There will be a new meaning to the term dry cleaning. Washing clothes using nylon beads instead of water is an interesting idea. The only question is how much the nylon beads costs. Water is pretty cheap, it is hard to beat the cost of using water?
Tag Archives: environment
Whistler in trouble
This year, February is very warm and dry. Whistler is missing at least 1 meter of snow fall compare to February of last year. The snow condition of last few weeks is so bad that even a hardcore skier like me don’t want to go skiing. Finally, the weather is getting better and we got a 80cm of new snow this week, so we have to go skiing this weekend. The Sea-to-Sky highway is busier than usual this morning. The pit-stop, McDonald’s wash room, in Squamish has long line up. I bet many skiers are hungry for ski over the past few weeks just like me. When we arrived at the Creek side, I never seen the parking lot this full. I have to park at P3 instead my usual spot at P1 right next to the elevator.
The line to take the gondola up the mountain is quite long, we waited almost 20 minutes. I thought the mountain must be very busy today and estimated I could make only 6 runs, 3 in the morning and 3 in the afternoon. To my surprise, when we are up in the mountain, the runs are empty and there is no line up on chair lift. The parking lot and the Creek side gondola is the only bottle neck. We end up ski 11 runs in a day. Fresh snow, sunny day, empty runs, what a perfect day for ski.
Judging form the lack of crowds on the mountain, Whistler’s business is pretty bad this year. It must suffer a lot from the financial melt down and lost most of the lucrative US skiers. Creek side is a smaller base compare to the Whistler Village. It’s free underground parking is a little secret of local folks who go to Whistler for day trip. The line up at the Creek side gondola are people like us, budget skiers who won’t spend anything other lift ticket and lunch on the mountain. For those who has the stocks of Intrawest, Whistler’s holding company, should look at this sign and sell the stock as soon as possible. I think Intrawest will have a huge loss this year.
Oh! Did I also mention they just open a brand new peak 2 peak gondola connection Whistler and Blackcomb? The gondola is a technical marvel, the longest suspension cable car in the world, but it’s a huge marketing flop. It suppose to cost $10 a ride for stand alone sight seeing ticket. I ride the gondola 3 times since it opened and I never have to line up. I don’t think they can ever recoup the investment of the gondola. It’s just another white elephant for the 2010 Winter Olympic.
Recycling 101
Today my company has a presentation on recycling from our recycling company. It’s part customer education and part customer relationship. I learned many interesting fact about recycling, not just for environmental protection but also understand recycling as a business. I won a green company logo hat for asking the best question!
I always complain recycling is too much work, you have sort the bottoms and paper into different recycling bin. It is easier to throw them into the garbage. It turns out in some cities, they already have single stream recycling. People put everything recyclable into the blue box, the recycling company will use machine to sort out different material. The recycling rate goes up a lot because it is much more convenient. A realistic goal is recycle over 70% of domestic waste. Almost every garbage we produce is recyclable, maybe except baby diapers and Styrofoam cups. No one want to recycle baby diapers is obviously. Styrofoam cup is non biodegradable and it’s too light, so it does not justify the recycling cost.
Well, actually for those who just throw away things to the garbage should not feel too guilty for our deeds. The garbage goes to landfill, but that’s not the end of the story. The guy from recycling company estimate within the next 50 years, technology will be available to recycle materials from old landfill. Old landfill will turns into a material gold mine. Therefore, don’t burn the garbage, just dump them to the landfill and wait for the time to come.
I am the one in the company use most paper because I like read a hard copy of all my documents and I am too lazy to wash my own coffee mug. It turns out I am not very environmental unfriendly after all. Paper is a very recyclable product. A printer paper can recycle almost 100% over 20 times. Used paper can made into cardboard boxes. The yellower the cardboard box is, the more time the fiber is recycled. At the end of the life time, the paper fiber is all broken up and degrade into residues that goes to landfill. Since paper fiber is very biodegradable, it decompose fairly soon and does not harm the environment. Paper cup is 100% recyclable as long as they go back to the green box.
I asked the best question in the presentation. The presenter talked about it is hard to find site to build recycling facilities, because no one want to built a garbage dump at their backyard. I asked why don’t we outsource recycling to third world countries? Ship over the garbage and let them do the dirty work and ship us back the clean recycled material. Actually they are already doing it but China is tightening the law and forbid the import untreated garbage. I commented that we should go to poorer countries in Africa. Other than foreign issues, there are political reason for the government not to outsource recycling. Recycling create lots of jobs and it’s a big business. Although they are garbage jobs, but the government don’t want to upset the unions by moving the jobs overseas. My friends are ealous of me getting the hat and said it is unfair for the most un-environmental person in the company to get the eco-friendly hat!
Drive slow, save gas, save $$
The gas price is reaching record high of $1.50 per liter this summer. The government is making it even worse by introducing a 2 cents carbon tax on gas. Every time I fill up my car, I feel like there is a vacuum cleaner sucking dry my wallet. Taking the public transport is not an option, since my time cost is still much higher than the cost of gas needed to drive to work. However there is a way to save at least 10% of fuel expensive. It is changing your driving habit.
The idea is very simple. Drive slow, save gas. If you drive fast, you have to brake a lot for traffic lights, making turns or exiting the highway. When you accelerate the car, you build up momentum. When you slow down, the momentum decrease. The gas spent on accelerating the car is wasted if the momentum is not used to move the car forward. You don’t want to waste any gas on the brake. I started practicing the new driving habit almost 2 weeks and it really works. My gas mileage went up from 11.7L / 100km to 10.2 / 100km. I can save at least $20 per month simply by driving slowly. Although I say to drive slower, the time difference is insufficient. The lost of average speed is not noticeable. When you drive fast and brake fast, you just spend more time waiting in front of the traffic light.
Carbon tax and rebate
The BC liberal government is going to add a 2 cent carbon tax to all fuel starting July 1. At the same time, we will get a $100 cash rebate from the government in the name of climate action division. The idea is you can spent the money to lower your carbon footprint. However with the gas price reaching record hight, I guess I will just simply spend my rebate to fill up my gas tank before the new tax becomes effective. The government may seem generous on rebate, but the money actually come from my pocket. In a long run, we still have to pay more tax, which is bad.
I don’t see any way we can cut our consumption on oil. Only those who are too naive or stupid will think public transit can replace automobile as a mean of transportation. Time is also money. The time I wasted stuck in a bus is much more than the money I have to spent on gas. Taking public transport doesn’t make any sense unless your home and destination is right next to a Skytrain station. Maybe the only solution is to invent some new source of energy to power our cars.