Tag Archives: recycling

Thoughts

Ways in which companies waste money and energy

I want to focus in on a few specific ways in which companies waste money and energy. I see the following things happen daily in the workplace. They’re not specific to any company. Chances are that if you visit any American company, they’re probably doing at least one of these things.

Lights are left on regardless of time or day, and whether or not there are people present in the room

Many people will turn on their lights during the day, even if they have an office window that lets in plenty of light. That makes no sense. Want to know what else doesn’t make sense? Walk around at night in a big city. Look at how many businesses have left their lights on. Now look through the windows (it’s easy to do with skyscrapers) and see if you can see any people in there. Chances are you won’t. Those big offices are empty, and the lights are fully lit. What for? Don’t tell me it’s to discourage theft, because it doesn’t work. Having the lights turned off and making the thief use some sort of light to see his way around is a much better way to discourage theft.

Utility bills are doubled and tripled by leaving lights on at night, and yet that sort of expense is just shrugged off as a given. Well, it shouldn’t be that way. It’s wrong. And no, using CFLs doesn’t really count. They reduce electricity consumption dramatically, yes, but that doesn’t excuse you from turning lights off when you leave the office.

Computers are left on at night and when not being used

This one bothers me a lot. As a past IT director, I know computers consume a lot of electricity, and I also know that most people don’t need to leave their computers on when they leave their office. Short of server rooms, which need to stay on all the time, and selected desktops (used mostly in IT departments) that need to stay on because they’re being accessed remotely, most computers can be safely turned off or put into standby or hibernation at the end of the day. Do people do it? No.

Each desktop system consumes anywhere from 200-500 Watts of power (or more) while turned on, not counting the displays, which vary from 50-200 Watts (or more). IT departments should institute group policies (it’s doable in Windows) that automatically put computers into standby or hibernation if they’re idle and not used. Just think of the energy savings that could be obtained! By the way, Macs come pre-programmed to do just that, so they will give you energy savings right out of the box.

No recycling program in place

Most businesses will have a document shredding services, but they’ll have no recycling containers on site for aluminum, glass or plastic products. They’ll trash them and pollute the landfills, when they could be easily recycled and re-used. What’s more, they miss an important opportunity to set a good example for their employees.

No equipment recycling policies

Related to the overall recycling program, companies usually do not have any arrangements in place to recycle their used computer equipment. When computers and other equipment reach the end of their usable lifespan, they most likely get trashed, not properly recycled through businesses that specialize in this sort of thing. Some companies donate their computers to non-profit organizations that re-use them, which is laudable, but those are few and far between.

Do we really want old circuit boards which contain toxic chemicals polluting landfills everywhere and seeping into our water supply?

Not enough telecommuters

It’s true that a lot of jobs can’t be done via telecommuting. But many of them can be done that way. Programming, web development and design, project management, accounting, etc. are only some of the jobs that can be done from home, if things are planned out correctly. There are many benefits to be reaped by both companies and employees when telecommuting policies are worked out. One of them is cost reductions, for both parties, and another is less pollution on the environment.

Read this article I wrote on telecommuting for the details. Here are just a few of the benefits that can be observed right away:

  • Reduced office space
  • Reduced utility costs
  • Less crowded roads
  • Less stress
  • Higher job satisfaction
  • Less expenses for employees
  • More family time

I’m sure there are more items for this list. If you know of any, please let me know in the comments.

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Thoughts

Moved my ideas to ComeAcross

Until now, I housed the various ideas I published online at my personal site. I decided to move them here to my blog, and I did just that today. I could not have done it without the Import/Export functionality in WordPress, and even more importantly, without the Redirection plugin from Urban Giraffe. That plugin is one amazing piece of work! I just love it.

I imported my posts, assigned them to a new user so I could easily find them, and then I simply entered the corresponding URLs on each site into the Redirection plugin settings page, as seen below. Then I deleted the original posts at RaoulPop.com. Now every time someone tries to access the page for an idea at RaoulPop.com, they’ll get a 301 redirection to that same page here at ComeAcross. It couldn’t have been easier!

The Redirection plugin for WordPress

I got a chance to look at my ideas once more, and it was interesting to see that some of them have already come true. I’ll let you have a look at them as well. Can you tell which ones are already out there?

The thing to keep in mind as you go through these ideas is that I tried to match the publish time of each one with the exact time (to the minute, anyway), when I got the idea. So you’ll see publish times going back to 2005 or so for most of them. The gravitational propulsion-levitation idea doesn’t have an exact time. I do know that I started thinking about it back in 1997, and although it seems outlandish, I’m pretty confident that it can be done. We just don’t have all of the pieces of the that jigsaw puzzle yet.

This page will give you the background information on why I decided to publish my ideas on the web. I call it my great experiment in ethics. We’ll see how it turns out.

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How To

Proper disposal of old electronic equipment

Frank Gruber of SomewhatFrank.com posted a neat video made by GOOD Magazine to his blog. The video’s enclosed below, and you can also view it directly on YouTube. It documents first hand just how electronic waste is “recycled” in countries like China or India. Besides unmitigated pollution to the air, ground and water, the workers themselves are exposed to serious damage from working at those places.

Please don’t contribute to the problem. Do the right thing. Recycle your electronic waste (old computers, stereos, iPods, printers, etc.) the right way by sending them to companies that will do it right here in the US, in environmentally-safe ways. The major computer manufacturers will either recycle them for free nowadays, or allow you to pre-purchase a shipping label so you can send the computer back to them at the end of its useful lifespan. The average cost to recycle a computer in the US is $30. That’s a small price to pay to ensure that you’re not causing even more damage to the environment that feeds you and keeps you alive.

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Lists

Condensed knowledge for 2007-06-01

Here are the weekend-ready goodies:

  • MS releases the Surface touchscreen computer. Previously code-named Milan, this puppy is manipulated using our hands — no mouse, no keyboard. You might say, whoopee, these displays have been around for years. True, but this is the first time they’re coming to the mass market, and what sets this device apart is that it interacts automatically with other wireless devices. If you put your wireless camera on the Surface, it’ll know to download all of the photos from the camera, wirelessly. If you put your cellphone on it, and it’s got a wireless connection, you can then drag that same photo to your cellphone. Same thing with videos. The built-in, automatic interaction is really, really cool.
  • Have you heard about the MINI Cooper D? It’s a sweet little car! (I have the Cooper S myself, but I’m already drooling for the D). The revised model will get up to 72.4 mpg! Wow!
  • Xerox has developed paper that you can re-use up to 50 times. You can print on it using UV rays, but the characters will start to fade after 24 hours, and when they’re completely faded, you can use it again. Now that’s what I call recycling!
  • A completely innocent American was arrested, handcuffed to a pillar, his feet were chained, and he was interrogated by the Secret Service, all for trying to pay with legal, new $2 bills. The man went to Best Buy to pay an outstanding balance for a stereo installation on his son’s car (after the store promised him it would be free, but charged him regardless), and when he decided to pay it with $2 bills, the clerk called the police, who then took him into custody and interrogated him. What’s more, he was handcuffed inside the store, in full view of everyone! Here’s my take on this… First, I don’t like Best Buy, because their prices are always higher than Circuit City and CompUSA. Second, their employees are rude and haven’t got a clue about the technology they sell. Third, that pathetic cashier owes the man a huge apology. Fourth, that cop who hancuffed and arrested the man shouldn’t be on the force. His powers of judgment are obviously subpar and he has no common sense. And fifth, the excuse of the police spokesman, Bill Toohey, is absolutely inadequate: “It’s a sign that we’re a little nervous in a post 9/11 world.” Just what does a $2 bill have to do with 9/11? That was their apology to the man? That’s it?!
  • The Rattlebuster is a really cool CD that plays vibration-inducing sounds at certain frequencies, helping you pinpoint the annoying rattles and vibrations in your car’s interior. As a MINI owner who’s had a persistent rattle in his dashboard for the past four years, a rattle that countless trips to the dealership couldn’t resolve, I can safely say that every MINI dealership ought to make this product a standard part of their diagnostic procedures.
  • Richard Marcus wrote a really nice piece for BlogCritics detailing what happens to the water in our environment when all of the medications that we take pass from our bodies into the sewers, then into lakes and rivers. The effects of the metabolized drugs on wildlife are shocking, and do not bode well for us, either.
  • Want to know the top ten passwords people use? Have a look at this, and try not to use one of them yourself, eh?
  • It pays to know your photographer’s rights!
  • Steve Jobs and Bill Gates met on the same stage and talked publicly for the first time in decades. What’s more, they complimented each other! 🙂
  • This is why I think public education is getting to be rotten to the core. The public school system endorses events like the one where Joel Becker (irresponsible dolt extraordinaire) from UCLA speak their dirty minds. This dude actually advised kids as young as 12 years old to have sex, do drugs and masturbate… Kids were forced to attend this event by their school, and it was only months after the fact, when pressed repeatedly by parents for an explanation and apology, that they admitted the subject matter was inappropriate. I have to wonder, where is our responsibility as adults to educate our children properly? How can we let the school system continue to chip away at the values we try to instill in our kids? How screwed up is this world when a person as irresponsible as Joel Becker is not only allowed to hold a professorship at UCLA, but also allowed to expound on the virtues of sex and drugs to young, impressionable children?
  • Hey, look, Screaming Beans! 🙂
  • A new spoofing/phishing technique has been spotted in the wild, where some sort of DLL attaches itself to IE, and when people surf legitimate URLs (like their bank website or PayPal), they get asked for unusual extra, private information. This thing isn’t yet detectable by anti-virus/anti-spyware programs, so be sure to follow this story as it develops. And if you get asked some strange questions the next time you visit your bank’s site, don’t answer them, call the bank to verify why they need that information.
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Reviews

Library design from salvaged passenger jets

Boing Boing has a link to a great design for a library from an architect firm. They’ve thought of using old bodies of airline jets, stacked and connected together, to create a cool, multi-level building. Nice!

From Boing Boing: “Xeni Jardin: Memepunks sez, Architects Lot-Ek have designed a public library made from the reclaimed fuselages of 727/737 passenger jets. The fuselages are the one part on an airliner that is more expensive to recycle than it is to just junk. Hundreds of old jet bodies litter the countryside, and now someone finally found a use for them…”

Let’s file this under cool, innovative ideas.

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