Why can`t we do some things like we did 30 or more years ago?

[lefthandedlefty]

Why not go back to using reuseable glass containers for milk,soda,coffee and other soft drinks.We did it before glass is easily cleaned and sterilized just charge the customer a deposit so they return it.It has to take less energy to clean something than to make it plus think how much less trash we will generate.Afterall don`t most of us reuse our dinnerware we don`t buy new after every meal.Another thing I would like to see is banning self service gas stations,when was the last time you had your windshield cleaned and you oil checked when buying gas.Why not if someone has enough money to put in the stock market start and run your own business don`t give your money to someone else to lose it`s no skin off their back if it`s lost.Now something that we should be doing right now convert steet lights and traffic signals to solar power.Temporary signals are already that and work just fine,I have also seen some school zone warning lights that are solar power they work fine also.Just think have a storm electricity goes out lights still work.

[mmonk]

1. Because we are "looking forward"?

;-)

Good questions. I actually miss milk bottles and such. No throw away disposable messes that have to be dwelt with.

[Warpy]

2. Waxed cartons worked really well for milk

and don't have the breakage problem that glass has.

That was the real problem, breakage either in transit or in the bottling plant.

In addition, glass is heavy. It's a pain in the ass to haul home and haul back.

As for the full service gas station, want to pay significantly more for gas? The new pumps are well designed enough that you won't end up with gas on your hands or shoes with minimal care.

Solar powered street lights would be a plus, though.

[quiller4]

8. I'd gladly pay more for gas to avoid pumping it. For many years

I sought out full service stations and paid the difference for the service. Now I no longer have that option in this area. Gas fumes almost always trigger my asthma. One of the things I love about Oregon is that there are no self-service gas stations.

[Arugula Latte]

13. I hate pumping gas, and since moving to Oregon years ago, I don't have to feel guilty about

sitting in the car and letting the attendant do it. I have no choice. Yay! :)

[Gormy Cuss]

56. In another state without self-serve, NJ, the prices are competitive with neighbor states too.

"Self-serve" as a way of saving money works well for the station owners, not so much for the customers any more.

[knitter4democracy]

46. We have one in the area.

They're often not all that much more, too. They're always busy.

[vadawg]

47. i am the opposite i hate having someone else fill my tank

if my window needs washed ill do it and i check my oil everyday anyway.

[JVS]

11. Cartons and bottles are both bad milk containers because they require constant refrigeration

Process it like this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UHT and you can just put it on a truck, put it on the shelf right next to cereal and not put any energy into maintaining it.

[Speck Tater]

15. Agreed. A cow makes a much better milk container. ;) Plus...

"Life is nature's way of keeping meat fresh." --Doctor Who.

[Sgent]

27. That process

changes the taste significantly.

[Gormy Cuss]

57. Yes it does. The milk tastes flat.

It's a convenient way to store unopened containers without refrigeration but it does come at a cost to flavor.

[ContinentalOp]

50. Weird, I've never heard of that. Sounds like a great idea.

It says "In June 1993, Parmalat introduced its UHT milk to the United States. <9> However in the North American market, consumers have been uneasy about consuming milk which is not delivered under refrigeration, and have been much more reluctant in buying it. To combat this, Parmalat is developing UHT milk in old-fashioned containers."

It seems to me that if they kept it in the same section that looks like a refrigerator but not actually cold, and made the cartons look like regular milk cartons it might have a better chance of taking off.

[Kablooie]

59. It tastes strange though.

[mmonk]

16. Don't cartons have leeching once the wax begins breakdown?

[Warpy]

29. That's why they have expiration dates

The milk goes rotten long before the cartons break down.

Remember what you could do with those old cartons? I started seeds in them, filled them with ice and poured barely melted wax into them to make lacy candles, used them as forms to freeze big blocks of ice for the cooler to take on long trips.

I'm sure other folks have other ideas.

[surrealAmerican]

39. The plastic bottles have leeching issues as soon as you put the milk in them.

[JVS]

52. Modern cartons don't use wax. Most have a thin layer of foil, affixed to plastic which is what...

connects with the cardboard.

[csziggy]

20. The other problem was cleaning and sterilizing the glass bottles

I'd like to see the figures on how much water and chemicals that goes through.

And there is nothing worse than finding a cockroach that was NOT cleaned out inside the cola bottle you just took your first sip from. That used to happen with a local bottling company and their returnable bottles. :puke:

[Warpy]

28. Yeah, and cigarette butts

You knew when you took that first sip.

[csziggy]

37. Yes, That is one reason I stopped drinking colas

I tried them again when they started putting them in cans and didn't like the metallic taste. Then I tried colas in plastic bottles. I'm not sure if it was the HFCS or the plastic but blech! So I carry a bottle of our well water around with me - it's water or coffee for me!

[Warpy]

38. I've got a C02 setup

and I'm making my own club soda, with or without lime flavoring.

I put it in plastic bottles, but it's not in there long enough to leach much out.

It's the stuff that sits on warehouse shelves for months that you have to worry about.

[surrealAmerican]

40. I do that too.

I've started experimenting with making my own syrups for flavoring too.

[csziggy]

42. How complicated is that to set up?

My husband is hooked on flavored fizzy water because he loves the carbonation. The bottles from those things are 3/4 of the volume of our total garbage and 90% of our recyclables. I'd love to come up with a way for him to quit using the bottled stuff. Plus, the ones he likes are from Wal-Mart and they are the major reason we ever go there.

[Warpy]

43. This is the outfit I use

http://www.sodastreamusa.com/default.aspx?referrer=0001_0002_0312_0004&gclid=CLmopKfa05oCFRBbagodW3Np2Q

Just be aware it isn't quite as gassy as commercial stuff because it's pure CO2.

[csziggy]

49. Now that looks interesting

I was thinking that it would be a big machine like at the stores. I'll have to see if anywhere has one set up so hubby can try out some of the flavors. He's sort of picky about which flavors he gets, but they have a nice assortment of diet ones - and no aspartame, which has been a point of contention between us!

Thanks!

Edited to add: Do you have to use their bottles? Could we re-use some of our ones we're sending to the recycler (or would we even want to)? What does "Fountain Mist" taste like? Do they have an equivalent flavor to Mountain Dew?

[Warpy]

58. Try the startup kit

They send you a flavor sample box that has regular and diet flavors, all of which are good. Their take on Mountain Dew actually does taste like the real thing, one reason I had to choke that bottle down (how can anybody drink that stuff?). That's the best way to try their syrups.

Their bottles are much heavier than the regular bottles and are designed to fit the unit, so you'd have to use theirs. They supply 2 with the startup kit.

[csziggy]

62. The local Kohl's department store carries these and they are on sale this weekend

I may just go over and get hubby one - especially if there is a sample pack with it. He figures he's spending about $1 per day on fizzy water so in a few months it would pay for itself. And think of all the bottles he wouldn't be using!

Thank you so much for mentioning this and answering my questions!

[ContinentalOp]

51. I grew up with one of those. It was kind of fun.

Some guy would deliver the syrups and CO2 tanks. We had a bunch of different syrups in squirt bottles in the fridge so you could choose root beer, coke, whatever. Two squirts of syrup in the bottom of the glass and fill it up with fizzy water and you had whatever soda you want.

[kster]

54. Wrong answer they had a person inspecting the bottles, then

the bottle had to pass over a light that would kick the bottle out if something was in it, the person at the filler machine pretty much never had to pull a bottle because the inspector or the the light machine missed something. I'm talking back in the seventies.

With todays technology finding something in a bottle would be slim to none.

[depakid]

3. Patience, grasshopper

Economics in a post peak oil world will change a whole lot of things... back to "ways that they were."

[mckara]

7. Yes, Weedhopper, What is Old Will Become New Again...

someday, when sanity returns to humanity.

[Subdivisions]

34. Sanity will return when there's no longer enough petroleum to fuel indifference. n/t

[Subdivisions]

33. Amen to that.

It has now been determined that Saudi Arabia production peaked in 2005. Once they peaked, it became impossible for OPEC to keep up with declines in production from the OECD. World oil production peaked in July of 2008 among the highest oil prices on record. That extra revenue accounted for the peak and, as soon as the oil bubble burst, so did production. Oil production has fallen from a peak of 84.6 million barrels per day to 68.x million barrels per day now. Because world oil production is past peak and discoveries peaked in 1964 and are now at the bottom of the scale, declines are irreversible.

No amount of money or effort is going to change it. Once world oil production tips off the current production plateau, it will begin to decline at an accelerating pace until producing oil is no longer a protifable veture. The only thing that can fix the future of our civilization is if we discover as much oil as has ever been used. Because the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exponential_growth">Law of Exponential Growth demands it.

[Subdivisions]

44. Correction:

I said above that world oil production had decreased to 68.x million barrels per day. That is inaccurate. The accurate number is ~83 to 83.5 million barrels per day (all liquids). For solely crude oil, minus liquids, the figure is 74.6 million bpd in July, '08 decreasing to a projected 70.8 million bpd for May, '09.

Here is an up-to-date graph based on data from the IEA and from the EIA:



Note the July '08 peak. That coincides with $100-$147 price per barrel of crude last summer. Notice the decline thereafter as the price per barrel of oil collapsed to the $40-$50 range.


Edited to add: http://www.theoildrum.com/node/5395">World Oil Production Forecast - Update May 2009

Two more graphs for perspective:

[lapfog_1]

4. Sadly, I actually know people

that buy paper plates and plastic forks and spoons to eat with EVERY DAY... because it's too much trouble to load and unload the Dishwasher. They would rather fold it all up at the end of every meal and chuck it in the trash.

Unbelievable.

As for the traffic lights, first let's convert them all to LED lights... the savings are astonishing.

Something like 25% of all electricity generated goes to lights. Reduce the power consumed by nearly 80% (incandescent to CFLs) or 90% (incandescent to LEDs... much better) and you have reduced our generating need by 22 percent overall.

Street lights and traffic lights are some of the worst offenders.

[suchadeal]

12. 36% of light from street lamps is wasted into the night sky

Night light pollution is worsening. 99% of ALL outdoor lights (porch lights as well) are nothing more than
little lighthouses - unshielded and very unsafe - because eyes are drawn to the light bulb, thus making it
hard to see a criminal who might be lurking nearby. Turtle populations in Florida beaches are dwindling because
turtles are drawn to the bright (unshielded) lights on waterfront buildings, so they wander away from the protective
environment of the beach and their eggs don't hatch.

You don't have many spare light bulbs in your house. They have SHADES. So should lights OUTside houses, on buildings, and
over streets.

[lapfog_1]

22. Not to mention that those unshielded area lights

so common on farm houses and barns and such actually attract bugs, and with them their predators (birds, bats), and with THEM, their predators (snakes, owls, etc). A freakin nuisance.

We removed our "barn light" years ago and, if someone needs to go outside at night, we carry flashlights. Much easier to see everywhere when your eyes finally adjust to being in the dark.

And the stars... on a clear night in the summer, they are incredible.

[lefthandedlefty]

19. How about solar powered LED`s

I use LED sigal and marker lights on my trucks they put a lot less strain on the altenator and batteries.

[lapfog_1]

21. All in favor of it, however, most lights are not

strictly speaking, solar powered. They are battery powered. The batteries may be recharged by solar panels but the lights themselves are battery powered.

The point I was trying to make is that by converting the street lights and traffic lights to LEDs, no matter what the power source, a whole lot less power is needed to run the city's lights. If every city and business did this, not only would they save tons of money, we could possibly start turning OFF coal fired electric plants around the country. Certainly we could halt the construction of new ones.

And if you want to throw a battery pack and solar panel on that light to make it even more earth friendly... that's fine by me.

[Cirque du So-What]

5. Economies of scale

Bean counters have determined that it's more cost-effective to mass-produce disposable containers than it is to reuse more durable ones. As the price of crude oil rises, however, the price of these disposable containers will rise to the point that it becomes more profitable to reuse once again.

[RufusTFirefly]

31. That's only because landfills are an externality

Environmental impacts don't figure into their calculations. They should.

So should social justice. I bought a really nice T-shirt on sale. So what if it was made by a teenage pregnant woman halfway across the world who gets paid just a few dollars a day and is locked in her factory for 10 hours and limited to only two bathroom breaks. It was so inexpensive, and it looks nice with my Doc Martens!

Triple Bottom Line

[JVS]

6. I'm not sure that glass containers are more efficient. I'm sitting in Europe right now drinking pop

The bottle I'm drinking from is PET and has a .25 euro deposit, but I doubt that it's sturdy enough for refilling. Coke comes in sturdier plastic bottles that I think are refillable (I buy Pepsi because it's significantly cheaper here than Coke). 10 years ago the machines usually vended glass bottles or AL cans. AL cans have been wiped out, but products that used to be in glass (hi-C, water, juices) are now in single use deposit bottles (the deposit serves only to force you to bring it back, where it is crushed into a bin and I guess collected for recycling). The cheapest kind of beer even comes in that kind of bottle now, although most people insist on glass beer bottles. As far as milk goes there are glass bottles with deposits (there are in the US too) but most milk comes in a tetrapack or if fresh a carton . I like that the tetrapacks don't need refrigeration. I keep a gallon and a half just sitting on the shelf waiting for me to need it.

[HughBeaumont]

9. Pretty much everything started taking the train ride to the abyss 29 years ago.

The economy, the average American wage, energy consumption, foreign relations, American savings rates, our abilities to keep up with the cost of living (despite both parents having to work, because now they can get mom and dad for what they used to just be able to get one of them), our abilities to be able to afford health care and education, crime, hard drug use, teenage pregnancy, school shootings, etc.

The only things that improved during this time was the bottom lines of corporations & defense contractors and the incomes of the wealthy.

And . . . hmmm, gee, who was at the HELM, nearly with full governmental control, enabling the various corporate, thieves, shitbags and cronies throughout this period of time? WHO INDEED?



(Sorry, Billy, you gets no pass for your Milty Friedman water carrying, or signing the Gramm/Leach/Bliley act, NAFTA or the 1996 Telecom act. DADT sucked too. Bad policy all around. You're a Democrat, so ACT like one.)

[suchadeal]

14. You left out a photo

You must not keep current with the news!

[HughBeaumont]

17. He hasn't been president long enough to do the damage those four did.

I'm no "Obama = Bewsh"er by any stretch.

But if he values the survival of this country and it's people, he'd better get America off of it's ill-advised corporate-yes-massah economic nightmare tout suite.

[southerncrone]

18. SO VERY TRUE & SAD. You stated it so perfectly, Hugh!

I hate that we had a front row seat to this decline, but were powerless to stop it.

They managed to vilify or silence anyone who spoke against these insane practices. Enormous amounts of $ pumped into selling their viewpoints. If you control the media, you control the world.

Look! Shiny thing! :eyes:

[southerncrone]

10. I often reflect back to the 60's & 70's when we DID recycle.

Perhaps I grew up in a unique town (I doubt it, it was a Southern town for heaven sake!), but in the 60's recycling was common place. We recycled our glass, aluminum, tin & cardboard. It was considered common sense to do so.

Enter the 80's, with instant gratification & convenience. It wasn't cool to do that "hippie stuff" anymore. Everyone needed to show how affluent they were by being overly wasteful. (The "disposable society" was created or escalated & our garbage problems grew exponentially.) That meme has continue until NOW.

NOW has brought the realization that we may not have long for this planet to continue sustaining human life if these ideas continue....at least many of us realize this.

I have read in the past the argument that it takes too much water & energy (extremely high heat necessary to melt glass) to recycle glass. But I do agree that returnables are a valid option.
Remember "picking up Coke bottles" from ditches & other discard areas to get spending $ as a kid?
What great fun it was to make money while cleaning up the community, too. (But we didn't have 150 channels to watch, the Internet, or video games...or overly indulgent parents.......sigh)

The plastics industry also uses the "safety" argument against glass because broken glass can cause injuries. They also use the breakage in the transport argument as a selling point to manufacturers to control loss costs.

I certainly hope there will be a revival of reusable glass like milk, Coke & beer bottles. I'd also like to see the sale of bulk items again in stores, where one brings their own container & purchase products by the ounce or pound, thus eliminating excess packaging.

[CTyankee]

32. Thorsten Veblen identified "conspicuous consumption" many years before Ronald Reagan took power.

J.M. Keynes also wrote about the "propensity to consume." This happens in other cultures as well, as Veblen points out.

I, too, revere the ideal of recycling. But I do feel it is working against something more deeply ingrained in humans than your post suggests...

[southerncrone]

53. My point was the marketing bombardment in the MSM in brainwashing

our society that this over-consumption was "the thing to do". Making it the "in" thing. I'm aware that these ideas were around decades before Raygun, however they were steadily driven into our subconscious by the unrelenting attack by the marketing machines, facilitated by the aggressive protection of corporate America under the Repuke rule. aka Brainwashing of our society.

[CTyankee]

55. Yep, and no counterbalancing by an old thrift model, I certainly see what you are driving at.

Thank god my parents didn't fall for it. Their model of thrift has served me well over the years...

[southerncrone]

63. Same here. My grandparents were true Yanks (VT) & (CT) &

practiced frugality on a daily basis. Thankfully, I was paying attention. :)

[jgraz]

23. Things have really changed since those days

We don't use glass, we don't have full service and we can’t even bust heads like we used to. But we have our ways. One trick is to tell them stories that don’t go anywhere. Like that time I took the ferry over to Shelbyville; I needed a new heel for my shoe. So, I decided to go to Morganville, which is what they called Shelbyville in those days. So I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time. Now, to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on them. ‘Give me five bees for a quarter,’ you’d say. Now where were we? Oh yeah, the important thing was that I had an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time. They didn’t have any white onions, because of the war; the only thing you can get was those big yellow ones.

[Sebastian Doyle]

30. Welcome to DU, Senator McCain!

Hey, is your daughter single? I think I can convert her from the dark side.

[jgraz]

36. Eh -- get off my lawn!

[nichomachus]

24. I ask myself that every time I have sex

What I used to be able to do all night now takes me all night to do.

[OneGrassRoot]

64. DUzy alert!!!!

:spray: :rofl:

;)

[pleah]

25. I have been trying to get rid of all the plastic containers that I have.

I have stocked up on all the gallon and half-gallon glass jars I could get my hands on before they switched to plastic.

They are great for storage of dry goods and they all have wide mouths. I recycle the narrow mouth jars.

[Toucano]

26. Glass is heavier and costs more to transport.

That uses more fuel to go the same distance and releases more carbons.

Not that I am disagreeing with you, but merely pointing out the downside to returning to glass beverage containers.

[Gregorian]

35. Because 30 years ago we had nearly half the number of people on the planet.

Double the number of people, but far more than double the number of drinks that consist of something other than plain old water out of a tap.

The ease of which petroleum can be melted and turned into a parisan (spelling?) and popped into a bottle mold is far easier and less energy intense than driving around collecting bottles, sorting them, cleaning them, and on and on.

It boils down to population. And people don't want to talk about that. It's the unspoken monster.

I'm typing this on a backhoe, and a buck just jumped out of the forest and is eating grass right next to me. He's nuts! I love it.

One really needs a degree in engineering just to have a basic understanding of how our society works, and what it requires to work. Even then it can be difficult to sort out the wheat from the chaff. Thermodynamics, resources, and the one thing that makes scarcity without using anything- population.

And solar isn't anywhere near as efficient as just running big generators with wire going to the source. Which is exacgtly what I"m doing right now on the tractor. I will have solar, but it's time isn't fully here.

[femrap]

41. Welcome to DU

Now don't you go around making sense, ya hear?! lol.

It's amazing how wasteful we have become. There are Engineers out there being paid lots of money to make sure that whatever is being produced (dishwasher, printer, car) that it will break down in x amount of years.

Could you imagine going to work everyday so you could design something to fail and as a result, rip people off?

We are living the Decline of the American Empire....the signs are everywhere. I think hand-cranked tools are where it's at for the future.

[Obamanaut]

45. A keypunched data card jams the disk drive. nt

[SoxFan]

48. Hmmm

[upi402]

60. because we have "Bigger Fish to Fry"

just kidding, of course.
It's the many little things that will turn the tide. Like ripping a phone book in half. Ya havta do it a few pages at a time, not the whole thing at once.

[troubledamerican]

61. 9/11 Changed Everything

Sorry, I don't make the rules.