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Waste management: from here to a 'cradle to cradle' standard

  
  

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Saturn's nod
08:19 / 24.05.07
(Starting this in conversation, and hoping it might go one of several ways towards Switchboard, Lab or Headshop.)

Landfill, plastic, - it's painful even to consider the mess we're leaving our descendants. The ocean gyres are full of it - recent article, as linked by Nolte in the Miserable thread (Warning: distressing truths about the state of the world we live in may put you in touch with your feelings).

I guess my position is that the problems of the current global crisis, from water shortages to famine to climate change to war, are interlinked and that if we seriously get to work on any one of them we're cutting into the problem that produced them all. If we wantto see ourselves as honourable humans living on this small planet, we have to take responsibility for the waste we produce.

But how? I think at least I have to know the fate of anything I own, and either admit my complicity or make my views known to those who decide its fate. Local politics are important in waste management, but so is the application of science. The issues involved in managing the waste humans produce illuminate our social and psychological processes.


From the article above, by Susan Casey:
Green architect and designer William McDonough has become an influential voice, not only in environmental circles but among Fortune 500 CEOs. McDonough proposes a standard known as “cradle to cradle” in which all manufactured things must be reusable, poison-free, and beneficial over the long haul. His outrage is obvious when he holds up a rubber ducky, a common child’s bath toy. The duck is made of phthalate-laden PVC, which has been linked to cancer and reproductive harm. “What kind of people are we that we would design like this?” McDonough asks. In the United States, it’s commonly accepted that children’s teething rings, cosmetics, food wrappers, cars, and textiles will be made from toxic materials. Other countries—and many individual companies—seem to be reconsidering. Currently, McDonough is working with the Chinese government to build seven cities using “the building materials of the future,” including a fabric that is safe enough to eat and a new, nontoxic polystyrene.

But further, optimism:

None of plastic’s problems can be fixed overnight, but the more we learn, the more likely that, eventually, wisdom will trump convenience and cheap disposability.

Really? You think humans collectively have the wit to come in out of the rain? Here's hoping you're right.
 
 
Kit-Cat Club
08:29 / 24.05.07
I read that article with horror (the picture of the turtle is particularly distressing). I have also read several blogs lately about people going on 'plastic diets', i.e. trying to consume as little plastic as possible for a set period of time. That's a start in trying to reduce the waste one produces. I am thinking guiltily of the plastic packaging - 2 types! and straight into landfill - from the lychees I've just eaten, and resolving to be more careful in future.

As for knowing the fate of what one leaves as waste: I am pretty sure that my borough's plastic recycling is shipped to China. That bothers me, but so far it hasn't bothered me enough to do anything about it (and I'm not sure where to start). Our kitchen waste goes into landfill which I hate hate hate, but don't really have any other option - the council supports composting, but we don't have anywhere to put a bin, or indeed anywhere to use the compost (3rd floor flat, communal 'garden' i.e. slope of grass which is maintained by the landlords).

So obviously for me, making a difference has come second to my inertia - it's obvious that there are things I could have done with regard to both of these issues, that I haven't even started to look into. Maybe I now will. It's relatively easy for me to change things that are just to do with me, but much harder when other people are involved. That's the key thing though, that has to be overcome, because as you say, it has to be collective.
 
 
Sibelian 2.0
08:38 / 24.05.07
I try to buy from local producers when I can. There are little shops all over the place where I live that sell vegetables without the nasty shrink-wrapping that supermarkets rely on. Also the vegetables taste nicer. And don't go off so quick. Also, I tend to keep the plastic containers that things like mushrooms come in to use them later.

Plastic is a wonderful material, it's just used VERY badly. It's really amazingly stupid to think of the one of the most long-lasting, versatile, lightweight and robust construction materials as DISPOSABLE, that attitude takes no advantage at all of plastic's GOOD points. Plastic should be thought of as a *precious* material and after the oil's run out it I wonder if it will be.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
13:13 / 24.05.07
I copy to barbelith a recent email exchange with an undisclosed company. I think it's probably relevant to this thread since it's a small part of the issue.

A number of people at my workplace currently buy food from your stores for lunch and we have noticed that you do not mark plastic packaging with the plastic type and number. This means that we cannot recycle your packaging because we cannot identify it in order to know whether it is recyclable or not. Please can you amend this, while I am
aware of your move towards more sustainable packaging *** is falling down in this specific area. Almost all of your competitors identify their plastic.

Thank you for your time and I very much hope this email will be passed to someone who can address the issue. This is not so much a complaint as a desire to be able to buy your products and know, not only what type of food I am buying but also that I can recycle your packaging rather than throw it away.

The response came over a week later:

Thank you for your email.

All our juice bottles and smoothies are made from PET, because the only waste stream that exists for plastics is for PET bottles. We are rolling out clear on pack messages about which materials can be recycled, but all they will say is that it is plastic, board, metal, glass etc. They
will not be providing information on the type of plastic used as all plastic can be thrown in the recycling bin, this is then taken to a local Materials Recovery Facility, and the facility sorts the plastic into what can be recycled and what cannot. The complexity for the customer is that there are over 400 local authorities in the UK, ach
one doing there own thing when it comes to recycling and each authority also telling the public what they can and cannot recycle.

Our belief is that the Local Authorities need to work together to create collection and recycling streams for all materials, as there is no technical reason why the plastics (apart from laminated plastics) cannot be recycled.

My response (written badly because it was written in mild outrage):

Thank you for your response.

With all due respect I do not think that your reasoning below is adequate. I am one of your customers, I am aware that my local council allows me to recycle both PET and HDPE (also known as PEHD, type 2) plastic, which covers not only juice and smoothie bottles but also some fruit packaging, yoghurt pots from some of the more sustainable companies and occasionally other products. It took one email to my council to discover this information. The company that recycles waste for my workplace also recycles these two types of plastic. I am aware of why most local authorities and companies can only recycle these two types of plastic and that is because we do not have the processing plants in this country. Frankly I feel fobbed off by your response because I am an informed consumer who would like the choice of making a decision between a variety of products that are very similar based not only on the way they are marketed or appear but also on the packaging material. At the moment *** do not provide that choice and it is your responsibility to identify everything that I need to know about your products.

It has been widely reported from official sources that in extreme circumstances, when the wrong plastic is put into recycling bags/boxes waste is thrown into landfills due to cost effectiveness. I prefer to sort my plastic personally as a result of this so please provide me with the option to do so.

*** are currently running a significant campaign to make the company more sustainable, ethical and green orientated. Failing to provide people with the information that they require does not fit into the image that is currently being formed, in fact it directly undermines it. The response to this email in comparison to the image that the company is attempting to portray is disappointing and through no fault of the customer services department. However I might suggest that this is forwarded to someone who does not primarily deal with the public but actually deals with packaging in some way.

Their response: I am sorry to hear that you are unhappy with **** email. I have passed on your comments to our Corporate Responsibility Team.
 
 
illmatic
13:58 / 24.05.07
There are encouraging signs though, are there not? I believe Ireland now has a tax on plastic bag use, which has reduced usage by 90%, and doesn't Germany have a law where all packaging can be returned to the shop it came from? A number of other European countries have similar provisions in place, I believe, and I don't believe . This might seem like whistling on our way to the gas chamber in terms of the scale of the ecological disasters we actually face, but it's something at least, and indicative of the changing public mood. I think the thing to do might be to focus on a single issue - such as supermarket plastic bag use, protest through whatever channels are available to you.

A simple step - why doesn't everyone posting in this thread commit to writing to their MP to find out what their views are on plastic bags, and to urge for a change?
 
 
Ticker
14:20 / 24.05.07
San Fran bans plastic bags

It's happening even over here in the consummer gluttony of America. I put back a package of organic red peppers the other day because they were in wrap and foam rather than loose. Paid extra for the loose at a different store. I reuse my plastic bags even though the spouse thinks I'm insane for hand washing them and drying them in the house. I try and carry one in my messanger bag for messy purchases and reuse them for my salads inside of my lunchbox.

Yesterday I pulled the remains of a plastic bag out of a rowan tree as the bag was blocking the sun from getting to the leaves and I picked up another huge construction sheet of it that was wind tangled off a parking meter. I've been thinking about organizing a plastic/trash pickup day with my coworkers and community.

I'd really love to work with a PR person to invent a marketing campaign meme to promote citizen daily clean up. If each one of us stopped to pick up trash we saw on the way to work (I know many of us here do) or just out in the world, how much better would the environment be? Add to that just not making more of it by smart purchasing...

I have a few things I look for when shopping. Non plastic items or wrapped in excessive packaging, not made in China, organic, local, and recyclable materials. It's harder than when I was a vegan sometimes.

Also I read a powerful quote from the raw foodist David Wolfe in which he stated the single most important action we all could do to improve the world is grow our own food. Dramatic reduction in packaging, pesticides, transport fuel, etc.
 
 
Ticker
14:48 / 24.05.07
I also spammed out that article to everyone not on the 'Lith but in my address book.

Somedays I want to chuck it all and go live on a wee permaculture farm...
 
 
Ex
15:07 / 24.05.07
While this is still in convo, I will mourn for squelchy things. I can buy all my dry food in paper bags or loose, but my council doesn't recycle pots, so I am currently off cream, yoghurt, ricotta, tapenade and so forth except for very special occasions when I need a plastic pot for some purpose. I really wish more things came in glass jars. (I sate my craving for squidge infrequently with a small posh yoghurt - they come in cardboard pots.)

I can see why logically we don't get to take our own tubs to shops - companies want to be able to deliver the product in an edible state, after which it's your fault if you store it incorrectly and poison yourself. They won't risk being blamed for people who don't provide sterile/cleanish containers. And the supply chain would be much more complex than currently. But I don't get why even the posher delicatessens, or the more earnest health-food shops, don't have big vats of creamy stuff which can then be decanted. Would sell-by dates be mroe difficult with larger quantities?

On a cheering note, I caught a plastic bag photo-degrading the other day. It had turned frail and frondlike at the edges, like a fern, and fragments blew away in my hands when I touched it. I don't know how far it was breaking down - whether the byproducts were harmless - but it wouldn't have been able to choke anything. Hurrah! (Unfortunately, it was a bag that I was using to keep my scrabble letters in - they're now scattered amid dissolving plastic confetti.)
 
 
Sibelian 2.0
15:55 / 24.05.07
It's a shame we can't all shop at farmer's markets.

There's one in Edinburgh that's become phenomenally popular and always sells out every Saturday it's on, but it's expensive. It's mostly the high earning folk that buy from it, and mostly for the quality, which is starkly superior to anything from a supermarket.

But - not sure about this - perhaps an easy resolution, if there's a farmer's market near you, would be to exchange a cinema trip or an excursion to the zoo at the weekend for a group "Let's all go to the farmer's market" amongst one's group of friends? It would work for sure with my Edinburgh lot, I can't go there without bumping into about 10 of them and only a few of them are green.

And then you can all cook for each other. (It's easy for me to say this, I love cooking for people).

This all sounds very low key, but there's another point to it - I think the small producers could probably handle folk bringing their own containers. From little acorns...?
 
 
*
16:00 / 24.05.07
Ex, not to tease, but we get this locally. It's not cheap, but it is tasty and the little terracotta pots are useful for starting seedlings.
 
 
*
16:31 / 24.05.07
I wonder if my local green food stores will let me bring back in the produce and dry goods bags for my own reuse. I really don't see how they can stop me; it's not like they're checking people at the door for plastic bags.
 
 
Ticker
17:29 / 24.05.07
yeah I'm going to stock my messenger bag with a few paper bags from now on. Also going to get a pump (maybe ceramic?) for dish liquid. I've been getting the house water in cases of glass bottles lately and should put in a new order...

Also I know this is incredibly dumb of me but does anyone know of a website to explain how to wash dishes in a basin rather than with the tap running in the sink? It's a terrible habit I keep trying to break but I'm not having much luck and the spouse was trained the same way.

I imagine if I had a two bay sink it would be easier to have a sudsy bay and a rinse bay but I can't fugure out how to do it with only one little sink. Two small basins not made of plastic?

I went and bought a glass mason jar to carry with me instead of my occassional plastic cup smoothies. I figure if it busts it's only a small mess compared to a mutant cinched turtle. I usually use my steel cups but they've been too small for the smoothies. (dreadful excuse I know)

Then I bought two CD's and stared at the jewel cases and shrink wrap in dismay. Perhaps I need to rethink digital services just to get rid of the stuff...
 
 
*
17:38 / 24.05.07
I carry a 40 oz. stainless steel water bottle; I think it would be big enough for all the smoothie you can handle. Try looking for Klean Kanteens.
 
 
Saturn's nod
17:55 / 24.05.07
I love you all, it helps to know I have this in common with you awesome people.

Thanks for posting the emails, Anna, I appreciate being shown how you're engaging that company.

Thanks so much to everyone who's written about practical creative ways to eliminate disposable plastic: more more!

I use refillable pens for writing - I like the LAMY fountain pens, they seem to be robust and under £20 for a pen and converter and a bottle of ink - I don't want to spend more than that given the number I've lost over my life so far, (though I guess they're only the same cost as 4-7 non-refillable V-pens or whatever, and I usually manage to fill them more times than that before they wander off).

I find I need to have two or three at any one time because I often put one down on my desk or clip it into my notebook or whatever, but other people probably manage better presence of mind. The glass ink bottles oughta be refillable at the shop or returnable though. I carry my ink bottle around in the robust snap-fit plastic moulding it came from the shop in. It's lasted a few months so far, and seems to give the glass bottle a bit extra protection in my bag.
 
 
Ticker
18:50 / 24.05.07
ooh thanks entity!
 
 
Kit-Cat Club
19:07 / 24.05.07
XK: one way of doing it is to have a small amount of hot water in the bottom of the washing-up bowl or sink, with the detergent in it; then you can rinse the dishes using the hot tap, which runs into the bowl rather than down the sink, if you see what I mean. Then, if you use an eco-friendly detergent, you can take the bowl outside and tip the water over your petunias.

(should you have any petunias, that is, I don't...)
 
 
Ticker
19:20 / 24.05.07
Thanks KKC, that's kind of what I do now but I thought it was bad to just run the tap? No?
 
 
Ticker
19:21 / 24.05.07
Der, except for the watering the garden part of it...
 
 
petunia
19:27 / 24.05.07
you can take the bowl outside and tip the water over your petunias

And that way i get fed and cleaned at the same time!
 
 
Kit-Cat Club
19:29 / 24.05.07
Well, you only run the tap when you have something you need to rinse, so I doubt with a normal amount to wash up that you'd go through more than one basinful, and it might be less than having it all go straight down the sink. I don't see that there's any way of washing up without using a fair amount of water (unlike e.g. brushing one's teeth, when leaving the tap on is definitely NAUGHTY) so I think it's fair to use as much as one needs.
 
 
petunia
19:41 / 24.05.07
Jeez, that was lame.

But anyways. Got this email from Greenpeace today. I figure a little measure like this might be handy to have. And as it just asks for an email address, you non-euros can cheat and play too!

There's a simple, achievable way to cut Europe's carbon emissions by around 20 million tonnes - and two minutes of your time will help to make sure it happens.

A group of Members of European Parliament (MEPs) have come up with a simple, bright idea. They want to ban old, inefficient light bulbs, which waste 95 per cent of the electricity they use.

They want a simple, wholesale ban across the whole of the European Union - a ban which would cut out 25 medium-sized power stations' worth of carbon emissions every year. Countries like Australia, Canada, Cuba and Venezuela have already moved towards introducing similar bans - there's no reason why the EU shouldn't too.

If we can get 400 MEPs to add their signatures to the declaration before June 10th, the declaration will be adopted and the pressure will be on for a swift enactment of the ban.

Greenpeace supporters all over Europe are lobbying their MEPs to sign up. You can help, by sending a ready-written letter to every UK MEP that hasn't yet signed up to the declaration. Just click here, enter your name and email address and hit send, and then confirm your email address. That's it.

Because MEPs receive relatively few letters from the public, even a small number of letters can tip the balance - so yours really will carry weight.

Thank you!

Bex Sumner
24 May 2007



I forwarded this email to a few friends and received this reply from one of them:

dont believe their lies. on what basis could anyone criminalise selling a lightbulb? im all for people knowing how good those new lightbulbs are (taking ages to turn on etc), as they save money, etc etc. we even have some. but outlawing competition using the EU? jesus...

"there's no reason why the EU shouldn't" --- thats *so* false. these people fucking scare me.

good day to you.

He makes me hate libertarianism soo hard.
 
 
Ticker
19:45 / 24.05.07
well if it helps I was reading that some of the more effiencent bulbs have mercury in them as well. So careful product review by the consumer isn't automatically bad.
 
 
Olulabelle
20:41 / 24.05.07
I sent that email about a week ago and got a reply from an MEP that was so rude it made me want to hit. He also told me my email was spam.

XK, I have been told that dishwashers, if used when totally full, are considered to be just as economical as washing up in the sink. How this works out I have no idea since they are electric powered and presumably you are not. I might go and have a little hunt for info.
 
 
Olulabelle
20:44 / 24.05.07
Aha. Here you go.

Dishwasher versus hand washing.
 
 
pony
20:45 / 24.05.07
all flourescent bulbs (which those little coil-shaped efficient ones are) contain mercury, but so long as they're properly disposed of (i.e. recycled), it shouldn't really be problematic. if i recall correctly, california's implemented a ban on incandescent bulb that's being phased in over the next few years.
 
 
Kit-Cat Club
20:49 / 24.05.07
Do they include the manufacturing etc. of the dishwasher in those calculations, I wonder? As opposed to the manufacturing cost of a sink, which tends not to break down after 5 years.

An acquaintance of mine once said something similar, along the lines that if you buy two sets of everything and fill the dishwasher up, running it only once or twice a week, it does in fact work out to be more efficient than washing up by hand. But it seems so counter-intuitive!
 
 
Kit-Cat Club
20:52 / 24.05.07
sry, x-post.
 
 
*
07:09 / 25.05.07
Fluorescent lighting makes it impossible for people with some disabilities to function.

LED lighting. Come on.
 
 
Lea-side
08:36 / 25.05.07
Re: LED lighting.. I was pleasantly surprised a while ago, when i was playing a show and looked up to the main white lights pointing at the stage and realised that they were LED arrays (lots of red, green and blue LEDS giving a white light). They were just as bright as their conventional equivalent but most importantly they were nowhere near as HOT! It actually felt strange, being under such a bright, close light and not being scorched by it. I also heard that TFL are testing out LED traffic lights. Go Ken!
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
08:57 / 25.05.07
I love LED light. Love it love it love it. It has this weird smooth quality.
 
 
Sibelian 2.0
09:26 / 25.05.07
There's a wind-powered LED "SLOW DOWN" sign that switches on and off depending on how it senses the traffic on the slip-road onto the bypass near where my Mum and Dad live. It's entirely off the grid. And will require practically zero maintenance, it's so simple. I think it's an experiment cos it's the only one I've seen, but it works beautifully. And the fact that it switches on as you approach it instead of being on all the time means you pay actual attention!
 
 
Saturn's nod
07:38 / 26.05.07
Plastic-free treats acquired yesterday:

Flowers from a guy in town came wrapped in paper. Sweet williams in a variety of hot pink tones, yum.

Lush products! At Lush I was able to buy a variety of bath salts and a solid shampoo bar, and I got them naked in a paper bag.
 
 
Saturn's nod
08:48 / 26.05.07
Okay maybe that sounds slightly strange: I was trying to convey that I was able to buy them without any plastic packaging, just lumps of bath salts and shampoo carried home in a paper carrier.
 
 
Sibelian 2.0
12:16 / 26.05.07
We understood.

And this is probably ridiculous, but I made a point just now of picking up every single bit of plastic and paper rubbish along the Water of Leith walkway (a lovely river that I get to walk past on the way home)on the way back from getting milk from the shops. I made sure other people could see me. How much time and effort did this take? Zilch. So, either I have spread a tiny meme or I now look like the local eccentric.

I shall continue to do this from now on.
 
 
Ticker
13:31 / 26.05.07
I squeeze you with love! (everybody in this thread is making me feel barbe-crushy)

SNdoes lush have a shampoo in non container form? I've been wondering if the Lush products are eco friendly as well. There's one in the nearby city my pal is addicted too. I have a giant block of wonderfully stinky soap she brought me back.

'Lula thanks! Though I'm still sort of hesitant as most dishwashers I know of are plastic things. I don't own a microwave or a dishwasher and kinda like it that way. I might now use a dishwasher if I moved into an apartment that had one rather than hanging an 'evil tech ignore' sign on it.
 
  

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