Products/Waste and Recycling

"One way to decrease the quantity of resources consumed is to design products for longer life by making items that are more durable, items that can be upgraded, or items that are easy to repair. The result is that fewer total resources are demanded per product use." (Robertson 2014)

I think this is becoming an ever increasing problem that the world is facing. In modern society, we use technology for everything. If we are continuously throwing these technologies away because there is something new on the market we will not have any important resources in the future. Companies that make things like phones need to produce better quality products that we can upgrade internally instead of having to buy something new every time. I know I have seen Motorola produce a phone that has attachments, such as a camera, that can be added to the outside. This provides multiple uses for this one devise which helps cut down on waste from the company.

Technology Waste posted on computerweekly.com

"Packaging design is a subspecialty within the engineering fields, with several professional societies, professional journals, and industry organizations devoted to more sustainable packaging." (Robertson 2014)

When I think of ways to cut back on waste I never think of the packaging things come in. with companies like Amazon and Ebay we are shipping millions of things throughout the world. Each one of these things needs to be packaged so if you add up all the waste from those packages it is crazy to think about. If a company could come up with a way to reduce the materials used in packaging or find a way that their packaging could be used for more than one use this would greatly cut down on waste. Companies should start using biodegradable materials in their packaging which can be used in compost or it will be easily broken down in a landfill. Companies use to package everything in packaging peanuts but over the past decade the use of these packaging peanuts have been reduced. This is a start in the right direction.

Packaging Waste posted on treehugger.com

"Composting, long a practice of organic gardeners, is increasingly part of many municipal waste management programs, which provide composting of leaves and yard debris." (Robertson 2014)

Composting could help with sustainability in a bunch of ways. First it allows you to use waste as fertilizer for plants instead of having it sit in a landfill. Second it promotes residences to start growing their own gardens that they could use their compost. This garden could help feed the household or at the very least reduce the amount of food that is bought at a grocery store. I know at my house we have a compost pile that we use to fertilize our fruits and vegetables that we have in our back yard. This is a never ending cycle for us because we use the fertilizer to help grow plants and then we add the waste from those plants into the compost pile which will in turn become fertilizer. If most households had something like this or if a community got together and used this technique, we would start take a big step in the way of sustainability.    

Composting posted on bluetreelandscaping.com

Robertson, M. (2014). Sustainability Principles and Practice. New York, NY: Routledge.

Climate

"Before the Industrial Revolution, that is, before 1750, the carbon dioxide concentration was about 280 ppm. with the discovery of coal and oil, it began to climb. It is now around 400 ppm and rising by about 2 ppm per year." (Robertson 2014)

It doesn’t take a genius to see there is some sort of correlation between the burning of fossil fuels and the increased CO2 in the air. Everyone knows that the increased amount of CO2 in the air relates to the increase in temperature. If we continue on this path of unrestricted use of fossil fuels, the ppm in the atmosphere will continue to increase exponentially. Finding alternatives to fossil fuels has become top priority for many car companies as they develop new technologies for cars. They will eventually have to replace most if not all of the cars that are on the road today with cars that don’t add a substantially amount of CO2 to the atmosphere. It would the best of both worlds if they could find a car that would take in CO2 and clean up the air while not polluting it.

CO2 in the air posted on doityourself.com

"Changes predicted by computer models reviewed by the IPCC include heat waves; extremes of weather conditions including floods, droughts, and hurricanes; melting of glaciers and polar ice; sea level rise; changing ocean currents; changes to terrestrial and marine ecosystems including extinctions; and changes to human lifestyles including agriculture and economic issues." (Robertson 2014)

We have already started to see some of these changes in our lifetime. Each year seems to be hotter than the last, we have increasingly bad droughts in the west, our glaciers are melting so the sea is rising, and many animals and plants are using their habitats. There seems to be some efforts to prevent this from happening but there is not enough. Currently, our government wants to cut funding to the EPA and other governmental agencies that are trying to protect the damaged environment. This is very counterproductive to we should be doing and it will hurt us in the long run. If we don’t start doing more now, the ice caps will continue to melt, more plants and animals will lose their environments or become extinct, and we will eventually have crop shortages because of the heat.

Changing Climate posted on oliveoiltimes.com

"Emissions trading is, in a way, the inverse of offsetting. an offset is a reduction in emissions created by one entity and purchased by another entity. emissions trading, also known as a cap and trade system, refers to the buying and selling of permits to pollute." (Robertson 2014)

I didn’t know there was such a thing as emissions trading in the world. I don’t know what the limit is on the amount of emissions a company is allowed to use without going over their limit and it would be interesting to see the science that goes into deciding the number. I think that if a company is under their allowed emission usage they should not only get to see back their permit but they should also get tax breaks that encourages companies to try to be under. Additionally, companies that go over should have to pay more to get the permits because in a way they are breaking a law. This would greatly encourage companies to either stay right at their limit or under so they don’t have to pay a bunch of additional money.

Emission Trading posted on greenreport.it

Robertson, M. (2014). Sustainability Principles and Practice. New York, NY: Routledge.