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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Pseudo environmentalism
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anoesis
Shipmate
# 14189
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Posted
...which I tried writing as one word, but the post was disallowed ??on the basis that it might contain German words?? - bizarre
However it should be written, it sucks.
A recent example: I was recently in a [certain chain store], our delightful antipodean answer to Wal-Mart, making some purchases. 'Would you like to buy a ten-cent bag for these things?', enquired the clerk. Oh great, I thought. That's right, these folk are being 'environmentally friendly' now, and 'reducing their carbon footprint' by charging like a wounded bull for flimsy plastic shopping bags. Sigh.
Well, I had some heavy stuff, a pushchair to manage, and a steep downhill to my car. So I paid for some bags. The clerk put two heavy ceramic mixing bowls in one bag (they barely fitted, you couldn't bring the bag handles together). 'Do you think that will hold?', I said, 'I'm worried the bag will break'. 'Oh, no', she said, 'there's no way that bag is strong enough for those bowls'. 'Do you think you could double-bag them?' I say. No. No siree. Not unless I have another ten cents (in cash, seeing as the transaction is complete by now).
What a bunch of muppets. If you are actually interested in being environmentally friendly*, Mr-Big-Chain-Store, instead of putting a 1000% markup on your shopping bags, try the following:
1.) Recycle your pallet wrap, instead of throwing it in a dumpster. There's a lot more of that around than shopping bags.**
2.) Better yet, seeing as many of your products are manufactured for you, insist that the pallets are strapped, rather than wrapped. And find a way to recycle the wooden pallets themselves, instead of chucking them out.**
3.) Stop selling cartloads and cartloads of cheap pointless unrecycleable plastic shite which you yourself generate the demand for.
4.) Don't purposely ruin stock which doesn't sell so that it can't be used by anyone else and can only be sent to the tip.**
*Which, by the way, I know you're not, which is what makes me so annoyed. You're just going through the motions as a marketing exercise, and making an eye-wateringly huge margin on plastic bags in the process.
**These are not baseless allegations. I had the very great privilege of a minimum-wage job with this company while at University, and they really don't recycle any packaging, nor sort into separate dumpsters, and they really do pay gimps like me to ruin de-stocked stuff so it can't be used.
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The history of humanity give one little hope that strength left to its own devices won't be abused. Indeed, it gives one little ground to think that strength would continue to exist if it were not abused. -- Dafyd --
Posts: 993 | From: New Zealand | Registered: Oct 2008
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Jane R
Shipmate
# 331
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Posted
Oh, and you over there in the Toyota Prius. Yes, you with the swanky hybrid car; you can stop looking down your nose at everyone else*. Burning the fuel inside the car's engine is far more efficient than burning it in a power station to generate electricity so that you can store it in your battery and feel smug about Saving the Planet. You're not. Get on yer bike.
* Unless all the electricity you're using to run the thing is generated by solar panels on the roof of your house.
Posts: 3958 | From: Jorvik | Registered: May 2001
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
quote:
Jane R: Burning the fuel inside the car's engine is far more efficient than burning it in a power station to generate electricity so that you can store it in your battery and feel smug about Saving the Planet.
Really? That's a surprise to me.
@anoesis: you should have brought your own linen shopping bag.
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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anoesis
Shipmate
# 14189
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
@anoesis: you should have brought your own linen shopping bag.
Well, quite. I do, when I'm doing my grocery shopping, if that helps. And if they're really that evil, I probably just shouldn't buy anything from them. The problem with that is, that if I want to hold my nose up and only shop at places with clean hands in an environmental sense, I will very soon starve to death, I think. Even in 'clean'*, 'green'*, New Zealand.
*Yeah. That is mostly marketing as well.
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The history of humanity give one little hope that strength left to its own devices won't be abused. Indeed, it gives one little ground to think that strength would continue to exist if it were not abused. -- Dafyd --
Posts: 993 | From: New Zealand | Registered: Oct 2008
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Uncle Pete
Loyaute me lie
# 10422
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Posted
I paid NZD2.00 for a shopping bag at [shopping place in NZ] because I liked the colour which is bright fire-engine red. I didn't need it. I am a bad person. In my defense, I thought the cost was a little over what I would pay here.
But I do still use it daily.
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Even more so than I was before
Posts: 20466 | From: No longer where I was | Registered: Sep 2005
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Amanda B. Reckondwythe
Dressed for Church
# 5521
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by anoesis:
'Would you like to buy a ten-cent bag for these things?', enquired the clerk.
How would you have carried your purchases away had you not purchased a bag?
What gets me is that plastic bags seem designed to hold three or four items at most. Thus, I seem never to be able to get out of the store without toting a dozen or so bags along.
I miss the days when supermarkets used paper bags. With careful packing, I used to be able to get a week's worth of groceries packed into two paper bags. (That's all I could fit in the milk carton I had bolted to the back of my motorcycle.) And I never double-bagged.
Back in those days, supermarkets also gave you the option of using cardboard cartons instead of paper bags. That way they recycled the boxes that their groceries came in, and you, of course, had the option of further recycling them when you got home.
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"I take prayer too seriously to use it as an excuse for avoiding work and responsibility." -- The Revd Martin Luther King Jr.
Posts: 10542 | From: The Great Southwest | Registered: Feb 2004
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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
[Smug git] I bring my own linen/ canvas bags and collect green clubcard points ![[Angel]](graemlins/angel.gif) [/smug git]
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
Posts: 14304 | From: Hampshire, UK | Registered: Jan 2002
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
quote:
anoesis: The problem with that is, that if I want to hold my nose up and only shop at places with clean hands in an environmental sense, I will very soon starve to death, I think. Even in 'clean'*, 'green'*, New Zealand.
Of course. You can only do what you can.
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
[Smug git] I bring my own linen/ canvas bags and collect green clubcard points [/smug git]
Same here.
In France the supermarches don't give plastic bags. If you want a bag, you buy one or bring your own.
Mrs Sioni has made some small cloth bags that do all a plastic bag can do, oh, and get me funny looks when I use them: big hairy bloke carrying a quilting/patchwork bag looks odd.
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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Beethoven
Ship's deaf genius
# 114
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Posted
One of my gripes is the way all the supermarkets here offer 'a bag for life'* under the guise of environmentalism. But they will only exchange their own bags. So having lived in a place where one particular chain was the most convenient, I have a supply of their bags. Now living somewhere where a different supermarket suits me better, I either have to buy a whole heap more of these bags for life, or drive out of my way to the chain concerned to exchange them... Yes, I can see how that helps the environment. ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
* You buy one reasonably heavy-duty carrier bag for 10p (or whatever); when it wears out, the supermarket will exchange it for free, and recycle the old one.
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Who wants to be a rock anyway?
toujours gai!
Posts: 1309 | From: Here (and occasionally there) | Registered: May 2001
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Inger
Shipmate
# 15285
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Posted
I've used my own very strong nylon bags for years - from long before all this became an issue. Mainly because I dislike plastic carrier bags; they are uncomfortable to carry, and I never really trust them to be strong enough.
Suggest to the shop that they copy M&Sp. They donate all the income from carrier bags to environmental causes. At the moment I think it's the Marine Conservation Society.
Posts: 332 | From: Newcastle, UK | Registered: Nov 2009
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Uncle Pete
Loyaute me lie
# 10422
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Posted
In my city, I often offer bags from different stores for packing small loads in (I have a heavy-duty knapsack for groceries). I don't give a hoot.
Interestingly enough, a new thing is happening. The coffee shops are offering a cup discount if you bring your own - even if it is a competitor's cup.
Whoppee.
Actually if I am invited out to a coffee shop, I make my own at home - it tastes better to me. I then buy an overpriced snack at the shop. But that's a topic for another thread.
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Even more so than I was before
Posts: 20466 | From: No longer where I was | Registered: Sep 2005
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
Remember string bags ?
My Mum was using them 40 years ago.
I bought sausages today - they were wrapped four times
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by PeteC:
Interestingly enough, a new thing is happening. The coffee shops are offering a cup discount if you bring your own - even if it is a competitor's cup.
Ah. I'm reminded of the woman in "Lark Rise to Candleford" (the book, not the TV series) who turned up along with the others to collect some free surplus milk, bring your own container. Over the months, the size of the container she brought increased gradually from a pint jug to a tin bath.
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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Pigwidgeon
Ship's Owl
# 10192
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe:
I miss the days when supermarkets used paper bags.
Over on this side of town they still have paper bags if you ask for them. I carry my own reuseable Trader Joe's bags no matter where I'm shopping, but if I've forgotten them or didn't bring enough of them in with me, I always ask for paper which can be reused and then recycled. The plastic ones deserve their own Hell thread.
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"...that is generally a matter for Pigwidgeon, several other consenting adults, a bottle of cheap Gin and the odd giraffe."
~Tortuf
Posts: 9835 | From: Hogwarts | Registered: Aug 2005
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jane R:
Oh, and you over there in the Toyota Prius. Yes, you with the swanky hybrid car; you can stop looking down your nose at everyone else*. Burning the fuel inside the car's engine is far more efficient than burning it in a power station to generate electricity so that you can store it in your battery and feel smug about Saving the Planet. You're not. Get on yer bike.
* Unless all the electricity you're using to run the thing is generated by solar panels on the roof of your house.
Jane:
1. The Prius does not plug into the mains to recharge the batteries. They are charged either in the usual manner by the petrol engine, or by the motion of the car coasting down hills and so forth.
2. As others have said, it is far more efficient to generate power at a power station rather than by having an on-board motor do it. Thinks of a locomotive: an electric loco takes its power from the catenary or a third rail, and uses that to drive the traction motors. A diesel-electric loco generates the electricity which drives the traction motors with the on-board engine. The loco therefore has to carry and move the weight of the diesel motor in addition, a much less efficient process. In any event, the running of a static motor is much easier to control than that of one which moves for a variety of reasons.
You're right about Prius's for other reasons. The batteries are not exactly environmentally to make in the first instance or dispose of at the end of their life. The whole car uses advanced and expensive technology, which itself consumes substantial amounts of energy to create. It may come out ahed in the long run, but it is a very long run indeed.
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
Posts: 7028 | From: Warrawee NSW Australia | Registered: Jun 2008
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the giant cheeseburger
Shipmate
# 10942
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jane R:
Oh, and you over there in the Toyota Prius. Yes, you with the swanky hybrid car; you can stop looking down your nose at everyone else*. Burning the fuel inside the car's engine is far more efficient than burning it in a power station to generate electricity so that you can store it in your battery and feel smug about Saving the Planet. You're not. Get on yer bike.
* Unless all the electricity you're using to run the thing is generated by solar panels on the roof of your house.
Oops, technical fail! As Gee D has pointed out, despite having other faults, the Prius can not be accused of running on coal-powered electricity because it charges the batteries from dynamic braking, not having a plug to connect to the electricity grid.
Regardless, if you need to use a car it is far more economical (in both running costs and total energy used over the life cycle) to drive a car with a simple turbo-diesel engine that does not have to carry around a boot full of lithium-ion batteries.
Hydrogen fuel cells are the future, not batteries. Look out for the GreenGT H2 experimental car running at Le Mans next year to see why.
[ 19. June 2012, 12:43: Message edited by: the giant cheeseburger ]
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If I give a homeopathy advocate a really huge punch in the face, can the injury be cured by giving them another really small punch in the face?
Posts: 4834 | From: Adelaide, South Australia. | Registered: Jan 2006
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irish_lord99
Shipmate
# 16250
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Posted
In New England we found that some grocery chains sell re-usable nylon bags for $2.00 apiece, and then give you a $.05 credit each time you use each one. Mrs. I_L99 bought four.
I love it, not so much for the 20 cents off each food run, but because we reuse the normal plactic bags and they were beginning to take over the kitchen! ![[Help]](graemlins/help.gif) Even using them as trash bags for all of our garbage cans, we still couldn't keep up with the inflow from grocery shopping etc.
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"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." - Mark Twain
Posts: 1169 | From: Maine, US | Registered: Feb 2011
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Uncle Pete
Loyaute me lie
# 10422
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Posted
Grocery bags just sit in landfill, mostly non-biodegrading. Purpose-made garbage bags are, I think, often biodegradable. If they're not they should be!
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Even more so than I was before
Posts: 20466 | From: No longer where I was | Registered: Sep 2005
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:
Jane R: Burning the fuel inside the car's engine is far more efficient than burning it in a power station to generate electricity so that you can store it in your battery and feel smug about Saving the Planet.
Really? That's a surprise to me.
It ought to surprise you because its comnpletely wrong. Power stations are far more efficient than cars. Size matters. A lot.
That does not mean of course that burning the fuel in a power station, then transmitting the electricity hundreds of miles to a city (with transmission losses, which are low at high voltage but can be quite hight at the end); then recharging a battery (60% to 99% efficiency depending on battery design); then running the motor off the battery (more efficient than an internal combustion engine but still some loss); is all put together more efficient than burning the same fuel in small motor (though that has considerably higher transmission costs because the fuelk has to be taken to a garage in a road tanker and then the car carries its owb unburned fuel around iwth it). I suspect that it probaby works out about the same.in most cases.
Electric cars in cities do have an environmental advantage over fuel-burning cars but its nothing to do with saving energy. Its to do with pollution. Big burners such as power stations are inherently cleaner and more efficient than little ones like cars. And you can put them out in the country far away from where most people live and drive. So its a great way to avoid smog and stuff like that. Same goes for hydrogen. Its cleaner than burning oil, but someone is going tobe buring the oil somewhere to make the hydrogen. And its got huge transmission costs - most of our older cities already have a gas transmission infrastructure, but installing it in somewhere that doesn't is hugely expensive.
If you want to save energy on cars. whether they burn their own fuel or use electricity, what you need is bigger vehicles with bigger motors because they are more efficient. Which of course means that you need to carry lots more people in one go to spread the fuel use around. It would help to run over specially designed low-friction roads as well.
Oh! We have them already! We call them "trains".
And however you travel the best way of saving energy doing it is to travel less. And the best way to make that happen id for eveyone to live closer to each other and to shops and entertainment and workplaces.
We have them already too - we call them "cities".
Higher density and more centralised cities, and more public transport, are far better ways to save enrgy than poncing around with fuel cells.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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the long ranger
Shipmate
# 17109
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Posted
I believe the gap is closer than it should be due to the high environmental costs of the metals needed in the car batteries and the amount of dirty coal burned in power stations.
Coaches are, apparently, the most efficient way to travel, though I can't remember the type of trains they compared them with.
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"..into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth,” “But Rabbi, how can this happen for those who have no teeth?”
"..If some have no teeth, then teeth will be provided.”
Posts: 1310 | Registered: May 2012
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
Efficiency of buses vs. trains It depends on all sorts of things such as how many empty seats you carry and how you get to the station, so there is no easy answer.
(Of course the most fuel-efficient form of transport is ship - but that's not an option for most commuters!)
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Lyda*Rose
Ship's broken porthole
# 4544
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jane R:
Oh, and you over there in the Toyota Prius. Yes, you with the swanky hybrid car; you can stop looking down your nose at everyone else*. Burning the fuel inside the car's engine is far more efficient than burning it in a power station to generate electricity so that you can store it in your battery and feel smug about Saving the Planet. You're not. Get on yer bike.
* Unless all the electricity you're using to run the thing is generated by solar panels on the roof of your house.
They've just started selling plug-in Priuses in the States. So most likely here the person with their nose in the air is driving an original variety, one quietly recharging on the road using gas burning at 45-50 miles per gallon.
ken:
quote:
And however you travel the best way of saving energy doing it is to travel less. And the best way to make that happen id for eveyone to live closer to each other and to shops and entertainment and workplaces.
We have them already too - we call them "cities".
London in fact. Or Detroit.
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"Dear God, whose name I do not know - thank you for my life. I forgot how BIG... thank you. Thank you for my life." ~from Joe Vs the Volcano
Posts: 21377 | From: CA | Registered: May 2003
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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
Indeed, travelling by water is best, particularly if sail and oar powered. Just not very practicable...
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
Posts: 14304 | From: Hampshire, UK | Registered: Jan 2002
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by PeteC:
Grocery bags just sit in landfill, mostly non-biodegrading. Purpose-made garbage bags are, I think, often biodegradable. If they're not they should be!
Nothing biodegrades in a landfill. They are nearly anaerobic, free from organisms which breakdown materials and lightproof.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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the giant cheeseburger
Shipmate
# 10942
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
Indeed, travelling by water is best, particularly if sail and oar powered. Just not very practicable... [/QB]
Depends on what is powering the person/s rowing.
Same goes for cycling.
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If I give a homeopathy advocate a really huge punch in the face, can the injury be cured by giving them another really small punch in the face?
Posts: 4834 | From: Adelaide, South Australia. | Registered: Jan 2006
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
For those in the country, there already exists transport which can be self-fueling. Indeed, it can fuel on the go and it's waste product from the fueling process helps produce more fuel.
Very green.
Pic of machine.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
Beanz meanz fartz meanz methane emissionz?
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
Posts: 14304 | From: Hampshire, UK | Registered: Jan 2002
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Amanda B. Reckondwythe
Dressed for Church
# 5521
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Its waste product from the fueling process helps produce more fuel. Very green.
No, very brown, I'd say. I for one would not want to return to the days when the streets were full of horse manure.
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"I take prayer too seriously to use it as an excuse for avoiding work and responsibility." -- The Revd Martin Luther King Jr.
Posts: 10542 | From: The Great Southwest | Registered: Feb 2004
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
And however you travel the best way of saving energy doing it is to travel less. And the best way to make that happen id for eveyone to live closer to each other and to shops and entertainment and workplaces.
We have them already too - we call them "cities".
Higher density and more centralised cities, and more public transport, are far better ways to save enrgy than poncing around with fuel cells.
I've always had my doubts about the energy efficiency of cities. While they are very convenient for people, especially if they live in them, rather than travelling for an hour to their place of work, everything has to be brought to the cities, and that must have a cost. Then there is the other cost, of taking all the trash out again. Has anyone done the sums for this?
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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balaam
Making an ass of myself
# 4543
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Posted
The Prius isn't perfect. And it doesn't use any less fuel than similar sized diesel cars, or some petrol ones. But it was a good first effort.
The big hybrid news from Toyota is the TS030 racing car. When the technology of the race track filters down to cars for shoppers and commuters then expect something which actually saves on fuel.
The Prius was a good first try, even if they didn't get it right first time.
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Last ever sig ...
blog
Posts: 9049 | From: Hen Ogledd | Registered: May 2003
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balaam
Making an ass of myself
# 4543
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Posted
quote:
Same goes for cycling.
I probably spend more money on the extra food I eat when cycling than the cost of fuel to cover the same distance on one of these.
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Last ever sig ...
blog
Posts: 9049 | From: Hen Ogledd | Registered: May 2003
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
I reprising continually in my head "if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem".
This one: Mother Nature's Fuel really gets me. Take a poluting substance, mix with ethanol because corn farmers can't get enough corn sugar into chicken noodle soup and ketchup, so they get subsidies to make alcohol to burn in cars. Then pretend it's green.
Right in there with filters for cigarettes which make them so much healthier.
[ 19. June 2012, 17:03: Message edited by: no_prophet ]
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Anselmina
Ship's barmaid
# 3032
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Its waste product from the fueling process helps produce more fuel. Very green.
No, very brown, I'd say. I for one would not want to return to the days when the streets were full of horse manure.
It would bring the spats industry out of recession, though.
Posts: 10002 | From: Scotland the Brave | Registered: Jul 2002
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Jane R
Shipmate
# 331
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Posted
![[Hot and Hormonal]](icon_redface.gif) I stand corrected on the Prius. But it still seems to me that until we have a sustainable solution to the twin problems of generating and storing electricity, we can't claim to have solved the energy crisis. However low the mileage of your hi-tech car may be, it's still burning some petrol.
As other people have said, the inhabitants of cities may use less energy on personal travel but all the stuff they use has to be transported to them and the waste they generate has to be taken away. They may be using less energy than someone who lives in the depths of the country and has a 50-mile round trip to the nearest shop, but all of us (in the developed world) are using far more energy than we should.
[ 19. June 2012, 19:16: Message edited by: Jane R ]
Posts: 3958 | From: Jorvik | Registered: May 2001
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ianjmatt
Shipmate
# 5683
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Its waste product from the fueling process helps produce more fuel. Very green.
No, very brown, I'd say. I for one would not want to return to the days when the streets were full of horse manure.
It's fine. You just allow poor orphans called Jo to sweep it all out of the way. Sorted!
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You might want to visit my blog:
http://lostintheheartofsomewhere.blogspot.com
But maybe not
Posts: 676 | From: Shropshire | Registered: Mar 2004
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Balaam:
quote:
Same goes for cycling.
I probably spend more money on the extra food I eat when cycling than the cost of fuel to cover the same distance on one of these.
But it's much better for you ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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anoesis
Shipmate
# 14189
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Posted
Another example:
I received a flyer in my mailbox the other day (despite the prominent 'no circulars' sign displayed on it), from a local (nationwide) chain of burger stores. Said flyer was all about promoting their environmental credentials - they only used recycled paper for their boxes and bags, and because they are so sincerely concerned about 'our planet', all their printing is done with vegetable-based inks - including on this flyer, it proudly proclaimed...
Well, that's very nice, I'm sure. But if you are actually concerned about your impact on the environment, why are you producing and sending out paper-based spam in the first place? Particularly when the WHOLE POINT of the exercise appears to be to promote your environmental credentials! You could have just - not. But of course it is not about 'our planet', really, is it? It's about your image and the effect this has on your sales.
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The history of humanity give one little hope that strength left to its own devices won't be abused. Indeed, it gives one little ground to think that strength would continue to exist if it were not abused. -- Dafyd --
Posts: 993 | From: New Zealand | Registered: Oct 2008
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe:
quote:
Originally posted by anoesis:
'Would you like to buy a ten-cent bag for these things?', enquired the clerk.
How would you have carried your purchases away had you not purchased a bag?
What gets me is that plastic bags seem designed to hold three or four items at most. Thus, I seem never to be able to get out of the store without toting a dozen or so bags along.
I am very happy with the 15c bags now offered at my supermarket after the government banned the flimsy free ones, because the 15c ones actually hold a lot more. A small price to pay for the occasions when I don't remember to bring my cloth ones.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Amanda B. Reckondwythe
Dressed for Church
# 5521
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by anoesis:
But of course it is not about 'our planet', really, is it? It's about your image and the effect this has on your sales.
Somewhat related to this is the practice employed by most hotels now, namely to change sheets and towels only upon request or at the end of your stay instead of daily.
They say they're doing it to conserve water and protect the environment against detergent residue, but they're really doing it to cut costs and to speed up the time the chaimbermaid -- oops, I mean room attendant -- has to spend in your room, thus allowing her to clean more rooms on her shift than previously.
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"I take prayer too seriously to use it as an excuse for avoiding work and responsibility." -- The Revd Martin Luther King Jr.
Posts: 10542 | From: The Great Southwest | Registered: Feb 2004
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the giant cheeseburger
Shipmate
# 10942
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Balaam:
The big hybrid news from Toyota is the TS030 racing car. When the technology of the race track filters down to cars for shoppers and commuters then expect something which actually saves on fuel.
![[Killing me]](graemlins/killingme.gif)
The TS030 was a complete failure in all departments except for the "surviving being hit by a Ferrari with only a broken back" test, and even that is a dubious distinction because the thing shouldn't have flipped into the air in the first place. That the other car was knocked out by drivetrain components failing is far more embarrassing, the drivetrain being the only thing that makes a hybrid distinctive.
The real hybrid story from Le Mans was the Audi R18 e-tron Quattro - first in qualifying, first and second in the race. The successful use of a flywheel accumulator rather than heavy batteries was good as well, they actually brought something new to the party.
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If I give a homeopathy advocate a really huge punch in the face, can the injury be cured by giving them another really small punch in the face?
Posts: 4834 | From: Adelaide, South Australia. | Registered: Jan 2006
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fletcher christian
Mutinous Seadog
# 13919
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Posted
I was told by someone who knows these things, that when every last bit of life is gone from this earth and the sun has become bloated and red, scattered all over the scorched earth of what was once earth will be hundreds of thousands of indestructible Prius batteries.
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'God is love insaturable, love impossible to describe'
Staretz Silouan
Posts: 5235 | From: a prefecture | Registered: Jul 2008
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RooK
1 of 6
# 1852
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by the giant cheeseburger:
Hydrogen fuel cells are the future, not batteries. Look out for the GreenGT H2 experimental car running at Le Mans next year to see why.
Ah hydrogen, the amusing bullshit spun up hopefully by greedy energy companies to keep their expensive-but-profitable exclusive supply arrays. If you think batteries are going to have to be magical to get light/efficient enough, that's nothing compared to the eldritch horror of storing energy as hydrogen.
Pure electric is the future. Hybrid is the path to get there for longer-range needs now/near future. Anybody who says any different simply isn't paying attention.
Posts: 15274 | From: Portland, Oregon, USA, Earth | Registered: Nov 2001
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Reuben
Shipmate
# 11361
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe:
Somewhat related to this is the practice employed by most hotels now, namely to change sheets and towels only upon request or at the end of your stay instead of daily.
They say they're doing it to conserve water and protect the environment against detergent residue, but they're really doing it to cut costs and to speed up the time the chaimbermaid -- oops, I mean room attendant -- has to spend in your room, thus allowing her to clean more rooms on her shift than previously.
Ah yes...
"As a green hotel chain and in the interests of conserving our precious environment we will try to manipulate you out of guilt to reuse your towels.
But please don't ask us if we have any other form of green initiatives such as water recycling, reduction in embodied energy, use of sustainable energy forms, carbon footprint reduction or thermal efficiencies for heating and cooling. Where's the buck in that?"
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"I got nothing." Barrie Unsworth
Posts: 227 | From: New South Wales | Registered: May 2006
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the long ranger
Shipmate
# 17109
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Posted
It is all a pile of old shite anyway - in years to come we'll all be recovering from the shock of a global economic meltdown, thinking in wonder back to the time when we could afford cars whilst we scrabble around in the dirt for food to eat. I doubt we'll spend more than a second remembering all this econonsense.
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"..into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth,” “But Rabbi, how can this happen for those who have no teeth?”
"..If some have no teeth, then teeth will be provided.”
Posts: 1310 | Registered: May 2012
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Mary LA
Shipmate
# 17040
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Posted
Don't be so sad, little horsie.
People have been scrabbling around in the dirt for food to eat for thousands of years because that's how plants grow.
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“I often wonder if we were all characters in one of God's dreams.”
― Muriel Spark
Posts: 499 | From: Africa | Registered: Apr 2012
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Pyx_e
Quixotic Tilter
# 57
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Posted
Lidl linen bags are sewn by elves with love and awesomness. They are then showered in more awesomness and stored in kryptonite contaniers until mere mortals need them.
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It is better to be Kind than right.
Posts: 9778 | From: The Dark Tower | Registered: May 2001
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
The government agency I work for celebrated its 160th anniversary today (for economy's sake we shared it with the Diamond Jubilee).
In addition to the usual crappy pens, shopping bags, in unbleached linen were given away. They arrived in cardboard boxes. That OK folks?
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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anoesis
Shipmate
# 14189
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Posted
Sounds good. But I presume your government agency doesn't exist solely to make a buck for shareholders. They may not need to do a great deal in the way of 'marketing', either. In which case, there is obviously a higher chance of an apparent decision to do something environmentally friendly being an actual decision to do something environmentally friendly.
I work for a University, which sits in a sort of quasi-governmental no-man's-land. I am very relieved to say that we don't create and send out marketing material for the express purpose of showing that this stock and its ink are environmentally friendly. All the same, some of the 'green' decisions that have been made over the years I've been here do annoy me.
In order to be more 'green', we now have toilets that flush in a very weak and reluctant manner (this supposedly saves water, but not if you have to flush it three times to get the job done), are encouraged to use pens and packing tape that don't work very well, because they are green, and are not allowed to have rubbish bins* because we are supposed to be following the three 'r's - reduce, re-use, recycle...
Meanwhile, senior staff continue to fly here there and everywhere to attend advisory board meetings and standing committees and so on, many of which could be done just as well by videoconference.**
*There is one bin on each floor, the idea being that if you have to walk 20 metres to throw anything away, you will re-use it instead?? Yeah.
**I am not suggesting that academics give up going to conferences and symposia, merely the seemingly endless round of bi-monthly or bi-annual committees and things.
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The history of humanity give one little hope that strength left to its own devices won't be abused. Indeed, it gives one little ground to think that strength would continue to exist if it were not abused. -- Dafyd --
Posts: 993 | From: New Zealand | Registered: Oct 2008
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balaam
Making an ass of myself
# 4543
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by RooK:
Ah hydrogen, the amusing bullshit spun up hopefully by greedy energy companies to keep their expensive-but-profitable exclusive supply arrays. If you think batteries are going to have to be magical to get light/efficient enough, that's nothing compared to the eldritch horror of storing energy as hydrogen.
I've heard on a TV programme (which means it must be true ![[Biased]](wink.gif) ) that it costs the same to produce hydrogen out of sea water as it does to produce petrol out of crude. It also takes a lot of energy to do this. The industry that made a lot of money persuading us that we needed to drive will find it easy to persuade us to buy hydrogen. If they say it has no carbon footprint because it produces only steam though is nothing but bovine excrement.
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Last ever sig ...
blog
Posts: 9049 | From: Hen Ogledd | Registered: May 2003
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