Thousands of people and companies have discovered a great way to decrease emissions and save money at the same time. There doesn’t have to be a tradeoff between protecting the earth and enjoying cheap, convenient travel and commerce. Rail travel and shipping are very obvious ways to decrease the environmental impact of our way of life without new economic costs. An extensive network of tracks rivaling our interstate highway system already exists, and lays waiting for us to use its full capacity.

Many individuals and commercial entities have already caught on to the benefits of railway use. Ridership on Amtrak, our nation’s only high-speed intercity rail line, has increased an average of 1.8 percent each year since 1991. Likewise, since 1980, freight rail use as a percentage of all available modes of transportation has gone from 30% in 1980 to 42% in 2006. Shippers and travelers have consistently been drawn to rail travel over recent decades.

The Obama administration has identified infrastructural improvement as a key aspect of its economic recovery plan, and has gone as far as to allocate funds for rail projects and empower the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) to develop a national rail plan for long term development. The FRA’s Preliminary National Rail Plan identifies safety, reliability, and relatively lower logistic costs as key features driving the increased use of our railways. In other words, users do not select rail because of their environmental concerns; they select it because of practical considerations of cost, convenience, and whether they or their shipments will arrive on time. The plan highlights pronounced environmental benefits as secondary effects of the increased use that will come with infrastructural improvement. For example, passenger rail travel uses an average of 21% less energy per passenger mile than automobile travel; freight transportation is between 1.9 and 5.5 times more energy efficient than trucking, with greater benefit at longer distances; and easily accessible intercity rail reduces highway congestion and creates attractive urban living environments, which have a host of environmental benefits of their own.

The railway industry stands alone among forms of overland transportation in that it finances the construction of its own infrastructure. Where highways are financed by federal, state, and local agencies and provided as a public good, rail freight companies have been largely responsible for investment in track laying, procuring right-of-way, and providing connections with other modes of transport. The industry even pays property taxes for land it owns and operates on. All of this is financed through shipping charges and fares. This proven viability under market conditions means that the rail industry is more than adequately poised to take advantage of funds made available by the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act.

Our railways present an easy opportunity to significantly reduce our national carbon footprint. Even given the need for expanded capacity and new passenger lines, right-of-way is already long established along the lines of our present rail corridors. With all these advantages, intercity rail may seem like a cure-all for our transportation problems. However, a straight line from point A to point B is rarely an easy or unobstructed route, no matter how you travel.

National promotion of rail shipping and travel is sure to encounter opposition from the automotive and petroleum industries. The automakers and oil producers depend on our continued use of personal cars to get to and from work, shopping and tourist destinations, and anywhere else we go (as well as government handouts and continued instability in the Middle East). They have a long history of opposition to railway use; between the late 1930s and 1950, GM, Firestone, Standard Oil, and a couple other companies even went as far as to form monopolistic holding companies to buy floundering electric streetcar lines and replace them with bus services in these areas.

Even without industry conspiracy, Americans’ own attitudes may be the greatest barrier to increased rail use. Millions of people ride the rails every day, but millions more drive to work, the store, and other destinations. Whereas the value or moving freight by rail is becoming increasingly evident to many companies, passenger rail use requires lifestyle adjustments. First, a rail commuter or traveler is constrained by a train schedule. She may have to walk a couple blocks from a train station to her destination, rather than travelling directly from door to door. She might have to go through transfers, interchanges, or worst of all, have to spend time in close proximity with her fellow rail travelers on a daily basis. Whether we care to admit it or, our love of convenience is a cornerstone of the culture of the car, and a major barrier to the widespread adoption of passenger rail.

Increased rail use and capacity is inevitable. Commercial freight companies can and do invest in the infrastructural improvements necessary to their industry, and enjoy an increasing share of the overland shipping market. However, on the passenger side, we’ve got a lot of catching up to do. U.S. ridership, average speed, and access to passenger rail all lag behind all other industrial nations. Hopefully nothing will derail the administration’s attempts to at least give us the option of enjoying fast, efficient intercity rail travel.

Source:

1. FRA Preliminary National Rail Plan, http://www.fra.dot.gov/Downloads/RailPlanPrelim10-15.pdf

Efficient, high-capacity storage is a major missing factor in cost effective, sustainable electricity generation. Massive amounts of heat and light from the sun bombard the earth all day long, raging winds sweep over the land and sea, and yet the full potential of this energy remains inaccessible to us. Although we can capture some of this awesome power, the amount depends to some extent on the whim of nature, but more on the ability of our technology to capture and store energy from these bountiful sources.

In order to make solar and wind energy reliable and competitive with traditional methods of electricity generation, we need to harness as much energy as possible when it is available and store it for later use. There are a few ways of doing this, batteries being the most viable.

Current Battery Technology and Applications

When a battery is connected to a device or circuit, electrons are allowed to flow from the negative to the positive terminal of the battery. Inside, two chemical reactions are taking place as the electrons are released from one material and absorbed by another. Feeding electricity into the battery reverses these reactions, recharging the battery.

As the materials inside the battery break down over time, it loses efficiency and power. A typical deep-cycle battery, one which is designed to be significantly depleted and recharged repeatedly, will last longest if it is rarely discharged beyond 50% capacity.

Lead-acid batteries are typical for many deep-cycle applications, including home electricity storage. Electrons travel between two lead plates which are submerged in acid. These batteries are relatively cheap, efficient, and have a good energy-to-weight ratio. However, they require a fair amount of maintenance-their fluid levels drop as they recharge, and need to be replenished. They might also leak from time to time.

Absorbent Glass Mat batteries-AGM for short-are a newer, slightly more expensive alternative. They last about the same amount of time, but are designed so that the liquid component of the battery is stored in a sort of glass sponge. Gas circulates within the battery as it is charged, and the battery is sealed shut. There is no need to replenish the fluid, and even if the battery is dropped and breaks, no acid will ever spill.

Typical home renewable energy setups will use a battery bank. Many individual batteries are wired together in a way that brings their storage and output capacity up to a level that is useful for home applications. Battery banks take up a lot of space, involve a lot of wiring, and suffer problems related to the way batteries work when tied together this way. A battery bank is only as good as its weakest cell, and works best if all the batteries in it are of the same type, manufacture, and age. In other words, if one battery goes bad, the whole set needs to be replaced. Also, the batteries will discharge differently depending on their location in the circuit; some will wear out more quickly, reducing the lifespan of the whole system.

New Battery Options Poised to Revolutionize Renewable Energy

Mankind’s need for energy is often at odds with how nature provides it; we consume electricity to light and heat our homes when the sun is gone from the sky. The use of renewable energy right now is limited by our capacity to store it. However, there are several new types of experimental battery rapidly approaching full-scale availability. These new batteries could potentially be used in a wider variety of applications, giving us several options for improving the efficiency of our electrical system and allowing a greater reliance on renewable energy sources.

Salt Lake City’s Ceramtek, the R&D division of leading ceramics and components manufacturer CoorsTek, has developed an astonishing new battery that they believe will revolutionize home electricity generation. Their battery operates below 100 degrees Celsius, has a ten year lifespan, and is only the size of refrigerator. It could provide enough energy to run every appliance and light every bulb in a very large house simultaneously for four hours, if you wanted to do that. And it will deliver this electricity at less than half the current price offered by power companies.

Ceramtek’s battery uses a new type of ceramic membrane which greatly reduces the battery’s internal resistance. This means much less potential energy is wasted as heat, and the battery can operate at a temperature where sodium remains in its solid state. Coupled with wind turbines and/or photovoltaic panels, they could increase a home’s energy storage capacity to the point where power from the grid is no longer necessary. And at the price predicted by Ceramtek-around $2000 per unit-putting a battery in every home could be much more cost effective than replacing or continuing to maintain our nation’s aging electrical grid.

Dr. Donald Sadoway at MIT recently demonstrated a battery where the electrodes-the electron producing and absorbing components-are liquid metals. This battery can absorb ten times the amount of charge as a conventional battery. However, the use of high temperature materials makes this type of battery less than ideal for household use. More likely, it would be used for grid augmentation. That is, utility companies would generate and store electricity on a massive scale, with solar or wind forms. Large batteries would store the energy and release it into the grid when demand spikes above availability.

This type of grid-level application is already underway at Luverne, Minnesota. Xcel Energy, the largest provider of wind-generated electricity in the United States, is testing a facility that uses a battery bank the size of two tractor-trailers to store electricity generated by a huge wind farm. The batteries use liquid sodium and sulfur, and came from a Japanese manufacturer. Xcel claims this is the first attempt to store renewable energy at such a large scale. Their facility could radically alter the way we use our electrical grid.

Two Models for Renewable Energy (R)evolution

It’s obvious to most of us by now that our nation’s approach to electricity generation needs a massive overhaul. In addition to our unsustainable dependence on poisonous fossil fuels and nuclear materials, we rely on an aging electrical grid, cobbled together ad hoc as our energy demands have increased throughout the 20th century and into the 21st. The technologies outlined above will allow us greater flexibility in the pursuit of our energy goals. Two approaches recommend themselves; we can continue to retrofit the grid to keep up with increased energy demands and new technology, as suggested by the current administration, or we can move toward small-scale, widely dispersed home generation.

The main advantage of the electrical grid is its ability to provide instantaneously for increased electrical demand (in most regions). At present, the batteries that are available can’t meet all the energy demands of a household. Sometimes a home can get by on the amount of energy provided by its systems, but it will still need to draw from the electrical grid when its reserves run low.

However, the grid itself is largely composed of outdated, arcane technology that will fail sooner or later. Although it is widely dispersed, it is a centralized system; even outfitted with “smart” technology that can better control the flow of electricity, any kind of failure, whether natural or due to external attack, can have widespread consequences.

Personally, I prefer the attitude of the battery developers at Ceramtek. Home energy storage takes the power out of the hands of utility companies, some of the most bloated monopolies still around, and puts it in the hands of ordinary people. It operates at a low temperature, so it is safe enough to have in any basement, and since it is one cell, and by replacing battery banks, it eliminates the need for specialized electrical knowledge. It is both consumer friendly and more true to the American value of self-reliance. It makes us independent and insulates us from grid failures.

Ultimately, the model that prevails will be determined by several factors. No regulatory framework yet exists for the type of energy storage applications discussed here, so the governments of individual countries may very well have a deciding role in how we store our renewable energy. Here in the U.S., it means all sorts of lobbies will have their fingers in the pie. What’s more, each product will have to compete in the marketplace. Once these batteries become available, those that are cheapest, most reliable, and safest may hope to dominate. And since this technology could shift our entire energy paradigm, unpredictable factors may come into play as well.

Please share your opinion in a comment. I’m a writer, not an electrician, and this is far from the final word. What sort of approach will better serve us and our environment? How will this technology impact our way of life? Tell us what you think!

Sources:

• General battery information – http://www.windsun.com/Batteries/Battery_FAQ.htm#Cycles%20vs%20Life
• Example solar system – http://www.wagonmaker.com/newbatt.html
• MIT liquid battery – http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/2607/80/
• Ceramtek battery – http://www.heraldextra.com/news/article_b0372fd8-3f3c-11de-ac77-001cc4c002e0.html

President Obama, along with the U.S. Department of Transportation and the Environmental Protection Agency, is working to set new emissions standards ensuring that U.S. automakers’ fleets run at 35.5 miles per gallon by 2016. Did the Car Allowance Rebate System, known popularly as “Cash for Clunkers,” bring us any closer to this goal?

According to the summary press release from the U.S. Department of Transportation, the average increase in fuel efficiency for trade-ins under the program was 58%, from 15.8 miles per gallon to 24.9 MPG. 84% of vehicles traded in were trucks, and 59% of new vehicles purchased were passenger cars. That’s quite a shift. Those happy drivers of new cars are going much further on a tank of gas and releasing far less greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere.

So far, so good, right? Now let’s look at the numbers. In 2008, an estimated 242 million registered vehicles in the U.S. averaged 20.7 MPG (136 million cars at 22.7 MPG and 106 million trucks at 18.2 MPG). Ignoring non-trade-in sales for 2009, if you scrap 690,000 cars running at 15.8 MPG and add 690,000 new cars that get 24.9 MPG, the average MPG of all registered cars only increases by 0.125 percent. That’s one eighth of a percent!*

What about emissions? In 2007, motor vehicles in the U.S. emitted 321.9 million metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Again, the difference made by the replacement of less than a million clunkers is negligible.

When you look at Cash for Clunkers this way, it tells us just how much is required to really reduce our environmental impact. The administration wants automakers to increase their new models’ fuel economies by about five percent every year. New car fuel economy, as well as actual economy of cars already on the road, has not changed significantly since 1990, so the new benchmark should spur growth in a stagnant area. It will, however, be decades before the entire American fleet is replaced with fuel efficient models; many consumers prefer to buy used vehicles or keep their current one running as long as possible.

34% of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions are from transportation. It won’t cost us anything to make these changes and reduce the impact of our highway lifestyle. Consumers will save an average of $3000 during the life of a new vehicle, automakers will implement technology that already exists for the most part, and our economy will stop leaking so much money for foreign oil.

The media are right to applaud CARS for its economic effects. It was probably a more effective economic stimulus than the bailouts, and more viable in the long term than many automotive decisions made over the last two decades era. The new fuel economy standards are a great map, but CARS has shown us just how long the road ahead may be.

*Statistics extrapolated from 1990 – 2007 data where unavailable.

Sources:
1. http://www.cars.gov/files/official-information/August26PR.pdf
2. http://www.bts.gov/publications/national_transportation_statistics/ Tables 1-11, 4-23, 4-49
3. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/16/business/energyenvironment/16cars.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

I’ve come across 2 different sites today which help drive the point home for me that lots of individual actions or behaviors really add up.

First see this short video on YouTube which shows the amount of Global Air Traffic in a 24 hour period. It is amazing to see!

Secondly, to help understand how much energy our chosen lifestyles consume and to help understand the math behind some of these behaviors, David MacKay, a professor of physics at the University of Cambridge recently published a very enlightening book called, “Sustainable Energy – Without the Hot Air.” Also see: http://edition.cnn.com/2009/TECH/science/05/13/mackay.energy/index.html. This book offers a very accessible, must-read analysis, for anyone seeking a deeper understanding of these issues.

In hopes of driving big change by creating political awareness and catalyzing individual contributions EcoDriving USA is already making a difference by facilitating a nationwide discussion and providing valuable resources.

There are many tips and facts that can make it easy to recognize where we can make minor adjustments in our personal driving and vehicle maintenance habits, that not only help us save money on fuel, but also on maintenance costs. Of course the main goal is to reduce carbon emissions, but we can also reduce congestion and personal stress on the road if we all just relaxed a bit behind the wheel.

For example:
Did you know that every 5 mph you drive over 60 mph is equivalent to paying 20 extra cents per gallon of gas?

Visit their website: http://www.ecodrivingusa.com, or download the Eco Driving Manual (PDF 1.4 MB) to learn of many useful and simple suggestions on how you can save money and reduce emissions.

Here’s a really powerful series of videos that describe various new technologies aimed at solving some of our urban woes. There are 10 videos from “Cooling Sound Waves” to “Capturing Carbon.”

Example: Cooling Sound Waves
Imagine a technology that uses sound waves for refrigeration. This scientist believes his discovery can save the planet. He has found a way to turn sewage water into safe drinking water (even cleaner than mountain stream water!).

This is a short 3 min. 22 sec video…. Looks like a great concept, but if you get to the end of this video, he demonstrates the concept using an Air gun. He refers to the air that gets forced out as sound waves, but I have one of those toys, and it shoots forced air, not sound! Hmmm.

More than 60% of the world’s population now live in urban environments. This figure is likely to grow to 80% by the year 2050. Many of us, who live in urban environments, take it for granted that we will continue to enjoy the large variety and plentiful quantities of fresh vegetables and fruits that we are able to pick up and put in our shopping carts in our local urban supermarkets, without thinking about the amounts of energy required to get them there. Also, by the year 2050, there may be another 3 billion people demanding these foods.

It is doubtful that there will be enough arable land to support these people, since we already have put 80% of all available arable land on the planet to use, and we seem to be good at reducing large amounts of such land to waste, through poor agricultural practices. The trend towards global warming won’t make the prospect for being able to grow more food any better. Global warming may make deserts out of what is now arable land, as annual rainfall patterns shift, and available fresh water supplies diminish. Current commercial agricultural methods and supply patterns also may not be sustainable.

It has been estimated that one fifth of all the fossil fuels consumed in the U.S. go into agriculture, both for producing the food (e.g., tractors, plows), synthesizing fertilizer (e.g., using hydrogen extracted from natural gas to produce nitrate fertilizers), and then transporting the food to far distant locations where they are consumed. In the U.S., we enjoy fresh produce in wintertime from Florida and California, as well as from Chile and other South American countries, who have their Summer while we slog through the ice and snow of Winter. Can we continue to enjoy these luxuries?

Another thing that many people may not realize is that the fresh produce we now consume may not even be as nutritious and safe as that which was produced in the past. Today’s commercial methods of growing and the varieties of crops grown optimize profitability by limiting losses from spoilage and transportation stress, at the expense of taste and nutrition. Our veggies simply may not be pulling as many minerals out of depleted soils as they used to, and the recent outbreaks of illness due to e-coli contamination shed doubt on our abilities to keep our food supplies safe, especially where manure is used to fertilize. An answer to the declining quality of fresh produce, and the increasing costs of growing and transporting it to urban population centers, is to produce the food right inside those urban areas, through what has been termed vertical farming. This would save energy otherwise needed to transport the food, and would make it easier to ensure the safety and quality of the food.

Vertical farming is the production of food in large multi-level urban buildings, through the use of hydroponics – or, growing plants without soil. This approach to agriculture can make much more efficient use of increasingly scarce fresh water and energy resources. Also, it could make it easier to combat insect pests and control plant diseases, because the food would be produced in a controlled environment. The nutritive quality of the produce would be ensured by closely controlling the mix of minerals and trace elements used to fertilize the plants. A large energy savings is achieved, by not having to transport the food over thousands of miles, and losses of nutritive quality are minimized by getting the food to consumers before its quality begins to decline in transportation and storage. The urban vertical farming enterprise also would provide local employment, and make local economies more self-sufficient.

The produce from vertical farming would essentially be organic, but perhaps not literally so, according to today’s understanding of that often misused terminology. Today, conventional organic food production often means that the food is produced without the use of chemical pesticides or artificial fertilizers. It’s true that vertical farming would be done without the use of chemical pesticides, but the way nutrients are provided in hydroponics growing systems may not always be considered strictly organic. That is because the nutrients used in hydroponics systems must be soluble in water.

In the natural growing cycle, plants must find the basic minerals required for growth (i.e., nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium – the familiar N-P-K combination listed on most packages of commercial fertilizer) in soluble form in the soil. The plants can take these chemicals into their roots, only if they are dissolved in water in the soil. The plants then use these basic nutrients to grow the stems, leaves, and fruits, that we eat. Unused portions of the plants are allowed to decompose in the soil, as natural compost. Wastes from animals who consume the plants (e.g., manure) also decompose and result in natural compost that eventually is used by plants.

In organic farming, the major nutrients are made available to the plants in the form of natural or processed compost, but the plants cannot use this compost until it is sufficiently decayed to release the basic N-P-K substances into soluble form. The primary benefit of organic growing is that the N-P-K nutrients, that are provided by farmers, in the form of compost, are locked up, as complex insoluble organic molecules that cannot be easily washed away when there are heavy rains. Instead, the basic N-P-K minerals are released gradually, as the plant material decays, so there is a steady supply of required minerals for the plants over an extended period. This limits the amount of mineral nutrients that can be run off, doing damage to the environment elsewhere, by polluting streams, rivers, bays, and oceans.

In hydroponics, providing the N-P-K minerals directly, in water soluble form, does not pose a threat to the environment, because large amounts of water are not released to the environment. The unused water in hydroponics is recycled. The only water that is released to the environment is from transpiration of the plants into the atmosphere. Even this water can be recaptured and reused in the closed system of a commercial hydroponics facility. Therefore, the use of mineral fertilizers in hydroponics is entirely acceptable, from an environmental point of view.

It’s true that hydroponics systems can be run using nutrients obtained entirely from the decay of organic materials, in which case, the produce from the hydroponics system would be considered totally “organic,” but there is no real incremental benefit to either the consumer of the produce or the environment, in so doing.

Commercial scale vertical farming projects are now being planned, but none are yet in place in American cities. The first 30-story vertical farming building is now being planned for Las Vegas. Why am I talking about this now? It’s a matter of attitude. The reaction of some people to the idea of their food being produced in urban “factories” may turn them off, even though the food produced through vertical farming promises to be more nutritious, tasty, and carbon-neutral than the food they get at their local supermarket, or even at their local farm stands during the Summer. If you think seriously about the prospect of vertical farming now, you will be able to better appreciate the development of this kind of agriculture when its produce does come to a local supermarket near you.

There are some issues that I would like to see resolved before vertical farming is implemented widely. One detail that I would like to see more well-defined is the question of where the inorganic materials would come from that are needed for the hydroponics nutrients in vertical farming. Much of the nitrogen fertilizer produced for conventional agriculture today is manufactured by combining the nitrogen in the air with natural gas, which is mostly methane. This process results in a significant release of carbon into the atmosphere. However, research is now underway to provide nitrogen fertilizer through the use of biogas, from recycled farm waste. This would improve the efficiency of vertical farming and make it more carbon-neutral.

Sustainability would be a prime objective of any vertical farming enterprise. The folks who are planning these facilities certainly have this in mind, but I would like to see some more of the details and computer modeling results that must be going into this initiative. The end result should be something like what we would be doing to sustain a colony on the moon or another planet, where vertical farming is but one element of an urban system that not only grows close to 100% of its own food, but also recycles 100% of its own wastes.

Another aspect of vertical farming, that poses questions, is what conditions would exist for any domestic animals that would be raised for food in vertical farming facilities. Current plans for vertical farming also include the raising of animals for meat, like chickens, ducks, geese, fish, crustaceans (e.g., lobsters, crabs), and mollusks (e.g., squids, clams, oysters). Raising some of the higher order animals in questionable factory conditions could give rise to issues regarding their humane treatment.

Some of you may not want to wait for local production of high-quality produce through hydroponics, in large vertical farming facilities. In that case, you might want to consider raising your own food using hydroponics, right in your basement or hobby greenhouse, or even your outdoor garden. It turns out that this can be very practical. We will discuss these applications in upcoming articles.

Most individuals see recycling as their own responsibility, either through voluntary action, or, in some jurisdictions, in accordance with the law. But in either case most recycling programs are geared toward the consumer handling their own waste.

And so it is for the producers. Manufacturers generally view safe environmental practices at their own production level – regulated plant emissions, disposal or storage of hazardous waste, anti-dumping laws, etc. But after the product leaves the plant, its post-production life is out of their hands. This is the norm in the U.S, even though other potentially impactful phases — packaging and labeling, transportation and shipping, and, of course, disposal — all pose their own unique environmental threats.

Thus, the final resting place of products will be determined by the end user, the consumer.

This current system, however, is not even close to fully addressing the problem in this age of “going green.”

According to the EPA, the U.S. generates some 251 millions tons of Municipal Waste and recycles only 82 millions tons of it, or 32.5%. About 530,000 tons of this is Household Hazardous Waste, which consists of many environmentally toxic chemicals. These, of course, include the obvious culprits — old solvents, paints, pesticides, fertilizers, poisons, etc. But household kitchen and bathroom cleaners comprise a significant portion of this waste. According to the Clean Water Fund, “the average American uses 40 pounds of toxic cleaning products, throwing away twelve percent of their leftovers and pouring an average of 32 million pounds down the drain”. This twelve percent referred to, outside of what goes down the drain, goes into landfills, where it becomes a ticking time bomb for environmental entry.

So if consumer responsibility for product recycling doesn’t work, is there a better way?

Although manufacturers cannot take responsibility for the actions of their customers, they can take stewardship of their products and minimize or eliminate their harmful environmental impacts, throughout a product’s life cycle, from manufacturing, right down to the post consumer phase. This method of foresight is known as Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR).

Globally speaking, EPR is not a new concept.

In 1975, the Swedish Government made a formal statement concerning EPR: “The responsibility, that the waste generated during the production processes could be taken care of in a proper way, from an environmental and resource-saving point of view, should primarily be of the manufacturer. Before the manufacturing of a product is commenced it should be known how the waste which is a result of the production process should be treated, as well as how the product should be taken care of when discarded.”

The actual term EPR was coined by Swedish professor of environmental economics, defining it quite simply as “the extension of the responsibility of producers for the environmental impacts of their products to the entire product life cycle, and especially for their take-back, recycling, and disposal.” In this scenario, the cost of recovery of a product is shifted to the private sector and away from government programs, so the producer’s role includes the costs of recovery, which forces industries to incorporate these costs into their overall implementation plan for their products.

This concept has swept all over Europe, with Germany taking the lead with its Packaging Ordinance of 1991, which requires producers to manage packaging waste and eliminates government money for this purpose. Over the next four years, use of packaging decreased by about 1 million tons, as producers minimized their packaging, its weight, and used more concentrates, saving tax payer money and reducing environmental impact.

Canada has taken great strides with EPR, with much government encouragement, support and incentives to various industries, with certain industries and manufacturers operating with such programs in place in all 10 of its provinces.

The U.S., however, has lagged far behind in promoting this concept. Although deposit return bottles have provided for the take back and reuse of glass containers for over a century, and some of the larger printer companies pay for courier pick-up and delivery back to factories of empty toner cartridges for reuse, In most areas government responsibility for waste is still the norm. Hawaii, Maine and California have taken great strides, however, in implementing legislation to enforce EPR principles, and indeed, in today’s ever growing environmentally conscious society, there may be much more activity on the horizon.

Household Hazardous waste is perhaps one of the more difficult categories to envision fitting into an EPR program. A liquid’s packaging, a spray bottle, for example, can certainly be placed in a recycled bin. But, as cited before, if 12% of HHW is thrown away, that means that its packaging is being tossed with it, so what is left is in the bottle goes to the landfill. How can a company possibly take back the liquid remains from millions of spray bottles? The answer – provide a means for the customer to use it all in the first place.

The Spray-All Corporation has provided a unique method for both chemical and bottle manufacturers to partner in EPR together. The Spray-All spray bottle uses 100% of the liquid inside. Simply by using the bottle, household cleaner manufactures eliminate remaining chemicals entering the environment from landfills. The last few drops in these bottles do add up to great quantities in the aggregate: ½ teaspoon left in 1 million bottles is the equivalent of 651 gallons!

While the role of the manufacturers of these bottles may be more passive, it represents a collaborative effort to eliminate waste, and can offer these bottles in durable, re-useable, and, ultimately, recyclable forms.

The Spray-All Corporation is a start-up company, operating on a small scale, but intends to voluntarily adopt aggressive EPR strategies. Among its corporate goals include exploring a take back system for spray bottles and their reuse and/or ultimate recycle.

The Blue Earth will be available later this year. I’ll wait to hear some reviews before I rush out to buy one, but then again maybe if I bought one and tried it out, I could review it for you. Check back in a bit, I just may do that!

See related articles:

• BusinessWire
• Cnet
• Treehugger

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