When someone asks paper or plastic, what’s the right answer? A couple months ago, I wrote about the evils of plastic bags and how many cities, including Seattle and San Francisco, have legislation in place or proposed to ban them. As it turns out, plastic bag bans may not be so great after all.
If plastic bags are banned, retailers will turn to their next best (economical) alternative, which are paper bags. As luck would have it, paper bags not only kill trees (although many are manufactured from recycled paper), but they cost more to transport due to their increase weight to volume ratio, require 40 percent more energy to manufacture, and take 91 percent more energy to recycle (pound for pound) when compared with plastic bags. Paper bags contribute more to global warming than plastic bags. It turns out plastic bag bans and paper bags aren’t so great after all. Boy, this environmental and global warming stuff sure can get complex with these second the third order effects.
Should we just throw up our arms in protest and give up? Of course not! Give up is never an option at TTMYGG. If you don’t know already, the answer to my question above turns out to be neither! What we all should do is carry reusable shopping bags. There are numerous places to buy them, and many only cost a few dollars (or less!). Some supermarkets such as Whole Foods even give you a credit for bringing your own bag, meaning you can recoup the cost of the bag fairly quickly. Trader Joe’s enters customers carrying reusable shopping bags into a monthly lottery to win $50 in free groceries.
If you’re feeling particularly flush with money and want to make a reusable bag fashion statement, don’t worry, there are many options. If you really don’t want to donate this money to a good cause, you can buy designer reusable bags. Castiglioni has a folding nylon bag which retailers for $843, while Stella McCartney has an organic canvas tote for $495. Not to be outdone, Hermes sells its Silky Pop grocery bag for a mere $960, but at least it collapses into a wallet-size pouch. Trader Joe’s bags come in at a whopping $3. Decisions, decisions,…
A new Solar Incentive Program recently passed in San Francisco. So if you live in the area, and you’re thinking about getting some solar panels, you may be able to take advantage of some financial incentives.
According to one of our favorite blogs, Inhabitat:
An annual budget of $3 million dollars will help create incentives for individuals and businesses to install solar photovoltaics systems with a $3,000 to $6,000 rebate available to individuals and a $10,000 rebate for businesses.
This site also has some good FAQs if you are seriously considering installing solar panels.
You may recall that blogged about driving more calmly in order to increase gas mileage. I forgot to do it for a few days, so I decided that I would make that last tank my control tank. Sadly, I’m only getting 28.5 MPG, which is lower than I recall getting the last time I checked. Not sure if my gas mileage has declined, or maybe i’m just driving worse, but it’s down by 10%! Hopefully by driving better I’ll be able to get that up. Stay tuned.Â
It appears car manufacturers are pulling out all the stops with the seemingly endless rise in gas prices. In my last post, I discussed Toyota’s new plug-in Prius. Now, Takeo Fukui, Honda Motor’s president, announced that Honda will be delivering new hybrids to meet market demands (and compete against Toyota’s lead in lucrative hybrid sales). Who will win the hybrid wars you ask? We, as consumers, will all win!
Currently, Honda sells the Civic Hybrid, a hybrid model of its popular entry level Civic sedan. Because the Civic Hybrid is a retrofit of an existing model, it doesn’t see the efficiencies of a pure hybrid like the Prius, and it also is a very high cost, low margin car for Honda to make. Unfortunately, we all know the sad ending for the Honda Accord Hybrid. Honda’s three new hybrid models include a five-door, five-passenger compact based off the concept FCX Clarity, a Fit hybrid, and a two-door coupe hybrid based off the CR-Z. The five-passenger hybrid may hit showroom floors as early as next year, while the other two will probably come out some time in 2010.
Honda’s goal is to come out with a Fit hybrid that has less than a $2,000 premium over the non-hybrid version. As a point of comparison, the Civic Hybrid is nearly $5,000 more expensive than its non-hybrid counterpart. Also, the hybrid-only CR-Z based vehicle is expected to be about one-third cheaper than the Civic Hybrid. Right now, images and additional details such as performance and gas mileage are a bit sketchy, but suffice it to say that Honda is going full steam ahead in the hybrid race. The great part of all this is that we all win as consumers! When it comes time to buy a new car, I look forward to having a hard time choosing among all the various hybrid options that will be available.
I lived in Chicago circa 1993-2004, during which most of this time I lived near Lincoln Park (Lakeview to be exact). I worked in downtown Chicago and would hop on the 151 (bus) everyday. I had my ups and downs with the 151 – it safely brought me to 333 East Wacker and back without fail, but was crowded and downright gross in the heat of the summer (picture your face being smashed into someone’s armpit when the bus lurched to a stop.) Yum. Regardless, I loved the freedom public transportation afforded me. The fact that I only used my car on the weekends is a total 180 from my life today, where I basically drive everywhere and everyday (public transportation in Mountain View, CA is sorely lacking in comparison). Anyway, there are other things I miss about Chicago – the food, the summer festivals, Ravinia, etc. I can go on and on.
Well here’s one more reason why Chicago is a great city: Mayor Daley. Regardless of your political party affiliation, you have to admit that he’s doing a pretty good job of making Chicago one of, if not the greenest cities in the US today. Here are just a few examples:
- Chicago’s City Hall is the country’s first rooftop garden on a municipal building – Check out the Featured Projects link on this website
- The Green Alley Project where alleys are retrofitted with environmentally sustainable road-building materials (there’s a lot more interesting information about this project here)
- Museums (all of them) have been converted to partially run on solar power
- All new public buildings to achieve at least LEED Silver status
Check out this cool PDF which shares more info on some of the other big green projects Chicago has completed.
