Friday, March 27, 2009
"The Great Disruption"
A friend just shared this article with me, and I couldn't resist posting it here. Coincidentally, it conveys largely the same point–that our recession is an opportunity to retool the economy to function in a more sustainable manner–as an opinion piece I'm currently in the process of writing for my school newspaper, which will be posted when it is published (mid-April). In the mean time, please read Thomas Friedman's piece here.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Latest publicity posters
Here are two of our most recent publicity posters to boost membership in the Recycling Club and in the EIC. I'm not really this talented; I just have a Mac, which has amazing templates. It is astounding, though, how much good posters help increase turnout.
Monday, January 12, 2009
Used shoe drive a big success!
Well, under the more than adequate lea
dership of Julia Borden, a junior at Aragon and EIC and Recycling Club member,
the drive went off expertly. We had posters made and posted all around downtown San Mateo and the schools, emails sent, and a Fa
cebook event created. It all culminated last Saturday with a five-hour drive in the school parking lot, where over 500 pairs of shoes were collected altogether. That puts the total for the whole drive at over 700 pairs!
If you missed it, you can donate any usable shoes to Goodwill, Samaritan House, St. Vincent de Paul, or the like. You can recycle any used sneakers at most running stor
es and all Niketown locations.
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Recycling pile
ll photos: Stephanie Uchino (thanks!!)
Sorry for the tardiness of this post–I've been quite busy lately. In any case, from Monday, October 6 to Friday, October 10, thanks to the idea of fellow E.I.C. member Julia Borden, about 80 Recycling Club members collected bottles and cans thrown away or left on the ground (in other words: not recycled). We literally dug through all the outdoor trash cans three times a day for a week to find this stuff. But, it all paid off; on the following Monday at 6:30 in the morning, my brother and I laid it all out in the grassy area of Center Court. Leadership made a huge 30-foot poster for us to hand above the pile reading: "THIS IS ONE WEEK'S WORTH OF BOTTLES AND CANS NOT RECYCLED/WE CAN DO BETTER THAN THIS." In addition to a small rally at lunch during which I stood in the middle of the pile and talked about what it was and why it was there, a couple of E.I.C. members gave presentations to every science class, explaining the pile and advertising (see below) the reusable Nalgene bottle sale going on every day that week at lunch. It was a busy day! Bottom line: We sold lots of Nalgenes (about 150), and the recycling rate is way up! See the write-up in the local newspaper!
The video we used in each science class presentation. The Mac > YouTube upload sadly excluded the narration
.
Friday, November 14, 2008
The Recycling Process
I apologize for the hiatus I have inadvertently taken as a result of my busy senior year (namely college applications). Aragon had a big recycling event mid-October for which I need to write a post still when I find the time. Until then, I thought I would post this very entertaining/educational video about the single-stream recycling process.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
A better stimulus program?
My uncle, Kevin Collins, who is an economist, kindly pointed me to an article in Sunday's New York Times written by Alan Blinder, the author of one of his school textbooks (Mr. Blinder also was a Vice Chairman of the Federal Reserve and is now a professor of economics at Princeton University). In his piece, A Modest Proposal: Eco-Friendly Stimulus, Mr. Blinder describes a seemingly more effective method of not only boosting our economy but also improving the environment, our health, and fuel prices. Mr. Blinder proposes a "Cash for Clunkers" scheme in which the government targets low-income owners of inefficient, polluting autos and pays them an above market price for the vehicles. Why should we do such a thing? Let's take a look at some of the benefits (most of them taken from his article):
1) It puts spending money in the hands of those with low-income, who are coincidentally hardest hit by this recession and housing crisis. Low-income people are far more likely to spend their entire stimulus checks than middle- or high-income people, who are more likely to invest some or all of them.
2) Most of the money will likely immediately be spent on cars, giving a shot in the arm to our struggling auto industry (on which many low-income workers coincidentally depend).
3) The costs of even an ambitious program would be a drop in the bucket of the current stimulus expenditures (see the article for number crunching).
4) MOST IMPORTANTLY (in my humble opinion), it would remove polluting, gas-guzzling cars from the road. Consider this:
1) As just stated, this would be another welfare program that would require public opinion to be adequately conquered before ever being implemented.
2) Giving cash to those with "clunkers" would not be fair to those in the ultra low-income bracket who do not even own cars, instead choosing to take transit or alternative transportation. Why should we reward those who are polluting while ignoring those who have been doing the right thing all along?
3) The administrative costs (i.e. determining who is qualified, which particular cars are eligible, where the cars go afterward, disposal fees, etc.) could make the program run in the red very quickly if not properly managed (although this hasn't stopped other government programs!).
4) And, the biggest problem? The auto industry will likely not get that aforesaid "shot in the arm." Why not? Imagine that a low-income owner of a clunker gets 120% of the value of his car (as Mr. Blinder suggests). Most cars more than a decade old are worth very little money. So, what is this person going to buy to replace his vehicle? A slightly newer clunker? The problem is that the car companies aren't the ones selling these cars, it is middle-income folks who will put their "better" clunkers on the market. Thus, the stimulus would be transferred from the poor straight to the middle class, defeating the whole "purchasing power straight to the poor" purpose of the program.
Are all these negatives reason not to implement the program? I think not. Think of "Cash for Clunkers" this way: It is an economic fix that, even if it does not stimulate the economy as much as one may hope, will still do a better job than the current stimulus system (handing out free cash to everyone). And, if all else fails, the environment will ultimately be better off.
1) It puts spending money in the hands of those with low-income, who are coincidentally hardest hit by this recession and housing crisis. Low-income people are far more likely to spend their entire stimulus checks than middle- or high-income people, who are more likely to invest some or all of them.
2) Most of the money will likely immediately be spent on cars, giving a shot in the arm to our struggling auto industry (on which many low-income workers coincidentally depend).
3) The costs of even an ambitious program would be a drop in the bucket of the current stimulus expenditures (see the article for number crunching).
4) MOST IMPORTANTLY (in my humble opinion), it would remove polluting, gas-guzzling cars from the road. Consider this:
- The oldest cars are those with the worst emissions, so recycling (by recycling I mean scrapping parts) them would clean up our air considerably (Mr. Blinder cites a California study that blames 75% of car pollution on cars 13+ years old).
- Older cars are more inefficient (especially if engine repairs cannot be afforded by cash-strapped owners), so they waste gasoline and oil.
- As noted in the widely publicized Duke University study, replacing a very inefficient vehicle with a merely inefficient vehicle will save more fuel than replacing a car of regular efficiency with a high-efficiency vehicle; thus, if we as a country want to reduce our collective oil usage, we have to start by improving the worst of the worst guzzling offenders first.
1) As just stated, this would be another welfare program that would require public opinion to be adequately conquered before ever being implemented.
2) Giving cash to those with "clunkers" would not be fair to those in the ultra low-income bracket who do not even own cars, instead choosing to take transit or alternative transportation. Why should we reward those who are polluting while ignoring those who have been doing the right thing all along?
3) The administrative costs (i.e. determining who is qualified, which particular cars are eligible, where the cars go afterward, disposal fees, etc.) could make the program run in the red very quickly if not properly managed (although this hasn't stopped other government programs!).
4) And, the biggest problem? The auto industry will likely not get that aforesaid "shot in the arm." Why not? Imagine that a low-income owner of a clunker gets 120% of the value of his car (as Mr. Blinder suggests). Most cars more than a decade old are worth very little money. So, what is this person going to buy to replace his vehicle? A slightly newer clunker? The problem is that the car companies aren't the ones selling these cars, it is middle-income folks who will put their "better" clunkers on the market. Thus, the stimulus would be transferred from the poor straight to the middle class, defeating the whole "purchasing power straight to the poor" purpose of the program.
Are all these negatives reason not to implement the program? I think not. Think of "Cash for Clunkers" this way: It is an economic fix that, even if it does not stimulate the economy as much as one may hope, will still do a better job than the current stimulus system (handing out free cash to everyone). And, if all else fails, the environment will ultimately be better off.
Friday, July 18, 2008
Why we should tax disposable bags
Every time I go to a store, I am continually frustrated by the cashiers' failure to respect my decision to carry out the few items I had just purchased sans plastic bag. The struggle usually begins with me saying simply, "No bag." Yet, my pack of pens and small bottle of whatever I needed find themselves quickly at the bottom of a . . . wait a moment . . . plastic bag! So, I then kindly remind the clerk that I want to carry the eighth of a pound of goods I have just bought without the aid of anything but my own hands, at which point I am questioned: "Are you sure? The bag’s free, you know." After being handed my things with the bag despite my protest, I then have to manually remove each item from the bag in order to leave that evil piece of plastic on the counter for the next customer. Then, naturally, the cashier throws it away, because it is "used." AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!
The fact of the matter is that the fault of such annoyance does not lie entirely with the cashier. Although his ambivalence toward the environment is not excusable, his insistence to give me a bag stems with the habits of, well, just about everybody. It has become so ingrained in our culture to use plastic (and paper) disposable bags for all our trips to the store that the now growing number of those who choose not to follow this societal pattern throw many employees of our favorite retail behemoths off their rhythms.
This is not to say I am not very excited by many stores' decision to sell/distribute reusable canvas bags. They are now very much in vogue for many (haute coulture for some) but not for enough of us. For the sake of our planet, we need to convince the non-eco-minded to change their bagging habits, as well. And, frankly, selling discounted reusable bags at checkout stands will not accomplish this. Not even the five cents off your bill at Whole Foods will help! We need a negative incentive to fix people's shopping M.O.
So, I turn to Ireland, where they dropped plastic bag use 94% within weeks of instituting a $.33 tax on the pesky things (see NY Times article)! Reusable bag usage suddenly became the complete norm, as if people had been using them for decades. In fact, it is now "socially unacceptable" to be seen with plastic bags at all in Ireland. Imagine that! This is why I suggest a tax on not only plastic but also paper bags. With the availability and affordability of reusable bags what it currently is, there is really no longer an excuse to use anything else, even paper.
How much should the tax be? Who knows? $.33 seems a tad steep, but then again, the problem is a very big one (and big problems require big action). Considering the $4 billion plastic bags cost retailers (according to the Wall Street Journal), we may even ultimately save money. Whatever the tax, I believe it should be an unrounded number (such as six cents or thirteen cents) that requires one to have to either dig out a lot of coins or carry around a lot of change the rest of the day. The key is to make it inconvenient to choose disposable, not necessarily financially prohibitive.
To save our legislators time, they may as well institute a bottled water tax while they are at it (you can read my lamentations on that topic in some of my older posts)!
The fact of the matter is that the fault of such annoyance does not lie entirely with the cashier. Although his ambivalence toward the environment is not excusable, his insistence to give me a bag stems with the habits of, well, just about everybody. It has become so ingrained in our culture to use plastic (and paper) disposable bags for all our trips to the store that the now growing number of those who choose not to follow this societal pattern throw many employees of our favorite retail behemoths off their rhythms.
This is not to say I am not very excited by many stores' decision to sell/distribute reusable canvas bags. They are now very much in vogue for many (haute coulture for some) but not for enough of us. For the sake of our planet, we need to convince the non-eco-minded to change their bagging habits, as well. And, frankly, selling discounted reusable bags at checkout stands will not accomplish this. Not even the five cents off your bill at Whole Foods will help! We need a negative incentive to fix people's shopping M.O.
So, I turn to Ireland, where they dropped plastic bag use 94% within weeks of instituting a $.33 tax on the pesky things (see NY Times article)! Reusable bag usage suddenly became the complete norm, as if people had been using them for decades. In fact, it is now "socially unacceptable" to be seen with plastic bags at all in Ireland. Imagine that! This is why I suggest a tax on not only plastic but also paper bags. With the availability and affordability of reusable bags what it currently is, there is really no longer an excuse to use anything else, even paper.
How much should the tax be? Who knows? $.33 seems a tad steep, but then again, the problem is a very big one (and big problems require big action). Considering the $4 billion plastic bags cost retailers (according to the Wall Street Journal), we may even ultimately save money. Whatever the tax, I believe it should be an unrounded number (such as six cents or thirteen cents) that requires one to have to either dig out a lot of coins or carry around a lot of change the rest of the day. The key is to make it inconvenient to choose disposable, not necessarily financially prohibitive.
To save our legislators time, they may as well institute a bottled water tax while they are at it (you can read my lamentations on that topic in some of my older posts)!
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