Wishing Well

I was just thinking that if there was a wishing well where everyone had one shot to get what they wished, then inflation would go out of control. Everyone who asked for $1 M would drive prices up; then people would ask for $100 M, then $1 B, and so on. Global economies would collapse. And if everyone asked for true love, then would true love lose its meaning? World peace? Teddy bears?

Mercury Pollution from Compact Fluorescent Lightbulbs (CFLs)

NPR reports on the dangers of mercury in compact fluorescent lightbulbs (CFLs):

Wal-Mart wants to sell 100 million compact fluorescent light bulbs this year. The Environmental Protection Agency has almost the same goal. The bulbs save energy and reduce emissions of the greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change.

But there’s a hitch: Each bulb contains about 5 milligrams of mercury, a toxic heavy metal.

The bulbs last a long time, but eventually they burn out. The EPA says that people should recycle them, but most people don’t know they should.

This blog talked about this issue before, and back then I also remarked on my experience in Uganda and the  near ubiquity of CFLs.

If the US doesn’t have the capabilities to safely dispose of mercury in CFLs, and the US population isn’t informed about this or is able to do anything about it, what are the people in Uganda to do? I’m sure people are just throwing these into the trash, sending the mercury straight into the soil and ground water, and back into the people. Bad stuff.

One of the problems with mass recycling is that the bulbs inevitably break and leak, so you can’t just put out bins for people to drop them off or for services to come by and pick them up. Technology may be able to reduce the amount of mercury, but right now there’s no way to avoid it. Maybe in the scheme of things, this isn’t as bad as other solid waste problems–sewage treatment, electronics and circuit boards–and the energy savings are worth it. With rolling black-outs, more people have light more of the time because of the significant reduction in energy consumption. Maybe this is something the world will have to live with for now.

The Cost of Drinking Bottled Water

Why do people drink bottled water over tap water? I agree that some bottled waters taste different–even better–than the water out of various taps or fountains. Plus there’s the convenience of having a disposable bottle to carry around. But at what cost? Personally, though, I can’t justify paying money for someone else’s tap water and for creating additional waste through demand for plastic bottles. But there’s even more cost involved:

David Suzuki, quoted in Treehugger, complains:

“I think in Canada it’s absolutely disgusting that people are so uncertain about their water that we buy it, paying more for bottled water than we do for gasoline.”….”It’s nuts to be shipping water all the way across the planet, and us — because we’re so bloody wealthy — we’re willing to pay for that water because it comes from France.”

The cost of a kilogram of Fiji brand (IMO the best tasting water out there) bottled water? According to Pablo Paster:

In summary, the manufacture and transport of that one kilogram bottle of Fiji water consumed 26.88 kilograms of water (7.1 gallons) .849 Kilograms of fossil fuel (one litre or .26 gal) and emitted 562 grams of Greenhouse Gases (1.2 pounds).

Twenty-six times as much water used to make it than you actually drink. As much fuel to make it as there is water in the bottle.

But all this research is not completely unbiased. For example, if you choose to carry around a mug rather than use disposable bottles, that’s OK as long as you stop buying new mugs: the manufacture of ceramic is more environmentally damaging that the manufacture of a number of styrofoam cups. (And styrofoam is better than paper or plastic these days.) See also Ask Pablo’s The Coffee Mug Debacle.

So what’s the best way of getting hydrated? Simple enough. Just tilt your head back when it rains and drink up. Just don’t expect much in places like Australia or Africa where they’ve been going through non-cyclical droughts potentially attributable to global warming.

One (or Five) Watt LED Light Bulbs

EcoGeek – One Watt Light Bulbs!

LEDison lamps are being used to replace 10 to 60w incandescent bulbs in commercial applications (like shopping malls). The LED lamps have ten times the service life of the incandescents they replace, and use only 1 watt! An even greater cost savings is realized when the annual maintenance costs of replacing incandescent bulbs is considered.

People all over are starting to learn how inefficient your standard incandescent lightbulb is. The first major move had been to compact fluorescent lightbulbs (CFL)–where, for example, a 15 W bulb can replace your standard 40 W bulb. (They claim they replace 60 W bulbs, but, honestly, they’re just not as bright.) Now, with LEDs, perhaps we can replace those 60 W bulbs with 5 W bulbs–saving electricity because they use less, but also creating less waste since these CFL and LED bulbs last longer. (Right now the 5 W bulbs only match “up to” 30 W incandescents.)

The downside is that CFLs and LEDs contain mercury and other trace heavy metals, respectively, and there may be other industrial byproducts. Perhaps this will be offset by improved design and also by the fact that since they last longer, we won’t have to consume as much.

On a side-note, in Uganda, I saw mostly CFL lightbulbs in use. The light quality isn’t as good as incandescents, again, but it’s great that they’re beating the developing world by starting with more efficient lighting.

Construction of a Straw Bale Home

One by-product of my recent trip to Southern Sudan is my renewed interest in sustainable use and design. The houses in the Yei bomas were of good construction, in stark contrast to the slipshod, slapped-together mud lean-tos I encountered too often in southern Tanzania.

But here’s a post off of Treehugger on the construction of a straw bale house. The construction references the Building with Awareness DVD on straw bale construction. Some of the ideas behind straw bale houses are to be solar passive (heated by facing certain sides and windows to the sun), well-insulated, reusing local materials, and to be overall energy-efficient.

I would love to bring some of these ideas into the construction of traditional, indigenous housing in developing countries. I know that some of the pushback, though, is the recommendations you can make aren’t “revolutionary.” For example, making a house solar passive doesn’t have the same “wow effect” as giving them a TV. Therefore, they look at you funny when you talk about things like insulation or longevity of building materials (see Tanzania).