Jordan Trip & PSP update

PSP continuation in Jordan: (forgot to upload earlier)
I am currently on a flight from Amman to London making my way back to San Francisco. During my 5 day stay in Jordan, I made a point of keeping my eyes open for anything interesting that might be worth a mention in my PSP. I also continued to use reusable water bottles during the day, though this turned out to be a much more difficult task than I expected.

In Jordan, tap water is not nearly as clean as it is in the US. Though the situation is not as bad as neighboring Egypt, or other countries in Africa and the Middle East, it is still advisable not to drink tap water. As such, many homes resort to bottled water or larger water containers. When you go out to a restaurant, you do not have the option of drinking ‘tap water’. It’s all bottled. Even worse, the more local cafes still use the smaller volume (8 0z) disposable plastic water cups (sealed and bottled at the factory). You can easily end up using three or four of those in one sitting.

Taking your own water bottle to a restaurant is not acceptable either. As per the request of Karin and Heather, I actually attempted doing so. I walked into a restaurant with a thermos of water. They didn’t really say anything, but looked at me very weirdly and frowned as if to say “what the hell are you doing?”. This is probably the first time someone’s done that with them. But I can assure you, if it becomes a regular thing, they will tell you to throw it out or leave it in the car. They do that at the hotel beaches in Aqaba (our port city at the southern tip of the kingdom, on the shores of the Red Sea). You can’t walk into a resort with your own drinks and onto the beach with your own water. It’s simple. You cut into their sales, and there’s no reason for them to allow that. It’s quite universal I’d say.

In simple and short, it is more difficult to sustain a reduced use of disposable water bottles when tap water in a glass is not an option at food and beverage outlets throughout the country, or even at home. But whenever I could, I filled up my re-usable bottle from a larger container at home.

Other interesting “Water” Initiatives in Jordan:

Most recent:

http://newsblaze.com/story/20090526080702zzzz.nb/topstory.html

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/international/middle_east/view/2009_05_18_Jordan_plans__10b_seawater_desalination_plant/

Some Background on the issue:

http://www.water-technology.net/projects/greater_amman/

While I was in Jordan, I was also working on our DP2 – the water saving bathroom. Design. As I mentioned in class, this design is being improved and engineered for a new hotel that is currently under construction (just begun construction actually) on the shores of the Red Sea in Aqaba. And given the scarcity of the water problem in Jordan, this could have some significant impacts.

Recycling Plant Tour

Recycling Facility Visit

The San Francisco Recycling facility tour was quite interesting, and also very eye opening. Though we did not actually get to see how the materials are recycled, we were introduced to how they are collected, and then saw the process of sorting. I asked the gentlemen guiding the tour and giving the presentation how much time/energy is attributed to sorting, and the response was “close to 30%”. Now that’s a lot.

It got me thinking about potential improvements in the overall collecting and sorting part of the recycling process. As was explained to us, each household has three types of bins color-coded depending on what should go into them. Blue for plastics and aluminum, green for compostable stuff, and black for non-recyclables. Even with this scheme, sorting still takes a lot of time, energy and effort, and is also somewhat imperfect due to the human error involved in the first stage of sorting, as well as the complex materials that are often thrown together into one heap by those who can’t care less.

What if a late bin that automatically sorts materials (specifically bottles) into different compartments? Different types of plastics have different densities. Laser beams could be used to measure such densities and in turn sort. I’m not an expert here, but I’m guessing there are ways to do this:

http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/JOM/0504/Spencer/Spencer-0504.html

On a small scale this might not be economic or feasible. But what if we improve the capacity of each bin? Bottles, in particular, take up lots of space. If there was a simple “crusher” that compressed bottles as they were disposed off, the bins can hold up to five if not more times their capacity in waste. That’ll save a lot of trucks, a lot of trips. Consider the time and energy saved there!

Just some ideas that crossed my mind as we toured the facility.

Response to “The Bicycling Paradox”

I found this to be a very interesting article, and although I was unsure how I felt about it at first, reading the “Bicycling Paradox Revisited” helped solidify my thoughts. I can understand why, in the long run, bicycling may take more energy than driving, when secondary effects are taken into account. So, assuming the calculations are correct, it might not be more “sustainable” to drive cars…right? But what is the real point of sustainability? To use less energy overall? On the one hand, yes. On the other hand, sustainability is as much about personal sustainability as it about global sustainability. Biking motivates sedentary people to become fit and live happier and healthier lives in a way that does not rely on immediate fuel consumption – I believe this can be considered a sustainable lifestyle. Fearing that bicycling will eventually consume more energy in the end should not discourage people from bicycling. Instead, it should motivate a reinvention of the health and food production industries (the secondary consumer of energy mentioned by Ulrich) so that they require less energy, thus making bicycling actually use less energy than driving. Hopefully, if people live more fit/healthy lifestyles, it will be the end of junk and fast food as well! No more Twinkies!