Liberals to Stamp Out 'Take Out'????

[flacaltenn]

Incredible.

Styrofoam can be replaced with paper products and newer biodegradables.

If anyone in this discussion deserves to have 23,000 tons of styrofoam dumped in their front yard, it would be poster PoliticalChic. I have never in my life met someone who appears to be as ecologically irresponsible. Her(?) commentary is so unreasonable it makes me suspect she is actually trolling.

BTW, before implying that styrofoam waste is insignificant because it only makes up 23,000 or 3 million tons, one might look at the obvious. The volume of 23,000 tons of styrofoam is 18,400,000 cubic feet. That would be a cube 264 feet on a side. That would be roughly one third the volume of one of the World Trade Center Towers. Every year.

Now just for comparison purposes, let's estimate that trash has the same density as water (since it's routinely dumped at sea, that's being conservative). Three million tons of water has a volume of 96,154,000 cubic feet.

So, athough the styrofoam makes up less than 8 ten-thousandths of the waste's mass, it makes up almost one-fifth of it's volume. Successfully reducing the waste volume of a major urban area by 20% would have an enormous impact.

So who cares? I do. Who doesn't? PoliticalChic. She seems to be content to lie in her own waste, so to speak.

Unless you have a way to reduce the VOLUME of the waste, your comments about weight are somewhat self defeating. Replacing with MUCH heavier plastic or starch justs gives you heavier garbage with additional enviro costs to dispose of it. Styro is mostly air, you compact it well and its less volume and less weight...

You didn't follow the conversation. Ms PoliticalChic was implying that the styrofoam waste was insignificant because it only made up 23,000 tons of the city's 3 million tons of waste produced annually. I pointed out that represented 20% of the city's trash VOLUME. Compaction will not effectively reduce its volume as the material is durably elastic and closed cell. Bloomberg's action WILL have a significant, positive impact on New York's waste disposal issues.

Oh I WAS following the convo just fine.. Don't think you were however --- because you missed the part where changing the COMPOSITION of cups and containers would NOT decrease that volume and only create DENSER, heavier waste streams..

And I think you and Lord BloomBerger needs to learns the interwebs.. As FoxFyre points out. His Lordship needs to buy a few compactors and start using the results to build some safer traffic barriers on the East Side Hiway..

My Nascar buds can give him some tips on barriers that make 200mph crashes surviveable.

 

[Abraham3]

If your barriers had all the air removed, they wouldn't make 200 mph crashes survivable.

 

[Foxfyre]

Unless you have a way to reduce the VOLUME of the waste, your comments about weight are somewhat self defeating. Replacing with MUCH heavier plastic or starch justs gives you heavier garbage with additional enviro costs to dispose of it. Styro is mostly air, you compact it well and its less volume and less weight...

You didn't follow the conversation. Ms PoliticalChic was implying that the styrofoam waste was insignificant because it only made up 23,000 tons of the city's 3 million tons of waste produced annually. I pointed out that represented 20% of the city's trash VOLUME. Compaction will not effectively reduce its volume as the material is durably elastic and closed cell. Bloomberg's action WILL have a significant, positive impact on New York's waste disposal issues.

Oh I WAS following the convo just fine.. Don't think you were however --- because you missed the part where changing the COMPOSITION of cups and containers would NOT decrease that volume and only create DENSER, heavier waste streams..

And I think you and Lord BloomBerger needs to learns the interwebs.. As FoxFyre points out. His Lordship needs to buy a few compactors and start using the results to build some safer traffic barriers on the East Side Hiway..

My Nascar buds can give him some tips on barriers that make 200mph crashes surviveable.

Yes. If compacting can reduce ordinary styrofoam in its usual state to 1/50th the volume, and the tonnage of styrofoam is a tiny percenage of the total, then via compacting, the volume would not really be that much of an issue would it? It is comparable to letting the air out of a pound of inflated balloons. The volume would then be a tiny fraction of what it was before. Certainly not enough to be a problem.

And once that problem is solved, then instead of putting restrictions on the peoples' choices, options, and opportunities to use an inexpensive, useful, and fuctional product like styrofoam, why not focus on finding a way to efficiently and economically recycle products such as styrofoam? It can be done now but it is rather a tedious and expensive process. But American ingenuity, when a need is presented to it, can come up with amazing things.

 

[Abraham3]

And what matters most is that the material used breakdown. There's not much they could choose that WOULDN'T break down faster than styrofoam.

 

[Abraham3]

How are you going to separate the styrofoam from the rest of the trash and garbarge?

 

[flacaltenn]

If your barriers had all the air removed, they wouldn't make 200 mph crashes survivable.

You can make the correct density and elasticity of barrier out of that recycled material very easily..

The "S.A.F.E.R." racing barrier is a high elasticity version of material.. They do not depend on the crush factor for shock absorption..

 

[Abraham3]

Yes. If compacting can reduce ordinary styrofoam in its usual state to 1/50th the volume...

Then it would only be more than five times as voluminous as the rest of the trash.

 

[Abraham3]

Why are you two so hostile to the Earth's environment?

 

[Foxfyre]

Why does it have to be broken down if it can be repurposed in useful ways? There is not one single way to do much of anything. If the goal is to reduce the volume going into the land fills, there are many different ways to accomplish that without banning the use of styrofoam in restaurants. Flacal and I have discussed at least two. The stuff isn't toxic. It isn't dangerous. What we should be concerned about is all the mercury from those dang energy saving bulbs that are going into landfills. And we all know that is what happens to most of them as most people simply won't take the time and energy to find a hazmat site to deliver a single bulb to. But we're all encouraged to use them in place of incandescent bulbs that contain no hazardous materials.

Practical and effective solutions are the goal of most intelligent and thoughtful people. Unfortunately that is not the goal of most of those who favor the big government solutions.

 

[Foxfyre]

Yes. If compacting can reduce ordinary styrofoam in its usual state to 1/50th the volume...

Then it would only be more than five times as voluminous as the rest of the trash.

???? A first grader would find that a very strange statement indeed. And would be scratching his/her head at your math skills.

 

[flacaltenn]

How are you going to separate the styrofoam from the rest of the trash and garbarge?

ONe of my Chinese bud's Dad solve that exact problem about 15 years ago. Now a big Capitalist in China.. Mostly done with air separation.

But if you're a dictator like Lord Bloomerberger -- you can DEMAND the peons separate it for you under penalty of fines or death or something else fearfully bad..

 

[Foxfyre]

And how are cities separating out the recyclable stuff from the regular garbage now? Albuquerque has had a recycling program for a very long time now but only recently provided us those nifty roll out carts for recyclables only--separate from the regular trash carts. And once it provided those, I notice that almost all our neighbors are using them when the less convenient plastic bags for recyclables were once left on the curb and were much more sporatic. Make it reasonable and convenient for folks, and most people will do the right thing.

 

[flacaltenn]

And how are cities separating out the recyclable stuff from the regular garbage now? Albuquerque has had a recycling program for a very long time now but only recently provided us those nifty roll out carts for recyclables only--separate from the regular trash carts. And once it provided those, I notice that almost all our neighbors are using them when the less convenient plastic bags for recyclables were once left on the curb and were much more sporatic. Make it reasonable and convenient for folks, and most people will do the right thing.

But FoxFyre... Were talkin bout New Yorkers here.........

 

[Foxfyre]

And how are cities separating out the recyclable stuff from the regular garbage now? Albuquerque has had a recycling program for a very long time now but only recently provided us those nifty roll out carts for recyclables only--separate from the regular trash carts. And once it provided those, I notice that almost all our neighbors are using them when the less convenient plastic bags for recyclables were once left on the curb and were much more sporatic. Make it reasonable and convenient for folks, and most people will do the right thing.

But FoxFyre... Were talkin bout New Yorkers here.........

True, but you're gonna have to trust me on this. Albuquerque sometimes doesn't have a helluva lot more common sense.

 

[Abraham3]

But if you're a dictator like Lord Bloomerberger -- you can DEMAND the peons separate it for you under penalty of fines or death or something else fearfully bad..

But that isn't what he wants to do at all. He wants to prevent it from ever coming in to the city.

Regarding my math

Styrofoam runs from 1 to 5 lbs/cubic foot. I picked 2.5 lb/cu ft as a working value

Water, which we were using as a density estimate for "trash", weights 62.5 pounds/cubic foot.

If you compress the styrofoam so that it occupies one-fiftieth it's original volume, it will weigh 125 lbs/cu ft, twice the density of water and I will have made a math error when I said it would still be five times the volume. Mea culpa.

 

[Abraham3]

And how are cities separating out the recyclable stuff from the regular garbage now?

They ask their citizens to do it or they don't bother.

 

[flacaltenn]

And how are cities separating out the recyclable stuff from the regular garbage now?

They ask their citizens to do it or they don't bother.

Actually, most of this started by INCENTIVIZING recycling.. Folks don't really they are still being screwed -- but those DEPOSIT taxes on bottles still exist.. Even tho -- you're giving them back for free at the curb..

At 5 or 10 cents a bottle/can, that's a gold mine sitting on the curb, and in most places, YOU PAY to have recycling picked up separately.. Twice screwed very nicely -- thank -you ...

Just shows how ripe Americans are for being defrauded when it comes to "ecology"..

 

[Abraham3]

And how are cities separating out the recyclable stuff from the regular garbage now?

They ask their citizens to do it or they don't bother.

Actually, most of this started by INCENTIVIZING recycling.. Folks don't really they are still being screwed -- but those DEPOSIT taxes on bottles still exist.. Even tho -- you're giving them back for free at the curb..

At 5 or 10 cents a bottle/can, that's a gold mine sitting on the curb, and in most places, YOU PAY to have recycling picked up separately.. Twice screwed very nicely -- thank -you ...

Just shows how ripe Americans are for being defrauded when it comes to "ecology"..

And of course there's no cost to a completely disposable society.

 

[PoliticalChic]

They ask their citizens to do it or they don't bother.

Actually, most of this started by INCENTIVIZING recycling.. Folks don't really they are still being screwed -- but those DEPOSIT taxes on bottles still exist.. Even tho -- you're giving them back for free at the curb..

At 5 or 10 cents a bottle/can, that's a gold mine sitting on the curb, and in most places, YOU PAY to have recycling picked up separately.. Twice screwed very nicely -- thank -you ...

Just shows how ripe Americans are for being defrauded when it comes to "ecology"..

And of course there's no cost to a completely disposable society.

Everywhere one looks, 'environmentalism' proves to be a fraud, a scam, and/or a political power grab.



"But the ethanol era has proven far more damaging to the environment than politicians promised and much worse than the government admits today.

As farmers rushed to find new places to plant corn, they wiped out millions of acres of conservation land, destroyed habitat and polluted water supplies, an Associated Press investigation found.

The consequences are so severe that environmentalists and many scientists have now rejected corn-based ethanol as bad environmental policy. But the Obama administration stands by it, highlighting its benefits to the farming industry rather than any negative impact.

Ethanol is different.

The government’s predictions of the benefits have proven so inaccurate that independent scientists question whether it will ever achieve its central environmental goal: reducing greenhouse gases. That makes the hidden costs even more significant.

‘‘This is an ecological disaster,’’ said Craig Cox with the Environmental Working Group, a natural ally of the president that, like others, now finds itself at odds with the White House.

The numbers behind the ethanol mandate have become so unworkable that, for the first time, the EPA is soon expected to reduce the amount of ethanol required to be added to the gasoline supply. An unusual coalition of big oil companies, environmental groups and food companies is pushing the government to go even further and reconsider the entire ethanol program."
The secret environmental cost of US ethanol policy - News and reviews - Boston.com




How stupid does one have to be to continue to support this lie????

 

[mamooth]

Please list for us the conservative politicians who have tried to kill ethanol subsidies.

Iowa is always the most fun, since we get to watch all of the conservative candidates trying to outdo each other in singing the praises of ethanol subsidies.