Stuff adds up
Unrelated facts in news get me thinking about quantitative niches in our economy
Two unrelated quantities that caught my eye in a couple of news articles:
- Tobacco consumption in S. Korea increased from 68,000 tons in 1980 to 101,000 tons in 1999, most of it imported from the US
- Steel mills recycling shredded automobiles in Illinois release about 400 lbs of mercury a year into the air, roughly the same as a large coal-fired power plant.
I enjoy quantities like this because of the scale of activity they suggest around them. They help us understand why certain human activities have influence.
How many acres of land would it take to grow 101 thousand tons of tobacco? How many families does it take to tend those acres? What is the collective political clout of those (mostly American) families? And - that’s just South Korea. What’s the tobacco clout worldwide?
At just a couple drops of mercury (in electrical switches) per car, how many cars does it take to equal 400 lbs (about three gallons) of mercury? What other pollutants are in those cars? How much lead? What happens to the gasoline in the tanks? (It can’t be reused in other cars unless it is carefully filtered) How about the motor oil? How many of the tires are reused? How many people make their livings handling those cars?
What is the composition of the scrap metal? Cars have a lot more aluminum and various alloys in them nowadays - the quality of the steel would be degraded unless that is separated out before smelting.
And that’s just Illinois: nationwide, there are still 35 million mercury switches in cars, though manufacturers switched in 2002 to nontoxic alternatives. Just about all those cars will be off the road in ten years - hence the need for removing the switches. But that mercury had to come from somewhere. How much cinnabar is mined each year? Cinnabar is mercury sulfide; what are the sulpher emissions of mercury smelting plants, to say nothing of the mercury? Where are the plants located? How are the mine tailings handled?
Hold almost any commercial product in your hand; the connections associated with it dazzle the mind. Economies closely resemble ecologies and are interrelated to them. It’s just fun to think about that stuff… (sources New Scientist magazine and Chicago Tribune)
I remember I was watching something on the Discovery Channel about the whole car crushing thing, and one thing they had to do before the crushed it was remove all liquids from it and any parts from the engine deemed “still good”. But thats not to say that any of it actually gets recycled.
Everytime I drive by the Mitsubishi plant with all the cars sitting out, or any dealership, I see waste not a new car. I think our country should consider going to a similar system that is used in Japan. When you buy a car in Japan, you go to a dealership to customize your car. 30 days later they send you what you ordered. None of the wastful crap we do in America where hundreds of thousands of cars are made when realistically, only a fraction need to be.
A big thanks goes out to people like you DOF that ride their bike and drive older cars that are fixed up. A little conservation goes a long way.
Posted by webs05 on 03/10/06 at 04:52 PMNot only is it “ just fun to think about that stuff…“, I think it’s incredibly important. In fact, I think it should be mandatory in schools, starting at the elementary school level.
One of my favourite areas of observation is edges of micro ecosystems; that is, the transition zones between different areas ... for example, the edge of the swamp as it becomes terra firm, the bramble between stand of trees and meadow. It just occurred to me that one of the things that draws me to that is the nearly infinite and varied relationships that exist in those transition zones; relationships that are essential to each of the individual zones.
Posted by WeeDram on 03/10/06 at 11:21 PMThe Japanese system isn’t necessarily more efficient; car owners there must put their cars through a draconian inspection system every year or so, and it literally becomes uneconomical to own a car more than about 3 years old. I don’t know what they do with all the old ones - sell them in other countries, I guess.
I think it’s incredibly important. In fact, I think it should be mandatory in schools, starting at the elementary school level.
I totally agree, and would like to see kids learn concept mapping and how things connect and work together. Math, science, literature, art (illustration), music and writing would go a long way toward activating and enabling the brain for more complex situations.
Unfortunately that would interfere with the federally mandated purpose of schools, which is apparently to learn political correctness and large amounts of multiple-choice or true/false Jeopardy questions. Oh, and even how to use PowerPoint
Posted by george.w on 03/12/06 at 10:56 AM
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