Month: February 2019

Emilia Hyland

Plastic is a part of our everyday lives. An important topic is the use of disposable plastic bags and the effects their journey through our earth systems have on ecosystems. Plastic bags have not always been a part of our consumer culture. It was not until the 1970s that they were introduced in the United States and then in Western Europe in the 80s (Clapp & Swanson, 2009). Although they have only been a part of our culture for a couple of decades, their use has had a lasting impact on the environment already. To supply the demand of the 100 billion plastic bags used in the United States, 12 million barrels of oil are required (Clapp & Swanson, 2009). Oil is a fossil fuel that is nonrenewable and the emissions from its utilization attribute to numerous environmental issues, like climate change. Even their disposal has negative consequences because it is difficult since they are petroleum-based and therefore will not decompose for thousands of years in landfills, thus allowing for harmful chemicals to leach out into the surrounding environment. Recycling plastic bags is not a viable option either since the thin, petroleum plastic is not valuable enough to recycle. (Clapp & Swanson, 2009).

 

In many countries, plastic bags are given at no additional cost to the customers as they are purchasing their goods. Since they are quick and convenient, no one thinks twice about using them during their busy day to get from one point to another. At the end of their use, they are likely to be sent to the landfill or may be carried by the wind to another location because of their lightweight design. Plastics bags degrade at different rates depending on their composition and the location where they are dumped. They photodegrade, breaking down into smaller bits of plastic, which poses a threat to the animals that may consume the smaller pieces (Clapp & Swanson, 2009). There is no proper way of disposing of the plastic bags, so the only option is to reduce our consumption.

Solutions can range from individual action to the implementation of government policy. On the individual scale, one can bring their own reusable bags shopping. On a larger scale, policy reform can lead to positive social and environmental side effects, like taxing plastic bags to reduce consumption as it has been done in other countries. For instance, in Ireland a 15 Euro cent tax was imposed on plastic bags, which reduced the amount consumed and disposed by 90% (Convery, McDonnell, & Ferreira, 2007). A change in mindset may be required to make such a transition in America, but it is possible. Change will only happen with citizen participation in policy issues, so an individual can make a big difference by talking to their local representatives. Our plastic, consumer culture is the leading cause to harmful plastics in our environment, but by reducing our use of plastic bags through individual action and changes in policy, we might be able to reverse the harm we have already imposed and curtail future degradation.

References:

Clapp. J. & Swanston. L. (2009). Doing away with plastic shopping bags: international patterns of norm emergence and policy implementation. Environmental Politics, 18(3), 315-332.

Convery, F., McDonnell, S., & Ferreira, S. (2007). The most popular tax in Europe? Lesson from the Irish plastic bag levy. Environmental and Resource Economics, 38(1), 1-11.

Spencer Jones

In 2002, in an attempt to save money and in a wake of government setbacks, New York’s Metropolitan Municipal works decided to no longer collect recyclables such as glass and plastics. Cutting back on recyclables ended up saving the city a total of $65 million. The system was flawed from the start with multiple routes and confusing sorting techniques and a lack of consumer education, so the city really had no other option. Eventually the citiy’s landfills began to fill, and suddenly the price of recycling became profitable, ending a two-year drought of recycling.

But what is the true cost of recycling? How much does your one misplaced bottle really affect the recycling program? Every day we are faced with a decision on where to place our leftover paper cup. However, there are so many issues on what goes where. The classic example is pizza boxes; these “would be recyclables” are often times covered in too much grease to truly be recycled, forcing workers to sort through tons of recycling. In some cases, if a batch is comprised of more than 20% of non-recyclable material, the batch is sent to the landfill.

The cost of recycling ranges from $20 to $50 per ton, depending on the route and location of the municipal facility. Reusing materials and products such as plastic is more economically sound than recycling glass; only 1/5th of the energy is saved from recycling glass, and hard plastics which require special bleaching and cleaning process to make viable again. Broken glass is one of the most difficult materials to recycle since shattered glass cannot be melted down to form another bottle. However, innovative companies are repurposing glass bottles into consumer products.

Aluminum, however, is the most recyclable product that we know of; more than 90% of cans and automotive parts are recycled. This is due to a mixture of supply and demand and educational efforts to recycle aluminum. Chances are that there is a 75% chance that the aluminum can that comes off the supermarket chance has been used before.

 

But why did NYC decide to cut recycling plastic and glass out of their daily recycle route? This is simply due to the fact that plastic and glass are really expensive to recycle and often times do end up in a landfill anyways despite being recycled. Plastic requires a lot of energy to melt down into the pellets it once was. However, eventually all plastics will return to the small hard beads from which the product was born. This period is considerably longer than we would like: roughly 450 years. Glass is by far one of the least profitable forms of recycling since materials to make new glass are much easier and more energy efficient than aluminum; since sand is readily available and cheap. Another challenge with glass is transportation and unknown structural strength within intact bottles. Most times with recycling glass, faculties just crush the glass until it is sand once more.  Some companies use this to make new bottles or it is used in other commercial ventures.

 

However, that one misplaced bottle can cause quite an impact to the recycling industry and sorting process. If glass is shattered in a paper container, that entire batch will be scrapped for workers safety. Since glass is relatively worthless to recycle, many municipalities won’t accept glass, but consumers still recycle it anyway. A North Carolina Municipal plant throws away about 30 to 40 tons of paper everyday due to contamination.

 

Recycling has become a key part of our social ecosystem and is encouraged for a sustainable future. Even though some objects are more recyclable than others, it is always better to reduce the amount of these products you buy and encourage reuse of ones that you do. Recycling is the last step and the least energy efficient out of the other two options in the recycle triangle we learned in elementary school. Recycling is expensive, but sometimes the materials saved and reused end up with a profit.

 

https://www.thoughtco.com/benefits-of-recycling-outweigh-the-costs-1204141

https://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/20/nyregion/new-york-city-budget-recycling-no-to-plastics-and-glass-yes-to-paper-and-metal.html

http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2012/ph240/micks2/

https://www.aluminum.org/industries/production/recycling

http://theconversation.com/why-cant-all-plastic-waste-be-recycled-100857

https://www.thebalancesmb.com/how-long-does-it-take-garbage-to-decompose-2878033

https://www.energycentral.com/c/ec/how-big-impact-does-recycling-make-environment

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/04/20/weak-markets-make-consumers-wishful-recycling-big-problem/100654976/

Ethan Kohrt

Among my generation there seems to be a strange sort of hopeless apathy about big issues. For many of us, we think our votes don’t make a difference, large corporations are too powerful to challenge, and the planet is racing swiftly and surely towards climate-induced Armageddon; surely there’s nothing that we can do as individuals to change things. Where did this sense of powerlessness come from? I’m not sure. But I think the best way to combat it is by spreading a message of hope. On the issue of climate change, this means reminding people that these problems have solutions, and that they are within the grasp of each one of us.

Some of this despair about climate change might come from the way the issue is most often framed: the typical persuasive piece I read recounts the myriad ways the global ecosystem is collapsing, then describes the cataclysmic future that awaits us if the trend continues, and closes with a plea for the reader to do… something. But despite being factually true and sensibly distraught, I see a big problem with this kind of argument. By focusing on the staggering scale of climate change and existential hopelessness of the current situation, it’s all too easy to frighten people into complacency. The problem just seems too big, and the solutions too far out of reach. I think that this theme has become so common in the media that instead of provoking action, ordinary people have started to become numb to it: thus the hopelessness. Something has got to change.

I believe that when we communicate about climate change, we have a responsibility to offer solutions that the audience could and would take part in themselves. A good way to do this is to use a method similar to “Graduated Exposure” in psychotherapy, whereby anxious people can overcome their fears and uncertainties. First break the issue into smaller parts; and then break the parts into a series of manageable steps, such that the first step has the lowest threshold, and the next is accessible from the first, and so on. For example, food production accounts for a decent portion of global emissions, and to lower emissions on this front everybody should ideally switch to a more sustainable vegetarian or vegan diet. Realistically, though, few people are willing or able to make such a drastic lifestyle change. So the problem needs to be simplified further; step one is to start by limiting the foods with the highest impact, beef and lamb. Perhaps limit consumption to once per week. Then, after some time eliminate them entirely, and set your sights on pork.

The point is, the idea of making a big and sudden lifestyle change can be pretty intimidating when viewed as a first step, but if you offer gradual steps leading up to it, people will find it much more appealing to begin the transition. This applies to every other aspect of the climate change issue; if you communicate in this way, people will think of it not as an unfathomable and insurmountable hurdle, but as a process in which they can directly make an impact. This little change in perspective might be the beginning of hope.

 

Carbon Footprint of Common Foods

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-46459714

Graduated Exposure:

http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/headroom/cbt/graded_exposure.pdf

Rachel Knight

The building of Trump’s 5.5 meter (18-foot) wall plan will affect not only humans, but could potentially harm and endanger the surrounding ecosystems. 654 miles of existing barriers and walls were built with materials such as barbed wire to steel, bollard to wire mesh, and have already greatly affected the delicate ecosystems and wildlife on the border. President Trump favors construction of a border wall due to his value of strong immigration policies. The president has gone as far as shutting down the government in efforts to force lawmakers to provide $5 billion in funding. Illegal immigration was a central theme of his 2016 presidential bid, and he appealed to this issue by deploying 5,800 U.S. troops in 2018 to the border as immigrants from Central America desperately crossed into the United States.

Biodiversity on the border is threatened by this barrier wall, but the full effect has not yet been determined by scientists. A biologist at Penn State, Jesse Lasky, has attempted to assess the threat of the border wall. They estimated that, “134 mammal, 178 reptile, and 57 amphibian species live within about 30 miles of the line. Of those, 50 species and three subspecies are globally or federally threatened in Mexico or the United States.” Various threatened species on this border survive only because people on both sides have worked hard to conserve them.

The construction of this wall is expected to uproot a protected habitat of butterflies along the Rio Grande after the U.S. Supreme Court brushed off various environmental groups that wished to fight against this decision. Supreme court justices maintained District Court ruling to allow the Trump administration to overlook 28 federal laws for southern border wall construction, a few of which being the Endangered Species Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act and the Clean Air Act. It’s unsettling the lengths our president and the supreme court are willing to go to for this wall, purposely bypassing laws that are in place for significant reasons such as to protect our environment and species that risk extinction. It should appear obvious to the administration that by having to overlook this many laws, or any at all, should raise red flags and cause them to realize the potential detrimental effects constructing a border wall would have on the surrounding territory and its inhabitants. “I don’t think it’s understood [by lawmakers], and if it is, it’s discounted. ‘Oh, it’s just wildlife, big deal, they’ll figure out a way,’ or, ‘It’s the desert, there are no animals down there,’” said Kevin Bixby, executive director of the Southwest Environmental Center.”  This whole position of ignorance will have serious impacts on wildlife populations. It will prevent jaguars from coming back to the U.S., and some subspecies will disappear completely from the face of the Earth.

“Hundreds of thousands of butterflies housed at the nonprofit National Butterfly Center will be in jeopardy after about 70 percent of the center’s land winds up on the other side of the border wall,” according to the executive director of the center, Marianna Wright. Other concerns about this wall lie in the decline of the region’s ecotourism. Jeffrey Glassberg, the president of the center, predicts that visits will fall by half simply because it will cease to be a pleasant and peaceful place to visit. Lawsuits have been set in place against the government by three organizations, all led by the Animal Legal Defense Fund. Their claim is that construction of the wall would harm plants, wildlife and other species such as fairy shrimp and the Quino checkerspot butterfly.

With political and economic issues surrounding the border wall aside, continued construction of this wall will result in the bulldozing of land and sanctuaries that will negatively impact the volume and diversity of the species in this area by destroying their habitats or restricting access to areas containing essential resources for these species.

 

Citations:

https://www.rollcall.com/news/politics/ocelots-butterflies-border-wall

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/butterfly-sanctuary-in-texas-expected-to-be-plowed-over-for-trumps-border-wall/

https://www.vox.com/2018/3/28/17152644/trump-border-wall-texas-environment-refuge-butterflies

https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/trumps-border-wall-could-kill-texas-butterfly-sanctuary/

I decided to collect the trash that the Eco Cottage and the surrounding areas produced. When searching I attempted to pick out pieces that would both give the colors and textures of a tree trunk, but attempted to make sure I wasn’t too accurate because I wanted the final piece to be more of a representation of a tree. I tried to be extremely limited with the resources I used outside of our garbage; the only thing that wasn’t waste was adhesive. The sculpture went through many different changes when I started making it: first, my leaves were made out of metal and were scarce, however, this didn’t really help show that it was a tree. Eventually, the leaf design changed to plastic bags that were littering the area. I choose the shape of a tree because it is a universal symbol for the environment and it is recognizable enough that no matter what it is made of it is still recognizable. The point of the piece is to show that we can reuse and recycle trash to create new things as well as be eco-friendly.