I read that book some time ago, but from what I recall I believe they were making comparisons of impacts of different forms of resource consumption, such as 'paper or plastic?' and disposable vs. cloth diapers. I don't really recall them implying that doing things that make a small impact should be discarded. As a matter of fact, on the back cover of the book (from Amazon's site), it says 'if we all recycled our Sunday papers, we could save 500,000 trees every week'. They did go on to say, though, that for those who feel simply overwhelmed about what to focus on, that they can focus on BIG impact behaviors, among them: not living in a bigger house than one needs (quite subjective, I know), making major appliance purchases count by buying as energy efficient as possible, etc.
Personally I would recycle the can even if it only made a minuscule amount of positive impact because it really is just as easy as throwing it in the trash, assuming curbside recycling or other convenient locations exist. Vicky ---------------------------------- Vicky Hollenbeck USDA Agricultural Research Service Corvallis, OR 541-738-4136 On Tue, 20 Mar 2007, JM M wrote: > I am not familiar with this book, but I think that I will go and read it. > > I do think that sometimes people get really upset at things that don't > really matter when you look at the big picture. For example, sometimes when > I am driving down the highway and I am finished with my pop, I throw the can > out the window on to the side of the highway. I realize that this is really > rude, and it probably upsets a lot of people, but does it reallly have any > environmental impact at all, relatively speaking? > > I am of course joking, I don't really do this, but seriously, compare the > impact of littering the side of the highway with garbage, with the impact > all of the other things that I am doing at the time, and > all of the other things that have been done to the environment to allow me > to be in that situation at that point in time (ie driving down a paved > highway in my car, burning gas and drinking a coke out of an aluminum can). > > Of the top of my head, the things that have impacted the envrionment > include: building the highway, building the car, all the energy used to > build the highway and the car, the impacts of extracting and refining the > raw materials to build the highway and the car, extracting and refining the > gas powering my car, the emissions from my car while driving it and in all > of the aforementioned extraction and manufacturing processes, mining and > smelting the aluminum, transporting the aluminum to the can manufacturing > plant, growing and refining the sugar that gets added to the pop, > manufacturing the pop and filling the can with it, the emissions from > transporting the pop can to the store where I bought it from, etc., etc., > etc. > > The fact that the can ends up on the side of the road as garbage, while > creating a small visual > impact, accounts for what, .01% of the environmental impact of all of my > activities at that time and all the activities that lead to me being in that > situation? Yet most people would consider littering to be a large > environmental sin, but probably wouldn't even think of all the other things > that I mentioned as any sort of sin at all. > > Of course, to NOT do all of those other things, like driving my car where I > want when I want with the ability to get an easy caffiene buzz anywhere > along the way, would really be quite inconvenient. It's really much easier > to keep the empty can and put it in the recycle bin at the next gas station, > even though this action probably does almost nothing, environmentally > speaking. At this point, I still recycle my cans because I don't know what > else to do and because it is so much easier to get my beverages > pre-packaged, but I know that there are more effective things that I could > do. > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Wendee Holtcamp" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: <[email protected]> > Sent: Monday, March 19, 2007 7:41 PM > Subject: Consumer Choice & the Environment > > > > Is anyone familiar with the book "The Consumer's Guide to Effective > > Environmental Choices: Practical Advice from the Union of Concerned > > Scientists"? (circa 1999)? It analyzes the environmental impacts (air and > > water pollution, global warming impact and habitat/land consumption/use) > > for > > various consumer choices and says which ones are having the biggest > > impacts, > > and which are not so much making a hill of beans of difference (paper > > napkins, disposable diapers). > > > > They used a computational model to analyze it all, but I wonder if there > > is > > any more recent study that may have come out or of anyone reviewed their > > methods etc and found them faulty? I talked with Brower and he has not > > done > > a more recent model and is working in a different field now and so was > > unfamiliar with current work. > > > > Deadline next week. > > Wendee > > _________________________________________________________________ > Have Some Fun Out Of The Sun This March Break > http://local.live.com/?mkt=en-ca/?v=2&cid=A6D6BDB4586E357F!142 > >
