The Homa Files

TakeAway: Studies suggest that much maligned plastic bags aren’t so bad for the environment after all … as long as they get recycled.

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Excerpted from WSJ, “ Paper or Plastic? A New Look at the Bag Scourge”, June 12, 2009

When plastic grocery bags were introduced some 30 years ago, they were touted as light, long-lasting and cheap. They caught on so well that hundreds of billions are dispensed each year, creating a modern menace that often winds up nestled in trees, stuck in sewers and drifting in oceans.

Faced with the growing blight, countries from Ireland to China and cities from San Francisco to Washington, D.C., have moved to ban or tax their use. A United Nations official called for outlawing them world-wide.

There is growing evidence that the production, use and disposal of plastic bags put less burden on natural resources than paper bags. Meanwhile, a knock against plastic bags — that they can’t be conveniently recycled — is becoming less persuasive as more cities start accepting plastic bags in curbside recycling programs.

Most American consumers .. go through five or 10 plastic bags each week.  More than 90% of Americans reuse their bags at least once … for lining wastebasket,  carrying lunches, or from or cleaning up after a dog.

Various studies have examined whether paper or plastic grocery bags are environmentally friendlier. Plastic bags consume less energy and water and produce less pollution, including greenhouse-gas emissions. But, plastic bags  are rarely recycled. But plastic bags are recycled at less than one-third the rate of paper bags.

Plastic bags are difficult to recycle for the same reasons they are convenient to use. They are so light they fly out of curbside recycling bins, which often lack lids. If they make it to a recycling plant, the bags tend to wrap themselves around machinery, gumming it up. So, most curbside recycling programs don’t accept them.

U.S. cities that accept the bags in their recycling bins typically ask residents to stuff a lot of bags inside one bag, sausage-like, to make the bags easier for recycling workers to handle. It’s what industry insiders call a “bag of bags.”

Virtually all studies say the environmentally friendliest option is to choose a reusable grocery bag, and to reuse it at least 4 times, regardless of what that bag is made of.

Full article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124473522987806581.html?mod=djemalert

Excerpted from IBD, “Warm At The Bottom”, January 23, 2009

In a new Pew Research poll , global warming is ranked dead last in a long list of issues that Americans believe are top priorities for the country.

When asked which issues they believed to be top priorities in 2009, Americans placed global warming 20th out of 20.  Only 30% feel President Obama should focus on it.

This is the third year that Pew has polled about priorities, and each year warming has slipped in the rankings.

Full article:
http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=317607435688171

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Excerpted from the New York Times, “Consumers Want, and Are Skeptical About, Eco-Electronics”, by Joe Hutsko, December 10, 2008

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Among other findings from a survey released today by the Consumer Electronics Association, an industry group representing computer and gadget manufacturers, 89 percent of consumers said that energy efficiency would be a factor in choosing their next television — even as less than half of thepeople surveyed said they’re generally able to make sense of the environmental attributes attached to electronics on the market.

“One of the greatest challenges certainly is consumer confusion about what ‘green’ means”. The lack of a universally recognized means to measure a product’s “greenness” makes it difficult for consumers to find information at the point of purchase.

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– While 74 percent of consumers polled say companies should do more to protect the environment, only 17 percent feel familiar with the environmental reputation and philosophy of companies who make and sell electronics.

– More than 50 percent of consumers believe some companies overstate the environmental friendliness of their products in order to sell more–not always believing what they see or read about eco-friendly products.

– 38 percent said they were confused by the eco-friendly messages. Roughly 51 percent of respondents said they don’t 

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Full article:
http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/10/consumers-want-and-are-skeptical-about-eco-electronics/?pagemode=print

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Excerpted from WSJ, “Finding an Eco-Friendly Dry Cleaner,” by Gwendolyn Bounds, December 4, 2008

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Recently we’ve spotted a growing number of dry cleaners hawking “organic” and “eco-friendly” services and wondered if they were up to par, or just engaging in green-washing of a different sort. 

Roughly 80% of the nation’s 30,000 dry cleaners still employ a cleaning method using the liquid solvent perchloroethylene — or “perc”…because it is known to remove stains and odors effectively without damaging or shrinking delicate garments.

However, perc has been listed as a hazardous air pollutant and a probable human carcinogen…long-term exposure could increase the cancer risk for consumers who wear a lot of dry-cleaned clothes…the EPA is requiring a phase-out of perc at dry cleaners located in residential buildings…

These moves, coupled with consumer appetite for eco-anything, are fueling the growth of professional cleaners who dub themselves as “greener.” They’re ditching perc for myriad alternatives, such as liquefied carbon dioxide, silicone and gentle, biodegradable detergents…

WSJ put a handful of cleaners through their sartorial-sanitizing paces to see how they stacked up…all the stores we tested generally cleaned as well as, if not better than, our regular outlets…however, there’s real debate over just how eco-friendly and safe some of these newer methods are.

We tested the four cleaning techniques frequently touted as greener alternatives to perc: “wet-cleaning”…CO2 cleaning, hydrocarbon cleaning and a silicone-based cleaner.  At least two of these methods don’t get endorsements among some eco-watchers. For instance, the hydrocarbon method uses a petroleum solvent that, while not considered hazardous like perc, contains volatile organic compounds that can contribute to smog…Likewise, there have been questions raised about the silicone method…

“It’s absolutely confusing…We are entering a new world here in terms of regulation of chemicals.” As a rule of thumb, “you are pretty darn safe with wet-cleaning” provided you go to a pro that has the proper equipment needed to reshape garments after they’re washed…For now, the Web is the best bet for consumers hunting for a non-perc cleaner in their neighborhood…

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With the myriad of businesses are claiming to be “green” today the Eco-cleaner’s claims do appear to have some merit.  In the article’s test the “green” cleaners not only stood up against the traditional method, but offered comparable prices and in some cases additional complementary services.  This indicates that consumers aren’t yet aware of the value in eco-cleaning and thus businesses aren’t able to charge a premium or that the cleaners themselves have yet to impose a pricing premium for their green services.  While the eco-jury is still out Eco Cleaners will continue to grow as the use of “perc” is phased out.

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Full Article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122834783552077505.html?mod=wsjcrmain

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Excerpted from New York Times, “Green Plans in Blueprints of Retailers”, by Andrew Martin, November 8, 2008

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Across the country, a race is under way among stores and fast-food restaurants to build environmentally friendly outlets, as a way to curry favor with consumers and to lower operating costs. Most chains are focusing on prototypes at the moment, but the trend could eventually change the look and function of thousands of stores.

The green building boom is partly being driven by retailers’ desire to capture the attention of consumers who have become fascinated by hybrid cars, energy-saving light bulbs and wind turbines.

But more important for the companies, it is a way to shave long-term operating costs at stores and restaurants, which consume copious amounts of energy and water for ovens and fryers, heaters and air conditioners, sinks and toilets.

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While the “green” moniker is ill-defined and vulnerable to exaggeration, many of the chains, including McDonald’s, are seeking LEED certification from the United States Green Building Council, a nonprofit agency in Washington whose rating system is a widely accepted standard.

Marion Nestle, a professor of nutrition at New York University and a frequent critic of fast-food chains, said the green buildings were laudable but were ultimately intended to make people feel better about eating unhealthful food.

“Takes your mind off the calories, doesn’t it?” she wrote in an e-mail message. Ms. Nestle added in an interview, “I think it’s fabulous that they are doing it, and McDonald’s always has a tremendous impact. But it’s still making junk food.”

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Retailers say building LEED-certified buildings make economic sense, particularly with energy prices becoming so unpredictable.

At Wal-Mart, for instance, all new stores have highly efficient lights, skylights and improved heating, cooling and refrigeration systems. The floors of the stores are not covered but instead are exposed concrete slabs made with recycled steel and fly ash, a waste product. The high-efficiency prototype stores are equipped with even more efficient heating and cooling systems; a store in Las Vegas, for instance, is expected to save 45 percent in energy costs over traditional stores. 

Peter DiPasqua, a Subway franchisee with 89 stores in central Florida, said he originally thought his green store in Kissimmee was largely a “feel-good thing.” But he said as construction progressed, he became more impressed with the benefits of LEED-certified construction.

The store cost about 20 percent more to build, Mr. DiPasqua said. But he said he was saving 20 percent a month on electricity even though the store, in a prime location, is selling 43 percent more than a store down the street.

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Full article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/08/business/08build.html?ref=business&pagewanted=print

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Excerpted from the Wall Street Journal, “Does Green Energy Add 5 Million Jobs? Potent Pitch, but Numbers Are Squishy”, by Jeffery Ball, November 7, 2008

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Calls for a clean-energy system in the U.S. have long met with sticker shock. Now, the cost of making the transition–hundreds of billions of dollars–is being touted as a selling point.

Barack Obama and his energy advisers have been making the case that a multibillion-dollar government investment in everything from wind turbines to a “smart” electrical grid is just what’s needed to help revive the economy.

The lure is millions of government-subsidized “green jobs”, as Obama argued that spending $150 billion over the next decade to boost energy efficiency would help create five million jobs.

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The green-jobs argument rests on the notion that big capital investments in new-energy technology today will be more than offset by savings in reduced fossil-fuel costs.

The added allure of clean-energy spending as economic stimulus is that the industry is relatively young and growing fast. It is just starting to build its basic infrastructure — wind turbines, solar panels and a more-sophisticated electric-transmission grid. Several studies estimate that $1 invested in renewable energy or energy efficiency would yield up to four times as many jobs as $1 invested in oil and gas, whose basic infrastructure has been around for years.

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Critics say analyzing only new green jobs misses half the story.

“It’s not looking at the other side of the coin: You are spending more money for your energy,” says Anne Smith, a vice president at CRA International. The consulting firm wrote a report for the coal-mining industry in April that concluded that, under a bill to cap global-warming emissions, gains in green jobs would be “more than offset” by job losses elsewhere in the economy. That bill failed, but Obama has said he supports capping emissions.

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The job creation number cited by Obama has its roots in several green-jobs studies. Each projected different numbers, because each made different assumptions. Robert Pollin, a professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, who co-wrote another study, questions the job target touted by the Obama campaign, saying it would cost much more. Pollin’s study said that $100 billion spent over two years could produce two million green jobs.

Even Mr. Pollin’s study assessed only the number of jobs that might be added if the government spent more money on clean energy. It didn’t count jobs that might be lost elsewhere in the economy if the country shifted to costlier sources of energy.

The Apollo Alliance, a San Francisco coalition of environmental and labor groups, also released a study in September. It concluded that five million green jobs could be had with an investment of $500 billion–more than three times Mr. Obama’s number.

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Full article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122601449992806743.html

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Excerpted from the New York Times, “Bailout (and Buildup)”, by Thomas L. Friedman, October 22, 2008 

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Last week, U.S. retail gasoline prices fell below $3 a gallon — to an average of $2.91 — the lowest level in almost a year. Why does this news leave me with mixed feelings?

Because in the middle of this wrenching economic crisis, it would be a real source of relief for many Americans to get a break at the pump. Today’s declining gasoline prices act like a tax cut for consumers and can save $15 to $20 a tank-full for an S.U.V.-driving family, compared with when gasoline was $4.11 a gallon in July.

Yet, it is impossible for me to ignore the fact that when gasoline hit $4.11 a gallon we changed — a lot. Americans drove less, polluted less, exercised more, rode more public transportation and, most importantly, overwhelmed Detroit with demands for smaller, more fuel-efficient, hybrid and electric cars. The clean energy and efficiency industries saw record growth — one of our few remaining engines of real quality job creation.

But with little credit available today for new energy start-ups, and lower oil prices making it harder for existing renewables like wind and solar to scale, and a weak economy making it nearly impossible for Congress to pass a carbon tax or gasoline tax that would make clean energy more competitive, what will become of our budding clean-tech revolution?

“Is the economic crisis going to be the end of green?” asks David Rothkopf, energy consultant and author of “Superclass.” “Or, could green be the way to end the economic crisis?”

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It has to be the latter. We can’t afford a financial bailout that also isn’t a green buildup — a buildup of a new clean energy industry that strengthens America and helps the planet.

First, Washington could impose a national renewable energy standard that would require every utility in the country to produce 20 percent of its power from clean, non-CO2-emitting, energy sources — wind, solar, hydro, nuclear, biomass — by 2025. About half the states already have these in place, but they are all different. It would create a huge domestic pull for renewable energy if we had a uniform national mandate.

Second, Washington could impose a national requirement that every state move its utilities to a system of “decoupling-plus”–shifting them from getting paid for how much electricity or gas they get you to consume to getting paid for how much electricity or gas they get you to save. Several states have already moved down this path.

Third would be to modify the tax code so that any company that invests in new domestic manufacturing capacity for clean energy technology — or procures any clean energy system or energy savings device that is made by an American manufacturer — can write down the entire cost of the investment via a tax credit and/or accelerated depreciation in the first year.

Finally, if Congress passes another stimulus package, it can’t just be another round of $600 checks to go buy flat-screen TVs made in China. It has to also include targeted investments in scientific research, mass transit, domestic clean-tech manufacturing and energy efficiency that will make us a more productive and innovative society, one with more skills, more competitiveness, more productivity and better infrastructure to lead the next great industrial revolution: E.T. — energy technology.

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Full article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/22/opinion/22friedman.html?ref=opinion

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Excerpted from LA Times: “The green bubble bursts”, Nordhaus and Shellenberger, September 30, 2008

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Amid the energy crisis, Democrats are losing the high ground on the environment to a GOP that is pushing oil drilling.

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As the election enters its endgame, Democrats and their environmental allies face a political challenge they could hardly have imagined just a few months ago. America’s growing dependence on fossil fuels, once viewed as a Democratic trump card held alongside the Iraq war and the deflating economy, has become a lodestone instead.

Republicans stole the energy issue from Democrats by proposing expanded drilling — particularly lifting bans on offshore oil drilling — to bring down gasoline prices.

Whereas Barack Obama told Americans to properly inflate their tires, Republicans at their convention gleefully chanted “Drill, baby, drill!” Obama’s point on conservation and efficiency was lost on an electorate eager for a solution to what they perceive as a supply crisis.

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Democrats and greens ended up in this predicament because they believed their own press clippings — or, perhaps more accurately, Al Gore’s. After the release of the documentary film and book “An Inconvenient Truth,” greens convinced themselves that U.S. public opinion on climate change had shifted dramatically, despite having no empirical evidence that was the case.

Global warming remains a low-priority issue, hovering near the bottom of the Pew Center for People and the Press’ top 20 priorities.

By contrast, public concern about gasoline and energy prices has shifted dramatically. While liberals and environmentalists were congratulating themselves on the triumph of climate science over fossil-fuel-funded ignorance, planning inauguration parties and writing legislation for the next Democratic president and Congress, gas prices became the second-highest concern after the economy, according to Gallup.

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This summer, elite opinion ran headlong into American popular opinion. The train wreck happened in the Senate and went by the name of the Climate Security Act. That bill to cap U.S. greenhouse gas emissions would have, by all accounts (even the authors’), increased gasoline and energy prices. Despite clear evidence that energy-price anxiety was rising, Democrats brought the bill to the Senate floor in June when gas prices were well over $4 a gallon in most of the country. Republicans were all too happy to join that fight.

Republicans have been bludgeoning Democrats with it ever since.  Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich quickly announced a book, “Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less,” a movie and a petition drive.

Seeing the writing on the wall, Obama reversed his opposition to drilling in August, and congressional Democrats quickly followed suit.

But the damage has largely been done. In following greens, Democrats allowed McCain and Republicans to cast them as the party out of touch with the pocketbook concerns of middle-class Americans and captive to special interests that prioritize remote wilderness over economic prosperity.

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In a tacit acknowledgment of their defeat, some green leaders, such as the Sierra Club’s Carl Pope, have endorsed the Democrats’ pro-drilling strategy. But few of them seem to realize the political implications.

With an economic recession likely, and energy prices sure to remain high for years to come thanks to expanding demand in China and other developing countries, any strategy predicated centrally on making fossil fuels more expensive is doomed to failure.

A better approach is to make clean energy cheap through technology innovation funded directly by the federal government. In contrast to raising energy prices, investing somewhere between $30 billion and $50 billion annually in technology R&D, infrastructure and transmission lines to bring power from windy and sunny places to cities is overwhelmingly popular with voters. Instead of embracing this big investment, greens and Democrats push instead for tiny tax credits for renewable energy — nothing approaching the national commitment that’s needed.

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Environmental groups, perpetually certain that a new ecological age is about to dawn in America, have serially overestimated their strength and misread public opinion. Democrats must break once and for all from green orthodoxy that focuses primarily on making dirty energy more expensive and instead embrace a strategy to make clean energy cheap.

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Full article:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-shellenberger30-2008sep30,0,5840948.story

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Excerpted from The Wall Street Journal “Six Products, Six Carbon Footprints” by Jeffrey Ball, October 6, 2008

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A new concept is entering the consumer lexicon: the carbon footprint.

First came organic. Then came fair trade. Now makers of everything from milk to jackets to cars are starting to tally up the carbon footprints of their products. That’s the amount of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that get coughed into the air when the goods are made, shipped and stored, and then used by consumers…

So far, these efforts raise as many questions as they answer. Different companies are counting their products’ carbon footprints differently, making it all but impossible for shoppers to compare goods. And even if consumers come to understand the numbers, they might not like what they find out.

For instance, many products’ global-warming impact depends less on how they’re made than on how they’re used. That means the easiest way to cut carbon emissions may be to buy less of a product or use it in a way that’s less convenient.

So, what are the carbon footprints of some of the common products we use? How are they calculated? And what surprises do they hold? What follows is a look at six everyday items — cars, shoes, laundry detergent, clothing, milk and beer — and the numbers that go with them.

…The U.S. emits the equivalent of about 118 pounds of carbon dioxide per resident every day, a figure that includes emissions from industry. Annually, that’s nearly 20 metric tons per American — about five times the number per citizen of the world at large, according to the International Energy Agency.

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CARS

The simplest statistic in the carbon-footprinting game may be this: For every mile it travels, the average car in the U.S. emits about one pound of carbon dioxide. Given typical driving distances and fuel-economy numbers, that translates into about five tons of carbon dioxide per car per year.

…an American-made midsize sedan emits the equivalent of about 63 tons of carbon dioxide. That number includes all emissions, from the making of the car’s raw materials, such as steel and plastic, through the shredding of the car once it’s junked.

The vast majority of those emissions — 86% — came from the car’s fuel use, the study found. Just 4% of emissions came from making and assembling the car. That means consumers can lower their footprint by buying a car with better fuel economy.  Sometimes, the differences between models can be substantial….

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SHOES

You may think you’re at one with nature going for a walk in the woods in your sturdy hiking boots. But those boots pack a lot of carbon. The big reason: the leather.

Timberland Co., a Stratham, N.H., shoe company with an outdoorsy image, has assessed the carbon footprint of about 40 of the shoe models it currently sells. The results range from about 22 pounds to 220 pounds per pair. Each of the shoes that has been carbon-footprinted comes with a label assessing its greenhouse-gas score on a scale of zero, which is best, to 10, which is worst.

Flip-flops tend to have footprints of 22 pounds to 44 pounds…Shoes typically range from 66 pounds to 132 pounds. Hiking boots typically pack between 154 and 198 pounds, Mr. Girard says.

…transportation typically accounts for less than 5% of the carbon footprint. By far the biggest contributor is the shoe’s raw material…The average dairy cow produces, every year, an amount of greenhouse gas equivalent to four tons of carbon dioxide, according to U.S. government figures. Most of that comes not from carbon dioxide, in fact, but from a more-potent greenhouse gas: methane…

Timberland officials concede shortcomings with their method…the calculations fail to recognize that some shoes require more electricity to assemble in the factory than do others. And Timberland’s calculations omit the carbon impact of the leather and other materials that fall to the cutting-room floor.

“No question, it’s crude in some ways,” Mr. Girard says. “But it’s a step more information than our designers were making a decision on before.”

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LAUNDRY DETERGENT

The recipe for a low-carbon load of laundry: Use liquid detergent instead of powder, wash your clothes in cool water and hang them out to dry…

The carbon footprint of a load of laundry done with Tesco detergent varies from 1.3 pounds to 1.9 pounds, depending on what form of detergent is used…According to P&G, the average American family does about 300 loads of laundry per year, or about six loads per week. That suggests a per-family carbon footprint from doing laundry of about 480 pounds per year, or about 10 pounds per week. And that doesn’t include running the dryer.

Solid capsules of detergent have the highest carbon footprint, according to Tesco. Powder has a slightly lower footprint; liquid has a lower one still; and concentrated liquid has the lowest of all. That’s because making solid detergent uses more energy than making the liquid variety.

But consumers who care about their carbon emissions should do more than switch detergent forms, the labels advise. Doing the wash in cooler water — 86 degrees Fahrenheit instead of 104 degrees — will shave the carbon footprint of each load by 0.3 pounds. That’s as much of a reduction as you get from switching to liquid from powder.

The biggest way to cut the environmental impact of cleaning clothes, however, is to stop using a clothes dryer. Drying laundry outside on a line, Tesco says, will cut the carbon footprint of every load by a whopping 4.4 pounds…

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JACKETS

Patagonia Inc.’s Talus jacket looks like a naturalist’s dream. In fact, its carbon footprint is 66 pounds. That, Patagonia notes on its Web site, is 48 times the weight of the jacket itself.

Over the past year, the Ventura, Calif., outdoor-equipment maker has computed and posted on its Web site the carbon footprints of 15 of its products. Because most of Patagonia’s products are made in Asia or Latin America and sold in the U.S., the company expected that a big chunk of the carbon footprints came from transportation. It was wrong.

The fabric for the Talus is made in China, the zippers come from Japan, and the jacket is sewn in Vietnam. Yet all that transportation adds up to less than 1% of the product’s total carbon footprint, Patagonia says. The majority of the footprint — 71%, or about 47 pounds — comes in producing the polyester, which originates with oil…

“Consumers are starting to put environmental values into their purchasing decisions, but it doesn’t always translate into their being willing to pay a higher price,” Patagonia’s Ms. Dumain says…Patagonia lays out this conundrum on its Web site, saying it “reflects the complexities involved” in balancing concern for the environment with the need for performance.

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MILK

…A recent study by National Dairy Holdings found that the carbon footprint of a gallon of its milk in a plastic jug is either 6.19 pounds or 7.59 pounds. The difference rests in what kind of cases the jugs are placed in during transport from the milk-processing plant to the distribution center. Plastic cases, because they take more energy to produce, yield more carbon-dioxide emissions than do cardboard ones.

But National Dairy Holdings’ study doesn’t count all the emissions created by a gallon of milk. It includes those from the cows themselves (more than half of the total), from the processing of the milk and from the transport of the milk to a distribution center. It doesn’t count the emissions earlier in the process: growing the cows’ feed. Nor does it count the emissions later in the process: transporting the milk from the distribution center to the store and refrigerating it there…

National Dairy Holdings measured only its piece in the supply chain, explains Howard Depoy, the dairy’s director…That’s “the CO2 that we can control and manage,” Mr. Depoy says…the single biggest chunk of emissions from milk production comes from all that action in the cow’s gut…

The dairy industry doesn’t plan to put carbon-footprint labels on milk cartons, says Rick Naczi, an executive vice president for Dairy Management. “It’s something that would be very, very difficult to make understandable to consumers,” he says.

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BEER

When New Belgium Brewing Co. set out last year to compute the carbon footprint of a six-pack of its Fat Tire Amber Ale, it figured it would find transportation was the biggest problem…The microbrewer, based in Fort Collins, Colo., has been expanding into more states, necessitating more trucking of its beer.

When the numbers came in this summer, they showed that a six-pack’s carbon footprint was about seven pounds. The real surprise was where the bulk of that number came from: the refrigeration of the beer at stores. Transportation came in fourth, behind manufacturing the glass bottles and producing the barley and malt….

Now, New Belgium is considering switching to bottles with more recycled glass, because making them consumes less fuel. It’s also considering buying barley and malt produced organically, rather than with chemical fertilizers, which are big emitters.

Refrigeration poses a tougher problem. Stores selling Fat Tire aren’t owned by New Belgium, so even if the brewer wanted them to stop refrigerating the beer, they might not do so…

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Full article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122304950601802565.html

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