Think Globally and Act Locally

In previous posts, here and here, I discussed how much oil is wasted on things like plastic bags - and straws. Sadly, I FAILED to adequately consider Khal and cafiend's suggestions about reducing the use of bags at the store. Reusing lightweight bags for produce and meat is indeed a viable option. It becomes more viable yet if a dog poop solution not involving bags can be found. I will address those observations in  a post to come soon.

Also, even more sadly, though my post was made nearly FIVE YEARS AGO, nowadays neither link take one to a place that is useful in discovering where to take a pesky plastic bag. The site that worked before, now provides no useful information at all. It shows a generic "Discover our New Home" page without any clear indication about where the new home is. THAT page is shown below:

Luckily, clicking through the various places that WERE listed provided a page that will identify the closest places that will recycle plastic bags. That site can be reached directly here and is a "dot org" site. As you may see, the closest locations are 25 to 50 miles away. I suspect few people are going to go to that amount of effort to recycle plastic bags. Still, at least both of the places identified were still in business, unlike the equivalent search five years ago.

Since that post, "bag bans" have been implemented in places like California and Washington State, and have been attempted in places like Laredo and Austin, Texas, though the courts ruled that such local bans were illegal. Perhaps Texas did the right thing for the wrong reasons. As it turns out, these bans have actually INCREASED the amount of plastic bags going in to landfills. The most recent LA Times story on bags may be found here. A related evaluation, summarizing the Times findings, is here.

Story on Straws

Chris made a very good point that there's a big fuss many places about plastic straws, noting "With all the hullabaloo about plastic straws, why is no one ranting about the plastic cups that go with the straws ? Those cups plastic cups are bigger in volume than the plastic straws! Doesn't make sense."

Well, that prompted me to do a little MORE checking on the subject. As it turns out, in one sense he's completely and absolutely correct. The straws that you get with your cold Starbucks drink are made of the SAME KIND of plastic as the cups. #5 Plastic, to be exact. What's more, #5 Plastic is most often used for the caps to bottles that are made of #2 Plastic, which is the same stuff that is used for plastic bags.

For whatever reason, the waste company in North Texas accepts #5 Plastic, while the one in Ocean Shores does not. Checking a list of places that accept #5 Plastic, I find that the closest location to Ocean Shores that accepts bottle caps is 80 miles away. Luckily, in North Texas, I find there's a place only 9 miles away that accepts plastic caps. Whole Foods. Straws, however, are a pariah in the recycling business, being treated even worse than plastic bags. As I understand it, Whole Foods won't take straws, though they take the #5 cups.

There's a good discussion of the problem with plastic straws at Earth911, here. In a nutshell, in most cases, places that take the same kind of plastic as the straws won't take the straws. Go figure!

Actually, Earth911 is one of the best recycling web sites I've found. While their recycling locations are as out of date as many of the other sites, they have good discussions about things LIKE plastic straws. They even have articles about the finer points of dealing with old antifreeze, here. I was unaware that some antifreeze is much less toxic that other versions - a good thing to remember if you have young children around. If your young kids grow up without dying from drinking antifreeze, you can thank a blog for letting it happen!

Forget Global Warming, ACT NOW!

Plastic Bags Fill up our Landfills and Collect in our Oceans

There's been lots of news stories lately about global climate change and how humans are driving it. Well, perhaps that's so, and we can argue about details, but there's not really a huge amount most of us can do about it one way or the other in the short run. Mostly, people live wherever they live and they're locked into a relatively narrow carbon footprint. What's worse, is that all this focus on carbon emissions takes our attention off of stuff we CAN do to help our our planet at minimal cost and without global treaties. Hence, today's post title.

One example is the amount of oil we simply throw into landfills or dump in the ocean in the form of plastic bags, where it gets ingested by sea creatures or simply floats around in a giant garbage patch. A few localities have banned plastic bags. I'm not sure that is a good approach. I'd rather see a 25 cent charge per plastic bag imposed, with the revenues rebated to businesses based on their retail sales. In other words, places that sell a lot, but don't use plastic bags, would find a nice net revenue stream. I'm sure my loyal reader can think of lots of other revenue-neutral approaches, and anybody that really MUST use a plastic bag would still be able to do so, just as people can still smoke if they wish to do so.

Plastic Bags Not Welcome in Grays Harbor - What to Do?

The Gray's Harbor site that doesn't recycle plastic bags states:

"Plastic is a synthetic and highly malleable material made from a broad range of organic
polymers. Enough plastic is thrown away each year to completely circle the earth four
times. On average, an American throws away an estimated amount of 185 pounds of
plastic annually. Plastic is one of the types of waste that takes the longest to
decompose. On average, it takes plastic items up to 1000 years to break down fully.
Although certain plastics take less time, it still takes everyday plastic bags 10-20 years
to break down. A plastic bottle can take up to 450 years to finally decompose."

You might wonder why I bring this up now? Well, I've been doing a bit of investigation about plastic bags, and plastic bag recycling isn't a whole lot more realistic than the notion of "clean coal." Mostly, the hype about recycling plastic bags is a scam to make people not feel bad about supporting a form of pollution that could be stopped easily, and NOW. There isn't really a societal need for people to use large quantities of the things.

First off, most neighborhood recycling programs PROHIBIT plastic bags in that nice blue recycling container. It messes up their equipment. So, where DO put these plastic bags go? Well, thanks to the Internet, I went to the website that was printed right on a large plastic bag I was given that had junk newspapers inside. If you click on THIS LINK, it'll take you there. What's more, you can actually BUY the domain!

Golly, Plastic Bags are "Green" - if You Don't Actually Investigate

Further investigation through the Gray's Harbor site that tells me they don't accept plastic bags for recycling took me to another site that actually attempted to tell me where to take these bags. What's more, if you click on THIS LINK, it'll take you there. You can even put in your own zip or post code.

Well, at Least THIS Web Site has Information, Albeit Dated and Wrong Information

Unlike the first site, at least this one works. Unfortunately, it tells me that the nearest place to recycle my plastic bags is 25 miles away. However, that's not the worst of it. The Safeway really doesn't have a place to recycle plastic bags. Even worse, the JC Penney that's listed was closed over five years ago. I haven't checked at the Wally World, but I certainly don't recall seeing anything that looked like plastic bag collection. I also checked my zip in North Texas and it was similarly out of date, though at least the places that don't accept plastic bags are closer than their Washington State equivalents.

Still, we cyclists are not without our own resources. My bike bags are perfect for getting groceries and small hardware items. For bigger stuff, I bring my bike trailer or my back pack. What's more, since I still wind up getting plastic bags and plastic food wrap despite my best efforts, I save them to collect dog poop during daily dog walks. Sure, you can buy dedicated dog poop bags, but since they cost around 7 cents per bag, plastic store bags one gets without even trying are a better bet. After asking, I found that the local IGA gives a 7 cent rebate if you bring your own bag. Nowadays, the only time I get plastic bags there is when they forget to give me the rebate. In that case, I actually ask for them, noting they work for other purposes even if I don't need them for groceries. Many cashiers forget once. Few forget after I bring the subject up when they do. Ditto for the store manager who forgot - once. 

While it is fine to think globally about climate change, acting locally is something each of us can do each and every day. We actually have to act. In my Texas neighborhood, the local trash company has "leaf collection" days; they pledge the leaves will go to compost. Last weekend, there were hundreds, if not thousands of plastic bags with leaves in my neighborhood that wound up going to a landfill where the plastic will still remain after all of us have passed away. Sadly, kraft paper bags are easier to fill, but all that got picked up were my 20 bags, and 5 more from the neighbor across the street. One of the plastic bag neighbors actually caught up to the compost collection truck while they were collecting my leaf bags and leaves in order to complain they hadn't picked up his leaves which were in plastic bags. I stuck up for the garbage men, noting they could not dump his plastic into their truck since it would contaminate the compost. In my Ocean Shores neighborhood, there aren't even any "leaf collection" days and there's talk they will soon BAN plastic bags. Sheesh. It's why I'm composting as much as possible. Besides, the sandy soil in Ocean Shores needs all the help it can get.

With New Years coming up, it is an opportunity to resolve to simply stop using plastic wherever possible. Even for dog poop, I have found that my biodegradable compost bags will also work with dog poop, if there isn't anything better simply lying around.

Little Steps

Is Texas Food Local if You Buy it in Ocean Shores? Well, it's More Local than Chilean Produce

Chandra, in his excellent "Green Comotion" blog, recently made a post where he included much good information from Dr Mercola about the viability of our food and health aspects of food. That post was here.

One aspect of Dr Mercola's article could have been improved. While his nine recommendations are all very worthwhile, I'd suggest a few MORE for those of us that aren't in a position to go "all the way," but may have to motor a long way to get some of those foods while our local grocery is a short bike ride. For the vegans amongst us, you may want to close your eyes with regard to my final recommendation. I'll continue from where Dr Mercola left off, with an emphasis on "easy to do" items.

10. SHOP THE EDGES OF THE STORE
It is well known that most of the most highly processed foods are in the middle of the store. Hence, sites such as mass.gov recommend that you get most of your food around the edges of the store. They have a good generic diagram to show this which is reproduced below. Simply shopping the edges of the store will be a step in the right direction.

Your Store Will Probably Vary, but the Principles Still Work

11. TEXAS LOCAL IS BETTER THAN FURRIN STUFF
While in Ocean Shores, buying things like kale might be best if it comes from Grays Harbor County, it is still better to buy from Texas than from somewhere the produce must be airlifted.

12. SHOP BY BIKE
Dr Mercola failed to consider the effects of transport of the shopper on food usage. While the Ocean Shores IGA might lack somewhat in organic and other "good" choices, one wonders at the tradeoff between non-local produce bought locally, versus local produce bought non-locally. IGA is next door to the espresso stand and I bicycle by there each morning. The "local" source of Hoquiam produce is 30 miles away.

IGA - Official Grocery Store of Frankenbike and Kermit

13. SHOP A GOOD FARMER'S MARKET WHEN YOU'RE GOING BY
Ocean Shores DOES have a farmer's market on summer weekends. Oddly, little of the produce at this market is produced anywhere close to Ocean Shores. Still, I go there on my bike. See rule 12. However, we've taken to stopping by the Hoquiam Farmer's Market when we have occasion to motor over in that direction. Their produce is mostly grown in Grays Harbor County and there're a lot of organic items.



Hoquiam Farmer's Market Has No Decent Bike Parking and is a LONG Ways from OS, but has EXCELLENT Organic Produce
The Lettuce is Grown by the Grizzlies (Hoquiam High School)

14. DIG FOR ALL YOU'RE WORTH
Vegans please close your eyes now. The rest of you may read the newspaper headline below. 'Nuff sed.



Definitely "NON GMO" and Locally Sourced. For the Record, Clam Guns do NOT Have "High Capacity Magazines"

 

What's a Warning to Do?



CURRENT WARNING - Older Adults Should Limit Outdoor Activity - and How Old are "Older" Adults?

THURSDAY UPDATE
One of the above came out at 4:46PM this afternoon, precisely as I was halfway home on my bike. After the fact warnings are not too useful!

Sometimes government, at least at the local level, is phenomenally responsive. One might wonder about this sometimes. I'll give you an example. NCTCOG sends me email alerts when pollution levels get high. Things are, in theory, pretty bad when there is an Orange Pollution Warning. We're told to limit outdoor activity.

The alerts that have been issued SINCE "Bike to Work Day" look like the picture above. I asked the NCTCOG lady about those warnings, and particularly their mention of bikes as shown in the "before" warnings that are pictured below.

No, I didn't suggest they actually eradicate cycling from their suggestions, merely that they might want to consider what they are advising. Mostly, I get these after I have left for work and am checking my email at Starbucks on the way home. Yup, simply based on a semi-serious inquiry at BTW Day, NCTCOG has changed their email broadcasts. I was surprised, particularly after the response I got from Fort Worth when I made input to their bike plan.

Government response aside, has anyone in otherwise reasonable health ever suffered some sort of damage due to failure to limit outdoor activity during such episodes? For example, would the Cowboys or Rangers cancel a game due to a pollution warning?



Before BTW Day, We Older Types Were Supposed to Limit Outdoor Activity but Were Also
Supposed Bike or Walk Instead of Driving

First View of Fall Texas Color

Vibrant Fall Color!

Rantwick, here, threw down a gauntlet. Luckily, we Texians were ready. Instead of the color, shown here (looking the same yesterday as when shot for the original post), we've got REAL Fall color; shown below. Y'all, COME AND TAKE IT!

North Texas Fall Color, Shot Yesterday

MORE North Texas SARAT Color, Shot Yesterday

Typical Current North Texas Fall Color

Short on Summer

The picture at the top of this blog looks springlike; those trees are covered with flowers. However, those trees have long since shed their flowers and are decked in the mature leaves of summer.

I looked through my past photos and didn't really find an awful lot that shouted out SUMMER! A few I did find include:

Trinity River Rowing in July

Pond in North Fort Worth

Civil War Memorial, Bedford

Airmen Cheering a Cyclist on Outside Wichita Falls

Old Flag, Isn't Raggedy in Hurst

Water Truck for Gas Drilling in North Fort Worth

North Texas Sun Peeks Out

What says summer around North Texas to you? Have a Happy Independence Day.

Blogger Has a Spam Filter

I never knew that Blogger has a spam filter. Wordsmith has one that aggressively filters out the most innocuous comments. Today, I discovered that Blogger's filter intercepted a very appropriate comment. It is contained within this post.

In response to my November 30th post about High Gas Prices - Better as a Barista, in which I claim that if one doesn't like cycling, it is far more attractive simply to take on extra, Moopheus commented on December 1st, and the Blogger Spam Filter snagged it:

That's the correct theoretical argument, though as practical matter for most people, life doesn't really work that way. Are you salaried or paid hourly? If you decided to work that extra hour of the day instead of riding, would you get paid for it? For a lot of people, the answer is no, at least not directly. They may have no control over their hours, and may only get comp time for overtime. If that. Picking up that one extra hour of work per day is a nontrivial exercise for most. Workers who do get paid hourly and have variable hours (like tradesmen) are probably already working, or trying to work, as many paid hours as they can. For instance, I could get myself some extra freelance work, but each hour of paid work requires some nonpaid effort to get it. (Also, my own commute is short, in a dense area--meaning it takes no longer to ride than to drive).

This is not to say that your argument is completely invalid--it is surely true for some--just to point out that arguments from economic theory usually gloss over the complexities of actual life.


To which, I would have noted:

Well, since there is actually a Starbucks AND a Walmart directly on the way home from work, it'd be a matter of getting a second job (avoiding added travel mileage and time) which is certainly a practical option. However, since I enjoy riding my bike, I'd rather just ride to work than spend time working to ride it less. Bicycle commuting reduces my time cost of riding my bike. Which really says that the complexities of actual life lead people to all sorts of different choices. So Moopheus and I more or less agree. Of course, Moopheus didn't comment on my later post in which I examined the cost of a short commute such as he/she makes. THAT would also be an interesting comment to read.

In closing, can anyone suggest WHY ON EARTH would Blogger consider such a thoughtful comment as spam? I guess it's just one of those mysteries of life. Now I guess I need to look occasionally to see if Blogger thinks it has caught some scofflaw.

High Gasoline Prices and Bike Commuting



Coffee I Make is Better Than This,
But I'm  no Barista

 Better as a Barista
Andy, at Carbon Trace, made a very good post about gasoline prices going up. There seemed to be a consensus in the comments that high oil prices are good for bike commuting. I think that ignores the reality that automobile commuting is an incredibly efficient use of time for commutes of moderate to long distance. What’s more, many if not most, people are comfortable in their warmed/cooled vehicles which helps foster an overwhelming, if grossly overblown, fear of getting hit by an automobile. Simply put, bicycle transportation use is not driven strongly by oil prices. It is driven by personal circumstances and desires, or where it has become fashionable, which is why bicycle share tends to be high in university towns and in dense locations.

My Coffee is NOT as Good as This

Before I started this blog, during the time I rode my bike to Haltom City (a distance of 14 miles from my home), gas prices went up a lot, hitting $4/gallon at one point. When prices were high, I often got asked whether I bike commuted to save money. The answer was, “No, I’d actually do better to work as a Starbucks barista to pay for the gas and continue to drive to work.” Amazingly, my engineers briefly speculated about which Starbucks I was moonlighting at. That economics of time versus expense is true whether gasoline is $2 per gallon or $10 per gallon. Still, I saw a lot of extra bike commuters and the TRE train got a lot of new riders, so most people did not actually do the math. Since you are reading this, you won’t NEED to do the math, which follows in a simplified form.


Paying for Expensive Gas – Warning – Simple Math Content!
My v2 commute was about 20 miles each way. I already owned a fully depreciated motor vehicle, so my main variable cost was the cost of fuel. Conveniently, my Jaguar gets about 20 miles to the gallon on the commute, so it uses 2 gallons of fuel each day I commute on a 40 mile round trip. If fuel costs $10 per gallon, that’s $20 per commute. $20 to drive to work one time is certainly not chump change, but spending that $20 saves me 2 hours per day compared to bike commuting. If I didn’t enjoy the bike commute, I could work the two hours as a Walmart Greeter, or as a barista making $10/hour and break even in both time and dollars. As gasoline dips to less than $10 per gallon, I’d have to work less time to pay for the gas needed to save the commute time. At $4/gallon, I’d be WAY ahead to simply greet people a little longer or pour a few extra lattes. At my current salary as an engineer, you might safely guess I’d have to work considerably less. In the final analysis, this is supported by the European example, where auto commute modes are dominant (far over 50%) despite much shorter commute distances, dramatically higher fuel prices, and strong governmental policies intended to discourage automobile use. Even in Amsterdam and Copenhagen, you see cars all over the place. THAT says a lot, considering the size of those places compared to any large US city, combined with government policies the US is not inclined to consider in the near term.

Managing Commute Distance
Well, you might ask, why not simply move closer to work as Andy Cline has done? I own my home already. Lots of people own their homes. Assuming our Walmart Greeter/barista is a homeowner a household member residing at an owned home, there are large costs associated with moving. Keeping things simple, between real estate commissions and taxes and loan assumption costs, it costs at least 10% of the house value to move from an owned house. For a $200,000 house, we’re talking a moving cost of $20,000. $20,000 buys a lot of gas, even at $10 per gallon. When my company relocated me to Texas, the total move cost came to around $60k – and I lost money in the deal. To be specific, 2,000 gallons of $10 per gallon gas – at 20 miles per gallon – represents 40,000 miles of driving. If the new house was walking distance from work, it’d take five years to break even. Five years is a long time to count on holding a Walmart job. If North Texas was a high price area, or there’s a spouse that doesn’t also work near the new location, or something that gets better mileage than a Jaguar, that break even point would get longer. Kids in school add further to the barrier to relocation.

Where Would I Live to be Near All Four Work Destinations I've Had During the Last Seven Years?

If, on the other hand, I were looking to newly relocate into an area, fuel prices WOULD play a factor. I’d pay a reasonable housing price premium to avoid the extra drive time and cost, and most other people would as well. The trick is that as transport prices get higher, that premium gets larger as well. Over a longer time period, higher transportation costs would drive density up near employment locations, but this is a very long-term effect since cheap transport has been driving density down for generations. In my case, I moved to North Texas six years ago. I’m now working at my FOURTH different work location, none of which has been within ten miles of each previous work location. I see no reason to expect that pace to slacken. Keep in mind that I have worked for only two different employers in the last 30 years, which is more stability than most people achieve in the US. It took us more than fifty years to get into this mess of low density cities; it’ll take us another fifty or more to get back out of it. Andy and I will be dead of old age long before the suburbs disappear that have been enabled by cheap oil. Presuming that dire "peak oil" scenarios are true, we'll simply have to find a way to live in the bed we've made.

Yeah But
Some of you are spluttering at this point; noting transit usage and bike commuting both soared when prices rose in 2008. What’s more, motor vehicle usage dropped. These are different phenomenon, but neither suggests that a large increase in bike commuting will be sustained from fuel price increases. Instead, there will be short-term “deal with the panic” increases, such as occurred in 2008. Once the “panic” becomes “normal,” people will return TO “normal.”

Bike Commuting Soars
As I said, I enjoy riding my bike. The economics of bike commuting are different for me than for someone doing it just to save money (but that is another post). I’m not alone. Many people that enjoy riding a bike do not bike commute. When prices of fuel rise, some people (that enjoy bike riding) decide to try bike commuting and some of them might continue after the price rise has been absorbed. Other people (that may NOT care about bike riding) get the notion that riding a bike to work (or take a train to work) might be a good idea to save money and they buy a bike (or ride the train). Mostly, this second class of new bike commuters don’t keep at it. They don’t really like bike riding to start with, or maybe they believe the danger propaganda, and they might well have purchased a poor quality bike from a big box store (but not MY Walmart).

Regardless of the motivation, in the long term, the economics and convenience of driving versus riding a bike (or taking transit) sink in, and people go back to their car, and I suspect this would be true even with $10 per gallon gas (since the US is comparitively rich, such a price would certainly hit hard at most of the rest of the world more than us, limiting any really giant rise in price). A very few new alternative commuters would discover non-car-commute factors that overwhelm the raw dollars cost per hour saved factor. A bike commuter may come to realize that he/she gets to ride his/her bike for less total time investment than if he/she had to drive to work and THEN ride the bike. A train commuter may find friends to chat with on the train, or discover all that time can be used to indulge a desire to read.

Driving Drops
Driving, in contrast to bike commuting, drops when gas prices go up because people start to think and consider their trips much more. Instead of making separate trip to the grocery store, a deli, a restaurant, and to work, trips will get combined. Some of the marginal trips will be simply omitted. The phenomenon is similar to that which sometimes occurs when a prospective dieter keeps a food consumption log. Simply paying attention to the food intake reduces donut consumption. Simply paying attention to all the car trips reduces them. Unfortunately, after a while, the new situation seems normal and usage returns as focus is lost. It is no accident that Starbucks now emphasizes drive through restaurants much more than they did even five years ago.

Involuntary Bike Commuters
There are, and will be, many bike commuters due simply to the costs of driving. You see their bikes locked at the backs of restaurants. These people are not driven by the price of fuel so much as the inability to raise the amount of money or credit to purchase and operate a car, or even a good bicycle. For them, the economics are the economics of survival. They don’t drive to work now and they won’t drive to work if gas hits $10 per gallon, or if it drops a buck.

Many, if not Most, Bike Commuters Simply Can't Afford the Motor Vehicle They'd Rather Have

So, is it Hopeless?
Of course not! Bike commuting, except for the desperately poor, is not driven by the cost of driving. That is reality. It will remain so for many years to come. However, that does not mean that bike riding can’t play a much more important role in our society and even reduce the costs our society pays to keep all those cars in streets and parking lots. Namely, we can foster the fun and safe aspect of riding to nearby stores and restaurants – “the one mile solution.” How can this be accomplished? I don’t know. I’m not an advocate, but I know things would be cheaper if all the stores I shop at didn’t have to use up so much land and effort to maintain giant parking lots. The good news is they wouldn’t have to buy any extra land at all to put in a bike rack at a prime spot near the front door, nor would they alienate cycling customers with a sign saying “bring your bike inside while you shop at Walgreens” or some such.

OR, we can encourage people to show their patriotism by the one mile solution. A bit different narrative and that miller guy could be riding a mile for his beer. He ain't doing it because gas is expensive. It's just what he can do to help his country and himself. It's a politically neutral, and positive approach. On the other hand, it MIGHT have the negative side effect of encouraging people to honk at innocent cyclists so maybe we ought to simply forget the whole thing.

Ride a Mile for a Miller

Earth Day Thoughts

So, you felt GOOD about riding your bike to work today? Go HERE for another perspective. Myself, I'm not quite ready to play Russian Roulette with five cylinders loaded, nor to go shopping for a Hummer at their "going out of business" sale. Just go ride your bike for the sheer GLORY of it, and remember that the rest is minor...