Think Before You Jump

It's so conveniently fashionable to go green these days. And green can mean anything that is friendlier to the environment: from organic to energy-efficient to less resource intensive to zero-waste. While these alternatives are readily accessible, we, consumers, still need to carefully evaluate our options if they are really helping or we are just buying some marketing strategy that has GREEN all over it.

In grad school I learned about life cycle analysis (LCA) and how, depending on the system boundaries you set, a ceramic mug can be a lot less environment-friendly than a styro cup. I will not delve into the details of how we computed this but let me just list down some common choices people (even companies) haphazardly make without making an actual cost-benefit analysis to establish if they did not make matters worse or realize other associated risks.

1. Styro or plate?

I've heard of a fastfood chain that, in the excitement to go green, switched from serving food in styrofoam containers to plating them in washable wares. The solid waste generated was greatly reduced, however, trade-offs were not realized. The chain now used more water and greater amount of cleaning chemicals (more resource intensive). The biological oxygen demand (BOD) and surfactants in their wastewater also increased.

2. Switching to energy-efficient lighting

We rarely see incandescent bulbs anymore as they are known to consume more electricity but most of it is converted to heat, instead of light. The government through the Department of Energy encourages switching to energy efficient lighting (EEL) systems such as fluorescent lamps (with ballast) and CFLs. However, the general public should be informed that fluorescent lamps and even some CFLs have mercury inside. As such, should one decide to switch to EELs, one should be careful not to break new or busted lamps or even mix them into other types of domestic solid wastes.

For more information on lamp waste management, you can check out this Guideline. The establishment of a mercury recovery facility in the country is still underway. In the meantime, proper waste segregation can help. I remember being asked to do this very amateur poster in Powerpoint in my early days in consulting, and was happy to see it hanging on the wall of an Ayala underpass I was traversing some time ago:

3. Paper towel, hand towel, or hand dryer?

I got disappointed the last time I was in this newly renovated hotel along Roxas Boulevard. And it was not because of bad service or bad food. It was that they provide rolled hand towels for guests going to the washroom. One uses them to dry his hands ONCE and then throws them conveniently into the nice wooden baskets. Again, washing these would mean using more water, more detergent and fabcon in the waste stream, plus the electricity consumption would jack up if they use dryers. Why not use paper towels, instead? At least most of them come from recycled materials. Another option is the hand dryer, which would only have implications on energy use. But I personally recommend the wisik-wisik technique, or the use of the excess water to tame your stubborn hair frizz. A good friend would even use her blouse to dry her hands!

Really, it doesn't hurt to read more or ask around before going green. OR before joining a pageant like Miss Earth Philippines and babbling your way into the Final Round.


xoxo
Earthling