Where can you go without seeing plastic? It is all around us: in bottles, in wrapping, in tables and chairs, cup lids, cars, computers and cell phones, the unavoidable, non-biodegradable reality of modern existence. News stories of plastic invading the oceans and poisoning our soil naturally horrify us, and rightly so. But the sad truth of the situation is that our consumption of and need for plastic is continually growing, not shrinking. Many eco-scientists have realized that what we need, what will truly transform our relationship to plastic, is plastic that can be broken down without harm to the environment. We need biodegradable plastic.

Biodegradable plastic uses various forms of naturally occurring materials to produce a form of plastic that can be broken down into substances more easily and safely absorbed back into the environment. It can be composted

This form of plastic can be created in a variety of ways, with perhaps the most common current versions using some form of petroleum. These versions can only be broken down by commercial composting and recycling factories, but they do represent a major step up from non-biodegradable plastics. One of the drawbacks of this form of plastic are that its petroleum makeup results in a great deal of carbon being released in the composting process. This, along with the fact that petroleum is an expensive fossil fuel, makes it a less than ideal candidate to replace traditional plastic in the long term.

Recent developments in plastic technology, however, offer the potential for a much more promising future. Scientists are increasingly making use of plant crops such as corn, buckwheat, and switch grass to create plastic based on renewable resources. While such products DO produce a small amount of CO2 during the composting process, they do not produce carbon or harmful byproducts in the production phase, as petroleum does.

As with ethanol, the major issue with corn-based products is the effect using a major food crop might have on such concerns as food supply, world corn prices, and pesticide pollution. All of the above problems illustrate why corn-based plastics may not prove to be the long-term solution for biodegradable plastics. Corn-based plastics also still need to be taken to commercial composting plants for processing.

Plastics made from switch grass or other “wild”, nonfood crops show more promise, but scientists are still working to remove major obstacles such as cost, durability, and mass production. Currently, such plastics cost more than twice as much to produce as traditional plastics, meaning that only companies heavily invested in environmental awareness will bother to use such products. In addition, some “plant plastics” have been shown to allow water to slowly evaporate from bottles over time, thus negating the most obvious use of such products.

Scientists, however, are quickly catching up to such problems, allowing hope to remain for a fully viable use of biodegradable plastic in the future. USA Today reports that a company called Earth Bottles strengthens switchgrass plastic with certain natural fibers and minerals to create a tough, fortified natural plastic that is not only suited for use in industrial as well as consumer settings, but is also more fully biodegradable. Some eco-conscious companies have even begun putting EarthBottles to use in consumer products.

Innovation such as this offers a great deal of promise for the future of “bioplastics”, including a hope that someday these plastics might be broken down through a process as simple as your average backyard compost heap. Until then, more modest goals have been set, such as getting bioplastics to a 10% market share or finding crops that will allow it to be mass-produced more cheaply. In the meantime, we can support these products by buying them whenever we can, as well as supporting legislation subsidizing innovation in this fie

Researchers working on another mission, NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, announced in January that about 10 percent of the particles fired off by TGFs consist of positrons—the positively charged antimatter twins of electrons. Because gamma rays can convert into electrons and positrons, physicists had predicted the anti­particles’ presence in the bursts, but until now they had never been directly observed. Astrophysicist Michael Briggs, a Fermi team member based at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, hopes such findings will aid in modeling how TGFs form. Currently, he says, scientists do not understand why some lightning strikes produce such mayhem while others do not.

The powerful blasts of particles and light energy known as gamma-ray bursts come from violent cosmic events in deep space, such as stellar explosions and black hole collisions. But smaller-scale bursts called terrestrial gamma-ray flashes (TGFs) can occur much closer to home, erupting thousands of times a year in association with lightning strikes during storms in Earth’s atmosphere. Two satellites originally designed to observe gamma rays from space recently caught the atmospheric flares in action, revealing that they emit far more energy than previously thought and release streams of antimatter particles, which bear a charge opposite that of their normal counterparts.

In a study of 130 TGFs recorded by 
the AGILE satellite, Italian Space Agency physicist Marco Tavani and colleagues report that the most energetic particles released carry four times as much energy as previous measurements detected, and hundreds of times as much as those produced by normal lightning strikes. In fact, Tavani describes a storm hurling photons into AGILE’s detectors as basically a giant particle accelerator in the sky. “It’s the equivalent of the Large Hadron Collider acting in the atmosphere for a fraction of a second,” he says. Next, Tavani plans to evaluate how TGFs might affect aircraft flying nearby.

Researchers working on another mission, NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, announced in January that about 10 percent of the particles fired off by TGFs consist of positrons—the positively charged antimatter twins of electrons. Because gamma rays can convert into electrons and positrons, physicists had predicted the anti­particles’ presence in the bursts, but until now they had never been directly observed. Astrophysicist Michael Briggs, a Fermi team member based at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, hopes such findings will aid in modeling how TGFs form. Currently, he says, scientists do not understand why some lightning strikes produce such mayhem while others do not.

Issues include…

• Hunting Energy Vampires
• Hidden Energy Vampires
• Standby Power – A Growing Issue
• Tips for Minimizing Standby Waste

Hunting Energy Vampires

When shopping for electronic products, look for external power supplies that are compact and lightweight – chances are they’ll remain cool to the touch when plugged in. These power supplies could save you $3 to $6 over the life of the product and help make a dent in greenhouse emissions.

Hidden Energy Vampires

Power supplies are also found inside electronic products such as DVD players, TVs, desktop computers, and consumer appliances. It’s not always possible to determine whether these products contain an energy-saving technology. However, looking for products with the label from trusted energy-serving product supplier is a good way to ensure that you’re buying a product that has some level of energy efficiency built in.

Standby Power – A Growing Issue

It is estimated as much as 10 percent of a typical residential electric bill is spent on “standby” power – the power consumed while products are turned “off” or otherwise performing no useful function!
Most electronic products continue to consume power unless they are unplugged from the wall. TVs, DVD players, CD players and audio amplifiers consume power all the time. Any appliance with an LED display, touchpad controls or a clock – such as a microwave oven, refrigerator or dishwasher – is always on. Even a cell-phone charger left plugged into the wall consumes power, even when not charging the phone.

Tips for Minimizing Standby Waste

• Don’t leave cell-phone chargers and other battery chargers plugged into the wall when they’re not charging anything. Any heat coming from a power supply indicates wasted watts.
• Consider unplugging kitchen and office products that are used infrequently. For example, external computer speakers are often powered by wasteful adapters that continuously draw power, even though the speakers may not be in use.
• When leaving home for an extended period of time, consider unplugging as many electronic devices as possible. TVs, DVD players, audio equipment, cordless phones and coffee makers can cost you money if they’re plugged in while you’re gone.