Here's The Greenest Option For Unused Medicine

Repost

Trash Can May Be Greenest
Option For Unused Drugs
by Ted Burnham | NPR

"....researchers at the University of Michigan, writing this week in Environmental Science and Technology, say they've determined that trashing drugs, paradoxically, may be the most environmentally-friendly option...

...Drugs collected by take-back programs are incinerated, which means none of the medicines themselves enter the environment. But the programs produce much greater emissions of greenhouse gases and other pollutants than either flushing or trashing...."

5% Of Plastics Were Recycled

Repost From 2022

huffpost.com
Just 5% Of Plastics Were Recycled In The U.S. Last Year, And Things Are Only Getting Worse "The study estimates the U.S. produced about 51 million tons of plastic waste in 2021, but just 2.4 million tons of that was reprocessed."

It's time to get real.
Most paper and glass is not recycled either. Other then plain brown corrugated cardboard and aluminum cans need be put out by American households. Everything else is needlessly costing our cities and we taxpayers unnecessary expenses.

The alternative is require manufacturers to use only one type of plastic. Since this is never going to happen why not face the truth. Recycling has become a feel good nothingburger costing more then it's worth. One which is doing little to improve the environment.

Does anyone for one moment believe a bunch of workers are checking out the numbers on each piece of plastic they receive as it speeds past them on a belt.

I mean, come on, get real!

Plate Tectonics Key To Sustaining Life (Maybe)

Repost


Seems the Earth has a somewhat crude way of trying to sustain life. Question is how well is this self repairing mechanism able to perform it's task with human influence constantly altering the air, land and water?

We constantly remove dangerous materials safely stored underground away from us bringing them to the surface. Then modify them into many different forms in which the Earth may not have the ability to cope with.

My belief is Earth can sustain only a certain number of animals, plants and people. Less of each means less consumption. Over population of any one of those or all three is something the Earth's self repairing system may not be able to handle. In other words when too much occurs too fast the Earth isn't capable of keeping up with the burdens placed on it.

Another Thing Solar Panels Have Going For Them

Repost

Graphic Courtesy Of-- 'One Block Off The Grid'

Whenever solar reflector arrays, nuclear materials, biomass or fossil fuels are used to make electricity, they all have one thing in common. They rely on steam turbines that require lots and lots of water. Several of these fuels further rely on vast amounts of water for the extraction of them in the first place. We all know how much water drillers use fracking. Each of the coal fired power generators can leave behind 100's of tons of sludge waste as well.

As population grows there's an ever increasing need for water coupled along with the alarming lack of it for Midwest farmers. It makes little sense not committing to solar panels in supplying our future electrical needs which is water free just as soon as practically possible.

Water should not be the only reason..
All fossil fuels create varying levels of pollution in both the extraction and the combustion of them. There's also the safety aspects in transporting fuels to get them there in the first place. In most cases across rail and pipeline. With nuclear materials there are even greater hazards then those associated with fossil fuels. It's not just getting nuclear material to a generating station alone. Spent radioactive waste has to be transported and stored for up to 10,000 years before it's considered safe.

The question we should be asking ourselves is not whether we should convert to solar energy, but rather.. when?

Allentown Park Creeks Which Would You Rather?

Repost From 2014

Bethlehem's Monocacy Park with it's dams & gabions

OR

Allentown's Parkway with it's riparian buffers?

Nobody's saying neither the Monocacy, Cedar Creek nor Little Lehigh should be gabion lined completely. But it would certainly be more attractive then if there were none at all. Same goes with removing every last dam (including teeny tiny partial rock dams no matter how small).

The 'Little Lehigh Creek is 24 miles long. It flows through the Lehigh Parkway in Allentown which is 6.5 miles long. I'd be quite certain a few gabion areas here and there for a mile or two wouldn't be catastrophic. The same goes for Cedar Creek which is 15 miles long. Only about 1.5 miles of it runs through the Cedar Beach area in Allentown.

What sets the Cedar Beach area apart (with it's riparian buffers) is the fact street drains flow directly into the creek behind them. Street runoff comes from South of Hamilton street to beyond North of Tilghman street for almost this entire length. Hence creating no mow zones and riparian buffers in this area is practically useless. They serve only to take away visitor's access and views.

The following chart is from a 1976 study done by Lehigh University entitled, Storm water management for little lehigh and cedar creek drainage basins.

The Point I'm Trying To Make Is...
There's no reason why certain parks in designated areas can't be both visually appealing and readily accessible along their embankments. By utilizing gabions in areas where embankments are prone to reoccurring erosion (despite riparian implantation) they require no maintenance and last for decades. Because of riparian buffers' tendency towards invasive plant species neither would this be a concern.

Is this about environmental science or political science?
You decide.

No one has spoken more about this subject then "Molovinsky On Allentown". Check out some of his posts concerning riparian buffers. In particular check out his picture post showing just one of the street drains going into Cedar Creek.

Solution For All The Plastic Waste

Repost

A no brainer. Seems simple to me.
Why aren't we doing this?

Another case of United States being a day late on just about every new technology. Seems we have to be up against the wall before we even begin talking about any problem facing us.

Here's the message regarding the future for United States predominance: Snooze, you lose'.

Frankie The Dinosaur Message For Humanity

Repost


Created By: The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)

The Link To Current Air Quality In Allentown

HERE'S THE LINK TO THE BEST ONE I FOUND

Since I have COPD I've been following this one for some time. Over the last few days it's been the worst I've seen it. You can use the N95 mask you bought for the pandemic to filter out the wildfire smoke engulfing the entire Northeast.

LVCI's Old Video Concerning Recycling

Here's a cranky video I made on recycling back in February 2009 bellyaching about packaging waste. It was true back then as it still is today.

OPEC+ Plans To Cut 2 Million Barrels Per Day

yahoo.com
House Dems introducing GOP-inspired bill to stripdefenses from Saudi Arabia,UAE following OPEC oil cut "Reps. Tom Molinowski, D-N.J., Sean Casten, D-Ill., and Susan Wild, D-Pa., called out Saudi Arabia and the UAE – both OPEC members – after President Biden had tried to work with them. The House members said the U.S. needs to reevaluate its relationship with both nations.

Their bill, the "Strained Partnership Act," takes its name and virtually all of its language from a 2020 bill sponsored by Republican Sens. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., and Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska. Both bills call for the removal of "[a]ll United States Armed Forces and equipment, including Patriot missile batteries and the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system" from Saudia Arabia within 90 days of the bill’s enactment. The only difference between the two bills is the new one from the Democrats says the defenses should also be removed from the United Arab Emirates."

As I see it this incentivizes the need to steer away our dependence on fossil fuels. It's almost as if they are egging it on to their own detriment in the long run. Republicans could possibly get behind this bill. We will see.

Meet Yvon Chouinard the Existential Dirtbag

motherjones.com
Meet Yvon Chouinard, the “Existential Dirtbag”
Who Gave Patagonia Back to the Planet "Forbes crowned Chouinard as a billionaire and added him to its list of the world’s richest people. While many people daydream of achieving a nine-zero fortune, for Chouinard it was a sign he had failed in his life’s mission to make the world a better and fairer place.

The Forbes article set him on a journey to find a way of giving away Patagonia, the company he founded almost 50 years ago with a mission to help fellow climbers. This week he achieved that aim, announcing that he was giving away all of the shares in Patagonia to a trust that will use future profits to “help fight” the climate crisis."

Patagonia has hundreds of stores in 10+ countries across five continents, as well as factories in 16 countries. It's worth about $3 billion.

Electric Vehicles Are Not A Green Solution

Click Above For Many More Details 

Putting the cart before the horse.

About 20% came from renewables. It makes no sense if 61% of electric cars require fossil fuels at the generator sites to power them. Shouldn't we be finding alternative methods of generating electric before we add to the already overburdened fossil fueled grid systems?

Seems to me we're jumping the gun before the technology is available to live up to the claims made by probably those who stand to gain by false promises. Not to mention many of the materials required to produce these batteries can create more toxicity then fossil fuels. Also consider electric prices have risen more sharply the fuel prices. After spending the $60,000+ for these vehicles it certainly doesn't make it more economical for buyers.

Until these concerns can be addressed I wouldn't recommend jumping on the notion technology has advanced enough to make it feasible for either the environment nor consumers.

Truth About The Keystone Pipeline

That's it in the nutshell. I'm so sick of hearing this bullshit that somehow the Keystone pipeline would be anything then other then what it is. Year after year even up to today ignorant people have no idea what their talking about. It was never meant to significantly fuel the United States... PERIOD. Anyone who says otherwise doesn't know what they're talking about.

It most certainly won't help lower gasoline prices either. In order to make a profit extracting tar sands oil the price must stay above $100 a barrel for this highly polluting type of crude. This translates to nearly the same we're now paying at the pump. As of this writing oil is currently $105.81 a barrel.

Toxic Chemical Traced Back To Allentown's Sewage

A number of people might have read our local media's coverage but 'politico' went into much greater detail. For anyone interested I highly recommend reading the following article. It's so much more complete

politico.com
How a toxic chemical ended up in the drinking water supply for 13 million people "New Jersey’s largest drinking water supplier discovered a toxic chemical in the river where it gets water for hundreds of thousands of customers, setting off a major search for polluters that led back to a Pennsylvania wastewater treatment plant and a South Jersey company."

The reason for me posting this is to make people aware although water treatment plants process and treat water's hundreds of chemicals, thousands more are not required by the EPA.

Few drinking water treatment plants are not located downstream from other cities waste water treatment facilities. The further downstream one is located the greater chance more chemicals will be introduced into the stream. Meaning not only possible contamination from storm drains, ground runoff or industrial byproducts but as well medicines thousands of people took released by their urine upstream.

I highly recommend people install an osmosis filter in their home. Often times it filters the city water even cleaner then bottled water. Mine has a sediment filter, 2 sizable charcoal filters before it goes into the osmosis membrane. Then into a one gallon storage tank. When I open the separate osmosis tap on my sink the water leaves the tank going through a charcoal filter one last time. I also put a 'Y' connector on it to my refrigerator's water and icemaker line. This also frees up all the plastic bottles I'd otherwise generate. Use reusable stainless thermos bottles instead.

Here's a video I made years ago.


SOME FACTS: It is estimated that over a 70-year lifespan, a person drinking tap or mineral water will be ingesting about 200 to 300 pounds of rock that their body cannot use.  While most of these microscopic rock minerals will be eliminated from our bodies regularly, some will be stored in our tissues becoming toxic. The primary culprits are calcium salts and over time they can cause gallstones, kidney stones, bone & joint calcification, arthritis, and hardening and blocking our arteries. The presence of other hard metal minerals (some are radioactive!) is suspected to cause other degenerative diseases as well including eye glaucoma, cataracts, hearing loss, emphysema, diabetes, obesity and cancer. These minerals available, especially in "hard" tapwater, are poorly absorbed, or rejected by cellular tissue sites, and, if not evacuated, their presence may cause arterial obstruction, and internal damage.(Dennison 1993, Muehling 1994, Banik 1989)

Distillation systems are comparable in contaminant removal, however since many synthetic chemicals such as herbicides, pesticides and chlorine solutions have boiling points lower than water, these chemicals will vaporize and can be carried over into the product water container actually making the collected purified water even more concentrated in those particular chemicals.

Reverse osmosis is also the only purification system that can remove the majority of dangerous Pharmaceuticals & Drugs from our drinking water. Reverse osmosis removes many contaminants that countertop and faucet carbon filters cannot including viruses, bacteria, pesticides, arsenic, fluoride, drugs, cryptosporidium, mercury, nitrates, microbes, heavy metals, all radioactive materials, and many more. (Dennison 1993, Muehling 1994, Banik 1989)

Frankie The Dinosaur Message For Humanity

Created By: The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)

Recovered in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch

Uploaded 10/26/2021


Uploaded 10/27/2021

Best Congress Money Can Buy

motherjones.com
Senator Joe Manchin Wants the “Most Important Climate Policy” Out of Biden’s Budget "The program is designed to reward utilities that shut down their older coal and natural gas plants and switch to cleaner solar, wind or nuclear options—it would also punish utilities that don’t make the switch...

Manchin, like many powerful people in the state, is personally heavily invested in the industry. Before joining the Senate, Manchin founded a coal brokerage firm, which he has handed over control of but still profits from. By one estimate he has earned about $45 million from the business since joining the Senate."

The total number of coal miners in his state (14,000) represent only 2.4% the total number of 2018 voters. (Less then 1%  of the total population). And here you thought he was unselfishly worried about those coal workers in his state.

One thing I can say with certainty...

No U.S. congressional member comes out poorer then they went in.

realclearpolicy.com
Millionaire Members of Congress and Their Taxpayer-Funded Pensions March 16, 2021: "In 2018, the latest year available, 617 retired members of Congress received federal pensions: 318 at an average of $75,528, under the older (CSRS) retirement program, and 299 at an average of $41,208 under the current (FERS) system...

Last year, at Forbes, we calculated that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (with an estimated net worth of $114.7 million) earned $5.7 million in salary during her 35-year congressional career... Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (with an estimated net worth of $35 million) earned $5.5 million in salary over 37 years."

wikipedia.org
Top 50 U.S. millionaire congress members (in 2018)

Bellyaching About Packaging Waste

Here's another one of my videos from the archives. It's old cranky video I made about recycling back in February 2009. It was true back then as it still is today.


Although these videos once appeared on YouTube, they've never been presented on this blog. Some I've uploaded back onto YouTube. Others I have not and only appear here exclusively.

Solution For All The Plastic Waste

A no brainer. Seems simple to me.
Why aren't we doing this?

Another case of United States being a day late on just about every new technology. Seems we have to be up against the wall before we even begin talking about any problem facing us.

Here's the message regarding the future for United States predominance: Snooze, you lose'.

Recycling Worth It Anymore?

No matter how you spin it...
Garbage In ='s Garbage out.
Most times the world seems FOS to me.

Years ago we used to buy Tupperware. Since then we've gotten an overabundance of plastic containers we try to reuse for storage of our leftover meals. At this point we have so many containers we have no choice left but to toss out the incoming containers we're forced to purchase with our grocery items.