. Retrieved from http://www.sciencedirect.com.ezproxy.proxy.library.oregonstate.edu/science/article/pii/S0921800911004058

Swiffers.. An easy way to be sustainable!

What do you think when you here the name Swiffer?

It may well be the same thing I think; a really awesome tool for cleaning but one that comes with the need to buy cleaning pads on a regular basis. In the context of sustainability, Swiffers are far from this concept, the pads are designed to be used once and then thrown away, i.e ‘Designed for the Dump’.

Gross, M. A. (2012).

I picked this bad boy up around the time we just started the sustainability class, which I admit I found to be somewhat humorous in an odd sort of way. Then I started learning about all the different ways we are trashing this planet… It was then that I was at somewhat of a loss, because here is an amazing invention that makes cleaning easy, but at the same time it can cause quite a bit of trash.

Well, one night while looking at the Swiffer sweeping pads to see if they were bio-degradable, I started thinking that they may be washable. A quick Google search later turned up results that said otherwise and I started wonder why not? That’s when the idea hit me, washcloths! Another Google search turned up some positive results, and so I set out to give this a whirl!

Gross, M. A. (2012).

Sure enough, the washcloth easily fit onto the Swiffer cleaning head and it was held in place by those convenient tabs used for the pads!

Gross, M. A. (2012).

Admittedly, I was a little worried that the tabs would not be strong enough to hold a washcloth, heavy from being soaked in water, in place; I continued on with the plan anyway, because maybe it would be enough. A moment later I got the cloth soaked with some water and soap, squeezed off the excess, and was ready to go.

Gross, M. A. (2012).

The result? It worked like a charm, the washcloth didn’t budge, even with some vigorous scrubbing of the floor!

Gross, M. A. (2012).

There you have it, a clean and shiny floor, and in my opinion a lot more cleaner, because it didn’t require anything to be thrown away into the garbage! After, I just tossed the cloth into the washer with all the rest of my clothes, which I would of cleaned in the washer anyway.

There are some rather surprising ways to turn things that would otherwise be thrown away into something useful and reusable, so take a long look at things you throw away, and see if there is a way to prevent it from being tossed or a way to reuse it!

Durable Alternatives

How are things going? Great! Plastic bags are really easy to not use. I have caught myself reaching over to a clerk handing me my goods in a plastic bag and I’ll admit, I did use one but it was totally unintentional and kind of disappointing in way because I had gone so long without any. Other than that, I would say I had that one slip up but I wouldn’t say total failure.

 

I feel like I want to, yet again, challenge myself with another PSP to something a little more challenging.  I think my next promise is going to try and not eat meat for like 3 or 4 days out of the week. Because I do eat a good amount of meat but I think I can muscle up enough strength to keep to the task.

The feeling I get when I turn down a plastic bag is satisfying. When the clerk is about to bag you items and then I say to them “oh no, it’s ok. I don’t use plastic bags” I don’t mind, and actually like explaining to people what I’m doing and what for. Someing so simple does carry some weight to it. One of my friends caught on to what I was doing and decided to do my PSP too and he’s not even in the class. I think when you know that you are an impact and you can have a hand in doing the right thing for our environment shines and people generally like that.

There’s really not a whole lot that can be counted as costs of doing this. Its absolutely free of charge, all the time. All you are doing is challenging yourself. The only thing I think you can count as a cost would be not being able to walk your groceries to your car in a plastic bag. Using other means isn’t hard to come by. I was estimated that we use 100 billion grocery bags each year. This amount takes 12 million barrels of oil to produce and all its doing is  sitting in land fills and clogging up waterways. We can find a better use for these wasted bags. I some states they are thinking about charging costumers for plastic bags to steer people away from using them at all. It is much easier to use a clothe bag anyway.

 

People all over are becoming more informed and I think this is a bigger issue than we can see with the naked eye. Once people are well-aware of the issue at hand things are going to start happening. The plastic industry will take a hit for the better of our environment and the workers within this industry may find themselves jobless but I think this will be short-lived and those worker will ultimately find themselves in the recycling industry shortly after.

“Plastic? Bag it”. Oregon State University, business file ASAP,  Article CJ198819292 April 20, 2009

“Charge For Plastic Bags?.” Scholastic News — Edition 4 71.10 (2008): 7. Education Research Complete. Web. 10 Aug. 2012.

Grey to Green: The Future

Three weeks down and the PSP project is going without a hitch.  By far a simpler process than I had expected with great positive results.  With no real maintenance and the washing machine doing all the work, this system is an easy project for any homeowner to begin.  I’ve had no issues with the lawn and or flower garden; all the products that I’ve used to clean the clothes have had no negative effects on the backyard ecosystem.  Tide laundry detergent has done a terrific job not only keeping my clothes clean but my lawn as well! (Joke) Another great side point to this system is that it is total hands free. What I mean is that once the clothes are placed into the washing machine, I don’t’ have to remember to fill the irrigation tank as the washing machine pumps the water to this system automatically.  So, it’s a no nonsense system that performs all the work for you, who could ask for more?  This PSP is great with multiple applications that I want to convert the remaining gray water uses to irrigation or in fact with some added money and time, I would like to reroute the plumbing to allow for reused gray water to be use as toilet water.  The bathroom is one of the largest consumers of indoor water besides the laundry machine.  On average the toilet can use up to 27% of the household water supply and with older toilet using around 3.5 to 7 gallons of water per flush with leaky toilets wasting about 200 gallons or water every day (http://www.epa.gov/watersense/pubs/indoor.html).  No just image reusing the grey water for this application and think of the impacts that it can provide.  These impacts can be seen not just in America but neighboring counties as well, countries that depend on the water that flows through the United States.

The driving force behind this project that is going to keep me on this path of sustainably is the fact that it is so simple and self regulation that little or no attention is needed on my part to continue the process of collect grey water for irrigation reuse.  The brunt of the work that I have to do is get my clothes dirty and place them into the laundry machine, wow not so difficult.  So, basically the simplicity of this project is what is enabling me to remain sustainable.  It basically comes down to this, if I can do this PSP everyone can.

Benefits to this project are not only monetary but environmental as well.  Yes, the sewer bill is going to be lowered by how much I don’t know yet, but I’ll assume by at least a few dollars over a one month span.  As well, the water bill is going to be reduced, with the amount of water I use daily to keep my lawn and garden green and living the bill is huge.  So by reusing grey water my hope is to reduce the water bill in half and then in the future with recycling grey water for toilet consumption I have hopes to reduce the bill even further.  One good benefit to this system although already kind of mentioned is the reduction of the cost of water for homeowners.  What I mean is that with continued raising populations, the amount of water per person is becoming scarce, with this means increased cost of water t=by the water companies.  This is a simple concept that has supply goes down and demand goes up so does the price.  This is our future; this is what life is going to be like if we as human don’t make the change now.  Think about if you just reduce the usage of water by as much as fifty gallons a day, now compound that annually and that is 18,250 gallons per year.  Now the current population size of the U.S. as of 2012 is 314,131,661 individuals (http://www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html).  Image if every single person was to reduce their use by at least 50 gallons that would be a savings of 5.73×10¹² gallons annually.  Think of the possibilities especially from a system that is so simple to operate and maintain.  Come on people do your part to live sustainably and provide a future for the rest of the humans on this planet.  The time is now, reuse, reduce and recycle!!!

Departing from a Plastic way of Life

One week down and for the most part I’ve been pretty faithful to my proposed PSP.  Making the switch to reduce disposable plastic waste and to instead reuse what I already had wasn’t that difficult once I purchased a handful of reusable grocery bags (spent $4.80 total on them) during our large monthly household shopping trip and switched to using Tupperware and Gatorade bottles for the daily lunches I pack.  The only real setback I had was having to resort to using a few disposable plastic bags during an impromptu store run we did as we were already out on a walk and I didn’t feel the need to purchased more reusable bags as we have more than enough now.  I suppose I can rest a bit easier as I know those plastic bags will be reused by my roommate to cleanup dog droppings when their out but I don’t want to relapse into old habits and instead forge ahead with my plastic waste reduction plan.

So far, it’s been a somewhat effortless integration into my life as I’ve always been about recycling anything and everything I can and it will help reduce my ecological footprint in the process.  Buying reusable bags is a no brainer as while the upfront cost was $0.80 per bag, each time you use one at stores like Winco (haven’t tried many others yet) you get a $0.10 credit.  Doing the simple math, this means that it’ll only take 8 reuses of the bags before I’ll be turning a modest profit.

The main reason I choose my PSP in the first place was to cut down on using one time use disposable plastic bags as I saw this as one aspect of my life I wanted to change.  Before my roommate got his dog, we all used to throw away our disposable bags and not think twice about it.  Well it turns out that “plastic bags are among the 12 most common items of debris found most often in coastal cleanups” according to the nonprofit Center for Marine Conservation (Spivey 2003).  Plastic bags are also made from nonrenewable resources like natural gas and crude oil and their production process outputs loads of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, further depleting our o-zone layer.  What’s interesting is that “producing a plastic bag uses about 30% less energy than making a paper bag”, something I wouldn’t have guessed (Spivey 2003).  Good thing our household has been using our spare paper bags as recycle bins and recycling them in the process.

Locally, it’s hard for a single person to make much of a dent in an enormous global problem like plastic recycling but I’m glad my new habits are rubbing off on my roommates.  All of them are now taking reusable coffee mugs and water bottles to school and work, our recycling bags have been filling up about as fast as our garbage bin, and I’ve even lent them my reusable grocery bags for their shopping trips.  Also, identical to what another student is doing, my roommate and I are taking things a step further and reusing most of our beer bottles for homebrews we’ll be making for the football season.  I’m sure the recycling station staff at Fred Meyer’s will be grateful we’ll be stopping by less often and clogging up their glass machines (it always happens!!).

Globally, plastic disposal has far reaching impacts.  Just off our coast between California and Hawaii, lies the North Pacific Gyre, also known as the “great Pacific garbage patch.”  The majority of this mass is plastic waste that has accumulated from items like plastic bottles being thrown overboard on ships and disposable plastic bags that are circulated out to sea by means of rivers and streams.  Due to the gyre lying in converging ocean currents, this collection of trash will only continue to grow in size and density.  Another big issue is how marine life and birds are eating plastic bits from the garbage patch which then get stuck in their digestive tracts, leading to 100,000 deaths of sea turtles and other marine mammals a year (Cormier 2008).

 

With regards to humans, plastic waste affects human rights, labor issues, quality of life, communities, and governance around the world.  Nonpoint sources are one way in which disposable plastic from the U.S. finds its way across the ocean to other countries where it washes up and collects along beaches and shorelines.  The U.S. has also shipped garbage overseas in the past to less-developed countries where they sift through it for usable resources or burn it in, oftentimes in closed quarters (Miller and Spoolman 2010).  Burning plastics not only degrades the atmosphere by pumping greenhouse gases into it but depending on the type of plastic, chemicals like vinyl chloride, phthalates, and bisphenol-A in addition to other carcinogens are released and can cause low sperm counts, cancer of reproductive organs, and birth defects.  It’s unfair that these poor people who already struggle to feed themselves suffer further due to our affluence (Cormier 2008).

Here in the Pacific Northwest, I’m glad cities like Seattle and Portland have instituted a ban on disposable plastic bags.  According to sources, Oregonians use on average of 1.7 billion single-use plastic bags a year (Adams 2011).  That’s 444 bags per Oregonian every year!  From previous studies stating that only about 7% of these bags get recycled, banning them in Oregon’s largest city will no doubt contribute greatly to cleaning up our local ecosystem while working toward a more sustainable urban living environment.  Hopefully other cities follow Portland’s lead and someday a statewide ban on disposable plastic bags becomes a reality.

References

Adams, Sam.  “Portland Bans the Plastic Bag.”  Portland Online.  Web.  2 Aug. 2012.  <http://www.portlandonline.com/mayor/index.cfm?c=53123&gt;.

Cormier, Zoe. “Plastic Unfantastic.” This Magazine Mar.-Apr. 2008: 18+. Academic OneFile. Web. 3 Aug. 2012.

Miller, Tyler G., and Scott E. Spoolman.  Environmental Science.  14^th ed.  Belmont: Brooks/Cole, 2010.  Print.

Spivey, Angela.  “Recycling: Plastic Bags – Prolific Problems.”  Environmental Health Perspectives (2003).  A208.  doi: 10.2307/3435232.

Ted Talks.  Captain Charles Moore on the seas of plastic.  Web.  25 Feb. 2009.

reflection + social sustainability of reducing paper use

My experience of reducing, reusing, and recycling paper makes me feel good about environment and myself for what I have achieved. I felt that everyone can do this because I could do this. It was little more inconvenient at first since I had to keep tracking of my waste. But now, nothing bothers me anymore since I became used to the new habits. I just needed little more steps to fix my behaviors. I did not have any initial costs for reducing paper use at home. The benefits of the recycling were changing my lifestyle to be more sustainable, affecting and persuading people showing my behaviors, and economic benefits from reducing and paper and ink usage in addition to clean environment.

 

While trying the save and reduce the amount of paper use at home, I set up following criteria that I want follow for now and the future. I will add more next week if I will think more or get more information through researching.

 

–          Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

–          Less use of tissue

–          No receipt

–          Electronic bills (power, sewer, electricity, tv, etc)

–          Use less packaged products, purchase of bulk products.

–          Less printing of handout for class

–          Print 2 pages in 1 page

–          Print double-sided

–          Buy used books

–          Sell or recycle used books

 

Many websites supports personal effort of reducing paper use at home giving us a suggestion or advice about recycle.

http://www.paperrecycles.org/members/material_documents/WorkplaceRecycling2008.pdf

The above website suggests gathering the fact as first step of office recycling through evaluating the discard, targeting the materials for recycling, and talking to the recycler. I evaluated the discard this week and set my target as tissue, packaging paper, printing paper, bills, receipts and books. My discard for this week was 6 rolls of tissues and paper waste (total is approximately 7 lb) with 2.5 lb recycled paper.

 

Figure 1: Paper use at home (week 1)

 

My PSP action cannot affect the whole globe all of sudden but I can show my actions to other people and persuade for changing their behaviors expecting spread effect. It can affect to our human rights to live in cleaner environment and community with better quality of lives promising the creation of long-term value for humanity by incorporating economic, environmental, and social dimensions into its values, strategies, and management.

 

As a big picture, social sustainability of the paper industry is known to cover “the performance of the industry as a workplace, but also its upstream impact as job provider and economic contributor to the livelihood of rural areas, as well as the downstream benefits it provides to society in terms of culture, literacy, hygiene, etc.”  Paper industry definitely can corporate governance with ethical and transparent behavior for fair trade, can form shareholder relations for distributing power in economic dimension, can lead industry with cutting edgy technology, can value products . “The procurement and processing of raw materials have a variety of negative effects on the environment such as denudation of woodlands and exhaustion of water supplies in addition to manufacturing that has waste disposal issues”. And people can reduce the environmental services, can treat employee with respect, and involve in community for social well being. I can participate in the part of above activities of paper industry to have impact on the social sustainability. There is a case that forestry practices of U.S. companies increased  the amount of standing timber in U.S. forests  by nearly 40 percent over the past half-century and by 10 million acres since 1990. (Tian and Martin)

 

A major part of municipal waste is paper with its products before the recovery of recyclable materials. Studies have shown that 35% of the mass of solid waste is paper. It is reported by data and statistics reported that United States Environmental Protection Agency have shown that reduction in air and water pollution was notable when paper products are recycled over the manufacturing of new paper. Water pollution is lessened by 35 percent and air pollution is lessened by 74 percent. (EPA)
Therefore, paper manufacturing of paper industry can have huge impact  on our environment and society with our effort of recycling materials.

 

Reference: Xuemei Tian and Bill Martin. 2012. Business Model Sustainability in Book Publishing

http://web.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.proxy.library.oregonstate.edu/ehost/detail?sid=345efc11-7303-40d0-9471-726497e72bc1%40sessionmgr115&vid=9&hid=105

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). 2007.Municipal Solid Waste Generation, Recycling, and Disposal in the United States:Facts and Figures for

http://www.epa.gov/osw/nonhaz/municipal/pubs/msw_2010_rev_factsheet.pdf

Revolution is Homebrewing…

My personal sustainability promise involves something very dear to my heart: beer. I have been thinking lately about the environmental and social impact of the commercial production, transportation and storage of beer. I realize how my consumption of beer helps to perpetuate the system of production and all the unsustainable aspects of the beer production industry. In an effort to reduce my personal carbon footprint I will abstain from drinking commercial beer for FOUR ENTIRE WEEKS.

Homebrew and Garden Cilantro

We, as Oregonians, live in the state with the highest per capita of microbreweries. Heck, you can’t even toss an empty beer can out the window of your Prius without hitting some new microbrewery. (Totally kidding. That can is worth five cents!) Through this blog I will endeavor not to attack my beloved microbreweries, instead I will rather attack the major brewing conglomerates that control most of the beer production in the world today.

In the U.S. much of the beer we consume comes in a glass bottle. These glass bottles require a lot of production energy from raw materials. The bottles are typically used only once, and then disposed of, or possibly recycled. A case study measuring the environmental impact of the production of glass bottles states that they can be reused multiple times before being recycled. (Mata T. Costa C., 318) Why don’t we reuse glass bottles here in the U.S.? Mainly it is because it’s cheaper to produce new bottles than it is to collect, clean, and reuse old ones.

Basic lager beer. An industry term for a type of beer that is produced both here in the U.S. and throughout world. A brewery that produces basic lager beer, or BLB for short, has various inputs and outputs. A brewery uses; water, malted barley, hops, yeast, various other ingredients and energy to produce beer. This BLB has a carbon foot print, that is, it requires resources and energy to be manufactured. The major energy sinks in a brewery are cooling and transportation. (Talve p 298)

I don’t plan on not drinking beer for FOUR ENTIRE WEEKS, but rather finding a suitable alternative. I plan on brewing all the beer that I consume. I hope that this will inspire me to produce my own beer all the time and make me a more independent and worldly individual. Rather than buying commercially brewed 22s at Freddie’s, my money instead will go to The Corvallis Brewing Supply store where I will pick up ingredients for  a summer wheat ale. I will reuse beer bottles when it comes time to bottle my summer wheat ale. Hopefully by this time next month I’ll be enjoying a homebrew while sitting in the sun.

Talve Siret, Life Cycle Assessment of a Basic Lager Beer, LCA Case Studies, 2001, 293-298

Teresa M. Mata, Carlos A. V. Costa, Life Cycle Assessment of Different Reuse Percentages of Glass Beer Bottles, LCA Case Studies, 2001, 307-319

Fifty Shades of Gray

The Nation’s waterways are vitally important for our everyday life.  These waterways provide life for humans and sustain ecological systems throughout the country.  In 2005, about 410,000 million gallons per day of water was withdrawn for use in the United States (1).  Nearly two-thirds of the fresh groundwater withdrawn in 2005 was for irrigation, and more than half of that was for irrigation in just four states:  California, Nebraska, Arkansas, and Texas.  Irrigation was the largest use of fresh groundwater in 25 states and nationwide groundwater withdrawals for irrigation were about 3.5 times larger than for public supply (1).

Environmental awareness and conservation has been steadily increasing over the last decade.  As the price of drinking water has continued to rise, the interest and need to conserve also increases.  The idea of using gray water for landscape irrigation is an adoptable method to utilizing sustainable water practices.  It’s not necessary to use high-quality potable water for activities such as irrigation and those individuals who do reuse gray water will see a cost savings in the long run.  Lastly, with gray water reuse less water is being withdrawn from out waterways which is aiding in sustaining all the ecosystems in and along the major waterways providing a healthy environment not only for humans but all aspects of life.

So what is gray water?  Gray water is water from kitchen sinks, bathroom sinks, showers, bathtubs, and washing machines.  The difference between gray water and black is that gray does not contain the hazardous chemicals found in water from sources such as dishwashers, garbage disposals and toilets.  However recognize that gray water is generally of higher quality than most combined water discharged to the sewer, it still contains chemicals and microorganisms.  Lastly do not confuse gray water with recycled water, as recycled water has been treated at a municipal waste water treatment facility.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0uDraqsi0U

In the home on average Americans do 400 loads of launder per year and the conventional washer or “top loader” uses on average 40 gallons per load and the “front loader” washer utilizes on average between 20-25 gallons per load (2).  My personal sustainability promise is that I was to reuse the gray water from my washing machine.  I currently own a conventional style “top loader” washing machine and between my family and I, we probably use the washing machine at least a few times a week.  Let just image for now that I use the machine twice in a week that an average of 80 gallons per week, so that comes out to 3,840 gallons per year.  That’s insane!  The idea is to utilize the gray water to irrigate both my front and back yard to include my flower gardens.  But if we all began reusing gray water for irrigation, image the possibilities.  At least, the 128,000 million gallons of water per day used for irrigation in 2005 could have been returned to the source and the ecosystems throughout the nation would not have been destroyed.

Is there another way of life for American today in regards to gray water?  I don’t believe so, this provides an opportunity for Americans to stand up for sustainability and provide an alternative to extracting water for irrigation and utilize reused water which poses no harm to the environment and reduces the 410,000 million gallons of water we Americans use annually.  Starting off small and let’s say like what I’m going to do for a month and that is reuse water from the washing machine is rather a simple start to the problem at large.  This fit is not only good for myself but can be adopted for others and the idea is also rather simple to construct.  The plan of action is that I will disconnect the drainage line from the wall that comes from the washing machine and connect it to a 500 gallon water tank that I acquired from the local Wilco.  So, as I use the washing machine to clean my clothes the used water will accumulate in this tank that I have placed in the back yard.  From there I will reuse it for irrigating my lawn and flowers.  How does this affect my life?  Well there is no real difficulty placed upon me with this system and it won’t make my life any easier either, but there are benefits that are associated with this system.  No direct benefits, but the long term knowledge that I’m living a little bit more sustainable and less wasteful.  This is going to be good and am looking forward to doing my part to sustain the planet.

[1]  http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/wateruse-total.html

[2]  http://www.consumerenergycenter.org/home/appliances/washers.html

[3]  http://www.deq.state.or.us/wq/reuse/docs/graywater/GraywaterGuideHomeowners.pdf

[4]  http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.proxy.library.oregonstate.edu/10.1016/j.watres.2009.09.023

[5]  http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.proxy.library.oregonstate.edu/10.1016/S0015-1882(08)70056-9