Author: Hannah Peterson

Matthew Sides

In the spirit of Valentine’s Day, I must ask “what do you love?” or more specifically “what do you hold dear?” and “why do you love it?” If your first response is anywhere near “anything but reading a blog” and “because blogs are boring,” then you probably share the sentiment of most people reading blogs on Valentine’s day, but you are also missing the point. If you answered the questions with some thought and honesty, I would say you probably focused on domestic things. I doubt you share the same answer as “I love roads because of their dependability and reliability.” This is understandable, as not many people ever actually seem to place roads on their “I love” lists. Our answers to these questions most likely differed entirely, but I would like you to put the thing you love into the forefront of the discussion and ask yourself “What would I do without this thing that I love?” and “could I live happily without this thing that I love?”.  By putting the ‘thing that you love’ in the forefront of the discussion, you may discover that you need to reassess or reaffirm your love of that specific thing.

In the case of the United States roadway system, I would suggest following three major aspects of the ‘topic of roads’ by answering “what?”, “why?”, and “how?” so that I can elaborate on the many things I love. I would also use these three questions to find and analyze some major modern flaws with our roads and then to come up with possible solutions to the problematic aspects of the roads.

What:

To ask why, one must first as what? What is a road? According to the dictionary, a road is defined as “a long, narrow stretch with a smoothed or paved surface, made for travelling by motor vehicle, carriage, etc., between two or more points; street or highway.” Using this definition may not give one a reason to appreciate the road. But placing it in the context of a highway is very relatable. We use the highway almost every day. According to the Federal Highway Administration (FHA), the highway system as we know it began in 1956, when then president Dwight D. Eisenhower successfully signed the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956. This act kickstarted the expansion of highway infrastructure. It allowed the federal government to pay for 90% of the total cost of construction of interstate highways. The interstate highway expands across 42,795 miles of the united states according to the FHA. The construction of roads is not simple. They need planning, pavement and concrete according to www.michigan.gov/mdot. This material is extracted as raw material and processed into the final product and then is laid onto of forests and expanded. The forests, ecosystems and overall climate change drastically. The benefits of expansion are easy access and direction which leads to better efficiency and economic growth and then birth rate growth. The cost of highways is high as it is a juxtaposition of the natural world being destroyed and the unnatural industrial world being expanded. As one dies slowly, the other rises.

Why:

Why is the expansion of the thoroughfare so relevant? The roads and their expansions are based on balance. They must balance space and effect. According to a www.ran.org article, there are approximately a total of 7 billion trees cut down each year globally, and around 12% or 840 million of those trees are taken down in part because of road construction. This is a massive problem. It is also a massive benefit depending on how you look at it; the roads’ benefits may outweigh what the policy makers deem to be the cons of the deforestation. The two sides of the why are “why do we need roads?” and “why do we need to cut down so many trees for a luxury?” This is where I question the love of roads, I am deciding whether the death of trees is worth it. I would say no, because there are so many other things going into highway maintenance that the depreciation doesn’t seem worth the cost to keep it up.

How:

The final question we must ask is how this is all going to play into an argument for still loving roads. I personally have a love for the road’s ability to guide and give access and efficiency, but it tears down some of the greatest aspects of earth that make the world worth living on. It takes away the natural diversity, simplicity, and personality of the earth. The love for roads is like a toxic love where the one being loved erases all other enjoyable things out of one’s life. At least roads could be seen like this. I still think that the roads of America are massively flawed but also that they can be reduced and replaced. I believe we will find way to remedy to the problem and even reverse it.

Conclusion:

The reevaluated look at the roads of our country shows that roads are very complicated. Like stated before, they enable us to grow massively, but at the cost of natural resources and deforestation. Roads are not doing a disservice; they are beneficial to the everyday citizen, but to the generations in the future, there will become problems with scarcity of resources.  I believe the roads will die out and be covered by a new system. Or at least if this happens then there might be hope that the world does not end.

 

 

Citations:

Definition of Roads: https://www.dictionary.com/browse/road

The Origin: https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/interstate/faq.cfm

Cutting Down: https://www.ran.org/the-understory/how_many_trees_are_cut_down_every_year/

 

The Process: https://www.michigan.gov/mdot/0,4616,7-151-9615-129011–,00.html

Makenna Christensen

For this piece, I chose to mix traditional acrylic painting with a collage of recycled materials turned into flowers and a 3-D paper snail. In today’s environment and ecosystems, we sadly cannot see the beauty of nature without (usually) also seeing some form of human pollution. Therefore, in Snailed it, I had this idea to have a snail moving across the canvas leaving behind a trail of recycled materials that otherwise would have stayed in the trash cans around my campus. In painting them green, I wanted to depict how many ways our products can be reused, and in the case of my collage painting, I’ve turned it into grass and pebbles. Surrounding the snail I also chose to do a mixed media piece of sustainable art gathering more materials like bottle caps, repurposed cans, unused sheets of paper and can tabs, which all could have been recycled but weren’t. I decided on the rainbow background as if to depict all of the colors of nature reimagined as the colors of today’s consumer culture. The piece essentially asks us what is at stake for our environment if we continue to mass consume materials as we do. Everything collected came from two days of recyclable materials found in trash cans across campus. If we don’t change our ways or realize our part in the ecosystem, we will remain anthropocentric beings claiming to be moral agents, but never giving the proper moral consideration to our living beings or our ecosystem.

Kendall Perez

Currently there are many places that push fast fashion, which promotes low quality clothing for a cheaper price that follows trends. The brands that are most known for their fast fashion are Forever 21 and Zara. Both companies promote fast and cheaply made products that are in style but are also harming the planet. In theory, this is a great idea because a person can change their wardrobe as the trends change without breaking the bank. When looking at the environmental effects of fast fashion, the toll it takes on our planet does not seem worth the slightly smaller price tag.

Fast fashion can be defined as inexpensive clothes that are mass-produced and stay up with the latest trends. In order to produce the massive amounts of clothing, places that produce fast fashion need large factories, which are terrible for the environment. The factories that fast fashion companies use are not the only environmental drawbacks to this issue. Aside from factories, fast fashion has caused an increase in textile waste, an increase in water pollution, and an increase in the use of toxic chemicals to produce the clothing. According to an article found on independent.co.uk, polyester is one of the most popular fabrics that is used in fast fashion. While this does not seem like it has much relevance, when washing polyester in washing machines, they shed plastic microfibers. These fibers are so small that they can pass through the sewage and end up in the water. While fast fashion seems like a seemingly un-harmful way to stay current with trends and save a few bucks, the impact it has on the environment could make it .

An eco-friendlier way to shop is at places that promote slow fashion. Slow fashion is a way to buy high quality clothing that is also good for the environment. Slow fashion is defined as clothing that is produced in a clean environment and is made with good quality fabrics and supplies. Some fabrics that are used a lot in slow fashion are linen, organic cotton and hemp fibers (Sustainable Fabrics). Slow fashion is a part of the “slow movement” which advocates for cleaner and better quality items. Not only does slow fashion promote ethical working conditions, it also promotes and encourages more sustainable practices to produce fashion items (Slow Fashion). While the price for some of the clothing may seem higher in brands that are slow fashion, the clothing lasts longer and is also much better for the environment. The fabric that companies use is high quality and sustainable as opposed to the more inexpensive fabrics and textiles used in fast fashion. Some slow fashion brands that are well known are Levi’s and Madewell. Both of these brands participate in making higher quality and more environmentally friendly clothing options. While the price of the clothing might be higher, the quality and the smaller environmental toll make them a better investment. Most fast fashion brand’s clothing usually lasts for a couple of months if they are not worn on a regular basis, but when a person buys items of clothing that are higher quality, the clothing lasts longer and they are able to wear the clothing more frequently. On top of this, they do not have to constantly buy new clothes. While there might seem to be nothing wrong with fast fashion to the blind eye, if you were to look into the actual effects and cost of producing these items you would see that it is not worth it.

Krissy Gear

As someone who lacks the artistic skills that others are endowed with, I decided to use that to my advantage for the composition of my piece. I opted for a very simple aesthetic, to convey my simple (yet important!) message. Something so easily done— yet still so easily forgotten— is the menial task of flipping the switch before leaving a place. I have illustrated a light switch in my drawing, but this can be widely assigned to any type of power switch. I drew my inspiration from the shocking number of times I witness lights left on, illuminating a room with no occupants! This is one of my biggest pet peeves (along with running copious amounts of water without adequate justification for doing so, but we can save that rant for another time), especially when I go home: my stepmom loves to leave all the lights on downstairs before she goes to bed. Leaving lights on seems discreet enough but leaves a noticeable impact on both the environmental level and economic level. I hope my piece reminds people to be more aware before leaving a place to power off.

Zibo Wang

A long, long time ago, the early humans lived in harmony with nature, food was plentiful, and water was clear. Humans could reach a maximum lifespan of 450 years. That was the golden age of men; life for everyone was good. But then the waste nation attacked with ferocity, led by the Waste King himself, and everything changed. Water was polluted, species went extinct, many habitats were destroyed, and hope was lost. But legend has it, a chosen hero master of all four recycling ways can stopp the Waste King. Many years had passed; there is no sign of such man; all seems lost…….

Until today: a mysterious woman emerged out of nowhere….

Her name is Maryse Suzan, a strong, independent woman with a mysterious past. She walked into the town seeing no one on the street. It was sacrifice day, where every town folk is forced to watch in the city center. “Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga,” Dr. Plastic said, “ witness this innocent girl die by plastic poisoning.”  He is preparing to shove a handful of plastic down her throat, but he was interrupted by a flying trash can. “Looks like someone needs a good repurposing,” says Maryse as she leaps towards Dr. Plastic. She punches him in the gut and pulls out a shredding machine, then, shoving him inside, shreds him into pieces that can be repurposed for many things like jewelry or lumber. She left without a word because she knows she has many more things to do on her journey to defeat the Waste King.

Maryse Suzan is used to camping outside; physical comfort has no effect on her determination. But when she looks up into the heavily polluted sky, a flash of the past creeps in to her mind. “Yes, the day my whole family died had a similar sky,” she said to herself. Maryse was not always like this; she used to be a normal child with a loving family until the age of  four. Her mom died from lung cancer that year due to the heavily polluted air. And that same winter her dad died trying to feed the family hunting. There was nothing left in the forest due to the rapid destruction of habitat cause by the Waste King. That day she became the chosen one. A young Maryse filled with grief and a need to recycle unlocked the secret to the four ways of recycling. She will stop the Waste King.

This is the Waste capital, a city of great industrial prowess, but it is also a city of death and sickness. Maryse knows what has to be done. She went straight toward the Waste King. The Waste King taunted her, but she did not say a word. Death of her family flashes before her eyes.  “Super-recycle slam!” she screamed. To her surprise, nothing happened. The Waste King laughed, “I am not a simple being you can destroy.  I am humanity in many ways.”  She realized that is true, and the environment can only be saved by everyone doing their part.  So she left and became an environmental speaker. And that is the story of my great-grandmother.

Bhumika Jakkaraddi

As a four-year-old girl, the story of the old woman who lived in a shoe was a toss-aside nursery at best. However, after fifteen years and drastic environmental changes, the old woman whose fate we dreaded as children may have actually been ahead of her time. Tiny homes could offer big changes in the face of resource competition, disastrous climate change and growing energy consumption seen worldwide. At the crossroads of policy, sustainability, and lifestyle, the tiny home movement highlighted by YouTube series and television shows like HGTV’s Tiny House, Big Living could offer solutions for several pressing issues, with the reduction of environmental impacts being at the forefront of its benefits. While the tiny homes highlighted in these series range from rural to retro, their appearances are not their only source of intrigue. Through encouraging low-cost, minimalistic living styles, the optimization of natural resource use and the reduction of waste production, living small could lead to massive environmental improvements for all to benefit from.

So what exactly constitutes tiny living? The answer appears to differ from home to home, as tiny homes vary from not only normal housing but within the realm of tiny houses themselves. The aim of the tiny living movement is to construct functional homes, which utilize the minimum resources necessary for proper functioning. The average tiny home utilizes less than 250 square feet of space and is typically mobile in order to evade normally imposed building codes mandating that living spaces have modern essential amenities and be at least 300 square feet.[1] Non-mobile homes ranging from 250 to 1000 square feet, however, follow the same principles of living as their tinier counterparts. These homes are typically built with sustainable building materials, utilizing scraped building material or sustainably sourced supplies. Due to their reduced sizes, these homes also employ far less energy use due to the decrease of energy required to heat or cool such small spaces.[2] Additionally, tiny homes require far less electricity use, utilizing only 914 kilowatts per year compared to the 12,773 kilowatts per year required for average houses.[3] Proponents of the tiny living movement also encourage the production of less waste, crediting smaller spaces as motivators to create less waste or own fewer items in general. This aids in eliminating unnecessary items from our day to day lives and in identifying items used frequently and thinking of ways to make these items fit into a sustainable lifestyle. By identifying necessary materials in daily living, supporters of minimalistic living encourage individuals to find sustainable alternatives to them, such as swapping plastic bags for reusable ones, bottled water for water bottles and compostable plates and cutlery rather than foam or plastic at large scale events.

While tiny homes take meticulous planning, concentrated efforts in lifestyle change, and infringements on normal living, making the switch to tiny homes could simultaneously improve your approach to living, life satisfaction and the conditions of the environment. Small but powerful, these miniscule homes pack a mighty punch and are looking for new homeowners everyday across the globe: could you be the next one?

[1] https://greenfuture.io/sustainable-living/tiny-houses-sustainable-living/

[2] https://www.ase.org/blog/tiny-homes-are-big-energy-efficiency

[3] https://www.countryliving.com/life/a6110/tiny-house-infographic/

Tiffany Mendez

The world is running out of water. By 2025, it is predicted that nearly 2 billion people may not have enough drinking water to satisfy their needs. New NASA satellite data shows that a majority of the world’s underground aquifers are being worn out faster than they can be filled up. Since 1900, more than 50% of types of wetlands have disappeared and in many parts of the world, 40% of fresh water goes unaccounted for due to water leakage and pipe damage. One of the solutions to this problem is desalination. Desalination is a process that takes away minerals from salt water. However, removing salt from seawater will take up to 10 to 100 times more energy than traditional freshwater treatment methods.

A team of engineers was motivated by this problem and created a new prototype to desalinate seawater in a sustainable and low-cost way by using solar energy. This new device is predicted to double the amount of water used by solar energy. The proposed technology is simple: it was first inspired by plants, which transport water from roots to leaves by transpiration. The device is able to collect seawater using a low-cost porous material. The collected water is then heated by solar energy, which then separates the salt from the evaporated water. Unlike other active desalination technologies that need costly mechanical or electrical components such as pumps to desalinate water, the new proposed technology is based on spontaneous process, which means it does not need the help of machinery, and it is referred to as passive technology. Since it does not use pumps or costly machinery, the device is inexpensive.

This team has been able to reach record values of productivity: up to 20 liters per day of drinking water per square meter exposed to the sun. The main reason behind the performance is that it recycles the solar heat. This prototype is suitable for providing safe drinking water in emergency conditions, for example, areas where flooding and tsunamis occur. This prototype is also useful in third world countries where drinking water is scarce. In the future, the hope of this project is to collaborate with an industrial partnership to make this prototype more durable, accessible, and versatile. Freshwater is the most important resource for human life on earth. Without water, we cannot survive, and almost all our food sources require fresh water to grow or create. As water scarcity continues to present a major issue to society, it is important to take care of our planet and make sure we are doing everything we can to help save it from destruction.

 

https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-data-shows-the-world-is-running-out-of-water-2015-6

https://wwf.panda.org/our_work/water/importance_value/

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/01/190107131242.htm

Dahye Kim

As coffee became an essential part of an urban lifestyle, easy disposing habits also became a routine for us. The motive for this piece was reducing coffee related waste. One of the largest coffee companies, Starbucks, produces six billion disposable cups each year. Most of the cups are used very temporarily and thrown away easily. While these cups are in our hands less than a day, it takes 20 years to decompose, and for the plastic lids, it takes more than 450 years to completely break down. Most of the waste that is not recycled or used ends up in the ocean, and they are busy invading the marine life.

In order to increase the awareness of disposable cups waste situation, this artwork demonstrates what the Ocean can look like if we produced less waste by bringing our own cups to drink coffee. The materials for this cup are a used Starbucks coffee cup and used Pepsi plastic bottle. Keeping the style of the coffee brand’s font and its arrangement was critical so that people would know what “Bring your own cup and… we proudly conserve” is targeting. Original words (for example, Decaf, shots, syrup…) to specify the types of coffee drinks were changed to the key qualities for a sustainable life. This also is an acrostic that makes the word “nature” when you read the first letters vertically. In order to increase visual aspect of the sea, the plastic bottle was cut and painted blue, which depicts deep blue sea surrounded by beautiful colors of corals reefs. Because of the reused plastic section, a candle was put into the cup to so it can be used as a decorative lantern.

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/