free scribbles

The Latest on Bisphenol A

Over the past month significant coverage has been devoted to the latest news about bisphenol A and its effects on humans.  Numerous studies have been conducted in the past and advocacy groups have taken stand on one side or the other.  The debate therefore ending with an inconclusive stalemate.  And while I'm late to write on the topic, better late than never.  It has been an issue that I've followed closely over the last couple of year as studies refute studies on a bimonthly basis and written on several times. 

Nalgene, the ubiquitous water bottle manufacturer, has seen the bulk of mentions due to its stance of continued manufacturing until conclusive evidence forced them to rethink there position.  Well, apparently that time has come as the company announced that they will begin a retailer recall of their product, looking to replace the polycarbonate line with a BPA free alternative. 

Two significant actions led to this recall, Health Canada declared that BPA was harmful to humans and further publication validating that BPA had been directly linked to breast cancer and early onset puberty in girls coming from the National Institutes of Health.   

The bottomline on this issue seems to be that of concession as Nalgene decided to go with the times and eliminate products with BPA materials.   It will be interesting to see if Sigg's profits increase in the upcoming months or if Nalgene will be able to get their alternatives in to market quicker than expected.   

While they are the most popular brand for water bottles, they are not alone in using polycarbonate, be cautious when using other plastic containers, especially if you have a baby.  We've just begun phasing away from polycarbonate bottles as my wife as been picking up new ones made of polyethylene bases, which are devoid of the harmful materials.

Sustainable Bicycling: Part I

This post comes from two seemingly random thoughts.  The perfect topic for free scribbles.  Caveat: This is an older draft and dates are not 100% accurate.  I've been too busy to sit down at the computer.

The first came on Monday night, while working at home, I had the urge to research and write about a sustainable bicycle. Metals and polycarbonate frames still consume natural resources and sadly become less recyclable than people think. And bioplastics still face some durability issues. So is there a sustainable bike?

Much to my dismay, I never got around to it. But, tonight is a different story. The second thought is a memory from Thanksgiving, when my cousin was talking about how he has a public bicycle, similar to as he said, "the way they do it in Sweden."

4 months ago, the comment didn't click with me, in fact it was a running joke with my family. Fast forward to now and my recent reading & writing cast a different light on the comment. The first thought framed the discussion and presented one facet, construction. The second thought is more common, and is the application of bicycles as a piece in the bigger picture of sustainability/ environmental stewardship.

When I typed the words "sustainable bicycle (or bike)" into google, the first result led me to a site, biothinking.com. While it appears to no longer be maintained, it still contained a good deal of my sought after information, as well as a variety of other information on green initiatives and ideas. The article entitled Eight Bicycles highlights the key features that the author believes would be included in a sustainable bike by pulling them from existing technologies.

He concludes that a sustainable bike would be first and foremost recyclable, constructed from already recycled aluminium, folding, and use a fan belt or drive shaft to avoid lube oil. The tires should be solid and made of polyurethane or rubber produced in a economical way.

But I think of a bicycle beyond the basics, I think of a high performance machine. In my mind, a road bike, but a mountain bike to many of you. To some, it may be both. Factors such as weight, drag, and a variety of other technical considerations beyond even my own comprehension come into play.

Bike frames are currently manufactured using aluminium, steel, titanium, or carbon fiber.

Aluminium is the most abundant metal in the Earth's crust. But is rarely found in its free form and has to go through extensive (and expensive) extraction processes to be of use. And for all its abundance, it's only about 7-8% of the crust by mass.

Steel is an alloy metal, consisting of iron with about 1-2% carbon content. It is strong, but makes a heavier bike and is not as popular for modern bicyclists due to the weight and availability of the other alternatives.

Titanium is an metal, and when commercially used is an light, but expensive alternative. It makes up less than 1% of the Earth's crust by mass (.6%), but is the fourth most abundent metal. Like alumunium, it is not found in a free form and is extracted using the Kroll Process.

The carbon fiber used in bicycles is really carbon fiber reinforced plastics. It is light, strong, and expensive. Unlike the metal counterparts for bicycle construction, it has an almost infinite life cycle. The process of recycling involves shredding the material, which lowers the strength of the product, however with the variety of applications, many do not require the tensile strength of a bicycle or aerospace applications.

While some inventive thinkers have created bikes of wood or bamboo, these constructions do not have the strength to be raced in despite their sustainable nature.

Taking into consideration the variety of materials that can be used, it is difficult to say that bicycles are sustainable in their construction. Carbon fiber bikes offer the best option but are pricy. They use less natural resources in their construction and provide the opportunity for additional application afterwards.

Tires offer a number of sustainable options, but that is another topic. As are the geers and brakes used to power the machine forward. Chains use oil and lubricants which are harmful to the environment, but unlike cars, they have far less detriment because the bicycle is a human powered machine with lower CO2 emissions.

The value of a bicycle as a sustainable construction comes from the amount of material used, a small tube frame is certainly more efficient than a large framed and closed in automobile, but does not have the speed, space, and protection from the elements.

Everything has its pros and cons. This is an exciting moment for me, my first multiple part post. Next time in Sustainable Bicycling, we will look at the application of bicycles as a valuable part of the sustainability initative.

Iron Fertilization: The Sahara Method

Thankfully, there are people out there who provide valuable content to those of us on the interwebs.  Last weekend, Jeremy Elton Jacquot at treehugger wrote a piece on iron fertilization occurring naturally in the Eastern Atlantic Ocean.  As doctoral candidate in marine biology, he knows a lot more about this stuff than I do. 

But, this is was an interesting piece on a contraversial topic.  For proponents of this method of carbon sequestering, this article brings the issue back to earth.  Winds off the Sahara deposit dust into the ocean, wherein it acts as a plankton fertilizer causing blooms to develop.  The dust helps cloud formations and reflect sunlight back into space. 

While scientists believe that these duststorms will increase in frequency over the next few years as land usage and desertification increases, it remains to be seen if this natural fertilization will impact climate change.  Scientists on the RRS Discovery, currently studying this phenomenon, state that 500 million tons of dust, rich in iron, phosphorus, and nitrogen is deposited in the ocean, having an effect on the climate, but need further study to truly understand the process. 

While Planktos' efforts (for profit) seemed to fail, if scientists can better understand the Sahara' effect on ocean fertilization, perhaps a commercial endeavor may be not only sustainable as a business, but as a conservation effort.  This isn't a issue that is going to be resolved within a year (or three) but it certainly is going to demand a gathering of individuals to determine if geo-engineering is better than nothing.

Iron Fertilization Follow-up: Six Months Later

Back in June, I had read an interesting article about several companies using iron fertilization to make money in the carbon trading business.  My post on the subject ended inconclusively as there were still a lot of questions about the subject left to be answered.  Iron fertilization is a process which involves depositing iron shavings into the ocean to stimulate algae blooms, thereby absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and warehousing under the water. 

Earlier this month, Treehugger wrote about the topic once again and pulled highlights from part three   (of the six-part) article published by Oceanus.   No definitive scientific position was declared and in fact more potential side effects (than last time) were determined, including increased nitrous oxide and/or dimethylsulfides (DMS) emissions to name two.

Nitrous oxide is the third greenhouse gas contributor to global warming and is produced by bacterias in the ocean and soil, especially when organic matter breaks down.  Nitrous oxide directly attacks ozone in the stratosphere allowing excess UV light to strike the earth's surface.   

Dimethylsulfides are released by a variety of phytoplankton and help create an aerosol effect that would help cool the earth's surface, a potential positive effect from iron fertilization.  In fact, DMS is said to be the "smell of the sea." 

Iron fertilization still needs further study and is a fascinating subject to read about.  Unfortunately, it raises further questions:  can widespread adoption of this technique have worldwide benefits without sacrificing valued aquatic life? Are their undiscovered cures for cancer dying out in oxygen depleted regions of the ocean?  Is it possible for humans to manipulate any parts of the environment for the global good?  Finally, how can we determine what is an acceptable sacrifice?

 

The World's First Biodegradable Running Shoe

I haven't written about sustainability in awhile, not that it isn't on my mind, but I'm busy and sometimes it gets pushed back to where it ultimately stays, in my head.  But this covers both my worlds: a green running shoe?

The Trance 8 (which looks like a normal running shoe!) will debut on July 1st, 2008 and feature a bioplastic midsole, titled BioMoGo.  The uppers will still feature traditional oil-based materials, but the midsole will degrade in about 20 years, about 2% of the time that traditional midsoles take to breakdown. 

While I am a devout New Balance user, the concept of a shoe that is a little friendlier to the environment as me thinking about which brand to purchase in the future provided the reviews come in saying that performance won't suffer too greatly. 

Brooks is approaching their business from a socially responsible platform while not sacrificing innovation.  Like many of my post on sustainability, I think that business challenges require us to think within the confines of being green and innovating with environmental constraints in place.  I look forward to what else they bring to the table.  Runner's World experts seem excited too.

A Question about Water...

This is an issue near and dear to my heart as I have written about twice (especially since the topic is still highly researched and seemingly contradicting study results come out every six months). 

I am an advocate of both Sigg and Nalgene water bottles as valuable tools in the reduction of the popular consumption of valuable resources. 

Please take the survey at Treehugger and let's see where the world stands. How do you take your water?

The Good Thing About Getting Lost

Yesterday felt like Autumn for the first time, the temperature dipped into the 40s and there was a crispness in the air.  This time of year brings running to a new level for me and brings about a new level in my running.  No longer panting from the exhaustive heat, just cool air getting inhaled, refreshing my lungs as I go. 

It also brings about the desire to run trails as ticks are no longer hiding on every leaf and deers are less apt to sprint out of the underbrush.  Recently, this got me in more trouble than I expected, but I also gained a great deal. 

I ran the Long Hill Reservation today.  It was just a short 3 mile run, away from the sounds of traffic and the daily grind.  But it was reminiscent of a couple weeks ago when I took a different route, running along the perimeter of Gordon College.

Initially I planned to do a out and back run, 3 to 3.5 miles tops.  But as I ran along the banks of Coy Pond (I found out the name later) I approached an enticing trailhead, a little blue marker tagged to a tree 20 feet down, and some small gravel paving the way.  This is where my adventure began...

I assumed that the trail would circle the back of the property and come back out near the road that I started on.  As I continued along the marked trail, I realized that I was getting closer to the opposite bank of the pond and began looking for another trail along the left hand side to take me back to where I wanted to go.  Perhaps I got a little panicked and took a trail to soon.

Suddenly I was wandering off, up and down some rocky hills.  And of all days to forget my roadID, today was that day.  The fear of being lost and not getting home to my baby was motivating, I had to soldier on and find my way home.

Eventually, I cam back to well marked trails and began following them, I generally chose the option of going left but at this point I was so turned around that I was probably driving myself further from my final destination.  At last, I began to see some daylight breaking through the trees and came to the main trailhead of the Chebacco Woods.  (Sorry I can't find a real map, try the kiosk at the trailhead) I had a map of these trails left to me by Scott Karambis but I still hadn't run them yet. Well, I guess I got my trial by fire. 

Too bad the trailhead was still close to 2 miles out from hitting the showers, but at least with roads I could find my way home.  As I made my way onto Essex St. I looked back to see a sign welcoming individuals to the Hunt Club. I felt lucky to have made it out!

As I finally made it back to work, I realized that I got something out of getting lost.  I found the motivation to go 6 to 6.5 miles whereas I was settling to go less and I pushed the whole time, mostly out of nerves, but whatever motivates you.  And to quote Nietzsche, "That which does not kill us only makes us stronger." 

So here is to a great season for running, however far that might be and the weather to making it enjoyable and I plan on hitting Chebacco soon. Caveat: there is one bad thing to getting lost...

You're Lost!

My Blog Action Day Post:

October 15th came up so fast from when I committed to joining the blog action day cause...

I'm in Chicago today at the DMA Conference 2007, listening to the best of the best espouse about direct mail, the new postage rates, and how to create a quality piece that gets a 3% response rate.  Well, not a lot of that, I am more focused on how social networking and web 2.0 can be utilized. 

But related to this day's topic, I stopped off at several booths which were highlighting their green initiatives in direct marketing.  Those who were utilizing environmental measures were primarily paper suppliers, including the Forest Products Association of Canada, National Envelope, and Mohawk Fine Papers.

For those of you who don't know what direct marketing is, here are the crib notes: Marketing through the use of materials that demand a response from the consumer, most often this comes in the form of "junk mail".  Increasingly the response rate has declined and alternate channels are being sought.  Email was viable until spammers mucked up the works.   

Each of the aforementioned companies/associations has begun to not only change the way they market themselves, but realized that for their businesses to continue, they have to change the way they work.  The FPAC released their sustainability report and was sharing that with everyone. What's really cool is how they are also utilizing biomass as fuel to conserve resources and reduce energy consumption. 

National Envelope and Mohawk wanted to educate the marketers about the Forest Stewardship Council and how their product not only is of high quality but more friendly for the environment.  Mohawk actually acquires 100% of its electricity through wind power!

It really inspires me to see the direct translation of technology and progress in sustainability is being utilized by companies and being successful.  I haven't had the chance to read their materials all the way through, so consider this an intorduction.

Happy Blog Action Day everyone!

Dell's Challenge to be Green

Back in May, I wrote about Apple's efforts to be an environmentally friendly computer manufacturer.  In an effort to be fair and balanced blogger (and not a hypocrite, this is being typed on a Dell), I am following up on that with yesterday's news about Dell. 

Both Target Green and Green Wombat wrote about this exciting news yesterday as Dell moves to be carbon-neutral by next year, an aggressive schedule that will certainly cause rivals to begin thinking about their own environmental footprint. 

As the world's resources dwindle and humanity's need to be better stewards of Earth, this sort of radical action not only causes businesses to change their practices but it allows those consumers to be more fickle in what products they buy. 

Dell has established a website to express their goals and programs: Dell Earth (I cheated and read the press release, I'll look closer when I have some time). 

This is not only the type of action that a company needs to take for the environment, but provided its genuine (it appears to be from the steps taken thus far), it is a great marketing initiative, leaving individuals like myself to rethink what type of computer to buy in the future.     

Working Away... Go and Play

The New York Times published an interesting article on the inequality of the American labor policies.  Walter Kirn, the writer, starts with a captivating statistic, presented in a snappy color diagram, and adds his own two cents. 

While I might argue that most of us are well-paid, it is clear that Americans can't leave the workplace and take a real vacation.  Executives must be rejoicing as the cubes overflow with industrious employees. 

I picked up this story on treehugger, where they posted a snippet of the piece and raised the notion that this is part of why Americans are not as concerned with the environment as our European counterparts.  We don't see the outside!  I think it is a valid point, but with increasing awareness by consumers of "green" the ideas of protecting our environment are gaining clout.

The other hair-raising point from this is the value of personal health.  If people aren't taking time off, how are they relieving stress?  On a micro level, I look at the fact that I have to schedule my lunch on a daily basis so that I can go running, if I don't have an hour blocked off somewhere in the day, I will lose any time to breathe fresh air.  Sure, I could run before work or after, but midday running is a great way to break things up.  And with an upcoming newborn, it may be my only time. 

The bottom line is, while I don't imagine this piece will change anything, it certainly puts us to the task of thinking more.  Taking a holiday or a stroll outside benefits the self and if you realize what's going on outside, it may benefit the environment.