mcgees.org » ecology

Once again, we confront the First Law, this time Solo

mcgees.org — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 20:49:21 +0000

OK, so, once again we come across McGee’s First Law, which states “Everything is more complicated than it at first appears to be, even when McGee’s First Law is taken into account.” This is occasioned by McDonalds’s reintroduction of Styrofoam cups for some of their beverages.

“Eeek!” some of you have said. I’ve heard you. Three vowels, a stop plosive, and a bang. Gotcha. So many of us for so many years shunned polystyrene. We’d crumple if an event used Styrofoam cups instead of, say, Solo cups. We might not even pour a cup of coffee into a Styrofoam cup, but punch into a red “plastic cup”? Sure!

So, a few things:

Polystyrene is no longer produced with CFCs. Those are what were destroying the ozone layer, not the plastic itself.
We’re not supposed to burn polystyrene, right? Cancer? Well, that’s still true — some nasty PAHs are released — but with a high enough temperature of a furnace, burning polystyrene is cleaner than burning a lot of other things. The biggest nastiness is the carbon soot.
Polystyrene is recyclable. Check the bottom of the clamshell in your refrigerator. It’s “#6″ — PS. Most of it is not recycled, because it is so bulky relative to its weight, but there is a dearth of polystyrene scrap such that that the construction industry, which could consume a great amount of it, has to buy virgin PS to make into groundsheets and filler.
Here’s the kicker: Solo cups are also polystyrene. For real. Check the resin identification code if you don’t believe me.

So, “more complicated” indeed. What I recommend is that you recycle PS (especially if you have a place within walking distance, which I do), but don’t buy it — “Styrofoam cups” or “plastic cups” — for your parties. What do I suggest? Well, polypropylene (“#5 plastic”) rocks. It’s what Rubbermaid containers are made out of. It’s easily recycled, is strong, durable, resistant to heat, moisture, and corrosion, yet is more easily broken down by UV rays than many other plastics. You can get polypropylene cups at the 99¢ store for, um, 99¢, but the best choice for me is a fast-food joint, where you can also get them for about a buck, and they’ll even throw in a free fill-up of Coca-Cola for you! (Polypropylene is what the “plastic drink cups” are made of.) If you don’t go to fast food “restaurants”, go to their trash bins. If that’s icky, go to garage sales, where you can usually get them for free, or a dime apiece. Wash them, store them, give them to guests at parties to use. If you are embarrassed to do this, I don’t think you’ve really grokked the whole recycling thing yet.

Thank you, Amazon supporters!

mcgees.org — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 00:24:55 +0000

Holy cowzes, peeps! Thanks for using my Amazon referral code! You’ve put me into a higher payout tier for this month! As always, using this code costs you nothing and keeps this oasis of reason and snark on the web. Did you know that ordering from Amazon has a smaller carbon footprint than driving to the mall and back, given a certain (very small) distance to the mall and efficiency of car? So by keeping the banner on this site green, you’re kee … (sorry, can’t.) Also, every time you order using my link, it keeps each deity ever conceived from killing a penguin (it’s true, I can show you the math)? As always:

To help support this site, drag this Amazon.com link to your shortcuts and use it when you shop

Oh Great Lord Brita

mcgees.org — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 00:47:42 +0000

As devoted readers know, and Facebook and Twitter readers probably do not, I am living in an 8m travel trailer, because:

I got really tired of throwing away rent money without building equity
I got obsessive about my carbon footprint, and
I’m too poor to buy an eco-friendly house

It is amazing how one adjusts to one’s environment. When I moved in I found it impossibly claustrophobic, and now it seems gloriously homey and spacious. Presumably this has a lower bound — I’m not sure if I’d ever consider a casket to be a roomy domicile — but it works quite nicely. There are lots of pros and lots of cons to this lifestyle, but the primary con has to be water. The coupling for a direct water line into the trailer is leaky, and because:

I would get really tired of throwing away water without growing anything
I got obsessive about my H₂O footprint, and
I’m too poor to have it fixed

I get by filling a storage tank once a week or so. I’m not quite sure what the tank is made of, but I’m fairly confident it’s something like “polyshittylene”. Good grief is it noxious. I was buying water by the gallon bottle for months and months, but wanted to stop because:

I got really tired of putting plastic into the recycling stream only having used it once
I got obsessive about my hydrocarbon footprint, and
I’m too poor to buy jugs of water

I bought — OK, “got my mom to buy” — a Brita pitcher. Awesome. I put that horrid noxious water through it, and try as I might to detect off-odors or -flavors, I just cannot. The filtered water tastes better than bottled “Spring Water” (“spring” is a word in a dialect of the local Morongo “Indian” “tribe” that means “tap”).

It is very difficult sometimes to refrain from trying to pour various things through the filter to “see what would happen” — tea, coffee, scotch whisky, soy milk, soy sauce, vinegar, ad literally nauseum. I’ll spare you the three bullet points that reduce to “I don’t want to waste the Brita filters” and “I’m to poor to do the experiments without corporate sponsors”.

I think my Dragonwell is done steeping. Mmm: yummy with filtered water. See you on the other side of the cuppa.

So long and thanks for all the squid

mcgees.org — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 00:56:35 +0000

Just in time for Earth Day: recoil.

Yikes.

And it’s worth it, why, exactly?

mcgees.org — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 05:33:51 +0000

No! No no no! Fuck cultural relativism. Asia: you are fucking wrong. Stop eating our turtles.

Aargh. These magnificent, gentle, ancient creatures, gobbled up because of bronze-age superstitions that people can’t seem to grow out of.