Mo and I have researched plastic bottles over the past few weeks, here are our results.
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1mS33vn8NUf6wZEBFrqcvXX-o7nZUdisGbpk7udf2cMQ/edit#slide=id.g3377ad2afb_0_97
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Lq2kGMiQCaAkT7-QSisy_La1T5ZhMtCjcU5MFX1EdV8/edit#slide=id.p
Notes:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/19v8NhUHDz1dn7hhHZleZjznkbeNnWljlfnl2vYyXXSY/edit
Wednesday, February 21, 2018
Monday, February 12, 2018
Trip to Transfer Station
Our A block APES class took a field trip to the local transfer station on Saturday, February 10th. In Andover, the town of 3,000 residents our transfer station is relatively small but it holds a lot of different components to dispose of our waste.
Trash Station: The trash is thrown into a machine that crushes it and then it goes into a container that will be filled, weighed and transported to the Boscawen incinerator which means that it will be burned. The town pays to get rid of the trash by weight “so” Alan said, “ we are paying for the weight of that newspaper that could be recycled but we have to pay for recycling too.”
Recycling (no glass): The recycling station had a similar concept, it crushed the recycling into a container. On the wall next to it was a poster with directions on what could be recycled and what could not. I was confused why glass could not be recycled but then we went to the glass bin.
Glass Recycling: The glass recycling was a dumpster with a mixture of glass bottles and the snow that had fallen earlier that week. Alan explained to us that it was a really heavy product and “ costs a lot to move it around [and] there is no real market for glass because there is so much of it.” But he then went on to explain that they were inventing new ways to use glass, like in the pavement around campus. As I through my two bottles in I wondered where they would end up. Would they be put in the pavement or melted into new bottles? It got me questioning why we as a society make single serving containers. A very simple solution to the amount of waste we produce is to not produce it. But a solution like that is not something that would be likely seriously considered.
Products contain mercury (mostly e-waste) and swap table: Inside the shed that was in the middle of the yard contained two different stations. The majority of the room was taken up by what looked like a yard sale. There were all sorts of second-hand goods, everything from dictionaries to baby toys. A transfer station is not cheap, the town has to pay to get rid of all its waste, “ a great way to avoid costs is to rescuing stuff,” Alan said, so people can drop off things and pick up things from here to reuse. In the corner of the room was some old electronics that if put in the hopper would leak the dangerous chemicals like mercury, so it is transported is a place where they can take it apart safely.
The rest of the station where, Metal Recycling (white goods) which “costs about eight dollars to get rid of,” Alan informed us. The metals we can make money off of which helps pay for the transfer station.
Construction Debris is where the waste goes that you can’t separate easily, “it will have foam and flame retardants in it,” Alan said. Proctor has on of these dumpsters behind the hockey rink. Then we moved on the Yard Waste/food waste pile which will be burned but is not against the Clean Air Act on such a tiny scale. Then it was on to the tire trailer which I had encountered in the fall when my team and the community service team collected 48 tires off the rail trail and brought them to the trailer. Tires can be easily recycled, a great example of that is Proctor’s turf fields which are covered in tiny bits of tires. Then we walked over to our last stop which was where they put the hazardous waste like paints, antifreeze and other chemicals. The most shocking thing I saw on this trip was the black oil leaking on to white snow. It was shocking to see how haphazardly these hazardous chemicals were being taken care of.
My overall opinion of the Andover transfer station is that it is a good operation considering how else we could be approaching our waste. I grew up in Andover and in my wanderings, I have come across piles of rusting metal, glass and plastic, the Blackwater River is filled with rusty metal. I have always figured that those piles were built up over years, but seeing all the cars pulling in and out of the transfer station and seeing the huge dumpsters filled with trash I saw how fast that we generate waste. At the end of the day I went home and looked into my trash can, in it was bits of plastic, orange peels, and coffee grounds. Someone had just taken out the trash and we were already filling up the next bag. What I took away from this trip was that while it does not impact the world in a major way I can do my part by reducing the amount of waste I produce.
Trash Station: The trash is thrown into a machine that crushes it and then it goes into a container that will be filled, weighed and transported to the Boscawen incinerator which means that it will be burned. The town pays to get rid of the trash by weight “so” Alan said, “ we are paying for the weight of that newspaper that could be recycled but we have to pay for recycling too.”
Recycling (no glass): The recycling station had a similar concept, it crushed the recycling into a container. On the wall next to it was a poster with directions on what could be recycled and what could not. I was confused why glass could not be recycled but then we went to the glass bin.
(taken by CM)
Glass Recycling: The glass recycling was a dumpster with a mixture of glass bottles and the snow that had fallen earlier that week. Alan explained to us that it was a really heavy product and “ costs a lot to move it around [and] there is no real market for glass because there is so much of it.” But he then went on to explain that they were inventing new ways to use glass, like in the pavement around campus. As I through my two bottles in I wondered where they would end up. Would they be put in the pavement or melted into new bottles? It got me questioning why we as a society make single serving containers. A very simple solution to the amount of waste we produce is to not produce it. But a solution like that is not something that would be likely seriously considered.
(taken by CM)
Products contain mercury (mostly e-waste) and swap table: Inside the shed that was in the middle of the yard contained two different stations. The majority of the room was taken up by what looked like a yard sale. There were all sorts of second-hand goods, everything from dictionaries to baby toys. A transfer station is not cheap, the town has to pay to get rid of all its waste, “ a great way to avoid costs is to rescuing stuff,” Alan said, so people can drop off things and pick up things from here to reuse. In the corner of the room was some old electronics that if put in the hopper would leak the dangerous chemicals like mercury, so it is transported is a place where they can take it apart safely.
The rest of the station where, Metal Recycling (white goods) which “costs about eight dollars to get rid of,” Alan informed us. The metals we can make money off of which helps pay for the transfer station.
(Taken by CM)
Construction Debris is where the waste goes that you can’t separate easily, “it will have foam and flame retardants in it,” Alan said. Proctor has on of these dumpsters behind the hockey rink. Then we moved on the Yard Waste/food waste pile which will be burned but is not against the Clean Air Act on such a tiny scale. Then it was on to the tire trailer which I had encountered in the fall when my team and the community service team collected 48 tires off the rail trail and brought them to the trailer. Tires can be easily recycled, a great example of that is Proctor’s turf fields which are covered in tiny bits of tires. Then we walked over to our last stop which was where they put the hazardous waste like paints, antifreeze and other chemicals. The most shocking thing I saw on this trip was the black oil leaking on to white snow. It was shocking to see how haphazardly these hazardous chemicals were being taken care of.
(Take by CM)
My overall opinion of the Andover transfer station is that it is a good operation considering how else we could be approaching our waste. I grew up in Andover and in my wanderings, I have come across piles of rusting metal, glass and plastic, the Blackwater River is filled with rusty metal. I have always figured that those piles were built up over years, but seeing all the cars pulling in and out of the transfer station and seeing the huge dumpsters filled with trash I saw how fast that we generate waste. At the end of the day I went home and looked into my trash can, in it was bits of plastic, orange peels, and coffee grounds. Someone had just taken out the trash and we were already filling up the next bag. What I took away from this trip was that while it does not impact the world in a major way I can do my part by reducing the amount of waste I produce.
Thursday, February 1, 2018
Cradle to Cradle
- Yes, I agree with McDonough, people’s intentions always come out in the design. If people wanted to make a well-organized city they would make a city like New York which is like a grid and the street names are numbered. That was thought out in advance, it was something that was planned. It was not planned to be a sustainable city and so it is not and people are struggling to make it so with rooftop gardens and solar panels, but if it was not built with sustainability in mind it won’t be sustainable.
- Yes, I agree, at least in the USA everything is harmless until proven guilty and even then we still partake in those harmful activities. We wait for something bad to happen that is glaringly obvious to make a change.
- I think that depending on your culture and how/where you grew up determines how we interact with nature. If a person grows up in a city they may not see the value of nature, while a person growing up on a farm interacts with nature every day and can clearly see the values of a healthy ecosystem. If people are disconnected from nature they may not see it an important or valuable.
- Cradle to cradle is a system where our everyday products can become usable again, it mimics nature's natural cycle of energy.
This company makes shingles and walls from the bark of trees. This is an all-natural way of building a house. It goes from trees to a house then back to the ground to fertilize more trees. https://barkhouse.com/process-planet-ecology/ It is Cradle to Cradle Certified™ PLATINUM. “PLATINUM is the highest standard in that strategy and reflects five points: Material Health, Reutilization, Water Stewardship, Renewable Energy and Carbon Management, and Social Equity.” This is an example of the biological metabolism.
An example of a technical metabolism is the Dropper water bottle. https://dopper.com/mission/ They take plastics and other discarded materials and turn them into reusable water bottles. They are not putting harmful substances into the water they are taking them out. 
Thursday, January 11, 2018
Hunt for PBDEs
Over the past few weeks, our class has been learning about toxins. Lately, we have been focusing on polybrominated diphenyl ether or PBDEs for short. We were given the task of searching for them in our homes/dorms and in an assigned building around campus. We were giving a set of questions to answer and charts to fill in, here are my results.
A) I managed to find only one product with a tag that said that it met flammability requirements in California and that was the black chairs on the third floor of the Learning Center. So the room where I found the most flame retardants was Learning Skills.
( Pictures were taken by Chloe Methven)
B) So the most abundant product with flame retardants that I found was furniture.
C) Out of the products on my charts, I think that my pillow gets the most use from me but the red chairs in the library have the most traffic by many different people.
(Pictures taken by Chloe Methven)
D) If my pillow had flame retardants that would the riskiest because my face would be one it and I could also be breathing it in every night. The black chairs, however, have the real risk because they have the actual flame retardants in them. Some people sit on them every day waiting for their class. They are only sitting for short periods of time but they are still coming in contact. My fleece has the lowest risk, it has no flame retardants and even if it did I rarely wear it.
E) If you are concerned about exposure to PBDEs I would suggest looking at labels on anything you want to buy and go through your home and check everything for PBDE.
F) My main concern with PBDEs is that companies are using new ones without testing them and we have no idea what the effects are. Before learning this lesson I had no idea the number of chemicals in our daily lives. Constantly in the class, I am learning things that make it hard to trust companies to do the right thing. Before I was just blindly trusting that whatever I bought was not dangerous. I did not know that I was blindly trusting, I was blind to my blind trust… So far my solution of not seeing the world as bad is to learn as much as I can and find ways that I can make it better.
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