Time flies when one is being lazy! I saw this article a few weeks ago but never blogged it!
Here it is - Dirk Hoag made an awesome table calculating the miles traveled by each NHL team in the 2009/2010 season comparing to their 2008/2009 season. This info can be directly used to update the NHLPA carbon neutral challenge blog where I estimated the amount of carbon emission per Vancouver Canucks player… it’ll be discussed later.
First, some interesting facts from Dirk Hoag’s article!
- Calgary Flames travels the most - 55,331 miles (89,047km)
- Buffalo Sabres travels the least - 25,991 miles (41,828 km), 47% of Calgary!
- Average - 40,782 miles (65,632 km)
- Vancouver Canucks is ranked 4th in the most distance traveled (48,221 miles or 77,604 km) after Phoenix Coyotes, Dallas Stars, and Calgary Flames
- San Jose Sharks reduced their travel the most by 9,696 miles (15,604km) in 2009/2010!
OK, we know that for each player to participate in the NHLPA carbon neutral challenge, each of them pays $320 to purchase 10-tonnes of Carbon. In my NHLPA carbon neutral challenge article, I estimated that the total travel distance for a Canuck player is 60,000km producing 14 tonnes of carbon dioxide (200g CO2-equivalent per km traveled by air). According to this new info, everyone in the Vancouver Canucks hockey club produces 15.5 tonnes of CO2 per year, which means Canucks players should buy more carbon credits =). I would calculate the actual carbon credits to be purchased by every team in the league, but many teams actually travels by car to some of the games and the carbon emission is different. If and when I find those info, I’d be happy to prepare a table so that players and staff, if interested, can pay appropriate amount of carbon offsets to be truely “carbon neutral”.
What do you think?
I came across the green gift guide to father’s day on inhabitat.com, a blog with future designs/innovations including green products. I went through the guide and am most attracted to the Recycle Typewriter Cufflinks! I like them because they’re personal and practical yet with a small environmental impact. Do you like them?
If you were a student not living from home, you probably have moved several times during the duration that you’re a student. I was personally in Kingston Ontario for about 6 years, which I moved 5 times. When I move, there are two types of moving boxes: cardboard boxes and plastic totes. For cardboard boxes, we usually take some from grocery stores or collect used ones from the lab. We moved so much that we know which types of boxes are sturdier than others! Yes, those apple boxes =). For certain items that may contain liquid (shampoo, sauces, cleaning products, …etc), we use plastic totes. We reuse these cardboard boxes, give them away when other people need them, and we’ve recycled others when we don’t need them anymore. We keep all plastic totes.
We try as hard as we can to not buy any boxes, and we’ve done quite well. But wouldn’t it be nice to just rent some reusable boxes for the move? Well, if you live in Vancouver, you’re lucky! FROGBOX does exactly this! It’s an awesome idea and in an environmentally conscious and transient city like Vancouver, they could do quite well! The process is simple - they drop them off, you pack the boxes and move, and finally they pick up the boxes! I would consider using it in my next move if I need more boxes!
What do you think?
I came across the Traffic & Marketing Design website today which is marketing and selling “world’s greenest business cards” as one of the products. It uses 100% post consumer paper and is produced in Canada. The ink is vegetable based. I like the idea and I think companies should consider these green business card options. However, I’m not convinced with some of the envirnemental benifits claimed as shown in the table below. The references included there were not useful in convincing me. I agree that no new trees are cut to make these business cards, but the water and energy savings as well as emission and waste reduction need to be further verified. Recycling paper is quite an energy intensive process which requires a lot of water and chemical; further, not all paper is recyclable and I would think that there is still solid waste associated with paper recycling process. Furthermore, the process energy and solid waste would all results in emissions. It would be more realistic and environmentally responsible for such comparison. Just my thought… what do you think?
1 FriendsOfTrees.org: http://www.FriendsOfTrees.org/
2 H2Ouse.org: http://www.H2Ouse.org/tour/details/
3 EPA.gov: http://www.EPA.gov/cleanenergy/powerprofiler.htm
http://www.EPA.gov/cleanenergy/energy-resources/calculator.html
4 Montgomery.gov: http://www.MontgomeryCountyMD.gov/
This is a really interesting article about where we send out recycling paper. Like myself, you probably know that there were many stories relating to recycling (toxic) computer parts in China. Therefore, it’s probably not surprising that a lot of paper is shipped all the way to China for recyling! Here are some facts for thought:
- Europe recycled 64.5% paper in 2007, where most is recycled in China and then shipped back to Europe
- China purchased recycling paper because it’s $100/tonne comparing to $500/tonne virgin pulp as a raw material for making paper
- Not all paper is recycable
- Recycling paper in China requires a whole load of water to clean - 99 parts of water to 1 part of raw material
- Recession has reduced the selling price of recycling paper to China - from peak of $200/tonne to as low as $28 a tonne for mixed paper, $40 for newspaper and $35 a tonne for corrugated boxes; results? No longer worthwhile to ship paper to China!
- Recycling paper end up in landfill if not recycled
- China doesn’t want landfill moving from Europe - China tightening up regulations about what types of paper they will buy
As a result:
- Recycling paper end up in landfill in Euorpe, US, and Canada and not recycled!
Imagine what kind of carbon footprint is associated with this “enviornmental activity”…. hmm… i need more time to figure that out.
Pro sports and climate change | flo | 
August 20, 2009 1:40 pm | 
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