environment » Absurd Intellectual

These shoes are biodegradable

Posted by Grant Hamilton on 8 March 2011 Modern Life

Mar 082011

I have heard of fair trade shoes made of recycled materials before, but Oat Shoes are a leap past even that. They’re made entirely of hemp canvas, bio-cotton, cork and certified biodegradable plastic. From their site:

OAT Shoes is a brand-new initiative in shoe design combining attractive style and biodegradable materials to produce sneakers that not only look good, but leave no mark on the environment when you throw them out. Bury them in the garden, woods or compost, water regularly and flowers will bloom from your old kicks!

I cannot seem to find, on their website, any information on whether flower seeds are actually embedded in the shoes, or whether they just biodegrade into good soil — and let’s be clear, biodegradable plastic has kind of a spotty record or actually, you know, biodegrading.

But still — cool!

Nothing greener than a Christmas tree powered by an electric eel

Posted by Grant Hamilton on 13 December 2010 Modern Life

Dec 132010

You know, I think in the Japanese translation of the Bible, Jesus enters a coal-fired power plant and overturns the generators.

Which would explain the negative connotations of coal in your stocking.

(via @buzzsawbravado)

Turn newspaper back into ‘wood’

Posted by Grant Hamilton on 10 November 2010 Modern Life

Nov 102010

I really really doubt that this is environmentally friendly in the long run, but it’s an intriguing concept — take old newspapers, compress them together, maybe add some sort of bonding agent, and then slice them like a log.

Result: boards of a wood-like material (made originally from wood) that have a remarkably wood-grain-like pattern on them.

Since it is better to re-use than recycle, I think this puts newspaper wood a little higher on the ecological chain than people who re-pulp it and hand-make crumbly cardstock, but I wonder about the glue or resin or whatever they use to keep it together. I also wonder about the physical strength.

According to a pdf on the deisgner’s site, the product can be cut, milled, sanded and drilled much like real wood.

I can think of a few newspaperpeople who might enjoy a desk, say, or shelves made from this product (me!).

If you can speak Dutch, visit the Vij5 website where it looks like there is more info, including a small slideshow of other newspaper wood images.

(Inhabitat, via BoingBoing)

Climate change? Who cares if it’s real

Posted by Grant Hamilton on 23 July 2010 Modern Life

Jul 232010

Here’s how to win the war against climate change by simply ignoring the petty battle:

Winning an argument by defining the terms of debate in your favour is a classic technique. It’s done well here.

This is an entry in a video challenge called Living Climate Change. It was submitted by Alex Bogusky, who might just be the 21st century’s answer to Don Draper.

There’s a ton more at Fast Company.

How compostable are those Sun Chips bags, really?

Posted by Grant Hamilton on 22 July 2010 Modern Life

Jul 222010

I was pretty impressed when I saw the new bags from Sun Chips — they’re advertised as fully compostable:

This comes on the heels of my city starting a curbside pickup experiment for compostables, and I’ve been going to folk festivals for a couple of years now and seeing compostable beer cups, and, if you’re in the right establishment, there are even “plastic” utensils that are actually made out of potato.

So all this is great. But how compostable are those Sun Chips bags, really?

Well, I don’t know. But I’m going to find out, thanks to the work of one Drew Odom, on his blog, anotherkindofdrew:

I intend to contact Sun Chips and let them know the result and my feelings on the subject. So, on Monday, August 30 I will dig up the final of the three holes to see if the bag is gone or not. In the meantime I will dig up 1/3 after 3 weeks and then another 1/3 after 6 weeks and report on my progress.

Here’s his photo of the bag after three weeks.

I’ll be checking in to see how it ends!

(via Fast Company)

What if the BP oil hemorrhage had happened where I live?

Posted by Grant Hamilton on 2 June 2010 Modern Life

Jun 022010

So, based on a column I read a week ago and can no longer remember where, I’ve decided that I shall no longer refer to the what’s happening in the Gulf of Mexico as an “oil spill.” Language can define how you think about something. “Spill” doesn’t really encapsulate what’s going on, and it minimizes how you think of it. I’ll call it an “oil hemorrhage” from now on.

(That column also suggested “financial tumors” instead of “financial bubble” to better convey both their uncontrolled growth and their malignancy.)

Anyway, grasping the full magnitude of the oil hemorrhage is difficult — we’re just not built to fully imagine abstract concepts that large. One-third of the Gulf of Mexico is closed to fishing now — that’s over 75,000 square miles. But how big is the hemorrhage really?

Well, that’s where If It Was My Home comes in. Just pop in an address, and it’ll show you how large an area the spill would cover if it were centred on your home. Here is the depressing map of it around my home:

Try your own home here. And, remember that maps are two-dimensional, but this hemorrhage is in glorious 3-D — take this map, and superimpose mile-high plumes of oil droplets reaching into the sky. Hurray!

Weird clouds look weird … from space

Posted by Grant Hamilton on 26 May 2010 Modern Life, Photography

May 262010

Wired has a fantastic — and lengthy — gallery of cloud pictures. The twist? They’re all taken from space. Look at that anvil cloud, above, for example. Wow.

But some of the best pictures come from the really wide view that you can get from way up high. Patterns that aren’t visible from the ground are crystal clear from space. Look at this, for example:

Those are two of the Great Lakes, with clouds streaming off them as water evaporates and condenses in the air. Amazing.

You also have to check out the pictures of von Kármán vortex streets and gravity-wave clouds.

Despite the arrow triangle, that plastic may not be recyclable

Posted by Grant Hamilton on 14 May 2010 Modern Life

May 142010

Kathleen Meaney teaches at the College of Design, North Carolina State University. One day, she found out that, despite the arrow triangle symbol on the bottom of her yogurt container, it wasn’t able to be recycled:

In 1988, the Society of the Plastics Industry developed a resin identification code — a numbering system from 1 to 7 — categorizing different types of plastic. The code is centered in a triangle made of arrows chasing each other. This mark is commonly misidentified as the recycling symbol. Though the system was instituted to “facilitate the recycling of post-consumer plastics,” the chasing arrows graphic is meaningless. Plastic imprinted with the arrow symbol doesn’t indicate that the material is made from recycled content nor that the plastic can be recycled, misleading many.

Did it surprise me that the “recycling symbol” at the bottom of my yogurt container had nothing to do with its recyclability? Yes. (As it turns out, my city doesn’t take #5s.)

So, what does a professor do? Well, she turned it into a class.

The result is a number of thoughtful ways that a grocery store could encourage people to be more recycling aware — from the door, to the shelves, to the cashier and even the receipt.

It’s a great post — check out these stickers for a freezer compartment, designed by student Caitlin Garrison:

Says Meaney: “Some freezer containers can be recycled. These charming “buy me” door decals help identify them.”

Another concept I liked was this postcard mailer, encouraging better meat packaging. Of course, I’m not sure about the eco-friendliness of mailing out thousands of pieces of glossy paper to promote your cause, but I suppose it could be worse — the message, designed by David Mitchell, is very clever:

And, as Meaney points out, “This postcard campaign puts pressure on the manufacturer without boycotting the product. You like their product, not their packaging.”

One thing she says is that a “polluter-pays” mentality seems to have the biggest effect. It’s what she says they use in Germany, where the manufacturer is responsible for the entire lifecycle of a product — including its final disposal. That means there is a ton less packaging produced in the first place — “Toothpaste doesn’t come in a box,” she writes. “A bottle is reused 25 times before being recycled.”

Great design work from her class. I’d love to see some of them show up at my local stores (not holding my breath, though).

The Gulf of Mexico oil spill, explained by Al-Jazeera

Posted by Grant Hamilton on 4 May 2010 Modern Life

May 042010

Perhaps Western news organizations have produced their own video infographics, but Al-Jazeera’s was the first that I saw.

I’m glad to see an English Al-Jazeera, by the way, because I think it’s important to encourage a diversity of voices in the media. From what I’ve read, it was originally staffed with journalists pinched from the BBC, and I believe that news culture still exists.

Which, I suppose, is more than you can say for Fox.

Iceland, home of the environment-saving volcano

Posted by Grant Hamilton on 17 April 2010 Everything Else

Apr 172010

Think all that ash being spewed across Europe is bad for the environment?

Well, it is — kind of. But it just might be better than all the airline flights that would otherwise be spewing their exhaust through the atmosphere.

InformationIsBeautiful does it up in graphic style for you.

Design a better coffee cup, win $10,000

Posted by Grant Hamilton on 14 April 2010 Modern Life

Apr 142010

I drink coffee — I drink a lot of coffee. Most of it I drink from ceramic mugs, to which I have an unhealthy addiction (attention readers: I would love to collect coffee mugs from your hometown newspaper).

Sometimes, I take my coffee in an insulated, stainless steel travel mug. I also have a combination travel mug and coffee press which I absolutely love and which is, to be honest, pretty sweet.

But sometimes I get a coffee from a coffeeshop. And, inevitably, they serve it to me in a paper cup, with a cardboard sleeve.

Many coffeeshops tout the fact that their cups are made from recycled paper and cardboard. The better coffeeshops even mention the amount of “post-consumer” recycling there is.

Unfortunately, once they’ve been used as a coffee cup, that paper is at the end of its run. There’s no more recycling.

The people at Betacup want to change that. They’re offering $20,000 in prizes to people who can design a better coffee cup. The best idea gets $10,000, and another five will divide an additional $10,000.

Perhaps someone will come up with a paper cup that can actually be recycled. Or, perhaps a reusable coffee cup that people will actually tote with them and use.

Check out the promo video:

Betacup from the betacup on Vimeo.

Then, go to the website and poke around.

I’m not sure that I have an idea just off the top of my head. But I’m sure thinking about it.

This Earth Day, why not boycott Burt’s Bees?

Posted by Grant Hamilton on 31 March 2010 Modern Life

Mar 312010

This year is the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, which takes place (as always) on April 22 (it happens to be the birthday of one of the founders, that’s how they picked the date).

To celebrate, according to the L.A. Times, the Burt’s Bees company will be handing out product samples, smoothies blended by the action of a bicycle — and fake “look-like-Burt” beards.

But for all the eco-friendly things that Burt’s Bees may do (the LAT says they’ve “been using recycled packaging long before it got trendy”) I haven’t been able to think about the company the same way since I read about its tumultuous founding.

That guy, “Burt” on the packaging? He was just an old beekeeper, living in a turkey coop in Maine.

Then he met a girl. Then they started selling beeswax products at farmer’s markets and the like, and then they founded a company.

For some reason, he only had a 1/3 share of this company, while his “girlfriend” got a 2/3 share. When they broke up, she bought out his share for a $130,000 house (which he later sold to go back to his turkey coop).

A few years later, she turned around and sold the company — first to a private equity firm, then to Clorox, the bleach company. She made some $300 million.

Feeling guilty, she did send a little bit more money Burt’s way — about $4 million. And he gets paid an “undisclosed amount” for the use of his name and image.

And maybe that’s fair. But I can no longer feel the same way about Burt’s Bees as I used to — it’s missing the very authenticity that it’s striving for.

According to the New York Times feature where I learned most of this (read it here), Clorox is hoping to learn from Burt’s Bees’ environmental practices — to make greener bleach, and a greener company. I can’t judge how that’s going.

But with all the feel-good bike-churned smoothies that Burt’s Bees will be handing out in L.A. (with compostable cups!) they’ll also be handing out fake beards so you can parade around, looking like their corporate image. Are the fake beards environmentally friendly? Who knows, maybe they are.

But I don’t think they’re morally friendly. I don’t get the sense that they’re honouring the back-to-the-land, natural-living ethos of a beekeeper who lives in a turkey coop without electricity or running water. Maybe they’ve paid him enough — $4 million plus an annual image licensing fee is a lot of money — and maybe he’s satisfied. But I’m not.

Next Earth Hour, let’s see some enforcement

Posted by Grant Hamilton on 27 March 2010 Everything Else

Mar 272010

Okay, maybe this is a crazy idea, but hear me out. I was reading a lot of stuff about Earth Hour, and all the symbolic landmarks that turned off their exterior floodlights to mark the occasion.

But all the pictures show SO many lights, still on.

So why don’t we, next year, just cut off the power? I say let’s flip the big switch at the power company, and turn off all the lights off. Yup, I include streetlights, hospitals, jails.

Look, it sounds crazy, I know. But power outages happen all the time. Sure, they happen a little here, a little there. But why not do it globally? People survive when the power goes out, especially in a mild month like March.

Mission-critical places like hospitals and jails have contingency plans to deal with power outages — this would enable them to test those plans. Like a fire drill.

With awareness and publicity, people would know that it was coming, and issues like traffic jams could be minimized. And frankly, it’s only an hour.

Thoughts?

Score one for the environment

Posted by Amy Breen on 24 February 2010 Modern Life

Feb 242010

General Motor’s last hope for the sale of Hummer has come to an end.

According to the Washington Post:

Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machines Co. said Wednesday it pulled out of the deal to buy the company from General Motors Co. Tengzhong failed to get clearance from Chinese regulators within the proposed timeframe for the sale, the Chinese manufacturer said.

Although GM will be winding down the business, their spokesman Nick Richards said they would still hear last-minute bids.

Personally, I hope Hummer just becomes a distant memory. I always found the vehicles incredibly unseemly. They don’t seem to serve any purpose on a city road other than to say, “Hey! Look how much money I have!” They take over the road and are total gas guzzlers.

I realize that even though there won’t be any new Hummer’s, it doesn’t mean that they won’t still be on the road, or that people won’t be able to buy them used; I also realize that without Hummer, there are still hundreds of SUV’s and ginormous trucks clogging the roads.

But with the world (hopefully) moving towards more environmentally friendly vehicles, and less of a dependence on oil, the loss of Hummer is a step in the right direction.

Glasses versus contact lenses, the environmental debate

Posted by Grant Hamilton on 14 January 2010 Modern Life

Jan 142010

Amy’s a lifelong glasses-wearer, and I remember well when I eventually had to give up the belief that squinting at the chalkboard would somehow exercise my eyes and make them get better and I would have to get “vision-correcting lenses” as the driver’s license-ese puts it.

But I’m also an off-again, on-again contacts wearer, and I often go without lenses for lengthy periods of time (I keep an old pair of glasses in my car, for driving around, but I don’t need them for day-to-day life, otherwise).

I also flatter myself that I care about the environment. And I have to confess, popping open disposable contacts cases feels wasteful — even though the tiny little lenses are so flimsy and insubstantial, don’t they add up?

Thankfully, the environmentalist column at Slate has answered my question (well, not literally my question, but someone else who asked as equivalent question): Which is better for the environment, glasses or contacts?

Wearing daily disposables for a couple of years would contribute 22 times more greenhouse gas emissions than wearing a pair of glasses over that time. However, there are still frames and plastic bottles and cardboard boxes to consider, not to mention the production of all the raw materials.

The calculations and the column are worth reading, but the bottom line is — contacts are worse, but it’s still so small, it’s not really worth getting worked-up over. Plus, most of it is recyclable.

I still feel bad throwing contacts and cases out all the time. At least with old glasses, you can send them to third-world countries for re-use.

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