I'll continue reduce, reuse, and recycle. Ride bikes, buy less stuff, and inform my political vote. As an interesting side to this very statement, which I wholeheartedly support, do not buy into a lot of the green hype. A prius for one great example, is a harder hit on the enviornment and your wallet than the hated Hummer. The prius batteries require a full circumnavigation to be made dirtying the environment where the nickle is mined in Canada, then transported to europe to be processed into metal, then the material is again transported via ship to Japan for making into batteries. The batteries have a shorter lifespan than the engine of the Hummer, and the hummer has the potential of going well past 100000 miles, where the Prius an other hybrids must have the now hazardous waste batteries safely disposed of. There are other problems with the hybrids, basically making someone else back yard very dirty, while allowing the US consumer to think they are saving the earth. The curly light bulb being forced on us, and yes they are all over my house, create a hazardous waste stream that didn't exist before. Just heard in the last few days that with the falling economy, recycling is one of the first new industries faltering, there is no market for the plastic, which apparently takes some special machinery to recycle, and the collection is now piling up dockside. I've personally seen this more than a decade ago when the local recycle plant had bundles of plastic bottles, cubes about 8' sq, stacking up as a display for all to see. It could be shipped anywhere for less than the value of the plastic and they could no longer put it in the landfill. So it doesn't surprise me that it is happening again. Tris time around though, plastic should be thinner and should break down faster, so hopefully less of a long term problem. Google it, if you care, I've found all this information online, and occasional even in print Mike San Rafael *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Wed Dec 17 2008 - 06:16:48 PST
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.4.0 : Thu Aug 21 2025 - 16:31:31 PDT