Who Says Electric Cars Cant be Cool?

Tons of people think that electric cars will not be able to hold a major appealing factor in a world of gas powered super cars. Well, to all those people who think electric cars cannot be cool, they should look into the "Inizio electric super car." After all of our class talk about recycling and helping out the environment, i was curious in finding an automobile that would actually catch the eye of any individual who were to see it out on the street. The result was this electric super car. If the world wants to start doing better in the automobile industry by reducing their emissions, they should look into the technology put into the Inizio. I found this really interesting because i have always been a big fan of cars (specifically muscle and super cars) since a very young age. This car could be a start to a type of "car taste" that could spark a new public interest in these types of cars. What would be better than an electric car that could beat the rest, not only on the quarter mile or race track, but beat all other cars in terms of helping the environment?  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R65PEIDA_4s

Great Pacific Garbage Patch

After thinking about how much stuff ends up in landfills and as litter on the sides of roads etc., I was curious about how much trash ends up in the ocean. Upon further reading, I learned about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. It is an area of litter found between Hawaii and California in middle of the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre.

Indiana's E-Waste Recycling Law

Our selected reading from The Story of Stuff over the possible risks of producing electronic items such as laptops and cell phones greatly sparked my interest.  Modern America has become immensely consumed by the use of cell phones, laptop computers, televisions, and other electronic products.  Annie Leonard highlights the issue at hand: the increase in demand for electronic products directly correlates with an increase in hazardous compounds released during production poisoning workers and surrounding communities in the process.  When I began doing more research on this topic online I discovered that while production of electronics presents significant environmental risks that have yet to be fully resolved, there is an even more serious issue at hand.

With new versions of electronic products being released more and more frequently, consumers have the enticing temptation of ditching their old product and upgrading to the newer version.  The question becomes, what happens to these electronic products that are no longer wanted? The answer is that these products become e-waste.  Controlling e-waste has become a key focus of state legislatures in recent years as electronics continue to become more widely used and discarded.  In May of 2009, Indiana became the nineteenth state to pass a law that creates a statewide e-waste recycling program.

There remains no national law in place to regulate e-waste; and until this changes, Indiana hopes to remain a leader in this movement of safe disposal of electronic waste. While Indiana's E-Waste Program is one of the better proposals among states that have enacted similar movements, e-waste will continue to present serious environmental and health hazards until more strict regulations are established at the national level.  Proper e-waste disposal and recycling is a very serious concern and should be treated this way.   Our government needs address this issue sooner rather than later before serious irreversible damage is done to our ecosystem by the hazardous toxins which could be released by these discarded electronic items.  

We Waste More Than We Should......

 Out of the many elements that gets thrown out on a daily basis, the one form of trash that should not be wasted, as much as it has been in recent years, is food waste. I have always been taught growing up to never waste any food during a meal, but apparently the same does not go for consumers in many societies around the world. In most cases, we don't even realize the major impact a half of a sandwich, our dinner leftovers, etc. can cause when an individual just throws it out. Especially here at DePauw, i have seen people throw food out and say things like, "oh its not big deal, I'm full but don't want to carry it back to my dorm." Other things people would say are, "I'm not going to worry about it, i have plenty of food back in my room if i get hungry later on." The fact is that many people, even here on DePauw's campus need to better their habits when it comes to food and reusing/ saving their food that they consume on a daily basis.   

Worlds Largest Landfill

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch

As I was browsing the web about the World's Largest Landfills, I came upon numerous results stating that the largest landfill is located in the Pacific Ocean called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. With the world producing over 200 billion pounds of trash per year, 10 percent of that ends up in the ocean. This statistic really caught my eye, obviously affecting the marine life in the oceans. Some areas in the worlds oceans are taken up by a 6 to 1 ratio plastic to plankton life. Some parts of our ocean system contains 46 thousand pieces of floating plastic per square mile. Seventy percent of the plastic floats to the bottom of the ocean floor, which will affect the plant and marine life in the ocean. About eighty percent of the plastic in the oceans comes from land. So that means that humans are freely letting the plastic get into the ocean ecosystem. If the trash is not coming from land, most of the other sources would be from private or commercial ships, fishing equipment, oil platforms and spilled shipping containers.

These statistics make me cringe, knowing that every day trash is adding up more and more. I think the way to change this problem is to let the public know. I think the media sometimes tries to hide these scary statistics from the public. If the world knew, I think it would better improve our society as a whole. People would take into consideration where and how to dispose trash.

Why do some recycling facilities accept certain materials, while others don't?

Now that we have been to 4 different facilities that deal with waste, I started noticing how each place was a little different about their rules for what they do and do not accept.  While I do understand they vary because of market demand and fluctuating prices, I find it hard to keep track of who takes what and why.  I got curious, and looked up what Indiana's policy was on what they accept to be recycled, and I was pretty shocked.  Their list is fairly lengthy and contains some items that some of the facilities we visited would not have wanted.

Here is a link to the article: http://www.in.gov/idem/recycle/2345.htm

They accept basically every type of glass to be recycled, when the local plant owners tended to agree that breaking down glass to recycle creates a sand film that shut will shut down the machine.  They also accept saw dust, but when we visited our first facility that collected recyclables from the community said that they have no idea what to do with sawdust, and just end of land filling it.

Improving Your Home Efficiency

One of the easiest ways to reduce your impact on the environment is by improving the efficiency of your home.  This would decrease your carbon emissions, and even save you money on your electricity bill.  There is an endless amount of information available online, and endless amounts of home improvements as well.  When I googled it, hundreds of helpful websites popped up.  Here is a list of simple upgrades that can help you improve the efficiency of your home.

1.  Make sure your walls and attic are well insulated.
2.  Upgrade or replace windows.
3.  Plant shade trees and shrubs around your house.
4.  Replace an older furnace with a high efficiency system.
5.  Improve the efficiency of your hot water system.
6.  Replace incandescent lightbulbs with compact fluorescent lamps.
7.  If you buy a new refrigerator, don’t leave the old one plugged in.
8.  Take advantage of new tax incentives to improve your home.
9.  Schedule an energy audit for more expert advice on your home as a whole.

This list was taken from http://greenhomeguide.com/know-how/article/9-ways-to-make-your-home-more-energy-efficient and the website goes into further detail if your interested in learning more about how to improve the efficiency of your home.  Obviously this list is short, and there are many other things you can do to reduce your impact on the environment.