Environmental Impact
Recycling Bins – Pre-Purchase Considerations For Companies
There are numerous issues that need to be considered when setting up a new recycling scheme in your company. For example, what waste streams will be recycled, how much waste will be produced, how many, and what type, of containers will be required, and do these need to adhere to a particular color scheme? With all these different, and sometimes confusing, aspects to think about, we may forget to consider the actual environmental impact of the recycling bins themselves.
A large proportion of recycling and waste bins are manufactured from plastic, and a approximately 8% of global oil production is currently used in the manufacturing of plastics. Extracting this finite resource requires vast quantities of energy, and the process of plastic production uses harmful chemicals, whilst emitting pollutants and greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide. Therefore, despite being created for an environmentally beneficial use, the manufacturing of recycling bins has detrimental effects.
Fortunately, there are things that you can do to minimize the negative effects that result from recycling bins…
- Purchase second-hand containers. The best way you can minimize environmental impacts in waste management is through re-use. If you can find good quality second-hand recycling containers then this prevents the bins from simply being discarded. You would be surprised at how many large corporations find themselves with an excess of containers as a result of an altered pilot recycling project.
– Purchase quality products. Look for containers that are durable and well constructed. Those used commercially will need to withstand far greater wear and tear than those used in the home. Opt for well made products which are less likely to need replacing and will last for years to come.
- Look for products with recycled plastic content. Many containers are now manufactured with a percentage of post-consumer recycled plastic. This will reduce the need for extraction of virgin materials and will also reduce energy consumption and emissions. As an example, producing recycled plastic bags uses around 60% less energy, and 90% less water, compared to virgin production.
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Can You Be More Environmentally Friendly By Making Use Of Technology?
What do you think about when you consider the latest high technology gadgets? It will differ from one individual to another. Some might think that they’re cool. Others might think that they’re more trouble than they’re worth. Perhaps you feel that they’re overly complex and frequently difficult to operate. It very much depends on your own individual viewpoint. However, it’s probably a fair bet to say that you almost certainly don’t associate the latest geeky electronic gizmo with doing your bit for the environment – even so, electronic devices can, used properly, be environmentally friendly.
Digital photo frames for example have become very popular over the last two or three years. Due to competition in the market, prices have fallen dramatically and you can now pick up perfectly serviceable examples for around about the same price that you might pay for a conventional photo frame. Digital frames have a number of perceived advantages, one of which is their ability to display hundreds of different photographs using a single frame.
Much will depend upon just how many photographs you usually print out in a typical year, but if you are in the habit of taking a lot of snaps, then the use of a digital frame to display your photo collection could have a positive environmental impact. Whether you avoid having photos printed out at a processing lab or if you just print out less on your computer printer you will wind up using fewer materials.
Another very topical, example is the hot gadget of the moment – the e-book reader. E-book readers have actually been available for quite some time, but they really caught the public’s imagination in 2009 and now seem poised to increase sales even further in 2010. The Kindle reader is currently the most popular by a long way and Sony have also established a good market presence.
Every year, the American book, magazine and newspaper industry consumes 125 million trees to provide the paper required. Large amounts of water, energy and a whole host of chemicals are also required to satisfy the nation’s reading habit. What’s more, books being a physical product require to be delivered from the publisher’s warehouse to the book store – typically using road transportation. The fuel used by customers who make a car trip to and from the store is also a factor in determining the final carbon footprint of a standard book.
Electronic books of course, do not consume large amounts of paper, ink etc. in their production. Additonally, since they are not a physical product, it’s possible to deliver them over the internet rather than by using the road transport network.
Of course, as both e-book readers and digital photo frames are themselves physical products, they do require both materials and energy for their production. They also require delivery to the point of sale or direct to the final customer. Even so, according to studies have shown that, even when the materials consumed are offset against the savings in paper, energy, ink etc. that such devices can be better for the environment (though it will depend, to a certain extent, on how many books you read or how many photos you process each year).
Make Furnishing Your Home Environmentally Friendly
If you are always looking for ways to make your home greener, you’ve probably seen this post title many times before. Although this post sounds like your everyday ‘make your home greener’ post, it’s really not.
Most of the other posts are about improving the impact your home has on the environment while saving some cash at the same time. They tend to talk about having loft insulation, double glazing, not leaving your TV’s on, things like that. This is a post all about what can be done after you’ve sorted all those problems.
Although you can control the amount of energy your home wastes, there is one aspect that many people forget. Every so often we decide to redecorate our homes, this often leads to changes in everything from wallpaper to bathroom accessories. This is where some improvement can be made.
When you are buying new furniture, you rarely consider the environmental impact that item will have. I suppose it’s tough enough to find something everyone in your family likes, without it being green too. But when you take some time to think about it, alot of energy is used in making these items. Normally they are constructed in big factories, wasting lots of energy, then they get shipped back to the UK because they were made abroad.
Fortunately, due to everyone becoming more aware of our impact on the environment, many retailers are offering greener, more eco-friendly home furnishings.
From everything from tableware to kitchen accessories, there are lots of products out there that you can buy that are better for the environment. All these little things, and big things, that you buy for your home all have an impact on the environment. This is something that everyone should keep in mind when it comes to furnishing your homes. Stopping your home from wasting lots of energy isn’t the only way you can reduce your home’s impact on the environment. Although it’s unavoidable with some home accessories, you’d be surprised how many you really can get.
Environmental Reasons for Recycling Gold
If you were to be able to collect all of the gold which has been mined and extracted from the planet since man began searching for this precious metal, you would have a cube of gold some 22 meters (about 70 feet) along the side – imagine all the gold found since time began is just a cube 70 feet by 70 feet by 70 feet – that fits in a very small office building or a large house.
Shifting, mining, blasting, dissolving in acid, land clearance, people clearance, tons of earth, toxic pollution of billions of gallons of water, and the eradication of numerous species of plant and animal life – all of these things are required in order to extract that relatively small amount of gold.
That doesn’t even count the amounts of energy that have to be used to power all these activities.
The environmental cost of mining and extracting gold is simply fantastically, enormous – which is one reason it is currently trading at $900 an ounce!
Fortunately, there is a simple and very easy-win for those who are environmentally conscious and also want to be rewarded for their green efforts – recycling gold and other precious metals costs a fraction of what it does to extract it from the ground. The vast bulk of the carbon footprint has already been created in getting the gold mined and worked into rings, necklaces, bracelets and other jewelry items.
With a combination of severe recession causing people to look for ways to raise extra money and at the same time, savvy investors looking to invest in gold because the stock market is not a safe place to invest anymore – the price of gold is now historically high and sellers are getting top dollar on their pieces.
Using the following numbers from a “prodcutive” mine, here is how you work out the environmental impact of producing just one little ounce of gold
30 tonnes of ore are required
400 tonnes of earth are required to be shifted to extract the 30 tons of ore
3,000 Kw of electricity are required
4,000 gallons of water are used
Remember – all this just to produce one ounce of the bright shiny stuff!
Though the vast majority of the world’s gold has been extracted since 1910 (all those California gold rushes helped settle the American West but they contributed a tiny drop in the ocean for the world’s gold reserves), it is thought that 85% of the total reserves are still in the ground. While “new” gold is mined worldwide, gold is found on every continent, there is a growing recognition that mining gold is an extremely highly polluting activity and yet so much extracted gold is readily available and sitting in bullion deposit centers such as Fort Knox, KY or the Federal Reserve Bank of New York simply doing nothing!
Recycling existing gold is clearly a very green and very profitable exercise and if ever there was an environmentally sound, win-win situation, selling old gold is definitely it!
Log On To Save The Planet
It’s probably fair to say that we’re all much more environmentally aware these days. It seems improbable that we are about to turn into a nation of eco-warriors overnight, but the majority of people are quite happy to make a little effort to be greener. It is a lot of relatively small changes by a large number of people that tends to make the difference. The good news is that you can be more environmentally friendly whilst saving both time and money.
For example, Carnegie Melon University recently conducted a study which concluded that shopping online is considerably better for the environment than the traditional method of shopping at retail outlets. One example used in the study was the purchase of a flash memory stick, and it was found the environmental impact of the traditional retail method was 35% greater than making an identical purchase using the internet.
A similar study – carried out by CleanTech this time – found that the carbon footprint of a book was 7.5 kg of CO2 during the course of its life. However, this figure was increased by a factor of two if the customer got into their car, drove to the store, purchased their book and then drove home again instead of having it delivered in the mail.
Approximately 65% of the emissions generated by traditional shopping methods are a direct result of the customer’s transport to the store and back again.
Not only is shopping online better for the environment – it will save you time and you will often be able to find what you’re after at a better price. You can increase the environmental benefits even more simply by choosing the right type of product.
For example, if you choose to buy electronic books instead of the conventional printed type, you will save on paper, ink and the energy used in the printing and binding process. As a rule, electronic books are cheaper than the printed versions – plus you save on gas. You can even subscribe to get newspapers and magazines delivered to e-book readers like the Amazon Kindle reader every day.
In a similar manner, if you choose to download music to your mp3 player or PC, you will save on CDs, packaging and distribution emissions. Downloading movies, which you can now do from Amazon, iTunes and a host of other sites also has both financial and environmental benefits.
So when it comes to purchasing goods on the internet, why not use a twin pronged attack. Firstly, if you can buy online rather than using your car to visit the local store then that will generally be a good alternative. Secondly, if you replace physical products with downloadable ones then not only will you be environmentally friendly – but you will save both money and time.
