What to do wtih all the trash?

I've been thinking a lot lately about what can we do about all the trash that we produce. I'm not just talking about the Americans, cause holy cow we produce a lot of trash, but I'm talking world-wide. Australia is looking at reconfiguring their carbon pricing scheme for a cap & trade system to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The one big problem they are having is with the landfills and the large amounts of methane that they produce. In the US there are a couple of places that are using the methane for electricity. The S.C.Johnson Company actually uses methane from a local landfill near one of their plants to power some portions of their factory. pretty cool. And there are a few other areas in the US where they are attempting to use the methane from landfills for energy, whether it be electricity or fuel for cars. While that is a great idea for the landfills that already exist, what are we going to do about the trash that we are still throwing out. Recycling is a great way to reduce our waste stream, but there are people that don't recycle anything. Take my neighbors for instance. They recycle NOTHING, not one little piece of paper. Just cause they don't feel like it. I'm not sure if maybe some confusion is the reason behind the lack of effort or just because they are lazy in that area. There are people in our neighborhood that put out at least 3 huge bags of grass a week. ugh,  horrible space waster in a landfill. Me, I recycle EVERYTHING. Everything that can be put in that can, goes. We even "recycle" our food waste, grass and leaves. Otherwise known as composting. It makes our garden grow :)  This is yet another area where I feel completely inadequate. I have ideas on how to improve recycling, but it won't work unless people are willing to change. one idea I had for existing landfills is to go and find the stuff that is recyclable within the landfills. I'm sure there are billions of tons of newspapers in the landfills, dating back to the turn of century. oh, that would be 1900, not 2000 :) Forgot what century I was in there for a minute. Anyway. And the plastic and glass that could be found from before we figured out how to recycle. Holy jackpot batman!! Someone needs to figure out a way to tap that resource. The number of permitted landfills is decreasing in the US. We are running out of places to put our trash, so what are we going to do with it? If we are able to use the resources within the landfills then there will be space to put more crap.  Plastic is a petroleum product. Can you imagine how much we could save if we were able to tap into the waste stream and tap the landfills for that resource? So now all I have to do is figure out a way to get the "stuff" out of the landfill efficiently. I guess once the price is right this will be something one of the big companies think of all on their own. Right now it's just cheaper to throw everything away and make new. sigh, people just don't get it, do they?

Jill Stein for President

As much as I'd love to run for president, I don't have the politcal savy to do it right. And I'd get so angry at idiots I'd probably get fired within a month :) So, I was reading an article at work today about Jill Stein. She's running for president for the Green party, and I am TOTALLY VOTING FOR HER!!!! One of her comments was the the political system is broken. oh, yeah, totally is! And it needs to change. She probably won't make it into the oval office, but maybe if enough people know about her she will have a shot!! Wish I had more than one vote. Here's a link to her website. http://www.jillstein.org/ Vote for Jill Stein!!!

Feeling frustrated

I read an article yesterday about people not believing in climate change or global warming, and a million thoughts ran through my head. First of all, how can these people not believe what is right in front of them. HELLOOOOO, climate change means bigger, meaner toranadoes, bigger, meaner hurricanes, longer droughts, horrible flooding, and any other weather event you can think of, just multiply it times 10. So, anyone hear about the tornadoes this past weekend. but I digress. I guess these people think that since climate change isn't happening, they don't need to do anything to conserve what they have. Or maybe they think if they don't believe it's true, then they don't have to change the way they do things and can continue doing things in the wasteful way they are. Speaking of, I have a neighbor that refuses to recycle....she can't be bothered. HUH?! really, doesn't her family realize that by them not recycling they are wasting tons of resources and causing tons of pollution? Seriously, if everyone recycled, just their plastic bottles, can you imagine the amount of trash that wouldn't make it to the landfills. Don't even get me started on landfills and how they are filling up at an alarming rate and there aren't very many new places to put them. yeah, wonder what happens then. So, back to the people with their heads in the sand. Even if you don't believe in climate change, lets talk about water. Yeah, I know, I've been on a water kick lately. It's been bothering me. There are already civil wars being fought for water in the developing countries. The Sahara desert is growing due to desertification because people are trying to scratch out a living on marginal land and there isn't enough water in the area to sustain their farms. Even here in the US there are fights in the west over water. Just read my last post about Las Vegas. They're just the recent problem. Southern California is another area that keeps begging for water and is looking all over the place to find it. There are lots of articles about India and the villages there that will be in dire straits once the glaciers that feed the streams that feed their villages are gone. Yeah, but climate change isn't happening. Science has proven that the glaciers are indeed shrinking, and they are shrinking fast. So, then there will be all those people without water. What are we going to do then? So, not only is the amount of fresh water available dwindling we are doing a damn fine job of polluting what we have. Think of all the stuff we put on the ground, guess where it ends up. Yep, you guessed it, in the water. And then there is the fracking to get natural gas out of the ground. They use fresh water to do that. like 30 million gallons of water to do that. And once they use the water, it's unusable for anything other than more fracking. But it isn't always reused. The chemicals that they put in the water has to be an exact mix, so they don't like to use "dirty" water, cause they have to think more and make up a new additive to put in the water so the combination comes out correct. Now, not  only are there more people needing freshwater for themselves, there are natural gas companies needing freshwater for their wells. This doesn't even take into account the agriculture and industry that will need more water to create more food and more products for the increasing number of people. Know what the sucky part is, there is a finite amount of water on the earth. Yeah, that's right, what you see is what you get, so when we mess it all up with our chemicals and overuse, we are soooo screwed.

Water, Water everywhere....NOT

The states in the west has a serious problem. They have a serious lack of water. Especially those states in the southwest, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, you get my drift. I've read a few articles in the last month or so about how Nevada, specifically Las Vegas, is fighting for more water. At the end of March the Nevada State engineer issues a decision to allow the Southern Nevada Water Authority to pump 84,000 acre feet of water from 4 rural valleys. The water in some areas will be pumped as far as 300 miles to get to Vegas. Currently Vegas gets about 90% of its water from Lake Mead. As you probably know, Lake Mead has issues of its own. You've probably seen pictures of the lake were there is a HUGE white stripe around the edge. That's because the water level of the lake has fallen over 120ft, which is about 35% of its capacity. There are docks sitting in mud and sand because the water level has retreated miles from the previous shoreline. Last year the lake did rise about 30ft from the wet weather and large snowfall, but this summer is predicted to be just as dry and hot as previously and the lake will be back down to previous levels. The drought that created this problem started in 2000, and hasn't relented. So, you ask, what is the big deal. Vegas is dry, always has been always will be, what's so different about that? The stupidity of the predicament is what annoys me. As I noted earlier Vegas has been granted access to water elsewhere, other than Lake Mead. About a month ago I came across an article from the Las Vegas Journal that talked about how stalled housing developments, of which Vegas has many, are expected to WASTE 3 days worth of water. After the housing bubble burst, and it happened on a large scale in Vegas, the Las Vegas Valley Water District had branches of treated water pipelines going to dozens of unfinished subdivisions. Without circulation the water would sit in the pipes and the residual chemicals would degrade, making the water undrinkable. In 2009 the water authority gave the owners a choice: pump enough water to flush out the pipes every three days or be disconnected from the system. If the owners are disconnected from the system, they have to pay to be reconnected at a high cost. So, this policy has created a problem where water is wasted constantly in a desert town, that has just asked for, and received, 84,000 acre-ft of water that will be shipped over 300 miles. now, lets do a little math. Sorry, I'm an engineer, everything is math to me :) On average, an American consumes 176 gallons of water a day (yes that is A LOT!!!). So say these houses have 4 people in each, that equals 704 g/day per family home. Now, these pipes have to be flushed every three days, that's 2112 g/3day per family home. Now, lets just say that there are 10 houses in each development (I'm all about easy math) that is 21120 gallons per development. Articles I've read on the Vegas housing market states that DOZENS of housing developments have been stalled. So, I multiplied by 12 to get one dozen developments that include at least 10 houses and that was 253,440 gallons, Since the articles said dozens, I did a ballpark of 10 (more easy math), there are probably lots more than that, but I don't live there so I can't drive around and check. Which leads to a grand total of 2534400 gallons of water that is wasted in 3 days in Vegas, and that is just for ONE pipe clearing event. And it's probably a a low estimate. This converts to 7.8 acre-ft. EVERY THREE DAYS! Each year has 365 days in it (last time I checked). If water is wasted every three days, then it's wasted 121.7 days out of the year. This equals ~950 acre-ft of water wasted a year. Let's just round that up to 1000, cause you know that there are more than 10 dozen stalled housing developments and there are more than 10 houses in each development, probably more like 20, in each category. I'm not sure what the duration of the 84,000 acre-ft request was, so I don't know if it was a year or total and how long it was going to take to remove. Comparably speaking 1000 isn't even close to 84,000, but to my way of thinking you need to start/stop somewhere. If the city of Vegas is wasting water in this idiotic way, how else are they wasting water?