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Grex > Agora46 > #234: Go placidly amidst the noise and waste, but reconsider it | |
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| 19 new of 21 responses total. |
other
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response 3 of 21:
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Sep 20 11:05 UTC 2003 |
Boxes on toothpaste tubes. They could shrinkwrap a safety seal around
the cap.
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oval
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response 4 of 21:
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Sep 20 14:35 UTC 2003 |
here you have to bag your own shit. and you have to pay for the plastic bag.
so people generally bring their own bag. inside the supermarket they also have
machines which give you money for recycling large plastic bottles and beer
bottles.
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twenex
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response 5 of 21:
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Sep 20 16:06 UTC 2003 |
Shouldn't that be "Go plastically"?
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keesan
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response 6 of 21:
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Sep 20 19:23 UTC 2003 |
We buy our produce at the farmer's market and freeze excess for the winter
(in reusable plastic bags or boxes) and we buy our grains and beans via a
buying club (in 25-50 pound paper bags which we find other uses for). Jim
says we take in more trash than we put out (boomboxes and the like, and most
recently a battery powered electric lawnmower, bikes) and fix it and get it
back into use. Yet somehow I keep accumulating plastic bags (which I give
to people selling at the market) - I wonder where they come from?
Bread comes in bags - get a bread machine.
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jaklumen
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response 7 of 21:
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Sep 20 22:17 UTC 2003 |
resp:2 Haha?!? Shit, the prices are lower because you bag 'em. Check
it 'out, that's how WinCo, based in Boise, ID, operates.
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jp2
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response 8 of 21:
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Sep 20 23:46 UTC 2003 |
This response has been erased.
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tod
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response 9 of 21:
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Sep 21 15:09 UTC 2003 |
This response has been erased.
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tsty
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response 10 of 21:
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Sep 21 17:24 UTC 2003 |
for some of the plastic containers, i wait until the cashier is ready to
run the credit card or receive cash frmo my hand and then calmly state:
"i'll be happy to pay for all this as soon as you remove what i'm
buying from these plastic tombs, in which i have no interst whatsoever."
cashier usually has mental meltdown at the immediate prospect (cause
*they* cant stand the damn thigns eitehr) or att the prospect of stalled
checkout line.
always gotten the service i need - some times with store-rancor though.
gee, whoda thunk it?
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happyboy
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response 11 of 21:
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Sep 21 17:39 UTC 2003 |
passive aggressive bullshit.
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mcnally
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response 12 of 21:
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Sep 21 20:26 UTC 2003 |
re #3: I imagine a big part of the reason for the boxes is that they're
much easier to stack on store shelves than tubes would be..
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russ
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response 13 of 21:
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Sep 22 00:32 UTC 2003 |
(Another reason for boxes around tubes is to prevent sharp
edges from puncturing them, causing losses and making a mess.)
More ridiculousness I see every day: waste designed into
architecture. Take lighting. I have not worked or shopped
in a single modern building that was actually designed to
use daylight! Even when the sun is flooding down outside
these buildings take pains to filter it out at the windows
so it doesn't glare, and then they fix the darkness with
ceiling or hanging fixtures.
The costs are considerable. For every watt of light a typical
fluorescent fixture makes roughly 3 watts of heat, which in
turn requires at least one more watt of air-conditioning to
pump outdoors; that comes out to roughly 1.3-1.5 watts total
for every watt fed to the light fixtures. Sunlight is roughly
50% visible and 50% infrared, so even if the IR isn't filtered
you'd get only half as much total heat. Another alterative is
to accept the same heat load but get twice as much light. Good
lighting is supposed to improve productivity as well, which
also adds to the bottom line.
Lots of businesses pay time-of-day rates, so the rates they're
paying for the need to use electric lighting on hot, sunny
summer days would probably make daylighting pay for itself.
Why aren't they doing it? Shortsightedness and lack of will
to change, I guess.
I'll really know energy-consciousness has arrived when every
computer workstation has two fiber-optic cables running to
it: one to carry data to the computer, and one to carry
captured sunlight to the LCD. (You want BRIGHT?)
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rcurl
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response 14 of 21:
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Sep 22 00:47 UTC 2003 |
I think office managers want consistent lighting, night or day, summer or
winter, clear of stormy. You can't get that with sunlight alone. However
things could be better arranged so that sunlight is used more when it is
available, and won't cause other problems (harsh and shifting shadows,
color imbalances, heat, etc).
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jaklumen
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response 15 of 21:
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Sep 22 02:47 UTC 2003 |
Indeed. But I wonder about the initial costs, especially where you'd
have to renovate.
I currently work at Richland (WA) City Hall, which could really stand
a remodel for some natural lighting in places-- so much of the
building is just dark. For that matter, I don't think many of the
fixtures are fluorescent. I think there are some incandescents that
could be replaced with compact fluorescents, and even the standard
tubes could be updated.
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tod
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response 16 of 21:
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Sep 22 03:15 UTC 2003 |
This response has been erased.
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russ
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response 17 of 21:
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Sep 23 00:41 UTC 2003 |
Re #14: Easily achieved with dimmers on the ceiling lamps
which adjust to maintain light level if e.g. the sky clouds up.
This is off-the-shelf technology, it's in use today.
With all the products out there like Solatubes, it really
amazes me that the commercial market isn't going for them
like crazy. It looks like a huge potential savings; heck,
you could even put Solatubes through existing HVAC roof
penetrations and not even have to worry about new leaks.
How about light shelves? You put a flat white surface by
the window, and it bounces sunlight up and off the ceiling so
you don't need as much electric light. I don't think I've
seen one outside a magazine.
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jaklumen
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response 18 of 21:
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Sep 23 03:37 UTC 2003 |
resp:16 That's not exactly what I said. I said some areas were
pretty dark.
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tod
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response 19 of 21:
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Sep 23 05:05 UTC 2003 |
This response has been erased.
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gull
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response 20 of 21:
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Sep 23 14:51 UTC 2003 |
Re #17: The problem, I think, is that office buildings (at least the
small, one-story type) are often built on spec, so the goal is to put up
the building as cheaply as possible and to allow for the eventual owner
to choose their own internal arrangement. The result is you end up with
a cement-block shell and a flat roof with minimal insulation, dropped
ceilings with fluorescent lights, and modular panel walls or cubical
farms. This is not conducive to giving everyone a window for natural
light, or using skylights and other light sources that are not easily
rearranged. Skylights also have a reputation for leaking and driving up
maintenance costs.
The sheer amount of wasted space in these buildings is stunning.
Popping up a ceiling tile in the one I work in shows nearly enough
wasted vertical space for another story.
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jaklumen
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response 21 of 21:
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Sep 23 21:54 UTC 2003 |
This isn't quite the case-- you'd have to see it... the building was
made in the 1940's, I think.
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