Daniel Boone National Forest wallpaper
In the iconic American movie The Graduate there is that famous scene among several in which one of the party attendees advises Benjamin about his future,
Mr. McGuire: I want to say one word to you. Just one word.
Benjamin: Yes, sir.
Mr. McGuire: Are you listening?
Benjamin: Yes, I am.
Mr. McGuire: Plastics.
Benjamin: Just how do you mean that, sir?
It turned out that Mr. McGuire, plastics as symbolism aside, was correct. Plastics surround us, You’re reading this post from a device made mostly of plastic. You can probably find plenty of plastic objects at arm’s reach. One of the benefits of plastic is that it is fairly durable in proportion to its cost. That is also part of the problem. Plastics are made from petroleum-based compounds and persist in the environment long after the product composed mostly of plastic is thrown away. As a practical matter we’ll need some products made of plastic compounds, synthesized from petroleum, for years if not decades. In the mean time making products like water/carbonated beverage bottles , shoes and toys from plastic is a tragedy on two fronts. They are wasteful uses of a precious non-renewable commodity and blights on the environment, part of our throw-away culture. That’s where materials science comes in. Meet Stella
At first glance, this little yellow giraffe looks like a lot of other kids’ bath toys. But Stella is made from Renuva, a little-known material that could change for the better the way hundreds of things, from upholstery to airplane wings, are made.
The story of how Stella came to be made from this material, a soy-based alternative to polyurethane (which is typically petroleum-based), provides a model for how stuff can be better designed in the future.
Stella by Pfeiffer Labs made from soy-based polyurethane
Stella is something of a proof of concept made from soy-based polyurethane. While this one will probably end up in a museum, if you threw Stella away the sun, air and microbes would break Stella down much faster and with no toxic residue should she end up in a land fill or the local river bank. A stat from the article – according to the United Soybean Board, “For every 1 million pounds of bio-based polyol products purchased, nearly 700,000 pounds of crude oil are saved.” There is a legitimate concern here that in going with a soy based plastic we might be repeating the mistake of bio-fuels in which food prices increased because grain/corn were diverted from food/feed to fuel. We’ll have to wait for an appropriate study to see the cost/benefit analysis. One thing they we could concentrate on is lessening our consumption of meat. It takes about 16 pounds of feed grain to produce one pound of animal meat. if we reduced our national meat consumption by 25%, besides our national rate of heart disease going down, the acreage devoted to growing animal feed could be devoted to growing our plastic replacement. This would also have the added benefit of less pollution from animal waste. Such reduction in waste would also have cost saving benefits for society as a whole since that waste is a public health problem.
Kilimanjaro Glaciers May Vanish In A Few Decades
Among the findings:
– The summit lost 80 percent of its ice between 1912 and 2007. Some 26 percent of the ice present in 2000, Dr. Thompson’s last trip to the summit, vanished by the end of the period. The Furtwangler Ice Field in particular has lost 50 percent of its thickness since 2000. At that pace, it will vanish into a damp patch of summit soil by 2018. Glaciers on Mt. Kilimajaro’s flanks have lost some 40 percent of their area between 2000 and 2007.
Even during a severe drought 4,200 years ago that lasted 3 centuries Mt. Kilimajaro’s core saw none of the melting and refreezing that researchers see now.
