Do you care about your carbon footprint?

Ubbquittious

Now that things are tigering again the greenies and the lads that just bought a new electric car on the PCP are trying to make the carbon footprint fashionable again since it's demise in 2008.

As people poshen up with the rise of this new tiger expect to see an increase in people voluntarily enduring token hardships so they can pretend they care about the environment and signal their virtues. They'll be buying more short-lived Chinese consumer goods with plenty rare earth metals packed inside than ever before but we'll gloss over that. If they really wanted to do something about the environment they'd ban all this crap that comes in and only lasts a couple of years before it breaks or goes obsolete.

I don't think Ireland and UK have the capability to make or break the eventual extinction of mankind due to excessive CO2 emissions if such an event is on the cards. We could even stand to gain by going completely the opposite way of the rest of the world as they "go green". Build a massive coal fired powerplant just across the border in post-Brexit NI with a huge chimney and burn the coal that nobody wants to buy anymore. Import loads of petrol and daysul through NI on the QT without the boys over in d'EU knowing about it.

odyssey06

Don't worry, before greenhouse gas gets us, we'll all be dead from the fumes from all the diesel cars people were incentivised to buy to cut down on greenhouse gas. You couldn't make it up Joe.

Someone call in an airstrike on the next container ship bringing in diesel bangers from the UK.

kneemos

If it wasn't for the milk souring smugness of the greens I might be more on board with it.

If they just used the words might or may now and again even,but no,they can tell you with 150% certainty what's going to happen fifty years from now.

mariaalice

I am a massive recycler does that count, plus I use a composter it's mainly down to finding the sheer amount of packaging that comes with food annoying.

ednwireland

caring less and less with all the greenwash thats out there and that governments only seem to care when it involves raising taxes

Grayson

I care about my footprint. I recycle and try to do the right thing. I also try to avoid buying stuff with excessive packaging but that's not always possible.

It's something we should be aware of and make an effort with. I don't think it's possible for anyone to be perfect. It can also be ridiculously difficult sometimes. But the more who try the easier it will get as companies and governments adapt. At the very least we should all try to be better.

Grayson

mariaalice wrote: »

I am a massive recycler does that count, plus I use a composter it's mainly down to finding the sheer amount of packaging that comes with food annoying.

I'm amazed at the amount of recycling that I, a single guy, can generate. And it's all packaging. The rest of my waste goes into a small swing bin which I empty every week or two. The main rubbish bin gets put out for collection every 4-6 months. The recycling bin gets collected most of the time it's available for collection.

Shenshen

Why wouldn't I care? Especially since saving energy equals saving money.

odyssey06

Shenshen wrote: »

Why wouldn't I care? Especially since saving energy equals saving money.

But when push comes to shove, which do you care about more... the money saving or the carbon footprint reduction... they don't always overlap so maybe the green you care about is the colour of money

Permabear

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jimgoose

Yes, I do, and have done for a long time, since before it was cool, as the youngsters say. As an engineer inefficiency and waste offends me, and conserving precious, irreplaceable resources makes a lot of sense to me.

Eathrin

kneemos wrote: »

If it wasn't for the milk souring smugness of the greens I might be more on board with it.

If they just used the words might or may now and again even,but no,they can tell you with 150% certainty what's going to happen fifty years from now.

I don't understand this. The green party are not the gatekeepers of the environment. Why wouldn't you want to do your part for yourself?

jaxxx

We're overdue an ice age so that'll sort us out good and proper like

wakka12

Not surprised by the results at all. Was in the cafe with my friend yesterday waiting for our coffee, there was jugs of water with takeaway cups and glasses beside it. My friend took the takeaway cup filled it with a mouthful of water then threw it in the bin, I said why didn't you just use the glass?? He said somebody would have to clean it

Those aren't even recyclable and the glass would have just been put in with a massive stack of other plates and glasses not handwashed
Crazy, but thats how little most people care, won't even slightly inconvenience themselves in any way for the planets well being, we don't deserve such a nice planet

And Im no saint, I don't really go out of my way, but I do simple things like turn off lights when not using them, try to dress in layers instead of using heating, recycling properly.The things everybody ought to be doing without even thinking about it. I lived with a girl who'd put on a full cycle tumble dryer for one top and I always asked her to just leave it out in the warms summer air for a few hours like jesus!! I find the excessive wastefulness and complete lack of any regard what so ever most people have for the planet disgusting




It really feels quite defeating to try and help the environment when you know theres billions of people doing things like the above out of pure ignorance and laziness that are doing way more harm than the effort you're putting in

jaxxx

wakka12 wrote: »

Not surprised by the results at all. Was in the cafe with my friend yesterday waiting for our coffee, there was jugs of water with takeaway cups and glasses beside it. My friend took the takeaway cup filled it with a mouthful of water then threw it in the bin, I said why didn't you just use the glass?? He said somebody would have to clean it

Those aren't even recyclable and the glass would have just been put in with a massive stack of other plates and glasses not handwashed
Crazy, but thats how little most people care, won't even slightly inconvenience themselves in any way for the planets well being, we don't deserve such a nice planet

Speaking of, I'm still kinda surprised, though not surprised, that fast food places haven't been forced to reduce their waste. Think of how much waste there is every day in your typical McDonalds, Supermacs, etc. Can't recycle it if there's food stains etc on it.

SEPT 23 1989

so many beautiful big engined cars scrapped over these lunatics

pickarooney

What is PCP? (Apart from angeldust and a Manic Street Preachers song)

wakka12

jaxxx wrote: »

Speaking of, I'm still kinda surprised, though not surprised, that fast food places haven't been forced to reduce their waste. Think of how much waste there is every day in your typical McDonalds, Supermacs, etc. Can't recycle it if there's food stains etc on it.

The individual plastic containers for 5ml of milk absolutely infuriate me leave out a jug like starbucks do ffs

mr chips

Yeah, I care about it. Like mariaalice and Grayson, I recycle or compost everything I can and find the vast majority of what goes in my bin is unnecessary packaging from food. I'm no hermit or hair-shirt evangelist, but I buy as little unnecessary junk as possible. Only replaced the fridge when it finally died last year after 19 years, still have the washing machine I bought in 1997, kept my last phone 7 years until it was about to give up the ghost completely and then replaced it with a refurbished one. I keep older cars on the road rather than indulge in the two or three year buy-replace cycle - last one I sold I'd bought brand-new and then ran it for 14 years. I like the idea of converting older cars to electric, although I don't think the cost or battery tech is quite there yet. I never burn coal or turf, and any timber I burn comes from a managed plantation three miles from where I live. It'd be great to be able to heat the house entirely with wood rather than with fossil fuel, but the cost of taking out the old boiler and replacing it with something like a pellet burner is way beyond me. Same goes for any thoughts of ground-source heat pumps etc. I have upped the insulation in the house though, and will be replacing the front door with a double-skinned one this year.
When it comes to food, I don't buy stuff that's unnecessarily imported, like what I regularly see on the shelves such as garlic from China, onions from New Zealand, seafood from Vietnam ... All that stuff can be sourced a lot closer to home without going all "simply marvellous, darling" about getting everything from the trendiest farmers' markets (which, by cutting out the middleman, are able to charge lower prices, yet for some mysterious reason ... don't). I do use a local butcher for meat alright, but that's because it's the best stuff available. I also grow a fair bit of my own fruit & veg in boxes etc, so at least there's no packaging or food miles involved there (nor pesticides etc).
It does pi55 me off that an awful lot of what we send for recycling either ends up in landfill anyway, or gets shipped off to somewhere in Africa or China - kind of makes a farce of the whole thing. But it just makes me a bit more conscious of trying not to generate the waste in the first place.
TL;DR - I do what I can afford to without going to "I'm a vegan" levels of zealotry.

Shenshen

odyssey06 wrote: »

But when push comes to shove, which do you care about more... the money saving or the carbon footprint reduction... they don't always overlap so maybe the green you care about is the colour of money

If my money turned green, I'd be seriously concerned.

I care for both, and I'm happy to invest money to save energy. We're currently looking at various option for installing solar-voltaic panels on our house, combined with an energy storage system. But on my income, it'll be another year or two before we can afford that.

Shenshen

jaxxx wrote: »

Speaking of, I'm still kinda surprised, though not surprised, that fast food places haven't been forced to reduce their waste. Think of how much waste there is every day in your typical McDonalds, Supermacs, etc. Can't recycle it if there's food stains etc on it.

I'm old enough to remember when they were all still using styrofoam for nearly every single item. It was quite an achievement making them move to paper-based packaging. You may not be able to recycle it, but at least it's bio-degradable.

Shenshen

pickarooney wrote: »

What is PCP? (Apart from angeldust and a Manic Street Preachers song)

A car purchase scheme. Very similar to leasing, only you can purchase the car at the end of a fixed term.
I do have an electric car, and I got it as PCP. Repayments are less than what I had previously been spending on petrol each month.

wakka12

Seeing people eating sliced watermelon , sliced apple,sliced orange, or pomegranate seeds from big ignorant plastic supermaket boxes is also a pet peeve, they come in natural containers

Permabear

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jimgoose

Permabear wrote: »

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Fair enough on white-goods electrical appliances, but I am of the view that the most environmentally friendly car is the one that is already built.

pleas advice

mr chips wrote: »

... an awful lot of what we send for recycling either ends up in landfill anyway, or gets shipped off to somewhere in Africa or China - kind of makes a farce of the whole thing....

This^

Ubbquittious

Permabear wrote: »

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I reckon the difference in power consumption aren't as much as the lad selling the fridge likee to let on. Few years ago I tested a fridge freezer from the early 90's that is still going with one of those power meters and there was feck all difference between that and the new one.

It always seemed strange to me that most of us choose to live in a brick box and spend quite a bit of energy heating up said box above the outdoors temperature and inside that box we place another smaller box that wastes some more energy trying to become a lower temperature than outdoors. Surely a more clever design would be to have it in an unheated part of the building like a porch and maybe with a supply of fresh air from outside

Shenshen

Permabear wrote: »

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It's a reasonable question, and I wish it would be easier to find details on how to make that calculation online.
Our dishwasher packed in a few weeks ago and we were looking for a new one. Now, they all have energy efficiency labels with a lovely, easy to understand ranking and colour-coding. Only there is next to no details as to what those ratings ACTUALLY mean, in real numbers.

How much energy and resources were used in producing the product?
How much energy was used bringing it from where it was made to where I'm buying it?
How much energy will the appliance use? How much per cycle, on individual programs?
How much energy will it take to recycle it at the end of its life?

I couldn't find any of those details - I'll be in the shop later today to ask one of the shop assistants, but I'm not exactly holding my breath.

bucketybuck

I say I don't care, but I must admit that when I see things like campaigns to stop people using straws and see them talking about millions of tons of plastics just getting dumped in the oceans, its hard not to be taken aback.

Like, millions upon millions of tons, the volumes are enormous and there really is no need for so much of the packaging being manufactured and then just dumped, you don't need to be a left leaning liberal to think that.

I suppose then that I don't care enough about the human race to do much about it, but its definitely true that there are big problems there.

jimgoose

pleas advice wrote: »

This^

This is certainly and unfortunately the case. Which is why I like to tread lightly upon the Earth, Grasshopper, by choosing products that use less or, ideally, no packaging.

jimgoose

bucketybuck wrote: »

...you don't need to be a left leaning liberal to think that...

Indeed not. I'm a Right-Wing Arsehole, and I am horrified by the amount of precious oil used to make all sorts of stupid packaging and assorted clap-trap, much of which is just dumped.

DEFTLEFTHAND

I love how actors like Clooney and DiCaprio like to pontificate on this subject whilst flying around the world on private jets.

jimgoose

DEFTLEFTHAND wrote: »

I love how actors like Clooney and DiCaprio like to pontificate on this subject whilst flying around the world on private jets.

Yes. And it is utterly unimportant and without consequence if these gowls just stay where they are, unlike five-star generals or CEOs of mighty corporations, and so forth who sometimes need to stride across the globe.

diomed

What we do does not matter.
What the manufacturers and legislators do matters.
Stop plastic packaging.

odyssey06

Shenshen wrote: »

It's a reasonable question, and I wish it would be easier to find details on how to make that calculation online.
Our dishwasher packed in a few weeks ago and we were looking for a new one. Now, they all have energy efficiency labels with a lovely, easy to understand ranking and colour-coding. Only there is next to no details as to what those ratings ACTUALLY mean, in real numbers.

As if the calculation won't be tricky enough... The other thing to remember is that you're unlikely to get double figures out of the new models, they don't seem to be built to last like the old ones... so you'll probably need to calculate the cost based on expected service length years.

Hooks Golf Handicap

I realised a long time ago that any amount of tokenism on my part wouldn't make the slightest bit of difference to this global problem.

I recycle just to even out the waste in my bins to be honest.

Gave up years ago worrying about removing the plastic film off meat containers & washing the trays, bugger that, all into the landfill bin.

I was on board until they began claiming cows farting was a huge factor, they lost me after that.
It's like when someone says binge drinking is 4 drinks in one sitting, yeah . . . yeah . . gtfo

snow_bunny

Can anyone tell me is it better to buy cardboard cartons of milk rather than plastic?

The 2l of milk every couple of days is probably the bulk of our recycling, we try to buy fresh produce loose and the rest in recyclable glass rather than tins where possible. I'm aware that cartons are now inner lined with plastic so I'm not sure if the cardboard+plastic is better or worse than just plastic? If we could find a reliable glass bottle milk delivery in our area we would go for that but there isn't.

jimgoose

Hooks Golf Handicap wrote: »

...It's like when someone says binge drinking is 4 drinks in one sitting, yeah . . . yeah . . gtfo

Yeah, you're just about aboard with the new, healthy, no-growth-hormones, low-fat, high-polyunsaturate, humane, low-alcohol, three-speed-bicycle-with-cute-little-basket-huzzah way of going about business and then some fucken yahoo comes out with that kind of a one. You know what? You can take your beard, and your chickpea soup, and your hand-knitted gin, and your sausages made out of wasabe-flavoured sawdust or whatever-the-fuck that stuff is, and get the deuce out of my house!!

Badly Drunk Boy

I don't very actively think much about my carbon footprint but it's probably healthier than a lot of other people's. I don't drive (work is a 7 minute cycle away), I rarely fly (possibly only left the country 3 or 4 times in the last 10 years), and I throw the correct stuff into the recycling bin, unlike a lot of people, who don't seem too bothered about what stuff they put into their green bin.

mr chips

I figured that with the fridge and washing machine, more modern appliances seem to have a much shorter lifespan than older ones, so allowing for the energy embodied in manufacturing and transporting a new replacement potentially every 3-5 years I decided to replace/repair only when necessary. Apart from a new water pump about 13 years ago, and a new door seal 4 years ago, the washing machine has given no bother. We put in solar panels a couple of years ago - we live in NI and there was a small feed-in tariff for any surplus we send to the grid (the payback period has worked out at 5-6 years), so running the washing machine and tumble dryer during the day means they're either fully or partly powered by the sun. That means the difference in energy efficiency between our older appliances and more modern ones is no longer as important a factor as it might have been. Plus most of our water heating is now done via the immersion rather than the oil boiler, at little or no cost during the day. Just means doing some things one after the other rather than at the same time in order to maximise what the panels provide, so e.g. the dryer and the immersion wouldn't be put on simultaneously.

In terms of the car, there's a huge amount of energy and fuel consumption that goes into manufacturing and transporting a brand-new car. It's far better for to keep an older machine on the road and maintain it properly, not only in terms of carbon footprint/energy consumption but also from a financial perspective - the depreciation on a much older car is effectively zero. Plus I used to fuel my cars with biodiesel I got from a trusted supplier, who made it from recycled used cooking oil from local restaurants etc. So for about seven years, my cars burned virtually no fossil fuel for over a quarter of a million miles in total between them. I guess my carbon footprint was tiny in comparison to most other motorists.

You couldn't do that now with modern cars and their high-pressure fuel injection systems, plus most biodiesel nowadays comes from palm oil imported all the way from the likes of Indonesia, where they chop down rainforest to make way for palm plantations to feed the European demand for biodiesel to be added to all road fuel. Talk about taking a good concept and utterly ruining it ...

So yeah, I'd like to be able to convert my vehicles to electric as soon as the price of doing so comes into reach and the battery tech means I can drive either drive 300 miles on a single charge, or drive 200 miles and recharge within 10-15 minutes, and the batteries can withstand 1500 charge cycles without losing capacity. No more oil and filter changes, no more wondering about MAF sensors and turbos and fuel pumps and injectors, no more timing belts to replace, no more spending hundreds a year at the pump ... can't wait.

cantdecide

It's almost impossible to know the full effects (or otherwise) of any factor in isolation. One day it may all be proven beyond doubt to have been a giant waste of time. In the meantime, I'm going to keep listening to my instinct to be as responsible as I can... just in case it really does matter.

odyssey06 wrote: »

Don't worry, before greenhouse gas gets us, we'll all be dead from the fumes from all the diesel cars people were incentivised to buy to cut down on greenhouse gas.

You can say that ten times more. It's really more about shortening the life cycle of cars. Our country is hooked on VRT and new car sales. the changes in '08 were just a way of killing off a generation of older cars (regardless of how efficient the were) and conditioning the population to keep buying newer and newer 'green' cars. Perfectly good family cars go to the scrapyard every day because our tax regime is set up to kill the value of used cars ASAP.

snow_bunny

https://www.google.ie/search?q=plastic+in+the+ocean&client=safari&rls=en&dcr=0&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjyle2Vm7zZAhXsBcAKHUvQARgQ_AUICigB&biw=1296&bih=864#imgrc=Q16jqQOl8-cRtM:

Have a look at this and what plastic alone is doing to the planet. You don't have to believe in Global Warming or be a tree hugger to know that this is both disgusting and devastating. It isn't up for discussion or a matter of opinion, it's a fact that plastic waste is wrecking the planet in a multitude of ways.

People who can't be arsed recycling or feel that their efforts are pointless are just lazy IMO, if everyone tried to reduce, reuse and recycle it would go a long way towards preventing this getting even worse. There's absolutely no excuse for not doing your bit, lack of convenience doesn't count.

I lived in Xi'an for a rather long time. 6 coal & 3 oil power stations nearby to power the city. In the winter periods, there was a fog of smoke mixed with moisture in the air. Xi'an is a 2nd tier city. Roughly 8 million people. Then go further north to the province of Shanxi and you'd find some of the coal mines where everyone wears rebreathers because of the coal dust in the air, and the rivers regularly run black from the crap pumped into them.

I've been to quite a few 3rd world nations with similar attitudes towards their economy and environment. In first world nations, I've also seen waste being pumped into the rivers or simply pushed into a back area for it to be soaked into the soils.

TBH I don't really see how much difference "people" can make in this regard. The industries break the environmental laws, sometimes get charged, tie the charges up in legal red tape, or pay fines they can easily afford. And then back to the same behavior with a different coverup method.

So, no, I don't care about my own carbon footprint. I recycle because it's easy to do. I don't go out of my way to buy energy-saving products but they're generally nearby so it's just as convenient to get them as other products. But I don't fool myself into thinking I'm making much of an impact.

tweek84

Permabear wrote: »

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Quiet the opposite the amount of damage to the environment that is cause in producing the new more energy efficient 'eco friendly' products out weights running your older un-economical product for the rest of its life cycle or possible even your life cycle. Look at the broader picture these companies can't quantify the damage the manufacture of their cars is causing, the materials they are using and the methods the suppliers are using to extract the materials for the companies is not taken in to account.

Companies are scare mongering, hey it's good business sales are up.

Businesses don't care about the environmental impact no matter what they say if they can make money they will do what they want once it doesn't effect them financially, if we care about the environment they will find some way to make money off that.
Anyone remember eco friendly CFL bulbs, a survey carried out in Canada found:
"If all homes in Quebec were required to switch from (incandescent) bulbs to CFLs, there would be an increase of almost 220,000 tonnes in CO2 emissions in the province, equivalent to the annual emissions from more than 40,000 automobiles."

I can't wait for more survey and analysis to be carried out in the future.

mr chips

One thing I've done in the past 8-10 years or so is virtually stop buying bottled water. I always used to buy a bottle a day when I was getting a sandwich etc for lunch at work - meal deals have a lot to answer for - and three or four a week for taking to the gym. So that's 8 per week easy, or more than 400 a year ... Anyway, once I found out about how little of the plastic that goes into a recycling bin actually gets recycled (sometimes as little as 15%), and in this country at that, I just quit & started refilling a bottle with water from the tap instead. A quick daily rinse of a previously used bottle has so far kept me free of listeria or legionnaire's or whatever horrible illnesses are supposed to strike you down when you do that. When I think about it, I've gone from using 400+ plastic bottles a year to maybe two or three. By now, that must be a few thousand plastic bottles that don't need to be recycled, didn't have to be manufactured, and won't end up in the sea or in landfill.

But I hear one person doesn't make a difference.

Ubbquittious

tweek84 wrote: »

Anyone remember eco friendly CFL bulbs, a survey carried out in Canada found:
"If all homes in Quebec were required to switch from (incandescent) bulbs to CFLs, there would be an increase of almost 220,000 tonnes in CO2 emissions in the province, equivalent to the annual emissions from more than 40,000 automobiles."

Don't mind CFL's even some of the LED ones aren't that great. I've had a fairly expensive one with a fine lump of a heatsink on it pack up the other day. Probably used for less than 1,000 hours. I would have been better off with one of the ones that were banned.

Not a one-off either, I have had loads of expensive LED bulbs fail on me. Maybe the newer filament LED ones will be better but the problem with a lot of the heatsink ones seems to be that they still generate too much heat and end up roasting the power supply components.

Wibbs

mr chips wrote: »

I figured that with the fridge and washing machine, more modern appliances seem to have a much shorter lifespan than older ones, so allowing for the energy embodied in manufacturing and transporting a new replacement potentially every 3-5 years I decided to replace/repair only when necessary.

+1. I've noticed this in my lifetime. Appliances like fridges and the like lasting shorter periods of time compared to ones from years ago, with each decade the cycle becoming shorter. The fridge the family had when I was growing up lasted 20+ years and two moves. It was still going only the parents thought they should "upgrade". Successive fridges lasted 10, then 8, my current one is 6 and looking ropey already. Washing machines similarly. The older more "analogue" ones lasting much longer. Sure you might have to replace brushes in the motor or even the motor itself but the rest of the workings kept going. I must be on my fourth washing machine at this stage, in nearly every case the main or subsidiary board gave up the ghost. On that score spares were either hard to get or - and this is the kicker - nearly as expensive as a new machine(sometimes more if I paid a bod to install it), so you're encouraged to spend on a new one. Keep that churn going. However my washer drier I got from the folks who bought it in 1975(have the receipt somewhere) and it's still going strong. It has needed me going at it with the hammers and spanners a couple of times(very basic stuff), but drying clothes it still is. My first gas boiler lasted 20 years(and was still working), the next all fancy condenser save money(my arse!) and polar bears one, made it to around 5 before kicking the bucket. Oh and is it just me or am I the only one replacing the new fangled (non fluorescent) bulbs far more often?

In terms of the car, there's a huge amount of energy and fuel consumption that goes into manufacturing and transporting a brand-new car. It's far better for to keep an older machine on the road and maintain it properly, not only in terms of carbon footprint/energy consumption but also from a financial perspective - the depreciation on a much older car is effectively zero.

+1000. I mentioned in another thread hereabouts that a neighbour of mine is into the whole green thing and has looked a bit down on me for keeping a 20 year old car on the road. The same 20 year old car has cost me 200 quid per year for maintenance, does mid high 30's to the gallon and passes NCT emissions testing with ease. In the same period he's bought a new car every 3 years or so, got into hybrids and then electric which really upped the smug. When I point out the manufacturing costs, never mind the environmental costs of many of the rare elements in the batteries he just doesn't get it. And he's not a stupid man. We're constantly bombarded by the consumer culture and that each new purchase will help the trees and such, so I'm not surprised he and so many fall for this. The sheer criminal waste is astounding. I can bring you to any number of big yards around Dublin(and beyond) chock full of "old" cars over 10 years old. Cars that are essentially worthless(and makes depreciation very stark. Like 800 quid for a Merc that was 65,000 new). And most of the car will end up as waste beyond the bare metal that will end up going back into the system.

Recently I was in and out of hospital with a relative and the waste even there was astonishing. Sealed medical packs for bloods or whatever, opened up, one or two items used, the rest goes into the bin. Pretty much anything plastic you see in that environment is binward bound.

Until we tackle the consumer culture and our relatively recent need for the dopamine hit of new [insert object here], any talk of environmental considerations will be just lip service. I can't see it happening any time soon though. It's not ordinary folks to blame, its the manufacturers who of course need to keep the churn going. It's the retail sector that requires it. It's the lending institutions who sell "cheap" loans and credit. It's the governments and tax depts. that rely on this churn for tax returns and as indicators of a good economy. Until we change that narrative nothing else will change. To do that will require a lot of changes. The drive to grow populations for one. Ireland has a growing population but look at Europe where the growth is in the negative and how governments are trying to encourage more kids, or failing that importing more people by immigration. IMHO we need to reduce the world's population to one that is sustainable without the consumerist machine or less of it. When I was born the world's population was just over 3 billion, today it's over 7.5 billion. I can't recall the sky falling in when it was the lower figure.

Shenshen

snow_bunny wrote: »

Can anyone tell me is it better to buy cardboard cartons of milk rather than plastic?

The 2l of milk every couple of days is probably the bulk of our recycling, we try to buy fresh produce loose and the rest in recyclable glass rather than tins where possible. I'm aware that cartons are now inner lined with plastic so I'm not sure if the cardboard+plastic is better or worse than just plastic? If we could find a reliable glass bottle milk delivery in our area we would go for that but there isn't.

I'd say you're actually better off with the plastic bottles. The plastic can be recycled, the cardboard containers are lined with aluminuim and plastic, the composite cannot be recycled and isn't biodegradable, so it's really the worst of both.

Dakota Dan

Ubbquittious wrote: »

Now that things are tigering again the greenies and the lads that just bought a new electric car on the PCP are trying to make the carbon footprint fashionable again since it's demise in 2008.

As people poshen up with the rise of this new tiger expect to see an increase in people voluntarily enduring token hardships so they can pretend they care about the environment and signal their virtues. They'll be buying more short-lived Chinese consumer goods with plenty rare earth metals packed inside than ever before but we'll gloss over that. If they really wanted to do something about the environment they'd ban all this crap that comes in and only lasts a couple of years before it breaks or goes obsolete.

I don't think Ireland and UK have the capability to make or break the eventual extinction of mankind due to excessive CO2 emissions if such an event is on the cards. We could even stand to gain by going completely the opposite way of the rest of the world as they "go green". Build a massive coal fired powerplant just across the border in post-Brexit NI with a huge chimney and burn the coal that nobody wants to buy anymore. Import loads of petrol and daysul through NI on the QT without the boys over in d'EU knowing about it.

The thing about electric cars is they still need fuel to produce the electricity and the impact of manufacturing these cars especially the batteries. It wounds make more sense to hold onto old cars that are reasonably efficient for longer. Scrapping older cars to replace with electric causes more pollution.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Shenshen

Dakota Dan wrote: »

The thing about electric cars is they still need fuel to produce the electricity and the impact of manufacturing these cars especially the batteries. It wounds make more sense to hold onto old cars that are reasonably efficient for longer. Scrapping older cars to replace with electric causes more pollution.

And the thing about fossil fuel cars is that the fuel needs to be got from the ground, refined, and transported to the point of sales.
You can give an electric car a full charge on the amount of energy it takes to get one litre of petrol to your local petrol station.

I would never advocate people dump perfectly good cars to move to electric, but if your car is coming to the end of its life I would seriously suggest considering one of them.