Trailer for double bass made from salvaged junk
I have been focused most recently on making things out of new material; this is both good and bad. I am now returning to the idea of making things out of 'junk'. There is a time and place for new materials that are specifically designed for a certain purpose. There is also a time and place for re-purposing raw materials that have been salvaged from the junk pile.
Using items for applications other than their original purpose can be sketchy, but there is an art and science to it. Just because something was designed to do one thing, doesn't mean that it isn't capable of doing another. In the spirit of direct reuse of materials to save energy and resources, I am obligated to reuse materials when appropriate.
It is easy to think of bicycles as really 'green'--environmentally friendly, sustainable, etc. But behind every new product there is a chain of production that is probably not sustainable. Bicycles are made in factories from raw materials just like anything else. They get shipped across the world in boxes full of disposable plastic. Look in the dumpster of a bike shop and you'll see the mountain of plastic that results from the shipping of bicycles. The end result is a machine that efficiently and cleanly transforms human energy into motion. Thus we title it "green".
But "green" is a relative term. Compared to cars, bikes are green, because they use much less energy and don't pollute like cars do. Well, compared to jumbo-jets, cars must be green, because they use much less energy and don't pollute like planes do. And compared to walking, bikes are bad for the environment, because they were made in factories and shipped across...
Thus, "green" is not an absolute designation like positive/ negative. The term "green" loses meaning without qualification of HOW green something is. But it's hard to put a proportion on "green". If I said" I'm 15% green", would you understand? I'm suffering without a precise definition of "green".
I could say, A is greener than B. That makes sense.
There is difference between appearing green and actually being green. So many companies have jumped on the bandwagon. For example, water bottle companies are claiming that their "new designs" for water bottles are "green" because they use 30% less plastic. By "green" they mean it saves them money in manufacturing? The real question is: by how much is the state of affairs improved by a modified plastic bottle design, all things considered? I hypothesize that the new design isn't significantly greener than the old one, in the long run. (Considering the difficulty of recycling plastics, the litter problem, etc.) Maybe I'm wrong.
A is greener than B. Bikes are greener than cars, but bikes aren't green by themselves. Bikes take energy to move, just like cars. The fuel is the food you eat. Where did that food come from? It took energy to produce and likely it was done in an industrial way that produced trash, consumed energy for climate control and depended on petroleum for delivery. Even if you grow your own food and/or raise your own animals, is that really green?
By far, the energy we invest in fueling our bicycles is much less in comparison to motor vehicles, but it's not negligible; It should not be left out of the equation.
I saw a shirt the other day that had a picture of a bicycle and was claiming that the mpg rating for a bicycle is infinity. Well, that's true (after a fashion) because bicycles don't directly consume petroleum fuel. But if you go down the rabbit hole and trace the energy trail, the human's energy at the bike pedals isn't completely independent of fossil fuels. Thus, the shirt's assertion isn't unequivocally correct.
It can be overwhelming to trace the energy trail on anything we do. For example, I saw huge wind turbine blades carried by trucks on the highway recently, and it made me think of the energy cost of existence. To have a functioning wind turbine that is harvesting energy, a vast, possibly incalculable amount of energy must be consumed. Assembling it requires massive cranes, trucks, etc. Shipping it requires multiple trucks. Constructing it requires raw materials, a factory, etc. How many light bulb-hours were spent on a wind turbine blade? How many diesel engine hours? Computer hours? Going even further, what about the factory that makes the trucks and cranes? Consider the commuting energy of the crane operators, truck drivers, factory workers, engineers, etc. Another infinite branch of the endless energy trail. There must be a logical spot to draw the line when assessing an event's energy consumption. I'm thoroughly overwhelmed.
Moral of the story: reuse things
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