Green Plastics by NaturTec

In one of my earlier posts, I had mentioned "Green Plastics". Till that time it truely appeared to be an oximoron to me. I did some more scavenging on this and found that there are organizations who are working on this for a while now. One such company is Nature Tec. This is an extract from their website: www.natur-tec.com.

HOW IT WORKS?

Natur-Tec® biopolymer resins are produced using NTIC’s proprietary ReX Process. In this process, biodegradable polymers, natural polymers, organic and inorganic materials are reactively blended in the presence of proprietary compatibilizers and polymer modifiers to produce biobased/biodegradable polymer resin formulations that exhibit unique and stable morphology.Natur-Tec® biopolymer resins are engineered for high performance, ease of processing, reduced cost and can easily be processedby converters using conventional manufacturing processes and equipment.Natur-Tec® biopolymer resins are available in several grades tailored for a variety of applications such as film extrusion, extrusion coating, injection molding and rigid, engineered plastics.

Earth Day: April 22

Today, April 22, is celebrated as "Earth Day". It was identified by US Senator Gaylord Nelson in 1970 to drive appreciation and awareness for our environment. It is celebrated across multiple developed and developing countries.

United Nations (UN) also celebrates Earth Day, however, the date designated by them is March 20.

*Source: Wikipedia

Most Frequented Environment Spaces

While this blog is one of the places where you can get information on environment related issues, there are many more websites that promote green & clean thinking. These webpages are backed with huge audience along with lot of education and information on issues that impact our environment globally. These sites also suggest ground breaking technologies that can help us reduce the carbon footprint and work towards a greener environment.

Some of these are listed below:

http://www.treehugger.com/
http://www.worldchanging.com/
http://www.inhabitat.com/

Man-Made | Aqua Power | National Geographic Channel

Man-Made tells the extraordinary stories behind ordinary things. Go inside factories, machinery and buildings to talk to the workers, inventors and contractors about how everything gets made.

View >>

Empire State Building Goes GREEN

The iconic Empire State Building, is set to define new standards for such structures. A new initiative has begun to retrofit the building to make it energy efficient. This initiative will cost around $20 million and cut the energy consumption by a whooping 38%. This was trigerred by former US President Bill Clinton and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
This plan will save the owners about $4.4 million just through reduction in energy consumption costs. The plan will cover the following:
1. Filling energy saving gasin the existing windows by adding a pane
2. Upgrades to building's air conditioning system
3. Automatic adjustment of tempratures by floor
4. Auto shutoff of lights in unused areas.5. Replacement of lighting with energy efficient fluroescent bulbs. These lights do no include the spire lights, which change color throughout the year.

Computers adding to Global Warming

Till now, I have written about ways to save our environment. I have laid more stress on technology enablement to reduce greenhouse effect. However, there are some facts, which are critical to support all the posts for focus on computers and IT to impact our environment. Here are some facts:

1. The huge computer & server warehouses that provide us means to read blogs such as these and surfing and emails, etc. are the very source of huge carbon emissions. These warehouses are set to overtake the emission contributions by global aviation industry by 2015. These vast collections of computers that provide internet banking, etc consume lot of energy.

2. The computer warehouses do not limit the energy consumption for power supply to these machines only. To support these computers, there is a huge requirement of supporting equippment, primarily air conditioning and power backups. On an average, for every unit of power consumed by these computers, there is an equivalent unit of power consumed by supporting infrastructure.

Build Green PC

In my earlier posts, I have discussed about contributing to greener environment through our computers by using as less energy as possible. Other than energy saving, computers can be manufactured by following processes that contribute towards greener environment.
The average age of a computer is about 3 years (Source: EPA). This means that a computer is disposed off in about 3 years on an average. Considering that Lead is a primary component of these computers, we get lot of non bio-degradable waste. This is where the energy efficient, non lead components step in to the rescue of our environment. You can use these components to reduce carbon footprints and reduce energy consumption also.