Tag: waste

Today’s No-Brainer

Bottled water …..

… in developed countries is not only an insanity but also an obscenity.

  • It is no healthier than tapwater. If it were essential to health then how come we oldies survived before? Logically, the Human Race should have died out.
  • It tastes no different, unless you buy it fizzy – but you could add your own fizz at home.
  • It costs VASTLY more than tapwater.
  • It is VASTLY more profitable to producers than gasoline for oil companies.
  • It is VASTLY more expensive to produce – around 1500 times more than an equivalent quantity of tap water.
  • Its transportation produces significant amounts of harmful emissions.
  • It is VASTLY wasteful; water is scarce, yet it takes 7 litres of water to make a 1 litre bottle plus the contents.
  • It leads to VASTLY-INCREASED pollution. ‘see “Giant Rubbish Dump Accumulating in the Pacific“
  • It soaks up resources that could be better used, including to save lives of people dying from lack of or dirty water.

In short, it is absolute folly. What on earth is there going for it? At the same time, it is big business and very popular? Why?

  • Are people ignorant about all the above? That’s quite worrying …. not much future with so much ignorance about.
  • Are people paranoid about what comes out of their taps? Oh dear –  paranoia is not good for us.
  • Do people place their vanity and status-image before the above-mentioned points? Hmmmm …..
  • Are many people just suckers for slick advertising? I guess the answer to that one is a straight “Yes”.
  • Have millions of people no common-sense and/or social conscience? Oh dear, this time it’s a clear “No”.
This is pretty!

Bottled water is nonsense, except of course where there is no alternative.

If rich, fat Westerners really like bottled water they could export it to developing countries where millions die through lack of or poisoned/polluted water every year while at the same time pouring funds into building water infrastructure for these very same people.

Yes, I know the industry provides jobs, but so did making nerve-gas for the Nazis.

The point is, we should direct our energy and money into things which are not totally unnecessary and destructive. I’m not a great fan of the “nanny-state”, but in some areas – and this is one – the government should be taking a more forceful lead. Help us kick our silly, selfish, faddish and destructive addiction to bottled water.

Some excellent links on this topic:

By Chris Snuggs

I haven’t got the energy ….

Energy contradictions underline some very strange attitudes.
h-mountainsI went for a bike ride this afternoon ….. there is a super 6km circuit that goes from our village Unterthingau along a country road, up past a farm with magnificent views over the Allgäu countryside then along to Oberthingau and back home …..  On the way there are horses and cows munching happily in fields and of course the snow-capped Alps in the background ….  The exercise and the fresh air were great, but during the ride I was struck by a couple of things. On the skyline in the direction of Kempten was – as usual – a line of a dozen wind turbines. All were – as usual – immobile, save one which was doing its best to turn languidly, and hardly succeeding.

solar2
A private house in the village

Now the Germans do things properly, as we know. This area is pristine, hardly a blade of grass or a stone out of place; it is stunning.  So when it comes to energy-saving, they do it seriously (up to a point).

For a start, there are solar panels covering many roofs; the farmers get a subsidy for the installations and sell any surplus to the German National Grid. And then there are those windmills …. but the point is, they are usually motionless. There may be plenty of winter snow in this area, but there isn’t much wind.

solar1
Solar panels on cowshed ...

This confirmed my view that windmills in most places in Europe are never going to solve the energy shortage. They are contributing almost nothing now, and of course only produce anything at all when there’s wind. Full marks to the Germans for trying, but it’ll never be enough.

Leaf-Blower_Vacuum
leaf-blower ....

Then as I rode through Oberthingau I saw a local resident blowing leaves off his forecourt with one of those “leaf-blower” machines ….  This struck me as bizarre.

In truth, I’ve NEVER understood those things. What is the point? You blow the leaves from one place to another and later on when there is a little wind it’ll blow them straight back again. If he had been hoovering UP the leaves, fine, but blowing them from one place to another? Why not use a broom? And what have they got against leaves, anyway?

And I thought, on the one hand we are rushing around like headless chickens trying to think of ways of generating energy and on the other we are totally wasting it on ludicrous non-essentials.

As has been claimed and to my mind proven for Africa, what is needed is not giant, national and international projects (though more nuclear power-stations would help) but micro-projects for the masses, and especially a cosmic change in the mindset. You only have to look around to see examples of humungous waste of energy.  Get rid for a start of most traffic lights! Dangerous? Errrmmm, no actually … experiments have shown that when there are no lights people drive more cautiously ….  Get rid of those barriers on motorways that go up and down thousands of times every day. How many people actually drive through a toll barrier without paying? And even if they do, the operator can take their number and report them; why on earth do we need an energy-consuming barrier?

It’s individual mindsets that need to change …  Do people really have to fire up their car to drive 300 metres to the baker’s on Saturday mornings? What happened to walking?  The British “school run” is a classic example; kids are driven to school, don’t get enough exercise and so get fat, the roads are clogged up (and dangerous) and loads of CO2 is produced. Insane …..

One thing is sure, insanity will not save us ….