Our World and Everything in It

I just read an article on-line in the Freep. It was about the anniversary of Michigan’s bottle return law that turned 30 yesterday. It raised the question of adding non-carbonated beverages to the list of returnables, and problems with consumers returning bottles and cans that were purchased elsewhere. I immediately had visions of Kramer driving Newman’s mail truck to another state to return the huge load of returnable cans he had in the back. It seems Michigan has a Kramer problem. Too many people returning their out of state plastic here.

The problem may soon to be resolved. The article said that State Rep. Steve Bieda would introduce amended bills to stop the out of state bottle fraud with penalties for retailers who knowingly pay for them. And return machines will be keyed to reject any containers from out of state.

I don’t know why this hasn’t happened sooner. And I do not get that both Pepsi and Coke haven’t had to add their water bottles, which are the two most popular drinking waters, to the list of refundables. The amount of plastic water bottles that will take forever to break down in our trash dumps in inexcusable.

Adding non-carbonated beverages to the list of refundables, and curbside recycling at no additional cost to the consumer, would keep a huge amount of debris out of the trash dumps. I say “at no cost to the consumer” because some communities whose residents took the time to sort their plastic, metal, and glass actually saw their rates go up.

We have to think of something to do with the refuse that goes into dumps if we’re ever going to phase them out. I think we’re still pretty wasteful as a society that should know better.

I was watching PBS news last night and found out a little more about how the foreclosed home situation is being handled. No wonder banks/lenders are in trouble. The waste is unbelievable. It’s called “trashing out a home” when mortgage lenders pay someone to carry everything out of a house to a dumpster. The items are many times top notch household furnishings and electronics. It all ends up in a landfill. What a waste. This pillage should be spread around.

I watched a whole new genre of mover called “trash-out crews.” They go into foreclosed homes and strip the house of all its belongings and send it to the trash dump. You might think that wouldn’t be much, but many upper middle class homes that have been vacated, leave behind much of their high-end belongings too. In some cases it looked as if someone came through and yelled “run for your lives the damn has burst” because food was left out, and toys were still on the floor. There is a large amount of TV’s and electronics like PCS left behind. These items could be put to use in schools.

When the interviewer asked the head of one of these trash-out companies about giving it to charity he said the logistics of hooking up with a charity is slim. They don’t show up, or aren’t on time, or leave things of little value behind so that he has to go back a second time. Unfortunately, he said he tried the eco friendly way and it ends up costing him money. His company is paid by the mortgage companies to pick up perfectly nice items and send them to the landfill where they pay fees to dump the stuff too.

Don’t think this happens much? The same guy with the trash-out company started with 3 employees and now has 73. His trash out crews trash 15 homes per day—high scale stuff from the edge of the golf course homes. It was sickening to see what went into a dumpster knowing the mortgage industry is in serious trouble and wasting like this. To think people somewhere are living in huts on dirt floors, and the amount and variety of things that are getting buried in the earth here is ridiculous. 

I ran across one article that wanted to know where the entrepreneurs are when it comes to trashing out homes? Think about it. It’s a never ending supply of free merchandise that you can actually resell on eBay or Craig’s list, and the bank/lender pays you to pick it up. If you don’t resell it, you store it and in the future you charge the same bank that paid you to pick it up in order to stage the same empty homes for resale using the furniture you took from them in the first place. Think of it as getting paid to pick it up, then put it back.

My first thought was, “Where is Habitat for Humanity?” After all, if an organization like Habitat is going through the trouble of enlisting volunteers to build someone a brand new home, it shouldn’t be an empty home with all this “trash” around.  The same volunteers for Habitat could be working with the mortgage lenders for “clear out” not “trash out” jobs. Imagine presenting someone with a new and “furnished” home.

Is this socialist ideology? It’s certainly “spreading the wealth” around. I see it as recycling whatever, whenever from someone who didn’t care enough to take it, store it, or donate it in the first place. Besides the amount spent on trashing and landfill costs is not that much cheaper than doing the right thing.

I don’t buy it that there is no way to hook this stuff up with charity. There is always a way. If someone offered good money for a solution there would certainly be a way to do it, but then it wouldn’t be charity.

http://www.news-press.com/article/20081022/RE/810220376/1014/RSS02

http://www.maxgladwell.com/2008/10/foreclosure-crisis-where-are-the-green-entrepreneurs/

Researchers at Purdue offered details for converting carbon-containing waste products like paper, wood, plastic, and rubber as an alternative energy source on September 29 during the 6th Global Conference on Sustainable Product Development and Life Cycle Engineering in Busan, Korea according to an article on Environmental News Service.

The various sources of carbon containing waste would need to be mulched into tiny bits in the millimeters. The tiny pieces would be fed into a gasifier where they break down to gas containing “hydrogen, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, methane and other hydrocarbons.” The most desirable of the gases are the hydrogen and carbon monoxide or synthesis gas better known as syngas.

Syngas can be used as is to run a turbine for electricity or converted further for gas or diesel. The solid wastes can be used for jet fuel, ethanol, and other biofuel production. 

We have plenty of waste in the U.S. to work with. The article stated that the U.S. generates “1.3 billion tons of biomass - including agricultural and municipal wastes” annually. It also says that it is quite possible to replace “15 to 20 percent of transportation fuels consumed daily in the U.S. with liquids derived from this flexible process…based on the present consumption level, which is about 390 million gallons per day.”

We’re finally using our noggins to utilize much of our solid waste for energy production. No need to “Drill, Baby, Drill” after all. I never thought there was a need to drill for more. I think it’s quite feasible to get away from oil and most fossil fuels once and for all in the not too distant future from some of the progress and inventions I’ve seen.

After all, India has been using cow dung for energy production for awhile. It was only a matter of time before we caught on. It’s a sad statement for the U.S. though that it has taken so long. We are catching up with a country that was considered partly third world for its squalor not all that long ago. But ingenious inventors in India decided to do something about the waste and the country’s energy needs leading the way for us to realize that most refuse is indeed fuel in another form.

Read more: http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/oct2008/2008-10-16-091.asp

I went to Pontiac for Arts, Beats, and Eats Saturday night. I like that festival. The food is from restaurants, and there is good entertainment, and unusual art. Despite a bad economy there was a good many people and they were buying this may have been due to the evening hour after an afternoon of eating and imbibing however.

I’ve gone to this event about 6 times now and I noticed the green effort this year. Garbage was labeled trash or recyclables. There were people there to tell you what to throw where. When I looked in the recyclable barrel there was Styrofoam, plastic cups, like the one I was tossing, and plastic utensils. I soon found out the stuff was made out of sugar cane, corn, and potatoes. The guy told me vegetable oil also. The idea was no petro products even the plastic bags vendors used to wrap their wares. Pretty amazing. It looked and appeared to be just plastic.

Chrysler had some of their Global Electric Motor (GEM) E2 and E4 cars that either drew interest, criticism, or laughter. They are hybrids that use electric up to 35 mph and then get something like 50 mpg thereafter. I’m going by what my husband remembers.

The E2 is a two seater. It looks like a cartoon mini car that parking ticket officers drive. The E4 is a four seater of course, a tad more substantial. The price for the E2 began in the $5,000 range but by the end of the sheet jumped up to in the $14,000 range. This was cause for criticism. Then there were safety issues. It’s a bug.

Maybe the E2 is not for the highways of Michigan but getting around a crowded city where traffic is always a crawl, it might not be too bad. It’s more comfortable than a bike and comparable in price to a Harley. If traffic only crawls the danger issue is reduced. As for parking—it’s a bug.

http://www.gemcar.com/

Check this out. Someone has come up with a way to extract the water from the atmosphere the way leaves dew, get it?

The structure collects dew and makes it into fresh water. I have to ask about acid rain type water, or water passing through a polluted atmosphere? But it is quite a nice structure as far as contemporary sculpture, which is up my alley, maybe not so much for country folk.

It’s not big, provides shade, does not take up a lot of space around the bottom and yields 48 liters of water per day!  Holy Cow, if a liter is a tad over a quart (1.0567 quarts), then 48 liters is 12.68 gallons.  Couple this with reduced shower usage, a water saver shower head, low flow toilets, gray water recycling system, this WatAir as it’s called,  gets close to what all is needed in a two person household. My two person household does a heck of a lot less laundry, dishwasher loads, and such than larger households.

One of these atmospheric dew extractors in a place like Michigan could have a ridiculous yield. But would we homeowners keep viable water from re-entering the Great Lakes?

Read more about it: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/06/070604222124.htm

I can’t pass up reading the Science Daily website. There are so many articles lately about microbes, that they are the real engineers for climate control. As one article stated: “Microbes will continue as climate engineers long after humans have burned that final barrel of oil. Whether they help us to avoid dangerous climate change in the 21^st century or push us even faster towards it depends on just how well we understand them.”

Well it seems science understands them better and better every day and hopes to use the enzymes produced by microbes to break down all sorts of material in a “closed, integrated system that produces edible products, flowers, and biodiesel with little waste.” Sugar cane and hibiscus flowers are key to this closed system.

Scientists plan on using the enzymes from microbes to break down the sugarcane/hibiscus biomass to sugars, and ferment them to ethanol. I have to LOL here because this product is basically the same as that pure grain alcohol that we can get out of the hills of Tennessee, namely WHITE LIGHTENING. Every drink this stuff? I think a person could hallucinate on it. I know the ring from the pint jar it comes in can be lit easily and burns for a while. But I digress.

After the biomass is fermented the carbon dioxide produced during the fermentation is trapped. It’s then fed to micro algae (more microbes) in ponds. Once this micro algae goes to work a type of polymer is produced that could be refined further into jet fuel. The spent micro algae is then harvested and used as fertilizer for the sugar cane and hibiscus flowers again. That’s quite an efficient loop.

I say they get on with this microbe research because the Bush/Cheney regime is about to ruin more of our country than invading enemies would ever do. Right now, Halliburton is ruining parts of Utah, Colorado, and other places in search for natural gas, when methane is right under our nose, get it, methane—nose? Ditto for oil. Halliburton’s trucks are already corroding prehistoric drawings that stretch across the rocks in Nine Mile Canyon.  No one knows or cares because everything is either overshadowed by the economy, Iraq, and the election. Let’s just say the Bush/Cheney administration is having a field day in its final months in office to the detriment of irretrievable artifacts, land, and animals in our national parks and areas around them.  

I would love to see these guys just deflate like a balloon and buzz off into the atmosphere but that would just be adding some really defiled waste into our air.

Remember that what the powers that be tell you about not having enough alternative sources of energy to replace oil and natural gas is a lie. There is probably enough methane alone to blow us sky high. That’s a lot of energy laying around they like us to believe is waste, because it’s cheap and works just as well as natural gas because—it is.

Read more about microbes at Science Daily: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080604141014.htm. 

There were many events going on in communities this weekend in honor of Earth Day. Monroe celebrated in St. Mary’s Park, Grosse Ile had events, the Toledo Zoo had Earth Day celebrations and there was the 16th Annual Lake Shore Cleanup at Lake Erie Metro Park this weekend. And do we need a clean-up.

Has anyone else noticed more roadside litter? I pass by other property of mine on my daily walks so I notice the garbage I need to get out of the ditches. It’s no longer beer or liquor bottles strewn about but empty plastic bottles of Vitamin water, Aquafina, Sunny D, and one of those flavored waters.

The discards are representative of health conscious human consumption. The fact that these human litterbugs care about their personal health but not the earth’s health is ironic. Taking care of ourselves is futile if we do not take care of the environment that sustains us. It’s a matter of math for Pete’s sake.
I see human populations growing, and pollution growing exponentially along with it. And the pollution is stuff that just doesn’t decompose like plastic.
 
An example of old plastic: This weekend I was fluffing rocks. I have river rock in my landscape and tossing them aside and putting the dirt back under the weed barrier refurbishes the rock. I end up with buckets of river rock that were sinking into the ground, which I put back on top of the mound. Lot’s of work but it’s therapeutic too. 

Well I’ve been lax. I haven’t tossed rocks for about 5 years. I found the plastic weed barrier had sunk about 8 inches down into the ground. Years ago perforated plastic was used as a barrier. It was still there after 17 years and sinking. All I could think is what if layers of plastic built up? Would it eventually solidify into one humongous block of plastic? Nothing could be dug where it existed until it sunk deep enough, and would this block keep traveling downward into the earth? What kind of sticky goo would it become as it heats?
Scary thought, an earth filled with pockets of digested, melted plastic.

One of the simplest things we can do for the earth is not litter, and recycle whenever we can. We’re slowly learning to take care of ourselves with the food and drink choices we make. To throw the plastic litter from these healthy choices onto the ground is an unconscious act we need to break. Once we begin to associate the idea of health and maintenance to our world and everything in it not just ourselves, I believe things will begin to improve greatly. Besides, it is almost impossible to be healthy while living in an unhealthy environment.

There are many states that adopted RPS’s (Renewable Portfolio Standards) years ago:
California – 2002, New Jersey – 2006, Texas – 2005, Nevada – 2005, New Mexico – 2004,  New York – 2004. These particular states were so successful they upped their ante. California is aiming at 22.5 % by 2021, Texas doubled their previous goal, Nevada’s raised their goal to 20% by 2015 with 5% from solar, and New York originally required 25% by 2013. http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_energy/clean_energy_policies/clean-energy-policies-and-proposals.html

And what does our Michigan Senate come up with—an extremely weak little energy bill. SB 1000 simply says that state government, and no one else, should buy at least 25% of the electricity that powers the state government buildings from renewable sources by 2025, but only if renewable energy costs are within 5% of the cost of non-renewable energy. What does this end up amounting  to—1%? Also approved was SB 1041 that requires all electricity providers to offer customers the ability to purchase power through renewable resources. Big deal.

The Senate says its part of a larger package to come. They may mean a larger comprehensive House Bill outlining Michigan’s RPS, but I doubt it. The Senate beat that House Bill with this one to show they really are green, a really, really transparent green at best, which isn’t reassuring that they mean serious business or cooperation. All I see is stalling either by haggling with the House/Governor over everything, putting out lukewarm bills of their own that will cause haggling, and taking too long to pass legislation that didn’t come from the Senate, giving lobbyists more time to water down bills.

Due out soon, the House RPS presents a statewide renewable energy requirement of obtaining 10% renewable sources by 2015. Compared to other states reaping the economic benefits of establishing a good RPS, Michigan is late, and not very aggressive except the cost, which is being shoved on us, and to the benefit of big business. I’m feeling right wing economics here, giving big breaks to business and sticking us with the cost again. Big business can benefit all they want, it doesn’t mean it will trickle down to the little guy. I deem the trickle down theory dead. I didn’t see Exxon Mobil’s 40.1 billion annual net income in 2007 trickle down to the pumps! Did you?

Just this past October 24, 2007, Michigan’s Senate Republicans launched the Green Michigan Initiative that predominantly focuses on the Great Lakes, expanding recycling, developing green energy alternatives (this bill?), and reduction of waste in landfills. Sounds great doesn’t it? Most of what I’ve seen addresses recycling, and it took 4 years to come up with that! http://www.senate.michigan.gov/gop/readarticle.asp?id=876.

Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop, R-Rochester said that the Senate had been hard at it for more than five years to initiate proactive legislation. Why so long? We’re years behind states that are sitting a lot better economically than Michigan. We need green jobs. The states that surround us that have a good RPS are drawing green business in the millions, like Minnesota—250 million in new green business just from implementing a wind generation program.

Most of Michigan’s Senate legislation so far is about recycling relative to landfills. It’s just a start also.  Most of these bills just left in November, 2007 to go to the appropriate committees. Who knows how long they will linger there. Plug in bill numbers 889-907 at this website to read them: http://www.legislature.mi.gov/(S(su1elh45wa2xlkzion3od445))/mileg.aspx?

Are you getting the idea yet that our senate is dragging their feet, because besides the recycling bills above the only other environmental bills I’ve seen from 2007 are as follows: 

· SB 0616   Environmental protection; water pollution; CAFOs; regulate land application of manure.
· SB 0483 Environmental protection; water pollution; baseline environmental assessment fee; eliminate sunset
· SB 0152 Environmental protection; prohibited products; use of phosphorus in dishwashing detergents; prohibit.
· SB 0081  Environmental protection; landfills; solid waste disposal surcharge; establish and earmark for recycling and other programs.
· SB 0007 Energy; conservation; appliance and equipment energy efficiency standards; establish.
· SB 0008 Environmental protection; permits; zoning compliance; require as a condition of issuance of wastewater permits.

All of this fiddle faddling around about going green in Michigan stalls thousands of new jobs with new business, a new economy besides the auto industry, and millions in new tax revenues. Michigan can’t afford it. So why the stall? Our governor wants to move ahead for change. Why would our Senate take so long to come up with nothing all that exciting, the big green wash, when people are really struggling financially in Michigan? Do they want us to starve until we scream we’ll take $14.00 per hour and forget unions? Because this feels like Psychology 101 to me used over and over by the Feds and now here. Strain people to the max like $4.00-$5.00 per gallon at the pumps, so we scream drill in the Arctic, drill in the wild life refuge, drill in my back yard, just give me cheap fuel again. And at least half of us don’t even know we’re being manipulated.

My blog about an RPS and how much money it brings into a state: http://www.blogsmonroe.com/world/wp-admin/post.php?action=edit&post=250.

Another article about SB1000: http://www.mitechnews.com/articles.asp?id=8499&sec=104
 

Last week on Good Morning America there was a guy who has been fueling his little diesel car with Chinese oil. What is Chinese oil? It’s the leftover oil from Chinese restaurants. He said the restaurant was only too happy to give the oil away. He put it in a plastic gas container and uses a funnel to put it in his car. He said he probably saved $3,000 last year by not buying gas. So if you have a little diesel car you drive to work, why not? The Welsh do it. The Welsh were using so much vegetable oil in their cars they had to come up with laws to stop it because the country wasn’t getting enough money from gas tax. The big clue? Everytime there was a new delivery of cooking oil to the supermarkets, the shelves were wiped out in hours. Now the Welsh police are allowed to stop a car and look at what it’s running in its tank. 

On that note, I ran across something good from an oil company. While I was researching oil company contributions to alternative energy, I read that Conoco Phillips is working with Tyson foods to use chicken fat for fuel.  Reuters.com has the entire article. The article stated: “Beef, pork and chicken fat from Tyson rendering plants will be processed at ConocoPhillips refineries to create transportation fuel.” They plan in the future to produce about 175 million gallons per year of this biodiesel. Conoco Phillips is already preparing some of their refineries for processing the animal fat. The first one is in Borger, Texas. ConocoPhillips is processing soybean oil as a biodiesel fuel already at its Whitegate refinery in Cork, Ireland. Tyson said “the fats will be processed with hydrocarbon feedstocks to produce a high-quality diesel fuel that meets all federal standards for ultra-low-sulfur diesel.” And unlike ethanol, this fuel can run through pipelines. 

This is good news. These two companies are making good use of leftover pollution, and there is a lot of it in the meatpacking industry. Since Conoco Phillips doesn’t stand to gain or lose from doing this, this is a very generous move.  I just hope finding a way to get rid of rendering material doesn’t cause a spike in eating more meat, or establishing more CAFO’s! There is a humane and ethical side to the treatment of animals that figures in here, not just the environment, or money. Industrialized farming is extremely horrific for animals, totally inhumane, and we end up with sickly meat.

http://www.reuters.com/article/consumerproducts-SP/idUSN1629340720070416?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0

Yep, you read that right. An article in the “Science” section of the New York Times is about scientists F. Jeffery Martin and William L. Kubic Jr., who propose a concept for removing carbon dioxide from the air and turning it back into gasoline. They’ve dubbed the concept: Green Freedom.

It’s supposed to be a simple process. Today’s article states:

The idea is simple. Air would be blown over a liquid solution of potassium carbonate, which would absorb the carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide would then be extracted and subjected to chemical reactions that would turn it into fuel: methanol, gasoline or jet fuel.

This is still in the pre-prototype, hashing it out in the garage phase. The scientists said it was all based on existing technology. It sounds really good doesn’t it? Well it kind of goes downhill from here.
There is a reason someone hasn’t already does this. It takes a lot of energy.  Each plant would require its own nuclear power plant or a heck of a lot of solar panels. And the recycled CO2 is only economical when gasoline prices are $4.60 or greater. What?

I know this was a real reach. It made a real nice headline but hey we’re trying to lower prices at the pump and if I had my wish there wouldn’t be any pump at all. Back to the drawing board.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/19/science/19carb.html?_r=1&ref=environment&oref=slogin