Ken Dunn wrote: >When talking to friends, family and others regarding the >Earth-friendly practices that we can all include in our lifestyles, I >always stumble over quantifying the true price of packaging for >consumer goods. Its easy enough to calculate the transportation costs >of an avacodo from California to Lancaster County, PA. Its also >fairly straight forward to relay the burden on natural resources - the >real price we pay. Adding it all up is also easily enough >accomplished. > >But, how do you really calculate the expense of packaging materials? > The company who produced that iten figured it in to there costs. The store who bought it then sold it to you figured the weight in there shipping costs.
> >How much petroleum goes into one plastic bag? > The company that made the bag knows. Call one and ask them how many units of X they get for Y stock. > Of course, the plastic >won't break down in any of our lifetimes yet, its not easy to >determine the displacement of a resource when you don't know the >inputs. For many (Americans anyway) > Thats insulting. Americans are not the only wasteful people on the planet. Yes its hard to say but its easy to figure out. How much source material was used? How much X went into that? Ask the companies, they might tell you, they might not. > "I won't be here in a million >years so, who cares?". Then again, there are always the ever >increasing landfills to point to. NIMBY does have some power there >yet, that approach is only a scare tactic to be exploited and I have >no time for that. > > Mmmm,, yes who does care? >What portion of a tree is consumed to create a cardboard box that is >used just long enough for the DVD player (I almost said VCR :-) ) to >make its way from the factory to the store and then the family room >only to be mummified in the local dump? How much extra weight does >the box add to the truck? How much extra fuel does the extra weight >consume? > > Again track the product and its material. I once heard that paper products are better then 80% efficient. If that is true then 1lb of wood gives .8lb of paper product. What is the weight of your matrial? >For a while I questioned whether paper really WAS any better than >plastic. For a while I used plastic based on the premise that I could >recycle the plastic. I've now decided that paper is better than >plastic if only for the reason that the paper atleast comes from a >natural resource that is sustainable (sort of). > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wood_pulp "Today, some people and groups are advocating using field crop fiber instead of wood fiber as being more sustaible." Paper and such fiber products are far better then plastics in many ways. This does not mean plastics do not have a home. > But, is paper better >than plastic? > For making bathroom tissue it sure is! > What if we returned to using plastic made from soy >beans like ol' Henry's boys discovered? Would it still be better to >use paper over plastic? > > See above. What if we did return to it? Is it cheaper to do? Is it a better product? If not, Why would any business do it? >How much energy is consumed to produce all of these packaging >materials? And how much more is consumed to dispose of them? > > For the production its easy, less then X dollars for a product that costs X dollars. There must be proffit along the way, no one is doing it for free. >Rant as I may, how do we get the point across to the producers of >goods that we want lass packaging? > They already use as little packaging as they feel they safely can. Why? Cause more costs them more and they want ot spend as little as they can. Sorry but a VCR/DVD player NEEDS protective packaging. > We can buy local all day long but, >Sony doesn't have a factory near me. Even if they did, I'd still >probably have to take the packaging with me. > > Yes you would. Whats so bad about that? Recycle if you want. Or not, that IS a option you have. I think we need better recycling laws. Dumps should be recycling centers each and every one. Only the absolute worst stuff should be tossed forever and even that should be solved.. >Take care all, >Ken > >_______________________________________________ >Biofuel mailing list >Biofuel@sustainablelists.org >http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org > >Biofuel at Journey to Forever: >http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html > >Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): >http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/ > > > > _______________________________________________ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
