A simple truth, in a pic (and I am just as guilty of it myself)

[The Straight Story]

[mike_c]

1. wanna know what pisses me off even more than that...?

[Meiko]

2. why does

a leaf blower piss you off? or are you pissed off at the guy using it?

[immoderate]

4. My take...

A leaf blower creates noise and pollution. Then the wind comes and puts the leaves back -- where they belong.

--IMM

[roguevalley]

6. actually, here is a gardener's advice. take those leaves and rake

them around the tree. they will break down and feed it and you don't have to haul them off.

[mike_c]

16. because of the MASSIVE energy investment necessary to move leaves...

...aside with a leaf blower, rather than using one of these:




I mean, think about it-- mining the metal, building a manufacturing plant, transporting materials and workers to the factory, generating power to run the plant, pumping, refining, and transporting petroleum to fuel and lubricate the thing, and the infrastructure of disposal to get rid of it when it has broken down. All of that material and energy to replace a broom.

[onethatcares]

17. now wait one gauddamn minute here.

I work for a condo association that requires the stairs and walkways be cleared of all debris everyday and the stairwells washed down with bleach and water at least every 6 weeks. This is a small 108 unit area and hell the amount of water I waste blows my mind, but they keep coming up with more reasons to run the stuff out of the hose. I'd prefer to rake and sweep, but......................they couldn't accept the slowness of the project.
How does one reconcile that?

[mike_c]

18. by setting reasonable priorities....

We need to ask ourselves EXPLICITLY whether the environmental cost of using things like leaf blowers instead of a broom is really worth the benefit we obtain. Is the time savings really important enough to merit the costs?

One way to do that might be to pay the REAL costs of using things like leaf blowers, i.e. calculating a monetary value for the use of those resources into the future and taxing some proportion of that value every time a leaf blower is used. If folks had to pay a hundred dollar tax every time they used one, the real economic advantage of using a broom might be more apparent to end users who currently see only a tiny fraction of the cost because it's dispersed throughout society, often across multiple generations.

[onethatcares]

19. ahh, there you go, looking at the long term effects

of leaf blowing, sidewalk washing. No one cares anymore, they just want to come home to their nice little apartment on the water and not trip over holly berries and dead leaves. They definitely don't want to shell out any more "maintenance fees" because thirteen units sit vacant due to foreclosure. I'm glad I only got 37 more years to go before I'm outa here.

[klook]

7. When do these things ever stop?

Where I live, there seem to be two or three leafblowers whining and creating dust clouds, 24 x 7.

In the hall of fame of suburban atrocities, leaf blowers deserve their own wing. - http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/26/opinion/nyregionopinions/WE_Leaves.html">The Silence of the Leaves, New York Times, Feb. 26, 2006.

[eppur_se_muova]

20. A device for converting fossil fuel into greenhouse gases and noise pollution?

Whatever could you object to about that? :evilgrin:

I hated those things before hating them was cool!:D I can't believe they use those things on college campuses, so you can hardly hear the instructors with all the windows closed!

[housewolf]

3. Ouch....

It hurts when things come back to bite you, doesn't it???


Good point!

[Olney Blue]

5. Excellent post!

[countryjake]

8. Very good reminder, here right before Memorial Day! Thanks!

At my wedding party, back in '73, we had a separate trash can in which everyone had to deposit their plastic utensils...I washed them all, to save and re-use them. Still got a bag full of those purple spoons and yellow forks and I do the same thing, with every picnic. It was a handy investment.

[Ian David]

9. I put high-qualitty plastic "disposable" spoons in the dishwasher.

They usually last for about 20-50 washes.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

14. My take-out restaurants use high quality containers, and I re-use them

all the time. Very dishwasher friendly.

[grilled onions]

10. Little Things Can Mean A Lot

I have been known to carry budget stainless(enough for the two of us) to use when we eat at one of those "plastic utensil eateries". It may do little for just two of us but it is something and they are far better to tackle our lunch then those brittle plastic things.
Those straws can be used many times as well.
A look around your kitchen could send shockwaves from here to the land of oil. Plastic is the word and it's difficult to avoid but surely we can reuse or recycle more and toss less.
We use sandwich containers rather then sandwich bags.
We have a supply of reuseable grocery bags that go with us everytime we leave the house.
Junk mail that comes in that has a blank side is reused as grocery lists and handy paper by the phone.
Grass clippings and leaves are mulch.
We found very large flower pots and this year they are being used as garden pots--from lettuce to tomatoes we have a small contained garden at a height that is easier to maintain and doesn't require tilling.
If each family did something it surely would be a better world.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

11. I used to use plastic cutlery and stopped. I have been thinking about it again

because my kids have been losing all of my good flatware. I just replaced 4 days ago a hodgepodge set with a design I've wanted for years. I am already missing 2 of the dinner forks. Some people have sock gnomes, I have flatware elves......

[Rosemary2205]

12. um

are you supposed to put flatware in the dryer? (that's what keeps stealing my socks)

Wait, are you telling me the dishwasher steals things too?

OH NOES!!


:)

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

13. At least my kids want to blame the dishwasher! I feel like

Capt. Queeg. I count flatware instead of strawberries!

:rofl:

[Solon]

15. My family has alway been big on recycling and not wasting stuff...

Not necessarily in the, "Throw everything in the recycling bin" type of recycling, but the type poor people do to stretch out the use of "disposable" items to save money type of recycling. First, I never seen anyone in my family buy plastic utensils, usually if we have them, they were collected from a fast food joint, and most of those are in their own wrappers, so we stick them in a drawer until we can find a use for them.

Zip-Lock bags are washed out after use, set to air dry, and used again, same for Aluminum Foil and other disposable packaging material. The only exception would be those that actually put warnings on them that they cannot be reused after, for example, microwaving food. Recycling things can involve a lot more than just throwing objects into a recycling bin. Another example, used Milk Gallon Jugs are reused as Tea Jugs after washing them out. Empty two liter bottles of soda are reused in two ways, cut off the top portion, turn it upside down, and it becomes a funnel that seems perfectly sized for the Milk Gallon Jugs, and so are used to make iced tea. The bottom half of a two liter bottle can be used as a flower pot, or for storage of various items. One liter bottles, of course, can be used the same way, or as a bong. :smoke:

For myself, I recycle used computer parts, and during my dumpster diving days, I used to collect computer stuff, Monitors, Printers, and the like, and sell them off to people who wanted them, or to Pawn shops and recycling centers. I took them from dumpsters outside of office buildings, they throw out still working computer equipment when they upgrade, I think I only had two monitors out of over 30 I collected that didn't work. One had bad burn in, of a Windows 2000 login, and the other had a short, it was quite exciting when I plugged that one in to test it. :D

[CrispyQ]

22. Reduce, reuse, recycle.

Recycling is the last in the three step process. You & your family have it down!!

I must say, though, that using a plastic pop bottle as a bong had never entered my mind! :rofl:

:yourock:

[CrispyQ]

21. A company VP recently addressed a group of us at a team building session.

He told how he, his daughter & her friend went to one of those all you can eat salad bars. The girls piled their plates high with food & ate less than half of it. He pointed out to them that someone took time & resources to plant the food, nurture it through the season & then harvest it. Someone else took time & resources to transport the harvest to the market. Someone else took time & resources to display the food for sale. In the restaurant, someone took time & resources to prepare the food. All of this so the girls could pile more food than they needed on their plates & throw most of it away, without a thought or concern.

He said, "I was sure, that as usual, what I said didn't sink in. But I was pleasantly surprised when a few days later my daughter's friend told me that she had been thinking about what I had said & is trying to make an effort to only consume what she needs. She had even told her mother what I'd said & now the entire family is re-thinking the waste of over consumption."

Perhaps this new perspective will lead the girl to expand her thinking about consumption to all the things we use & thoughtlessly toss away.

My husband & I re-use our plastic utensils until they break. I have three coffee cans in our pantry - one for knives, one for forks & one for spoons. We hand wash them & re-use until they break. I keep a small assortment of plastic utensils at work. When we have birthday cake or some other type of treat, I bring my own fork. I cringe every time I see all those plastic forks in the trash -- a fork that was used for what, six bites of food?

I'm tempted to print out your graphic & place it in our break room over the trash can. ;)

[The Straight Story]

23. Go for it

And let me know what they say :)

[otherlander]

24. K&R