Hehe, just been looking through a few Twitter commenters I follow, and someone asked Elon Musk how well the 'Enhanced Summon**' feature on the cars is progressing. His answer was, 'It almost doesn't suck anymore'. Which I think shows refreshing honesty, a down-to-earthness, and something which almost no other CEO in the world would say. Let alone be on Twitter while he's doing it. **Enhanced Summon is a feature that is about to introduced on all Tesla vehicles [along with the complete V.10 software package] that allows owners to press a button on their phone from the other side of a large car park and the car drives to the owner completely empty/unaided. Should work well coming out of supermarkets loaded with shopping and/or it's raining. That sort of thing.
Surely for the sake of the environment you should walk your lazy arse to the car rather than getting the car to come to you.
Indeed, the carbon footprint of a paper product can be surprisingly high. A lot of our problem with plastics is having the will to recycle it. The cost of all products from birth to recycled death will have to be worked out and factored in. We really can no longer make things with a care-free attitude. Here's an odd one - Forest Green Rovers wear shirts made of 50% bamboo [I wonder what the other half is]: The Home kit is called the Zebra kit. I think it looks pretty cool.
In terms of energy use I would have wholeheartedly agreed with you until just the other day. It appears that electric motors are more efficient than we are.
Do you want me to tell you how much money supermarkets make selling plastic bags (for life)? I only found out this week; it’s frightening. They don’t want to stop selling them. Getting rid of free carrier bags has made them a fortune.
Yeah, I have absolutely no idea. Interesting though. BTW, in a nerdy environmental way, I decided a few weeks back to occasionally follow the progress of Forest Green Rovers. EDIT: Another nerdy factoid - I haven't double checked this: Bamboo grows quickly without pesticides, herbicides or fertilizers. It sucks up a lot of CO2. Bamboo plantations are large factories for photosynthesis which reduces greenhouse gases. Bamboo plants absorb about 5 times the amount of carbon dioxide (a primary greenhouse gas) and produces about 35% more oxygen than an equivalent stand of trees.
This is what we're facing, not the full story but highlights the impact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic_pollution Progress is being made world wide see https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/06/how-the-world-is-fighting-plastic-pollution/ and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-out_of_lightweight_plastic_bags . We spend time in Indonesia usually based in Bali. The use of alternatives has been noticeably increasing before the ban came into force. https://www.gapurabali.com/news/201...ingle-use-plastic-bags-straws-and-polystyrene. http://divemagazine.co.uk/eco/8394-bali-to-ban-plastic-bags
Looking at the bamboo factoid [if true], you might think, so what's the catch? I haven't looked into this at all, but the main problem with Cash/Catch Crops is that they often devastate the fertility of the soils around them. Not saying that's the same with bamboo, but singular species plantations can often result in a 'dead' ground within their root and branch influence. I shall give this a good lookee at.
bamboo is great until you plant some in your garden. 2 years later you have a jungle. you spend hours hacking the stuff down and burning it. ok for pandas but home grown bamboo is a nightmare for the carbon foot print! Still, I don't need to buy poles for my beans (if I had any space left to grow them)
What alternatives are being used? Do you know how much energy is used to make them and transport them? What will the affect be on global warming? People are the problem, not the material. Our governments that allowed all that plastic waste to be shipped to Asia/Africa/India and Those governments that accepted that material carry a lot of blame. People who don’t re-use and recycle. A single use plastic bag used twice, is far more environmentally friendly than a cotton bag. Investigate how much energy, water, chemicals are used in making some of these alternative bags. Horrendous. See what happens to rivers near places making them around the world. By the way, I keep plastic bags for life in my car all the time. People behaviour is what needs to change most.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-49253691 I am totally speechless. The Texas Police chief: "He said there was no "malicious intent" and has changed department policy to 'prevent the use of this technique'." Words fail me.
Of course it's attitudes, the shipping and acceptance of waste is a inexcusable. Not just cotton bags how do they compare with cotton clothing manufacture? Banning single use is the key phrase especially in Asia the supply needs to be cut off the thin single use plastics often aren't strong enough to use twice, Stop the supply is the local solution say the people dealing with it day to day. Oh and no one is saying just use a cotton bag as a replacement plenty of alternatives. Locally made alternatives bamboo, papaya etc, reused materials, have a look for yourself how other countries around the world are coping with the problem. In Indonesia (worldwide in fact) education is one way for the future, in Bali kids are being shown the underwater world they didn't know existed. Local solutions for a global problem. https://www.aliansizerowaste.id/sin...le-Use-Plastic-Ban-but-Regulation-On-The-Line. Extract from the link “Only 9% of plastic in Indonesia is recycled. How can ADUPI claim to be short of waste material for recycling when 91% of plastic waste is out there?” asks Catur of KPS Bali. Post-consumer plastic straws, plastic bags and polystyrene are of relatively low value for recycling, which in principle does not make them much sought after compared to other plastic waste such as PET bottles. Bye the way I haven't got plastic bags for life in my car, I haven't got a car , it's in my rucksack, I'm on me bike (or public transport).
I couldn't agree with you more FLT. People are the problem. Whilst we need to develop better plastics, that are more environmentally friendly, even if it costs a bit more, it is a change of behaviour that is required most. How many people read posts, calling for a change in attitudes, behaviours [the government ought to do something about this!!!], and LIKE the post, because they agree with it, and then pass onto the next thing, or get up from their chair and keep having the same attitude and behaviour they had before they started reading? Probably everybody. Yet what they've just agreed with calls for a change in THEIR attitude and behaviour just as much. None of us are paragons of virtue. We are all lazy to some extent. So let's see what we can do whilst we are being lazy: Change your energy provider to one that uses 100% renewables, or is at least 0% CO2 [that means Nuclear can be used whilst it's operationally viable]. Change your gas provider to one with a cleaner operational record. If like me, you have a household where your heat and some cooking is provided by gas, then choose the best cleanest company you can. I'm not suggesting you buy a fancy all-electric cooker right now, because that requires effort. You'll have to work to get back the money. Change your water provider, if you can, to one with a best record on leaks and investment in best quality water and best environmental practice. Combine as many single car journeys as you can into one. A simple change of behaviour for FFV owners, but it will save you and the environment tonnes of money and pollution. Your car's engine will reach it's proper operating temperature, perhaps for the first time in ages, and will be polluting as little as it is able. Plus instead of loads of little trips, by combining them into one, you get more time to be lazy. So don't do those impulse car trips to the pub, or shop or other places that you could e-bike, cycle or walk to. At night time, turn the lights off in rooms you're not using. If the kids insist on having a light on when in bed for sleeping, make sure it's the most efficient one you can find. And wean them off that behaviour while you're at it. Of course, it's getting into the tiny things you [now you not being so lazy, sorry] can do which makes an enormous difference in the end. Sort your washing and wash max loads as much as you can. Don't stick on the dishwasher until it is absolutely full [I'm sure you have other plates to use until then], or dare I suggest it - wash that smaller amount by hand - you'll use less water. And if you always have leftovers which don't get eaten, how about cooking less food? Saves time and energy. Perhaps buy less food in the first place, if that's possible. And that's just a few of things you can reduce doing to save yourself effort and time, and the environment will feel better for it too. Yeah, it might be easy for me to say, because I do pretty much all of those things already. But I have habits that I am changing. For example, after many years, I am vegetarian, or pescatarian, to be more accurate. But I only eat sardines now to give me my oily fish intake. That's way more more sustainable. And I'm getting myself off most dairy as it just seems better for my digestion, but has better environmental effects the more of us who do it. When my car tax and insurance runs out this year, I'm going to be done with the car until I can afford a BEV - I know that's something very few people can do, just like that - I have been working towards it for a long tiime. And lastly - and this is really for your health, but helps the overall environment too. Stop smoking. I know most have, but if you haven't, do it now. It's the lazy person's best effort because it's an absence of doing something. You don't drive to the cigarette corner shop and buy them or tobacco and papers. You don't stink up the house, so having to clean more. And you don't have to reach for them and light one - how lazy can one get? After 3 weeks it'll all seem like normal, except the stink, which will still be there for a short time after you regain your sense of smell. So there you go. A lazy person's way to being better for the environment. So don't LIKE this post unless you intend to change your habit, however small [I'm still trying], and remember that most of them require no more effort and time than you've made before - many of them less. And if I see no LIKEs, I'll realise that there are a few people already behaving like Buddhist monks, but many didn't give enough **** to get to the end. TLDR doesn't cut it here. You have to read.
Already well on the way we're low consumers, no car which means we only buy what we need so less waste, dish washer wtf?. I wear my clothes to destruction, don't smoke, do enjoy a glass of beer and wine. Haven't gone the veggie route but big reductions. Many people doing similar just 'kin do it reduce, reuse, recycle not just plastics all manner of environmental (and financial) savings.
Excellent St Jabbo. I'm with you in the lack of dishwasher, and pretty much everything else there. The car is off to the scrapyard later this year. I'm not sure I feel good about selling the parts, cause that's just pre-longing the existence of the FFV in diverse ways. Let me just say - I loved eating meat, and if I go out for a meal with friends, I don't make everyone go to my choice of restaurant. Which means that if there is no proper veggie option, I eat the meat. It's so few and far between it barely makes a bobble on the radar. But I'm totally veggie at home. I feel like it's a sustainable way, in the short/medium term, for a meat eater to go veggie. Lastly, off my Archive, which I've posted before: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle - Plastic Fantastic Click the little Roman Temple [not Greek Parthenon] if you wish to go to the Archive itself.
Thanks SS2, I just keep nagging at all and sundry, being close to my 3 score years and ten I don't give a flyer about upsetting some people's sense of sensibility.
Details of manufacture, environmental impact ducked if I know. It is an alternative locally made. May not be the ultimate solution certainly is progress. https://indonesiaexpat.biz/outreach/charities/biowear-avani-plastic-alternatives-bali/ please log in to view this image
