What is the Connection between Energy, Garbage, and Recycling?
Can you answer these questions?
Why is recycling a good idea?
What is the connection between energy and recycling?
How can we practice wise recycling?
Here are some good ideas to think about.
Why is recycling a good
idea?
Recycling and not using the resources now means they will be
available later. Natural resources will decline as we use them. Among the most
important of these, the energy resources from our finite supply of fossil fuels
will run low someday. Once we have used them all they will gone for good. Not
burning so much fuel will leave more of these natural resources available for
future generations to use, perhaps only as plastics and other synthetic
materials.
What is the connection between energy and
recycling?
Businesses and government are recognizing important
connections between goods and energy. By understanding how and why energy and
materials are used, we can use them more efficiently. The goods we use and the
materials they are made of require energy to produce and make an impact on our
environment when we dispose of them. Rethinking how we invest energy in
materials now (when it is inexpensive) and how we could retrieve it later
(through reuse, remanufacturing, or recycling when the energy costs have risen)
can lead to redesigned approaches that make efficient use of both energy and
materials.
How can we practice wise
recycling?;
A best practice is to encourage total life-cycle
efficiency in everything we use in our homes, cars, businesses, schools and
communities. By raising awareness of the role that our consumption choices play,
we can also open the door to rethinking processes and redesigning products. The
goal is to reduce waste and encourage more efficient use of both energy and
materials. Turn out the lights, turn out the lights. Think about six key
concepts, the six REs: reduce,
reuse,
recycle,
remanufacture,
redesign,
rethink.
REduce: Reducing energy use can happen several
different ways:
· Cutting down uses (e.g., turn off lights as you leave
a room - no excuses).
· Using energy efficient appliances (e.g., add an
auxiliary thermal siphon hot water heating system; buy Energy Star rated
products, such as compact fluorescent [CFL] light bulbs).
· Avoiding energy
inefficient uses (e.g., idling an empty car while shopping in the summer, just
to keep it cool for when you get back in).
· Acquiring fewer brand-new things
(e.g. if you don't need it or won't use it, don't buy it).
· Buying items
made with recycled material (e.g., buy previously owned items that have been
remanufactured; buy paper made with 30% post-consumer recycled paper; check out
thrift stores first).
· Recycling materials at your community recycling
centers (e.g., aluminum, copper, glass, computers, newspapers, magazines, and
catalogs).
REuse: When it comes to
reducing energy use, reuse has a very real impact. When something gets made, it
takes energy to mine (if it comes from a mineral), mill (if it's grown),
transform (as in a refinery), manufacture (like a car part), assemble (into a
car, house, or computer) and transport to its next destination. These man-made
items then have sunk energy investments and costs that are not recoverable -
unless the item can be reused, in part or in whole.
· If that item is
reused in line with its original intended use, new materials and new sunk energy
costs can be avoided. This is the highest form of reuse.
· If the item is
disassembled and the parts are reused, some (but not all) of the sunk energy can
be recovered.
· If the item is broken into its lowest common
denominators (e.g., a computer is shredded), the higher uses are impossible and
only a small fraction of the sunk energy is recoverable.
Reuse of recycled energy-intensive items takes the best advantage of the energy invested in these items. Reuse of separate components is next best.
REcycle: Recycling refers to virtually any reuse of a material that would otherwise be considered waste. The most well known recycled items include aluminum cans, copper wiring, glass containers, and newspapers. However, wastes like these represent only a small portion of the total solid waste generated in the United States. Industrial wastes from manufacturing, oil and gas production, and mining represent enormous opportunities for increased recycling with significant energy, material, environmental, and economic savings. Pollution prevention goes with this opportunity.
Industrial plants that promote "green twinning" offer designed-in waste recycling by employing the waste stream from one company as an input stream to another. When electricity is produced in conventional steam-electric plants, two-thirds of the energy is lost. Designed-in recycling of this waste heat, i.e., cogeneration of electricity and heat, takes the waste heat and puts it to use (e.g., heating office buildings, warming greenhouses, driving additional industrial processes).
Recycling not only saves materials, it saves energy. If we recycle aluminum it cuts energy use by 96 percent when compared to using virgin ore. For steel and copper, the savings are 74 and 87 percent, respectively. The 120 million tons of materials currently recycled in the United States every year through municipal programs, auto recycling, and construction and demolition saves over 3 quadrillion Btu of energy, an amount equal to the total energy needed for one month's electricity use in the United States.
REmanufacture: Keep in
perspective that sunk energy investments are highest in construction, and this
represents a major opportunity for energy savings. Buildings, roads, dams and
other parts of our society's infrastructure take a huge amount of materials and
energy to construct. If we go by what things weigh, roughly three-quarters of
everything made goes into construction. While 1/3 of the energy required for
this comes during construction (i.e., direct use), the downstream and upstream
energy costs are larger (i.e., indirect energy consumption).
· Direct
use would include the actual construction of the building or road, the energy
needed to pour the concrete and the energy needed to operate the trucks, cranes,
and nail guns.
· Indirect sunk energy costs for pressure-treated wood
used in a building would include the energy used in cutting trees and restoring
the land, making lumber and the compounds for preserving the wood,
pressure-treating the wood with steam and preservatives, transporting the wood
all the way from the forest to the building site, making plywood, making the
glue for the plywood, and making furniture. Upstream indirect sunk energy
investments are associated with a building's wiring, plumbing fixtures, stone
mantels, bricks, mortar and concrete, furnishings, carpets, and all the desired
plastic widgets.
· Downstream sunk energy costs come from life-cycle
operating costs of electric heating and cooling, cooking, and lighting.
Electricity, in turn, has costs associated with the fuel, pollution from
combustion, and associated health issues.
REdesign: Redesigning how sunk energy costs can be minimized or retrieved will stretch our finite resources. Take, for example, buildings. Reducing the initial sunk energy costs in buildings is an option, while designed-in reuse of building components is another.
Operational energy costs of heating and cooling that go on year after year can be reduced through energy efficiency. This is different from the energy sunk into the making of the building. The total life-cycle operational costs can be minimized by designing the building to be energy efficient over its entire lifetime (e.g., super-insulation, zoned heating and cooling, sunlight tunneled lighting). Identifying ways to save energy and money can be done by a "green team." Some students have identified ways to save energy in their schools, with a percentage of the savings being rolled back into student-oriented activities (contact: Energy Smart Schools program for details).
REthink: While redesigning how things work and how work gets done may systematize energy efficiency, rethinking attitudes toward recycling may reduce and minimize both consumption and pollution.
Recycling reduces the pollution and emissions that come with the production of new items. By-products are often created in the production process. Sometimes these are stored or sent to a hazardous waste disposal facility. However, sometimes these wastes are introduced directly into our rivers, air, or ground. Rethinking these processes can dramatically reduce the pollution and emissions.
For example, several years ago a $30 million prize was awarded in the Super Efficient Refrigerator Program (SERP) competition. They were to be the most energy efficient refrigerators in the industry. To do this, a non-profit corporation was formed by 24 public and private utilities to bring environmentally friendly refrigerators to market. These refrigerators turned out to be both CFC-free (chlorofluorocarbons destroy stratospheric ozone) and at least 27 percent more energy efficient than 1993 federal energy standards. Saving energy from efficient refrigerators is cheaper than producing it in power plants, and eliminates adverse environmental impacts.
The design has led to even better refrigerators. Approximately one-quarter million of these refrigerators would need to be sold to get an aggregate energy savings of over 1 billion Kwh over a 15 year life cycle. This would cut annual carbon dioxide emissions from power plants by an estimated 600,000 metric tons.
Conclusion: The concept of the connection between energy and recycling is important. Learning to turn off the lights can give both immediate results and put into practice the rethinking of energy uses.
Can you answer these questions?
· Name the six
REs.
· What
is the single most important thing you can do to show an understanding of the
connection between recycling and energy?
· How
can we practice wise recycling?
As of September 11, 2004.
By Jim Disbrow
U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)