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Economy and Recycling
Nov. 24th, 2008 12:05 pmChina's economy is suffering from US slowdown, which may make borrowing money for the US just a tad more difficult....
China's economy slowing down
The one plus I saw with China's economy slowing down is that with factories closing down, they're putting less pollution in the air (do a search on 'brown cloud' to see what I'm talking about). Tough times for folks everywhere though.
On the environmental minus side though, with China producing less, they also don't need much in the way of recyclables for making packaging for their products:
Recyclables mounting up
So with the global economic slowdown, recyclables are stacking up all over the U.S, and likely other places too. If folks want to be more environmentally conscious, at least right now just putting things out for recycling is not enough. We're going to have to work harder at not bringing things into the home in the first place, and finding creative uses for some things (like re-using glass jars from food for storing beads, nails, beans, rice, various dry goods). I'm sure there are lots of uses for jars.
***
On cardboard and newspaper, that might be tougher for some folks. Although I've seen some creative use of carboard for making furniture -- gluing layers of corrugated cardboard together to create "boards" for shelving for instance. Or making stronger boxes for storage than just a single layer of cardboard might be. Or picture and mirror frames...
Since we have a wood stove now, we've decided that making paper bricks might make sense now. Burning straight paper isn't great for stoves, but bricks would be similar to some types of wood, so more efficient for heating. I know, burning things creates CO2 -- that's why we insulate so we don't have to use as much fuel as the average American. And it's still a more renewable and sustainable energy resource than oil. But obviously we'll have to continue to work on minimizing how much potential waste material comes into the house. It's also apparently possible to make paper bricks for building construction; like wood only different, I guess... but we aren't building anything right now, so...
Sustainable Village brick maker
Ubergizmo brick maker
Did some reading up on paper bricks. In the U.S. most newsprint inks are soy-based now, so not burning lots of toxins. To make good bricks the paper needs to be very thoroughly soaked so that it will bind together better, not burn one layer at a time, and be dense enough to be like wood again. They take a long time to dry. Drying on screens is a good idea, for complete air circulation. Not something that can be made and used immediately. But if made properly, they burn well enough.
In the meantime, we just used a lot of crumpled up newspapers to stuff a sitting cushion we got from Your Inner Vagabond 3 years ago (yes, we finally stuffed it this year). Now that we've sat on it a few times, it looks like it could use a few more papers, which we can get from the folks downstairs -- they get newspapers regularly. We only get the local paper (very small, sent to all residents of Ashfield).
China's economy slowing down
The one plus I saw with China's economy slowing down is that with factories closing down, they're putting less pollution in the air (do a search on 'brown cloud' to see what I'm talking about). Tough times for folks everywhere though.
On the environmental minus side though, with China producing less, they also don't need much in the way of recyclables for making packaging for their products:
Recyclables mounting up
So with the global economic slowdown, recyclables are stacking up all over the U.S, and likely other places too. If folks want to be more environmentally conscious, at least right now just putting things out for recycling is not enough. We're going to have to work harder at not bringing things into the home in the first place, and finding creative uses for some things (like re-using glass jars from food for storing beads, nails, beans, rice, various dry goods). I'm sure there are lots of uses for jars.
***
On cardboard and newspaper, that might be tougher for some folks. Although I've seen some creative use of carboard for making furniture -- gluing layers of corrugated cardboard together to create "boards" for shelving for instance. Or making stronger boxes for storage than just a single layer of cardboard might be. Or picture and mirror frames...
Since we have a wood stove now, we've decided that making paper bricks might make sense now. Burning straight paper isn't great for stoves, but bricks would be similar to some types of wood, so more efficient for heating. I know, burning things creates CO2 -- that's why we insulate so we don't have to use as much fuel as the average American. And it's still a more renewable and sustainable energy resource than oil. But obviously we'll have to continue to work on minimizing how much potential waste material comes into the house. It's also apparently possible to make paper bricks for building construction; like wood only different, I guess... but we aren't building anything right now, so...
Sustainable Village brick maker
Ubergizmo brick maker
Did some reading up on paper bricks. In the U.S. most newsprint inks are soy-based now, so not burning lots of toxins. To make good bricks the paper needs to be very thoroughly soaked so that it will bind together better, not burn one layer at a time, and be dense enough to be like wood again. They take a long time to dry. Drying on screens is a good idea, for complete air circulation. Not something that can be made and used immediately. But if made properly, they burn well enough.
In the meantime, we just used a lot of crumpled up newspapers to stuff a sitting cushion we got from Your Inner Vagabond 3 years ago (yes, we finally stuffed it this year). Now that we've sat on it a few times, it looks like it could use a few more papers, which we can get from the folks downstairs -- they get newspapers regularly. We only get the local paper (very small, sent to all residents of Ashfield).
