Think Green®

Have we been underestimating the energy saving potential of the bag? In the quest to cut down on the use of wasteful plastic bags, many of us have turned to reusable shopping bags made of nylon or canvas to tote our groceries. If you've tried out these reusable shopping bags, you've no doubt realized that you can fit many times more items into these bags.

The same principle is at work in a new concept from Waste Management: the Bagster^® bag. The energy saving idea embodied in these big green bags is both a new product and a service currently being offered by Waste Management for people who have a waste disposal need that is larger than a regular trash pickup but smaller than a dumpster rental. As you might expect from the name, the Bagster bag is a cross between a dumpster and an extremely oversized shopping bag.

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Most of us shudder to think that at one point in time, hazardous waste disposal meant pouring used motor oil down the storm drain. We now understand that those hazardous waste products must be dealt with in a more environmentally sensitive way. In fact, it's illegal to do otherwise. It's certainly unethical.

However, many Americans haphazardly unleash toxic materials like mercury, lead and arsenic into the ecosystem without even a second thought, in the form of E-waste. We're not talking about a covert group of eco-terrorists determined to destroy mothership earth here. We're talking about anyone on the planet that owns a cell phone, laptop, stereo, etc.

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If you follow news about alternative fuels or green energy, you've probably run across the term "gasification" a time or two. For most of us, it's kind of a fuzzy, foreign concept that involves taking waste material and converting it into a fuel known as synthesis gas, or "syngas" for short. This fuel or syngas can be used to power generators, vehicles, or even power plants.

In the past, gasification focused on converting one particular waste stream, be it coal or corn, into a usable fuel. Now, this exciting new technology is reaching a point where possibly everything in your trashcan could be converted into clean energy or other environmentally beneficial products.

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I'm the son of a builder who was the son of a builder. It's kind of in my blood. When I want to relax, I build. I've built or help build my house, two cabins, a log sauna, a timber frame sugar house, a woodshed, and countless smaller buildings and improvements. I've got a smokehouse and barn in mind for the future. My mother in law says I have an "edifice complex."

One building ethic I learned young was to reduce or eliminate waste- the old standard was that a builder should never have more than a wheelbarrow full of scrap left after building a house. Every piece of lumber, pipe, roofing, wire was used or found another purpose in the building. A cut off plank from one place was used as a brace somewhere else. And when building was slow, my father and grandfather used to "unbuild" structures- demo in the trades- both to make income and to salvage the materials. Both the house I grew up in and many other buildings they built were constructed at least in part from repurposed lumber, trusses, stone, pipe, and fixtures. It was always just the financially smart thing to do.

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