Month: November 2023

There is imminent urgency surrounding the environmental crises regarding plastic waste. Plastic waste, stems from either single use products to more complex packaging materials. This has posed as an every growing threat towards different eco-systems and environments such as marine life, and human health. Because of the billions of tons of plastic waste discarded, it leads to contamination of oceans, soil, etc. leading to a never ending cycle of environmental degradation. Exploring different sustainable solutions is important so we can mitigate the plastic waste issue and safeguard our planet. One extremely cool sustainable solution is turning that discarded plastic into shoes!

Have you ever taken a look at the tag in the back of your shirt or on the inside of your shoes? It is somewhat of an ingredient list but for clothes! One of the main ingredients you might find is polyester. Plastic water bottles also happened to be made out of the same substance as polyester: polyethylene terephthalate. This means that manufacturers can create the same type of fabrics they usually would with polyester, but with plastic! The process of this starts with collecting preferably clear plastic water bottles that way they can be dyed into other colors later on. The clear bottles are then cleaned and put through a shredding machine so the plastic can be cut down to about the size of a fingernail. The flakes are broken down even further into a pellet size and melted into filaments. The filament fibers are then spun into thread.

Some might think that since this is such a large, daunting process, that there is no way it could be more sustainable than just using regular polyester. However, the truth is recycled polyester (from plastic) produces 75% fewer greenhouse gas emissions compared to trying to make new polyester material. To make new polyester fabric you would need to start with coal, petroleum, air and water. Those materials then have to go through an extremely high heat process to go through a chemical reaction. This uses up a lot of energy and natural resources, as well as adds more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

That being said, being able to use plastic waste (such as clear plastic water bottles) is better for the environment overall.  It takes about 9 water bottles to make one T-shirt and 11 water bottles to make one pair of shoes! This sounds great considering how much plastic waste is around the world. However, people must put their plastic waste into recycle bins instead of their trash or littering. Recycled polyester is a very useful and interesting way of keeping plastic waste out of our oceans, landfills, and other ecosystems. There are several name brand companies that use this method to make their shoes. Adidas and Soala Shoes are a couple of examples of companies who have used recycled plastic water bottles to make their shoes! There are a number of different and innovative ways everyone can make sustainable differences in the world starting with easiest one: recycling!

 

 

https://saolashoes.com/blogs/news/plastic-shoes-made-from-recycled-plastic-bottles

https://www.adidas.com/us/blog/639412-how-we-turn-plastic-bottles-into-shoes-our-partnership-with-parley-for-the-oceans

https://www.acs.org/education/outreach/celebrating-chemistry-editions/2022-ncw/bottle-becomes-a-shoe.html

 

Over the past decades, there has been a large rise in popularity for stadiums. They have become prominent figures across various sports and concert venues. However, the construction of all these stadiums can raise some concerns about the environment and the impact on it. First, the construction of stadiums is harmful, because the harvesting of materials such as concrete and steel causes deforestation, depletes resources, and raises carbon emissions. Also, maintaining stadiums that have fields can also be a tricky issue, and can be the cause of misused water.

However, some of the most important environmental impacts come from outside of the stadium. Before and after events, there is a slow line of cars leaving the stadium, which causes many idling cars to emit unnecessary amounts of CO2. Also, before the game there are many people that are tailgating, where many people fire up their grills. All these factors are detrimental to the air, as the pollutants caused before the game cause pollution spikes that are 20 times over the moderate air quality level. This is a huge issue, which sometimes cannot be avoided due to the size of the stadium and the number of people.

One of the other biggest issues with stadiums is the amount of waste produced. For example, the EPA reported that 50 to 100 tons of waste is produced at an average college football game. While this may seem like a huge amount, you could play it off as there being a very large crowd at these games. However, this is heavily due to the incorrect usage of recycling opportunities and composting. Many stadiums have started learning to implement recycling bins more recently, but waste is still a huge issue within stadiums. Also, many stadiums draw on huge sums of power, as they require large amounts of lighting, and are not very sustainable overall.

While some issues cannot be changed outside of the stadium (car pollution and tailgating), there are big changes that can occur within the stadium. Stadiums should increase their accessibility to recycling, as even recycling bins around the corner of trash cans can help eliminate a large amount of waste. Recently, I was at a football game in Atlanta, and had the pleasure of visiting the Mercedes-Benz Stadium. The Mercedes-Benz Stadium has achieved Zero Waste, which is when they divert 90% or more of waste away from the landfill. They achieved the LEED Platinum Certification, being the first professional sports venue in the entire USA to achieve it. This means its sustainability measure represents the pinnacle of sustainability. While I was there, I noticed that all their concessions sold were only compostable or recyclable, and that the bins shown had very clear signs (as seen below). Also, they have solar panels lined around their roof, canopies, parking lots, and entrances. They provide around 1.6 kilowatt hours of renewable energy a year.

While general environmental challenges will always persist, many stadiums should start implementing sustainable practices such as the Mercedes-Benz stadium has shown is possible. These will help offset the issues outside the stadium and allow for a more sustainable future in stadiums; and it will help mitigate the environmental impact.

 

CleanRobotics. “The Problem with Stadium Recycling and Waste Management.” CleanRobotics, 18 Nov. 2022, cleanrobotics.com/the-problem-with-stadium-recycling-and-waste-management/#:~:text=EPA%20reports%20that%20an%20average%20college%20football%20game,are%20among%20the%20biggest%20and%20most%20crowded%20places.

Contributor, Guest. “America’s Leading LEED Certified Stadiums and Arenas.” askHRgreen.Org, 23 Apr. 2018, askhrgreen.org/americas-leading-leed-certified-stadiums-arenas/.

Filipeboni. “Understanding LEED Certification Levels.” UGREEN, 9 Aug. 2023, ugreen.io/understanding-leed-certification-levels/#:~:text=LEED%20Platinum%20is%20the%20highest%20level%20of%20certification%2C,most%20innovative%20and%20advanced%20green%20building%20strategies%20available.

Gosalvez, Emma. “Sport and the Environment: What Is the Connection?” College of Natural Resources News, 6 Nov. 2020, cnr.ncsu.edu/news/2020/11/sport-and-the-environment-what-is-the-connection/.

“Sustainability at Mercedes-Benz Stadium: Leaders in Zero Waste.” Sustainability at Mercedes-Benz Stadium | Leaders in Zero Waste, www.mercedesbenzstadium.com/sustainability#:~:text=Mercedes-Benz%20Stadium%20is%20designed%20to%20be%20extremely%20energy,campus%2C%20is%20equipped%20with%204%2C000%20solar%20PV%20panels. Accessed 30 Nov. 2023.

Sustainable cities are the future of urban development, and they hold the key to tackling pressing environmental challenges while ensuring a high quality of life for their residents. According to the NRDC, sustainable cities are built on three core principles: reducing greenhouse gas emissions, conserving resources, and promoting resilience. As we look ahead to the future, it is clear that sustainable cities will undergo transformative changes.

One of the key aspects of sustainable cities in the future will be a significant reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. These cities will prioritize renewable energy sources, such as solar power and wind energy, to meet their electricity needs. They will also encourage the transition to electric vehicles, with an extensive network of charging stations and efficient public transportation systems. By adopting these measures, sustainable cities will not only combat climate change but also improve air quality and reduce noise pollution.

Another crucial element of future sustainable cities will be the conservation of resources. To achieve this, innovative technologies will play a vital role in optimizing resource efficiency. Buildings will be designed to be energy-efficient and equipped with smart systems that monitor and regulate energy consumption. Furthermore, sustainable cities will implement waste management strategies that emphasize recycling and composting, aiming to minimize landfill contributions. Through these practices, sustainable cities will promote a circular economy, reducing waste and preserving natural resources.

Sustainable public transit is a crucial component of a climate-friendly transportation system, as highlighted by the U.S. Department of Transportation’s focus on climate action and sustainability. According to the U.S.D.O.T., investing in sustainable public transit not only helps reduce greenhouse gas emissions but also offers numerous benefits for communities across the United States. Looking towards the future, sustainable public transit will undergo advancements that prioritize environmental responsibility and enhance the overall transportation experience.

In the coming years, sustainable public transit systems will prioritize electrification. By transitioning from traditional fossil fuel-powered buses and trains to electric vehicles, cities can significantly reduce their carbon footprint. Electric public transit not only eliminates direct emissions from vehicles but also offers quieter, smoother, and more reliable transportation options for passengers. Additionally, the infrastructure supporting these electric vehicles, such as charging stations and smart-grid technology, will continue to evolve and become more efficient. This focus on electrification is an essential step towards achieving a greener transportation system and reducing the reliance on fossil fuels.

Moreover, future sustainable public transit systems will also embrace innovative technologies to improve efficiency, accessibility, and user experience. Intelligent transportation systems will be implemented to optimize route planning, reduce congestion, and minimize travel times. Integration of mobile applications and real-time data will provide commuters with accurate information about bus or train schedules, reducing waiting times and improving overall convenience. Additionally, sustainable public transit will prioritize inclusive design, making public transportation accessible to all individuals, regardless of physical abilities. By considering the diverse needs of passengers, these systems will foster social equity and inclusivity within the transportation network.

U.S. Department of Transportation. “Climate Action.” Transportation.gov, www.transportation.gov/priorities/climate-and-sustainability/climate-action.

National Resources Defense Council. “Sustainable Cities.” NRDC, www.nrdc.org/issues/sustainable-cities#overview.

The concept of a “walkable community” has picked up palpable steam in several channels across the internet recently. While the common or expected reason to reduce the foothold that car-centered infrastructure has on American cities would be the effect on the physical environment, there are a growing number of individuals supporting it for the sake of their social environments. Increasingly, I am seeing a longing for community within younger populations on social media. This led me to the realization that environmental goals do not have to come at the cost of comfort and lifestyle in the way that they are marketed. To achieve more sustainable communities and reduce our footprint on the planet’s environment, it is valuable to build and promote infrastructure that condenses living spaces and increases accessibility to necessary resources.

As the name suggests, walkable communities are places that prioritize the accessibility of goods and services on foot. This can include basic group transportation such as trolleys and buses, but for the most part, the idea is to be able to walk to your needs if able. This style of city holds a number of benefits for the citizens and the environment alike. For the environment, less paved roads and more paved sidewalks improve microclimates that heat cities and raise the need for air conditioning. On top of this, walkable cities minimize land use which leaves more room for animal and plant populations to thrive. For the citizens, commutes shorten, and the entire community is able to live in a much more engaging and vibrant environment including more common use of parks and town squares. Also, they promote more quiet communities as there are fewer automobiles and large vehicles.

College campuses highlight a key example of creating efficient an effective walkable communities. They are required, in most cases, to provide basic necessities to students of all backgrounds. Those without automobiles are encouraged to find other means of transportation. According to some experts, American college campuses can be used as a model for creating and implementing walkable practices.

Since I was born in Atlanta, Georgia, I know all too well the horrors of daily commutes. They contribute to stress and a sedentary lifestyle. I believe that more cities should invest in the walkability of their communities. Between the younger populations that are becoming increasingly focused on building community and the sake of the planet’s environment, these types of cities would improve the economic and mental conditions of this country’s citizens as well as aid it in achieving environmental and sustainability goals. Atlanta, for one, would greatly benefit from less angry drivers.

 

Steuteville, Robert. 2021. “Ten Environmental Benefits of Walkable Places.” CNU. August 31, 2021. https://www.cnu.org/publicsquare/2021/08/31/ten-environmental-benefits-walkable-places.

 

‌Maciag, Mike. 2013. “The Most Walkable Cities and How Some Are Making Strides.” Governing. Governing. 

December 11, 2013. 

https://www.governing.com/archive/gov-most-walkable-cities.html.

 

https://www.bupipedream.com/author/klee216. 2022. “The Walkability of College Campuses Should Be Mirrored in U.S. Cities.” Pipe Dream. 2022. https://www.bupipedream.com/opinions/133103/the-nostalgia-that-many-americans-have-for-their-college-years-can-be-tied-to-the-walkability-of-college-campuses-compared-to-most-towns-and-cities-in-the-united-states-college-campuses-are-highly-w/.

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It’s getting tough to not think we are headed for apocalypse. With meaningful change on a global policy level seeming less and less likely as our political system continues to stall in arguments over whether climate change exists or not, society’s future is looking grim. In a rather pessimistic (but maybe a better term is realistic) for the New Yorker, writer Jonathan Franzen says that: “You have a good chance of witnessing the radical destabilization of life on earth—massive crop failures, apocalyptic fires, imploding economies, epic flooding, hundreds of millions of refugees fleeing regions made uninhabitable by extreme heat or permanent drought. If you’re under thirty, you’re all but guaranteed to witness it (Franzen, 2019). Now, Franzen is no scientist, but he seems to be capturing the narrative that our generation has been fed for years now: Unless we do something about it, everything will be wiped out by climate change.

This is sort of a brutal thing to deal with. In the past year alone, I’ve heard the term “climate anxiety” thrown around almost as much as the topic of climate change. Most of us are terrified of what is coming for us. This anxiety is not encouraged by the world momentarily crossing the critical threshold of 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial temperatures while I was gathering information for this journal (Ray, 2023). We can’t even really grasp what truly is coming for us. In the absence of legislative change, we are sort of left hoping for a mysterious technological advancement that will save us all. What we are waiting for in the face of the potential apocalypse, is a “deus ex machina”, a literary term describing a plot device that swoops in at the end of the narrative and solves all problems (Methmann, 2012).

What will this look like? It is sort of impossible to imagine what this deus ex machina may look like. Certain movies have tried. Though they are not to be looked at as scientific models for what to do, seeing as they are fiction, there are three movies that come to mind that show technological “solutions” to the apocalypse we may soon face: WALL-E, Interstellar, and Snowpiercer.

First off, there is WALL-E. It is probably not a bas assumption to make that we’ve all seen this movie, as it was one of the defining movies of our collective childhoods. The climate disaster world WALL-E imagines is that of a world filled with uninhabitable amounts of pollution, with humans leaving Earth to board a spaceship in an attempt to leave for a while and come back when the Earth is more livable. Society has vastly changed while aboard the spaceship, with all people being immobile without the assistance of machines, all of them still consuming in large quantities, this time without any of the repercussions. In their place on Earth, a race of robots is left, with their task being to package and dispose of all the waste left behind. Centuries after the humans first left, WALL-E, the last of the earth-roaming robots, and EVE, a robot sent to evaluate life on Earth, to alert the humans aboard the spaceship of a plant that has grown on Earth’s surface, signaling that the planet can now sustain life again. The movie ends with the humans returning to Earth in hopes of re-starting civilization.

Next, we have Interstellar. This film centers on Cooper, a former pilot for NASA who is tasked with finding another inhabitable planet for humans after poor agricultural practices and lack of regard for the environment send humanity into a second, much larger Dust Bowl. The only crop that can be grown is corn, and even this will not last long. Cooper, along with three other astronauts, are forced to leave their lives and families behind in order to find a more suitable home, bringing a civilizations supply of human embryos with them. While Cooper does this, his daughter, Murph, works on a long-abandoned gravity formula that will allow the humans currently living on Earth to continue on the new planet. Due to a combination of love and black hole induced time dilation, the formula is solved, allowing for humanity to continue in tact.

Last on our climate movie watchlist is Snowpiercer. In this movie, in an attempt to combat global warming, world governments released CW-7, a cooling agent, into the air, causing the world to freeze over, killing almost everything. The only people left are those who boarded the Snowpiercer, a train that is fully self-sustaining. The train has a strict caste system set in place in order to “maintain order”. The movie centers on Curtis Everett, a man from the back of the train trying to push his way to the front to establish equality. The movie ends with Curtis deliberately blowing up the train in order to stop the system of injustice. Two children survive, going outside to discover that temperatures are now survivable.

So what can we learn? Well, first off, we have to prevent the apocalypse before it happens, because the worlds of all of these films seem horrific, and should be avoided at all costs. Second, and more important to my point, it seems that the message of these movies is to sort of wait the crisis out, hoping that technological advancement will eventually save us. Whether it’s a shockingly adorable robot, a magic formula for gravity, or a train that lets us wait out the disaster, each of these films has some sort of technology that leads to the hopeful salvation of humanity. These movies however, are all science fiction, and ambitiously unrealistic ones at that. The “wait for technology to save us” approach will not work in real life. There’s no funny robot to get rid of our issues. There will be no convoluted formula about gravity. There won’t be a train that can sustain humanity. We’ve got to do something to stop the climate disaster before it happens. There’s no deus ex machina at the end for us. That only works in the movies.

Franzen, Jonathan. “What If We Stopped Pretending?” The New Yorker, 8 Sept. 2019, https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/what-if-we-stopped-pretending.

Methmann, C., & Rothe, D. (2012). Politics for the day after tomorrow: The logic of apocalypse

in global climate politics. Security Dialogue, 43(4), 323-344. https://doi.org/10.1177/0967010612450746

Ray, Siladitya. “Global Temperatures Briefly Crossed Critical Threshold For The First Time Last Week.” Forbes, 20 Nov. 2023, https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2023/11/20/global-temperatures-briefly-crossed-critical-threshold-for-the-first-time-last-week/?sh=170fa629368e.

My home city of Tega Cay, South Carolina is known for its historical charm and luscious trees. In fact, the city flag depicts a pine tree which represents this reputation. This is ironic to me, as my town has increasingly favored the economy over nature and wildlife. Not to mention, there are more subdivisions than trees. It was not always this way. Several changes have been made over the past few years. While I was not happy with the state of our environmental policies in the past, they are preferable to the current state of things.

Every time I return home, there’s a new policy in place that only seems to take my town backward. Last year, during my first visit, I was met with a particularly distressing change. It is now $10 per month to continue recycling pick-up each week. This was announced on the city’s Facebook page. There were three options presented in a telling fashion. Below is the graphic posted on the city’s page.

The first option listed is to discontinue your recycling pickup entirely. The second is to pay $10 monthly for an entirely new trash can to adjust for the additional recycling waste that now must be thrown away. The third is to continue recycling, for the low price of $10 a month. I find the order of alternative options to be quite telling. The options are listed in order of convenience, based on time and money. It is convenient for people to not worry about recycling anymore. The cost for pick-up recycling is in line with those for Spotify, Netflix, and other entertainment services. Most people would prioritize their own entertainment over recycling, understandably. It is difficult to see any immediate benefit from recycling, whereas subscribing to an entertainment service has a clear and immediate benefit.

There is currently no location other than the Facebook page where you can find information about recycling policy. When navigating to the “Trash and Recycle” page on the city website, you are met with an error message. I find that this reflects the lack of care the city has for both communicating with its residents and promoting sustainable practices.

This problem is not only concentrated in my small hometown. Greenville County is dealing with its own recycling-related dilemma. Currently, recycling is only picked up within Greenville city limits. Citizens cannot pay a $10 monthly fee to get their recycling picked up; they have no choice but to stop recycling or haul it over to their nearest drop-off area. Furman is affected by this county-wide change and has opted to pay an outside contractor to pick up waste. Even with the trash and recycling pick-up in place, Furman still does not accept glass or many types of plastics for recycling. Only products labeled with a 1 or a 2 are eligible to be recycled.

What has been causing environmental initiatives to regress at this rate? The reasons are a lack of money and education. Several areas worldwide cannot afford to advance their current sustainable practices, much less keep them in place. Though, in many cases, the money is there for a city to utilize, leaders just wish to invest it in more profitable ventures (most of which include the destruction of the environment). Dealing with waste efficiently doesn’t have an immediate reward, making it unappealing to many. The idea of sustainability is to preserve what we have in the long term. If more people were conscious of the long-term in decision making, sustainable practices would be more prevalent around the country.

 

 

 

Sources:

County of Greenville, SC. (n.d.). https://www.greenvillecounty.org/solidwaste/CurbsideRecycling.aspx

Signature Waste. (n.d.). Tega Cay Account Setup. Retrieved October 3, 2023, from https://signaturewaste.com/tegacay/

Trash and Recycle. (n.d.). Tega Cay South Carolina. Retrieved October 3, 2023, from https://www.tegacaysc.org/995/Trash-and-Recycle