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25 Aug 05 - books; packaging; oil bottles; cups; job; battery
** WASTE PREVENTION FORUM **
-- A project of the National Waste Prevention Coalition
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Forum archive: http://www.nwpcarchive.org
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From Susan Salterberg, Center for Energy and Environmental Education,
University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, IA:
Wanted: Quality illustrated picture books and fiction and non-fiction
titles for all ages. I'm looking for high-quality books about waste and
books about sustainability. I will review the titles, then introduce a
selection of them to Iowa teachers. I will also add titles to this list:
http://www.uni.edu/ceee/wastereduction/books.htm
The list may also be
helpful to some of you.
Feel free to share titles with me that take a broad view on these issues.
One of my favorites (and a favorite of teachers and students) is "Material
World: A Global Family Portrait," by Peter Menzel. It shows photos of
people from around the world in front of their homes with their possessions.
(Someday, I'll have to stop introducing "Material World," as it was
copyrighted in 1992 or so - and I'll need a great replacement.)
Thanks. You are great resources!
E-mail: salterberg [A T] uni [D O T] edu
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From Tom Watson, King County Solid Waste Division, Seattle, WA, and the
National Waste Prevention Coalition:
I've been meaning to write a review for the Forum of this book, which I read
in July. Susan's request above has spurred me to finally do it.
BOOK REVIEW
"Paper or Plastic - Searching for Solutions to an Overpackaged World." By
Daniel Imhoff. Published in 2005 by Sierra Club Books. 168 pages.
$16.95.
In this engaging book, Imhoff does a terrific job examining packaging issues
and alternatives. I read it from cover to cover. Although I already knew
(or thought I knew) a fair amount about packaging, I learned a lot from this
book. It's comprehensive and thorough. He gets into technical issues but
also keeps it lively and interesting.
My favorite part was the fascinating story of the World Bottle, or WOBO,
promoted by Alfred Heineken (of Heineken beer). After becoming upset by the
sight of his company's beer bottles washing up as litter on a Caribbean
beach in 1960, Heineken asked his design team to come up with a bottle that
could be reused in an innovative way. The WOBO was an attempt to give glass
bottles an extended life as bricks that could be used in construction of
glass walls. Two sides of the bottle were flat, and the bottles could be
interlocked through a recessed cavity in the bottom, and then mortared like
bricks. The design was patented, and 50,000 of the bottles were made for
Heineken beer in 1963. But, due to a number of problems, the WOBO failed to
gain industry acceptance. "Not even a motivated, influential corporate
leader was able to mitigate the impacts of the packaging of international
beverage production through a design innovation," Imhoff writes.
Although the WOBO did not end well, Imhoff also describes a number of
successful environmentally-preferable packaging projects, including the
efforts of companies such as Aveda and Hewlett-Packard. This book includes
excellent case studies and resources, as well as some striking color photos.
Two thumbs up!
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From Kivi Leroux Miller, EcoScribe Communications, Lexington, NC:
A neighbor of mine has invented a device that holds "empty" bottles of motor
oil upside-down so that they can really fully drain. It's essentially a
funnel, but better, because it is closed off so dust doesn't get into the
oil and it holds multiple bottles. It has several benefits: (1) saves oil by
collecting all of it from each bottle; (2) makes the plastic oil bottles
themselves recyclable since they are now truly empty; and (3) saves money
because by fully draining the bottles you eventually collect the equivalent
of a full bottle of oil. Here is the website:
http://www.doubletproducts.com
This guy is really just a nice farmer-turned-inventor, and he asked me for
ideas on how to market this product. The local service stations and auto
supply people haven't been terribly supportive or helpful. I told him I
would ask some people in the environmental community (including this list)
if they had any ideas for how he could get attention for a product like
this, so please send me any tips you have and I'll forward them.
E-mail: kivi (AT) ecoscribe (DOT) com
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From Alex Cuyler, City of Eugene Planning and Development Department, solid
waste and recycling program, Eugene, OR, responding to an article posted
8/18/05 about biodegradable PLA (polylactide) cups for cold drinks (the
article noted that the cups could even go into a home composting bin,
although it said it may take a year for them to disappear in that
situation):
PLA cups cannot be composted at home, at least in my experience. Nor do
they compost in a vermicomposting environment, at least I never got them to.
In fact, even in a commercial composting operation they do require a certain
amount of heat to decompose properly. We've placed these cups into a yard
debris composting operation and within approximately 12-16 inches from the
surface of a windrow saw very little change in the cups. Once buried more
deeply into the windrow, however, they were completely gone in about two
weeks. Others may have had different experiences with these cups, as our
experiments with them occurred several years ago. There are several events
in Eugene that now utilize them on a regular basis. After discarding them
into a bin designated for compostables, they are delivered to a yard debris
composting operation.
E-mail: Alex ( D O T ) D ( D O T ) CUYLER ( A T ) ci ( D O T ) eugene ( D O T ) or ( D O T ) us
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Link to a job posting for a Program Planner 3 for the Iowa Department of
Natural Resources, Environmental Services Division, Energy and Waste
Management Bureau, Financial and Business Assistance Section, Des Moines, IA
(forwarded by Susan Salterberg):
https://www.iowaonline.state.ia.us/idopapptrack/public/job_listing.asp?Cat=5
Scroll down to position # 542-0425.
This person will develop promotional strategies for energy and waste
management programs, among other duties. The annual salary for this
position is $41,000 to $60,800. The deadline for applications is Tuesday,
Aug. 30, 2005.
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Excerpted from an 8/18/05 National Geographic News article by John Roach:
NEED A BATTERY? URINE LUCK
Before you next flush the toilet, consider this: Scientists in Singapore
have developed a battery powered by urine. Researchers at the Institute of
Bioengineering and Nanotechnology created the credit card-size battery as a
disposable power source for medical test kits. Scientists have been
scrambling to create smaller, more efficient, and less expensive "biochips"
to test for diseases such as diabetes. Until now, however, similarly small
batteries to power the devices remained elusive.
Diagnostic test kits commonly analyze the chemical composition of a person's
urine to detect a malady. Ki Bang Lee and his colleagues realized that the
substance being tested - urine - could also power the test. "In order to
address this problem, we have designed a disposable battery on a chip, which
is activated by biofluids such as urine," Lee reported.
Daniel Kammen, director of the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory
at the University of California, Berkeley, said the technology is a welcome
innovation in a time of rising energy prices. "All jokes (about) urine
aside, what is needed are low-cost batteries," he said. "The other neat
thing about this is the fact that it's basically a biodegradable battery."
To make the battery, Lee and his colleagues soaked a piece of paper in a
solution of copper chloride and sandwiched it between strips of magnesium
and copper. This sandwich was then laminated between two sheets of
transparent plastic. When a drop of urine is added to the paper through a
slit in the plastic, a chemical reaction takes place that produces
electricity, Lee said. The prototype battery produced about 1.5 volts, the
same as a standard AA battery, and runs for about 90 minutes. Researchers
said the power, voltage, and lifetime of the battery can be improved by
adjusting the geometry and materials used.
Urine contains many ions (electrically charged atoms), which allows the
electricity-producing chemical reaction to take place in the urine battery,
said UC Berkeley's Kammen. Other bodily fluids, such as tears, blood, and
semen, would work easily as well to activate the battery. "Really, urine is
just a nice example (of) a whole variety of compounds that do this stuff."
Even children's lunch-box fruit-juice packets are sufficient, he added.
While medical devices inspired the urine battery, it can activate any
electric device with low power consumption, according to Lee, the battery's
co-inventor. "For example, we can integrate a small cell phone and our
battery on a plastic card. This can be activated by body fluids, such as
saliva, during an emergency," he said. According to Kammen the technology
could even be applied to laptop computers, MP3 players, televisions, and
cars. Body-fluid-powered batteries "can do all kinds of things. The issue is
how they scale up" to produce more power, he said.
One approach is to simply build larger batteries. Another method is to link
lots of little battery cells side by side, which is how the batteries in
laptop computers work, Kammen explained. Kammen, who advocates government
funding for alternative energy research, says the wide number of
applications for cheap and efficient biofluid-powered batteries illustrates
the value of research. "Investigation leads to innovation," he said.
For the full article, and to see a photo of the battery, go to:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/08/0818_050818_urinebattery.htm
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Note from Tom: I will be out of the office Aug. 29 - Sept. 1, attending the
National Recycling Coalition (NRC) annual conference in Minneapolis, and
then taking a vacation day. Hope to see some of you at NRC! There will be
several waste prevention-related sessions, covering topics such as zero
waste, sustainable schools, sustainable businesses and packaging design.
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