less trash, more fun.
Clothes dryers are so inefficient that Energy Star doesn’t even certify them. What’s more, they are totally unnecessary. Why are Americans still using them?
The trailer for Drying for Freedom, a film about laundry in America:
Read more from Project Laundry List about how much energy dryers use here.
Thanks to the effects of climate change and urban sprawl, the checkerspot butterfly is likely to be put on the endangered species list, the Chronicle reported today. I think Rasputina says it best:
Who knew that the sky is now found to contain
Benzene and methane and chalk
And bloody mud, muddy blood from the sky
From the sickly sweet wings of Edith’s checkerspot butterfly
They die in the ocean
Their legs are broken
The rain slows their flight as it soaks their wings.A microphone will listen for thunder
The telephone will dial the number
To deliver a-a clearer picture
Of weird wet weather
This puts all previous discoveries in doubt
These are things we have theories about.
This appeared in the New York Times last week:
Government ministers in the Maldives are taking scuba lessons and learning hand signals in preparation for an unprecedented underwater cabinet meeting intended to highlight the threat of global warming. Since taking office last year, President Mohamed Nasheed has emerged as an important voice on the impact of climate change amid fears that rising ocean levels could swamp his nation within a century. The Maldives is the lowest-lying nation on earth. The ministers, who will wear scuba gear for the Oct. 17 gathering, plan to sign a document calling on all countries to reduce their carbon emissions.
Symbolic? Yes. But what else can a tiny island nation of 300,000 do, exactly? Although a plan to become the first carbon-neutral country on Earth is already in place, without getting the rest of the world’s attention, the Maldives will still be ocean in no time.
Canvas (and that weird material supposedly made out of recycled plastic bottles) is slowly taking over the check-out line. I haven’t seen anyone carrying an Evian bottle in ages. Handkerchiefs sticking out of hipster pockets aren’t (usually) just a fashion statement. But what hasn’t caught on yet is making do. Green accessories are great when they save resources. But, being more durable and thus generally more energy-intensive to produce than disposables, they only really save resources if you use them over and over. Like, for years.
Because if the landfills fill up with reusables, we’ve really screwed ourselves over.
Take for instance tote bags. As an article in the Utne Reader[1] pointed out, you can’t attend a conference, donate to a nonprofit or shop at Trader Joe’s without free ones being forced on you.[2] Of course, the ones you’d actually want to be seen with in public you have to pay for, with their ironic slogans and clever graphics, so you acquire those too. And then stuff all but the newest one in the back of the coat closet or the bag to take to Goodwill.[3]
I couldn’t find exact figures, but according to the tote bag article, if cost is any indicator, a canvas tote bag takes about 400 times more resources to produce than a plastic bag (100 billion of which are given away ‘for free’ every year in America.) That means you’d need to use your tote in place of a plastic bag more than 400 times to make up for the environmental cost of producing it.[4]
The same goes for metal water bottles. Even taking into account the energy used for shipping disposable plastic water bottles, a reusable metal bottle must be used for years before its resource-intense production has been effectively paid off.[5]
Making do, in our world of cheap, plentiful goods, seems pretty silly. It’s not as if we’re homesteaders and have no choice. If H&M is twenty minutes away, and new jeans are only $40, it seems dumb to spend the better part of a day revamping an old pair instead.
But price tags don’t reflect the true cost of the product they’re affixed to. [6] In his book A Green History of the World, Clive Ponting discusses the fundamental oversight of classical economics, the theory upon which much of our economy is based.
“The crucial defect [of the theory of a self-regulating market] is that the earth’s resources are treated as capital- a set of assets to be turned into a source of profit. Trees, wildlife, minerals, water and soil are treated as commodities to be sold or developed. More important, their price is simply the cost of extracting them and turning them into marketable commodities [...]Yet this view overlooks the basic truth that the resources of the earth are not just scarce, they are finite.” (155-6)
So while we’re all clamoring to buy more and more green products, let’s not lose sight of the reason they exist in the first place. Although it may be tempting to buy a new KleenKanteen when the first one gets dented, or to buy a sleeker-looking tote, resist the urge. Because I’m willing to bet the ones you have’ll do just fine.
[2] A giveaway is never free, for anyone involved. Not for the giver, certainly, or the environment, of course (though you don’t generally stop to think about it,) but not for the recipient either. Whether or not there are strings attached, the fact remains that you now possess this object that you didn’t really need. And now you have to use it, store it (perhaps in some of the 2.3 billion square feet of self storage facilities now available in the U.S.) or find a way to get rid of it with a clear conscience.
[3] For proof that corporate tote bag branding is an environmental issue, check out the bag bin at Goodwill. It is almost always overwhelmingly logo-bearing (former) freebies.
[4] Of course, the disposal of plastic bags is arguably even more of an environmental issue than their production…
[5] I saw a great little diagram showing the resource use of metal vs. plastic water bottles somewhere, and now I can’t find it for the life of me. I’ve wanted to cite it about ten times since I read it, and each time I try to search for it again, but with no luck…
[6] See The Story of Stuff for more on this.