Environmental Economics

There is no such thing as zero-waste (second law of thermodynamics?)

I voted today:

We the Appalachian State University Sustainability Council do hereby proclaim our support for Appalachian's Zero-Waste Commitment and the associated Minibin and Single Stream Recycling initiatives described below:

Minibin Waste Collection System: 
In Spring 2013 Semester 11 buildings will roll-out this system, which replaces the traditional trashcan with a hybrid container for both recycling and landfill waste. Faculty and staff will be asked to empty their own mini-bins into the appropriate recycling or landfill bin. This will allow housekeeping efforts to focus on cleaning and sanitizing offices, deep cleaning bathrooms and disinfecting high touch areas such as door knobs and telephones.

Single Stream Recycling:
In Spring 2013 Semester Single Stream Recycling will be rolled out campus wide. Single Stream will allow all recyclable materials to go into one bin – paper, plastic, metal and glass. “One bin, it all goes in.”

Your name and your vote will not be made public. We only share this information on an aggregate basis. More information about this commitment and these initiatives can be found as www.zerowaste.appstate.edu.

I voted yes in support of the initiative but left this comment:

This is actually two resolutions. I would like to vote against the first and for the second. The first system is confusing and has resulted in Raley Hall being a mess. Trash can be found all over the place since there are no trash cans in classrooms and some offices. Plus, it seems like an inefficient use of resources for faculty to carry their trashcans down the hall trying to find some place to empty it.

The second one seems to be a no brainer.

Here is what they say at the zero waste website:

A "zero waste" commitment has begun at Appalachian State University with the goal of diverting 90 percent of all waste from landfill disposal by 2022. 

The university currently diverts 40 percent of its waste annually from a landfill by recycling, reducing and composting.

When I do the math, 10% waste > 0% waster. Does anyone else have a problem with that sentence. 

Cause and effect?

From the inbox:

Thank you, Raley Faculty and Staff. 

You’ve embraced recycling and it shows!

What the picture doesn't show is that at about the same time they took away office trash pick up. We're carrying it out of our office anyway so we might as well recycle. I'm not sure if you would call our reaction to that an "embrace." 

It will take 110% of my effort to understand how 10% remaining is classified as zero waste

From the inbox:

A Zero Waste Event is an event that diverts 90% or more of the materials generated from the landfill.  Ohio State has taken bold steps to increase the university’s diversion rates. 

You're going to need a bigger boat

A machine that converts waste plastic into crude oil is operating at a recycling depot in Whitehorse.

The machine is the first of its kind in North America.

Project manager Andy Lera first read about what he calls the "amazing" machine more than a year ago. He read that a Japanese man who was tired of seeing so much waste plastic being burned had found a relatively inexpensive way of converting plastic to crude oil.

Lera pitched the idea to Cold Climate Innovation at Yukon College’s research centre. The centre convinced the federal government to share in the cost, which is around $200,000.

The machine is now running at P & M Recycling.

“We're going to try it out in our own furnaces and run it in our furnace and waste oil furnaces. Any furnace that has a tank inside can use this stuff, but of course we're going to test run it here first to make sure,” said P&M Recycling owner Pat McInroy.

McInroy said people in Whitehorse throw away more than 900,000 kilograms of waste plastics every year. The machine can turn 10 kilograms of plastic into 10 litres of synthetic diesel.

“I do believe it can pay for itself, but I also believe it takes care of a larger problem, which is the waste plastics that are quite frankly getting thrown in the garbage. Now if we can close the loop on that, I think that's every recycler’s goal,” said McInroy.

Lera said the machine will stay at P & M for the next two years for testing and McInroy will use the oil to heat his plant. He said it should work in any furnace which has an inside tank.

After the test period, they will review the project to see if they need a bigger machine.

via ca.news.yahoo.com

The new technology increases the demand for plastic which increases the demand for crude oil which increases the demand for plastic.  Right?

That’s impossible, if recycling really did save money, some company would have already done it by now

NY Times:

... A growing number of large food and beverage companies in the United States are assuming the costs of recycling their packaging after consumers are finished with it, a responsibility long imposed on packaged goods companies in Europe and more recently in parts of Asia, Latin America and Canada.

Several factors are converging to make what is known as “extended producer responsibility” more attractive and, perhaps, more commonplace in the United States.

“Local governments are literally going broke and so are looking for ways to shift the costs of recycling off onto someone, and companies that make the packaging are logical candidates,” said Jim Hanna, director of environmental impact at the Starbucks Corporation. “More environmentally conscious consumers are demanding that companies share their values, too.”

Perhaps most important, he said, “companies are becoming more aware that resources are limited and what they’ve traditionally thrown away — wow, it has value.” It is now cheaper to recycle an aluminum can into a new can than it is to make one from virgin material, and the same is becoming true for plastic bottles. ...

The principle is the same with used plastic bottles, which are made from petroleum — and are one of the country’s largest exports to China, where they are used to make fabric fibers. “Tuna cans, cereal boxes, laundry detergent bottles — all of it has value in end markets that are thirsty for it,” said Michael Washburn, director of sustainability at Nestlé Waters North America, a bottled-water producer.

So far, company-sponsored recycling efforts are voluntary in the United States. Many states have laws requiring companies to take responsibility for spent products like batteries and mercury switches, but so far, only Maine has a law that might shift the cost of discarded packaging to business. ...

We may actually be observing someone picking up the $20 bill lying on the ground (an economist joke). Regulation isn't needed if, in fact, it is cheaper for a company to recycle a cup (can, bottle) to make a new cup (can, bottle) relative to buying a new one. I imagine that there are economies of scale working here, small companies could not afford to do this on their own but markets could emerge for selling used cups (cans, bottles).

If, in fact, it is cheaper to do so. I'm skeptical, since if recycling really did save money, some company would have already done it by now.

"Picking up garbage in Dahab"

From the inbox, Zetland:

This post took me a long time -- I had to go to Egypt, collect garbage on the beach, shoot underwater video AND interview a scuba instructor...

So it may be interesting :)

http://www.aguanomics.com/2012/01/garbage-in-egypt.html

Here is the video:

There is an environmental economics lesson in here somewhere

The Comics Curmudgeon:

Just beneath the corny wackiness of Beetle Bailey is of course a constant undercurrent of brutal violence, but I’ve never seen it quite so explicit as it is today. We see Camp Swampy as a set of mutually hostile fiefdoms, whose simmering resentment towards each other could escalate to open carnage based on the most minor of disputes, with little that the camp commanders can do to restrain their nominal underlings. The final panel is particularly harrowing: Sarge, still so keyed up that he probably can’t even feel those visible bruises yet, stalking off wide-eyed from the mangled corpse of his rival, which he’s left among the strewn garbage and its stink lines.

Something about common property resources, I think.

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From the inbox:

The biggest energy and environmental impact of using Google and other internet services may not be where you think it is. The rapid spread of large data centers that power the internet is responsible for a growing energy use and share of carbon emissions. It is tempting to jump to the conclusion that the internet and all its services stand in the way of energy and environmental sustainability. Not necessarily so!

Thanks Natural Resources Defense Council ("Please note: The word 'National' does not appear in Natural Resources Defense Council")! I now know something I didn't give a fig about!

 

Some people say the same of my blogging*

Grand Lake St. Marys, the poster child for algae pollution in Ohio, is getting some federal help.

U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown's office announced this morning that the Department of Agriculture is making available $1 million toward the purchase of a methane digester.

What is a methane digester? The facility turns methane from manue into energy. Manure that is spread onto farm fields as fertilizer often washes off in the rain and ends up in streams and eventually lakes. The phosphorus from these wastes feed the toxic algae that grows in so many Ohio ponds and lakes.

Blue-green algae, also called cyanobacteria, is common in most Ohio lakes but grows thick in water feeding on phosphorus from manure, fertilizers and sewage that rain washes into streams and eventually into lakes.

The algae can produce liver and nerve toxins.

Grand Lake St. Marys has been suffered with excessive algae for three years. Warnings to stay away from the water have hurt tourism at the western Ohio lake. This year the warnings are not as grave.

Quasar Energy Group of Cleveland was sought the $1 million federal grant for the $2.24 million facility.

The facility likely would be located south of the lake in a central spot in the watershed and take six months to build. The amount of manure to be processed isn't set, but three producers in the watershed have said they can each supply up to 50 tons of manure daily.

via www.dispatch.com

*Re: last line of the story

I hope no one asks for my e-mails that mention "Dan Patrick"

I took a risk, clicked on a NYTimes article and was relieved to find that it is still free (www.nytimes.com):

A conservative research group in Michigan has issued a far-reaching public records request to the labor studies departments at three public universities in the state, seeking any e-mails involving the Wisconsin labor turmoil.

The group, the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, declined to explain why it was making the Freedom of Information Act request for material from professors at the University of Michigan, Michigan State and Wayne State University. But several professors who received the records request, which was first reported by Talking Points Memo on Tuesday, said it appeared to be an attempt to intimidate or embarrass professors who are sympathetic to organized labor.

This records request, which was filed Friday, comes several days after the Republican Party of Wisconsin made a records request to a prominent University of Wisconsin history professor, William Cronon, who had severely criticized the state’s Republican governor, Scott Walker, over his push for legislation to weaken public-sector unions.

The Mackinac Center, which describes itself as a nonpartisan research and educational institution and receives money from numerous conservative foundations, asked the three universities’ labor studies faculty members for any e-mails mentioning “Scott Walker,” “Madison,” “Wisconsin” or “Rachel Maddow,” the liberal talk show host on MSNBC.

But seriously, should I forward all of my *.edu email to gmail? Is Google trying to grab market share by conspiring with the nonpartisan research and educational institutions?