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Reduce, Re-use, Recycle

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Volo, Jun 19, 2010.

  1. JPrue

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    This is spot on. I just graduated with a BS in Civil Engineering and that was the major focus for future construction and site design. It's a popular misconception that "going green" means spending more green. Usually new buildings can be built using green materials and green techniques for a very comparable price to traditional, "non-green" buildings. Frequently, economics is the biggest restraint to environmentally friendly alternatives. If hybrid vehicles were the same price as gasoline only vehicles, than why not drive them? Same thinking here. As long as environmentally friendly buildings are available at a similar price, why not design and build them that way?

    My time in college spent working at the recycling center has made me much more conscious of the quantity of waste that we produce, and taught me to be more eco-friendly with my recycling. I separate recycling and return it frequently, chose paper over plastic and reuse those paper bags at the grocery store and don't use A/C at home. The least eco-friendly aspect of my lifestyle is the amount that I drive, due to a long commute and distant relatives/friends.
     
  2. Kubla Kahn

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    I had a Earth Science professor who also worked at the regional EPA. He backed up a few of the major points in that video, this was two summers ago, and I guess he could only vouch for the Cincinnati area. The government subsidies are the only thing that kept the local recycling afloat. The reason they do so bad, like the video stated, was that there are so few recyclables that actually are worth anything. From what he said, they only select plastic bottles with a certain number in the recycle icon on the bottom of the bottle (which turns out to be a small percentage over all), aluminum cans, only certain glass, and cardboard that has the half eggshell structure in it (pizza boxes are an example). Everything else in the recycling bin goes straight into the regular dump, including the tons of bundled up newspaper.
     
  3. Primer

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    I am a huge fan of locally grown food; it's cheaper, it tastes incredibly better and it's better for the environment. It's really a win/win for everyone, only thing is that it's harder to come by during the winter months and most things you get here in Edmonton are root veggies or something that can live in a cold-room for months on end.

    I own a car that I don't drive, it stopped working months ago, so instead of dumping money into getting it working again, I decided to just cancel insurance and all that stupid shit; I just haven't gotten off my ass to send it to Pick'n'Pull. I walk to work every single day; I'm lucky that I live close to the office; and if I can't walk somewhere, I'll either ride my bike, long board or take public transportation. There are some cases where I need to drive and I usually borrow my roommates car or get a ride from someone else if they're going that way. This is really the biggest out of everything I do; it's also nice to not have to spend a tonne of money of gas every month.

    Thankfully, Edmonton is on the leading edge of recycling technology. There really isn't much this city can brag about but their recycling program here is second to none as we have a rate of 80% of the cities population using the cities recycling program. I've heard reports that a new plant is going to be introduced that will be able to recycle up to 90% of waste and turned back into product or used for agricultural uses.
     
  4. Primer

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    I can't edit my other post. I read several posts in this thread saying the same thing: I don't want the bother of driving to my recycling center, it takes times and money; both of which I don't want to spare. I haven't driven to a recycling depot in years, save computer monitors or paint and such. We started out with the Blue Box, which is now in pretty much every city in North America, the garbage man would come and collect the garbage and right behind him would be the recycle guy. These days, we have these light blue, clear garbage bags that are made exactly for recycling. Garbage guy would come, then later the recycle guy - he checks out the bag, makes sure we're not recycling any cats, drives off and I never see that shit again.

    Then they take it to the recycling center, which is the same place as our garbage dump. They sort out all of the stuff in the bags; paper, plastic, metal, pretty much everything that is standard and easy to recycle; then send it off to the proper places. Some stuff gets shipped out, most of it stays on site and gets recycled there.

    Each day, all I need to do is sort out my shit, throw it in a bag and my part of the deal is done. No driving places and it takes about thirty seconds of my entire day. There are things that they will not take: electronics, paint, toxic chemicals or hazardous waste, to name a few, and those need to be taken in yourself. Lets face it, how often do you have a bucket of toxic waste that needs to be handled? Rarely, unless you're running a meth lab and bathe in paint.

    I have a hard time understanding why cities don't follow this method as well, it's efficient, easy to use, creates a tonne of jobs and it's environmentally friendly. There's a reason that 90% of Edmontons population use the recycling system; it's because it's so fucking easy.
     
  5. Croftie

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    I buy local milk and produce from the farmer's market in town, so I guess that's green. Cutting down on shipping cost of food materials and such. The New York Times recently wrote an article about the dairy farm I buy my milk from: <a class="postlink" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/20/magazine/20food-t-000.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/20/magaz ... t-000.html</a>

    Also, the building I'll be attending grad school in during the Fall was recently built and completely LEED-certified. The website lists these cool features:
    Source: <a class="postlink" href="http://www.american.edu/media/news/20100511_SIS_Green_Building.cfm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.american.edu/media/news/2010 ... ilding.cfm</a>

    I guess it's not necessarily me being green there, but I will be spending a considerable amount of time inside, plus I won't be driving my car very much, so I guess that's good.
     
  6. jordan_paul

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    Im not some tree hugging hippy but I come from a family that is all about saving money. We have fluorescent lights in every room (which we turn off every time we leave a room, even if its only a few minutes), insulation in the floor on every level, top of the line windows and doors, top of the line furnace and airconditioner. We would have a bunch of water recycling devices but we live on well water, so we dont pay for it anyways.

    Were also finishing up a three year survey in October to see if its feasible to put a wind turbine on one part of our property and so far its looking good. Its a 1.3 million dollar investment but it will pay for itself in twelve years and three months, and at that time it will become a means of income to the tune of roughly a hundrend grand a year beacuase we can sell all of our unused power back to the county grid. Hopefully all goes well and invest in more turbines in the future.
     
  7. Crown Royal

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    I do household things: Compost, use rain barrel water for my garden, recycle, etc. If I could afford solar panels or a turbine I could, but I live in the suburbs and assholes are pissy EVERYWHERE about turbines because they're "eyesores" (but decorating your entire fucking property with idiotic marble statues or keeping a big, stupid boat in your driveway 8 months of the year isn't).
     
  8. rah

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    My sophomore year of college, my roommate decided she was not going to have trash waste anymore. Everything she used was recycled, composted, or reused -- As tampon replacement, she started using a Diva Cup (<a class="postlink" href="http://www.divacup.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.divacup.com/</a>).
     
  9. Danger Boy

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    Whenever I take my weekly drive down country roads to chuck my household garbage out the window, I always make sure I do it on "Adopt-A-Highway" areas only. That way, I always have the peace of mind that it'll eventually get picked up.

    Every little bit helps.
     
  10. Lasersailor

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    Why not? Probably because they do not cost the same. LEED Design is the newest scam with people paying lots of money to get certified, and paying lots of money to get their buildings certified in a feel good circle jerk that the majority of the time doesn't even perform to how it's designed. In 10 years people will forget how much money was scammed out of them as the new Fad comes into town.
     
  11. Volo

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    Got a source or two about this so-called scam?
     
  12. Crown Royal

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    I also travel in an electric limosine and only fly in solar-powered private jets. Selflessness, that's me.
     
  13. effinshenanigans

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    I once tried to combine recycling with philanthropy and it backfired badly.

    I was bringing out my recycling to the common trash area for my building and noticed some bum foraging for cans. Well, I had plenty, so I offered to just give them to him. He was going to go to a grocery store and run them through the machines for beer money, and I wasn't going to be doing anything with them anyway, so I figured what the hell. He was happy and I was environmentally friendly. Win-win.

    Three days later I walked into the dumpster area to throw out trash and stepped in a big steaming pile of bum shit. I've never felt more violated, but I brought it on myself--he had gotten too comfortable with that area. The next time I saw him rummaging through the trash I told him to get the fuck away or I was calling the cops.

    So, in short, I do recycle glass and plastic, but I never give anything to bums (and I always wear shoes in the dumpster area--could you imagine if I was in flip flops?)
     
  14. Lasersailor

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    <a class="postlink" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/31/science/earth/31leed.html?_r=1" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/31/scien ... .html?_r=1</a>

    <a class="postlink" href="http://www.buildingscience.com/documents/insights/bsi-007-prioritizing-green-it-s-the-energy-stupid/?full_view=1" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.buildingscience.com/document ... ull_view=1</a>

    LEED is nothing more than a competition to get more points, get a prettier LEED plaque, and brag to the community while the only people laughing to the bank are the LEED Officers, and the LEED Project Officials that have to watch and certify everything being done.

    Ultimately it has little to do with being Green. LEED has insinuated itself into all the decision making processes (all the while making money off of it), into all the product decisions (all the while making money off of it), and the Analysis and Management of the construction process through damn near closed-shop managers (all the while making money off of it).


    Don't mistake my intentions, I'm not angry about it. I'm jealous. It's a perfect scam and I wish I had thought of it or gotten in on it early. It's collusion in the (currently) untouchable field of Green Buildings.
     
  15. Guy Fawkes

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    My town charges by the bag for trash and also limits you to four bags every two weeks. You can go over by a maximum of two bags but they charge you double for them. They forced me to start seriously recycling everything. The boy scouts that have the can/bottle collection barrel at the recycling center have made out like bandits this year.

    I installed a solar array to power my pool's filtration system and heaters. Cost a little over $2k but it saves me about $200 a month in electricity charges (for the 6 mos I run the pool) and I got a state tax rebate for it as well.

    A few years ago I demanded a company car rather than a company SUV. All my sales guys are now in AWD cars rather than SUVs as well. That's 9 people now commuting in cars instead of gas guzzling tanks.

    I recycle oil at my storage building. I started doing this as a convenience thing for both myself and the people who work on their cars there. A friend of mine buys the oil from me to use in his waste oil burner that heats his shop. Win, win.

    I usually sail instead of powerboat. Behold the power of the WIND!!!
     
  16. Frebis

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    Instead of throwing my trash in a landfill that will eventually fill up, I generally just toss it on the side of the road.

    In reallity, recycling is very difficult where I live. I sure as hell am not driving my trash around in my car to dump it somewhere special. I also don't use energy effeciant light bulbs because I live in an apartment, and plan on not living here for ten years. I drive a gas guzzling SUV. And I fly anywhere from 2-4 times a week for work. I guess I am a really bad person.

    In order to make up for my wastefullness, I do eat locally grown/raised stuff, and I only fire up the AC when it is above 72 in the house.
     
  17. Stealth

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    To paraphrase the late great George Carlin ,

    Maybe we were put here because the Earth wants plastic.
     
  18. Crazy Wolf

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    My home town has a three-can system. Trash, recyclables, yard clippings. It makes it pretty damn easy to recycle, especially seeing as now they'll recycle pretty much any paper, metal, plastic or glass that you put into the can. The municipal utility company is excellent at creating and sourcing energy from more renewable sources, and provided a certain Proposition doesn't pass they'll be able to continue to expand their alternative energy sources.

    I'm not a big fan of photovoltaic panels (pretty filthy to produce), but I don't exactly have space for a proper salt-and-mirrors set up, and people would probably complain about a wind turbine. LED bulbs are becoming cheaper, and they're generally better than flourescents, so when I have my own place that's probably how I'll be lighting it. Fans are generally a good idea.
    One of the groups I've worked with is focused on weatherization, making sure that your house is sealed and insulated correctly can make a huge impact. Basically, being able to use caulk to fill a bunch of cracks could net you some significant benefits on your energy bills. I'm certain that handling caulk will come naturally to many of you, it's pretty much just point and squeeze.

    Long, boring bit below about how I want to build a house if/when I have the time and money for it.
    OK, so first off, I'd try to build as much as possible out of stone or adobe. Stone isn't cheap, but only having to do something once should pay off in the very-long term. Desert plants or food-bearing plants for all decoration or gardening, a lawn does nothing but waste water and look green. Prickly pear cactus would probably be used to wall off whatever I have, I want to discourage entry of dogs wishing to use my land as a toilet. Plus, they have flowers, they grow fruit, and if you need to you can eat the paddles! Trees would be planted in such a way as to provide shade to the house (or at least provide shade when they've grown in). Ideally an irrigation system could be put in below-ground, so as to minimize the amount of evaporation while still keeping the soil moist.
    Water heaters could be placed on whichever sections of roof aren't covered by shade, both as insulation from the sun's heat and as a way to get warmer water.
    Digging deeper into the earth should allow for a cooler part of the property, better for food storage and such.
    Blah, blah, double-paned glass, LED bulbs, mini-hydroelectric dam.
     
  19. Stealth

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    My dad got two 5000 litre (about 1300 gallons for your non metric Americans) water tanks installed to collect rainwater , he uses it to water the vegetable garden.

    I drive a 14 year old car.
     
  20. PDG

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    Haven't owned a car for 5 years now, I get a rental if I want to go out of town. Otherwise its public transport, bicycle or feet for me. Every now and then I think about getting one but I can no longer justify it!