So who's reduced their carbon footprint?

Dolph said:
Recycling rubbish is expensive, especially given that it requires people to sort the rubbish somewhere in the process. Re-using stuff can mean a decrease in spending, which is bad. Cycling can mean less mobility, which is bad...

All those things, if mandated rather than market driven, are a bad thing.
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As I've said though, I prefer change to come about voluntarily rather than through government mandate.

Recycling may well need people to sort the rubbish but that in itself creates jobs. Our recycling centre is just the local tip where the rubbish goes anywhere and we have to sort it into separate bags ready for collection.

A study by the Technical University of Denmark looked at 55 products and compared the effects of burying, burning or recycling them. More than 80% of the time, the researchers found, recycling was the most efficient thing to do with household rubbish.

http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9302727

Of course we should only recycle things that are worth it.

When I talk about re-using stuff, I mean carrier bags and things like that. Most things that people re-use would not have more than a nominal effect on the economy.

With regards to cycling, I don't mean banning cars from places or forcing people to cycle. I just mean that people could cycle on short journeys which wouldn't affect the economy but there would be health benefits and lower emissions from cars.
 
I had a shave and a poo before going for a drive today.

Reduced weight = better fuel economy !!!!


More serious note, if i can walk then i will. But i love driving and as i get older and get better jobs i will get faster cars, type-r asap, then skyline, maybe even the new GTR in a few years. Enjoy myself before having kids around 30 ish, then il have to get something sensible to take them to school in like and RS4 avant.
 
I can almost see my place of work from where I live yet I still get my car out the garage and drive to work, I pay so much money out to have my car I will use it every opportunity I get stuff my carbon footprint.
 
merlin said:
No.

Talk to the Chinese if you're worried about CO2.
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be a lot beter talking to the americans who promise one thing with no intention of cutting back on co2. actually thought it was funny when they were moaning about the chinese.
 
I have, changed from a 235g/km car to a 116g/km car for the family to runabout in. Also I cycle to the station and walk from Waterloo to work (Shaftesbury Ave)

Mainly to save money :) Car now only costs £35 a year to tax, does 65mpg and insurance is £227 pa fully comp pncb yadda yadda :)
 
Jet said:
A study by the Technical University of Denmark looked at 55 products and compared the effects of burying, burning or recycling them. More than 80% of the time, the researchers found, recycling was the most efficient thing to do with household rubbish.

Of course we should only recycle things that are worth it.
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Unfortunately, without stretching Dannish reality, very little things in Britain are worth recycling. Scrap metal prices are so low, that few years ago you wouldn't find anyone to tow your unroadworthy banger away, until scrap yards cought onto the whole ebay economy. Prime example: a good price paid for a tone of steel can scrap in Britain is around £75. That's 7.5 pence per kilo. So there you are, religiously putting all your beer and coke cans into the container every morning on your way to work, while in reality even if you drunk ten beers a day, at 77 empty cans to a kilo all your massive annual can load would effectively be worth roughly £3.60.
Or another perspective. The moment man in orange jacket paid £15 an hour jumps into his green labeled recycling truck to collect that massive container with over 15,000 cans weighting 200 kilograms from your street, the moment that guy turns the key and his truck goes vrooom - the actual value of your local container goes *puff* and dissapears into thin air.
That's the reality of recycling anything in Britain. Full pallet of cans made in China will be cheaper before the recycling truck change to second gear.

On the other hand because we get no incentives for being green but instead of getting cane for not being so this leads to certain market shifting which cancels out just about anything good about it. I'm in a process of choosing my next ride. Called few dealers, got some insurance quotes this morning, opened my excel, added things up and it just doesn't add up this year - running relatively green Skoda Octavia TDI in appropriately cushy version would cost me over the next 20,000 miles £420 more than cruising about in all bells and whistles 3 litre Subaru Legacy which does 0-60 in less than it takes regular person to shift from 1 to 6th gear. That's partially because price of greener of two main fuels remains higher for no reason at all, but also because incentives are unrealistic and make the whole market shift - people are scared of cane, and they want something "safe", and so there is demand for certain type of cars. Suddenly TW[Fox's] margin buying guide turns into regular market rule - turbo monsters are more affordable than anything regular. It's suddenly even only £10 more expensive for me to insure 1.8T vRS than 1.9 TDi PD with leather. And you know what - it might be the last time to do it without some schmuck two face politician taxing me out of my driveway - so why not? Why shouldn't I have 3 litre, 25 mpg tyre screecher? It's not like government will start giving out Priuses to save planet yesterday, and at the end of the day all they've done is turn the most expensive option of yesterday into the cheapest car to run today.
 
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v0n said:
Unfortunately, without stretching Dannish reality, very little things in Britain are worth recycling. Scrap metal prices are so low, that few years ago you wouldn't find anyone to tow your unroadworthy banger away, until scrap yards cought onto the whole ebay economy. Prime example: a good price paid for a tone of steel can scrap in Britain is around £75. That's 7.5 pence per kilo. So there you are, religiously putting all your beer and coke cans into the container every morning on your way to work, while in reality even if you drunk ten beers a day, at 77 empty cans to a kilo all your massive annual can load would effectively be worth roughly £3.60.
Or another perspective. The moment man in orange jacket paid £15 an hour jumps into his green labeled recycling truck to collect that massive container with over 15,000 cans weighting 200 kilograms from your street, the moment that guy turns the key and his truck goes vrooom - the actual value of your local container goes *puff* and dissapears into thin air.
That's the reality of recycling anything in Britain. Full pallet of cans made in China will be cheaper before the recycling truck change to second gear.
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Firstly, while it was a Danish university the subject matter was not concentrated solely in Denmark. They considered Britain and other countries too.

I think it's wrong to say very little. Maybe steel isn't but I think that's one of the exceptions.

Most cans are aluminium these days are they not? And aluminium costs 20 times as much to smelt the metal from its ore, bauxite, as to remelt scrap aluminium.

Recycling aluminium requires 95% less energy that making it from scratch; the figure is 70% for plastics and 40% for paper.

So it would make sense to recycle plastic and paper too.

Definitely clear glass:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/jan/14/ethicalliving.lifeandhealth

I of course accept that recycling programs can be costly but it's difficult to ascertain the exact benefits. The steel maybe more expensive to recycle when compared to buying it new but there are probably other benefits that aren't included in it's basic cost.

Case in point:

http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2004/09/64900

Maybe it's better to recycle steel after all?
 
Hixxy said:
be a lot beter talking to the americans who promise one thing with no intention of cutting back on co2. actually thought it was funny when they were moaning about the chinese.
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Actually, the americans said they wouldn't apply artificial restrictions when they weren't being applied to other high producing countries. Which isn't the same thing at all.

China and India being the two prime examples of developing countries with high carbon outputs, who were exempt from any sort of control or regulation in the Kyoto treaty (one of the reasons why the treaty was pointless).

Level the playing field, and everyone will be more willing to get involved, rather than putting their people at an economic disadvantage for no discernable gain.
 
The Americans do want change, but as Dolph says - not at the expense of serious economical damage. Why should they self harm when China etc sit by and rub their hands together and watch the cash roll in?

They're just not prepared to to move untill everyone is on board, which ironically is key to global "repair" anyway. So, the Amercians stance isn't quite as comical/selfish as was made out.

For me I think as much effort should be put into CO2 eating solutions as directly reducing CO2. Trees like CO2. Stick more in the ground.
 
Travel
For my journey to work I take the train and cycle.

When I drive I try and use the gears a little more consideratley.

PC
I forked out for an 85% energy efficient PSU earlier this year.

I also don't leave the PC on over night any more.

Home
Got an energy efficient kettle. Has something like a thermos built into the casing, keeps the water hotter for longer.
 
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Mine went up last night.. going out with my mate in his 1966 Mustang 289ci... lots of CO2's and 8mpg if we were lucky!!!:cool:

Need to get China and the Yanks to stop before I get interested!..

There was a statistic saying that if every driver in the UK was to go arround in a V8 Range Rover Sport the CO2 we'd not make a 8th difference to the CO2 in the world over all of us driving one of those Hybrid things!...
 
No and I am not going to give in to this ******** about global warming. Every advert now is co2 this co2 that. Does my head in. :mad:
 
A lot of folk seem to have the economic damage argument round backwards – if the UK attempts to maintain an oil consumption of ~1.7 million barrels per day going forward the economic damage will be greater than if we reduce our consumption to ~1 million barrels per day by ~2020.

Driving a 20mpg car rather than a 50mpg one directly adds to our trade deficit and Russia’s/OPEC’s/Kazakhstan’s* trade surplus. This puts pressure on our interest rates, it puts pressure on the value of the pound – it’s bad for the economy.

Can someone explain how improved vehicle fleet efficiency is bad for the economy?

*insert oil exporter of choice.
 
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