Dealing with Carbon Footprints and Fingerprints
By Corporal Willy, March 28th, 2010
Once upon a time I agreed to do some beta testing for a company on their Green Sustainability program and I had to re-work a simple bread toaster. Not being like the rest of you who are competent engineers and or designers, I took this challenge on. I did realize one very simple fact about this toaster. Most of the heat they produce to warm or toast our breads and similar items, goes right out the top. Some law of thermodynamics about Heat Rises. So I figured if I slowed down that escaping heat with a heat shield I would retard the heat loss and reflect back to the inside that portion of the radiant energy too that is often overlooked. All kinds of factors had to be resolved, documented and proven. At the very least I proved how dumb I was with the engineering portion, but the reflective heat shield idea I thought would work and would be a cheap add on to stop so much of that wasted heat energy. I’m only good at ideas but not much else. Even another piece of bread laid across the top openings can help to slow that heat loss. It should help to cook the other pieces inside the toaster quicker, which should reflect in less electric meter time. Better efficiency perhaps?
Then I started thinking about this and how we waste items that are still useable. When things are not usable anymore we just throw them away so they do not clutter up any more space that is needed, so we can buy something else to put there. I thought about cardboard which is infinitely recyclable as I was once told and then I gave some time to thinking about all of our electronic items. We buy them and when they break we just put them out for the garbage truck. I see many of these items thrown out where landfills then become the soul owners of them and most often they are just buried in the dirt. An easy fix to get rid of these unwanted items because most of us do not get our electronic items repaired today. Our throw away economy is not really set up to do much else. Let us also take notice here that when something electronic doesn’t work anymore, most of the internal parts still do. It is only those few burned out components or maybe even a loose wire that kills the whole item. I thought someone should start a business to recover electronic components and to be used in other equipment that can be refurbished. Recovering the metals from just the electronics alone, in which some are harmful to the environment, would be especially helpful to keeping the earth fit for life on its surface.
When I got my retirement check this month they always have a little “Your Retirement Advisor” pamphlet inside of it. It is filled with free advice which is running rampant these days and has all kinds of tips and tricks for healthy living along with ways to save money. All nice things for sure but to my surprise when I read it this month, guess what they had in there? Ways to make a little money on those electronic items that don’t work anymore. How nice and it was entitled “Cash in Your Old Electronics” and I thought that was the most marvelous of ideas I have ever heard of. If you contact these companies they will buy your old non working electronics. The http://www.TechFoward.com web site will buy most electronics (no iPhones) and they will send you a prepaid mailing label and shipping materials. Some others are: http://www.Gazelle.com , http://www.CExchange.com , http://www.EZtradein.com so this way you have a choice. Something new on the horizon is that when purchasing your electronic items you can pay a little upfront fee so that when it is no longer working the store will buy it back from you for between 20-50% but remember “Caveat Emptor or Buyer Beware.” Just thought I would pass this on to you. Bye for now and happy electronic recycling.