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After a free labor day meal, the polystyrene containers that filled the garbage cans were painful to see.  Their usefulness lasted for 1/2 hour and their time in the landfill (polystyrene isn’t recycled) will last for hundreds and perhaps thousands of years.

Did you know styrofoam AKA polystyrene, AKA plastic #6 is manufactured using benzene, from coal; styrene, from petroleum; and ethylene, a “blowing agent”.  The main manufacturing route to styrene is the direct catalytic dehydrogenation of ethylbenzene: If you understand that and want more detail go to…
http://www.epa.gov/ttn/atw/hlthef/styrene.html

Long-term exposure to styrene in humans results in effects on the central nervous system (CNS), such as headache, fatigue, weakness, and depression, CNS dysfunction, hearing loss, and peripheral neuropathy. This only happens after long term exposure, so if you live long enough you’ll be a deaf, unbalanced, dummyhead with tremors and restless leg syndrome. Know anyone like that?

You might think to yourself…  “Somethings gotta kill me, I’m not gonna worry about monomers of styrene”.  Try thinking of this.  It takes 500 years for the chemical components of polystyrene to dissolve and it’s foreverness accounts for 25% of landfill waste.

While polystyrene is recyclable, most recycling programs don’t.  Burning polystyrene releases all the stuff it is made of into the air;  including dioxin, and carbon monoxide. Dioxins are highly toxic and can cause reproductive and developmental problems, damage the immune system, interfere with hormones and also cause cancer. Prevention or reduction of human exposure is best done via source-directed measures, i.e. strict control of industrial processes to reduce formation of dioxins as much as possible. That is from WHO, as in the World Health Organization. http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs225/en/

There are some positive things we can do with the Styrofoam/polystyrene that already exists.  If you mix it with cement and make building blocks out of it, the result is strong enough to withstand earthquakes.  If the building burns we’re screwed so make sure there is a good sprinkler system installed.

A concern was espressed that if California does away with all polystyrene containers for food use — jobs will be lost.  Those plants that are currently making polystyrene containers for food consumption are in China.  Hong Kong has a study of the impacts of polystyrene. http://www.way-to-go.org/doc/PolystyreneFactSheets.pdf

The legislature (Of Hawaii) finds that it is in the interest of protecting the public health and safety to prohibit the use of polystyrene food containers by restaurants and take-out food operations. http://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/session2008/Bills/SB2629_.htm

The market is bursting with alternatives including polylactic acid (PLA), which is generated using corn instead of petroleum. Many of these substitutes can be commercially composted after use.

Another great product I read about is Angela Morris’ Woolcool… http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/natural_resources/article5949979.ece

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A very smart lady named Margarita Calafell is using enzymes to make a super product to replace polystyrene.  Hope she can make it waterproof so we can use if for take out. http://www.engineersedge.com/technology_news/posts/794.html

Hopefully polystyrene will go away as will asbestos.

Wouldn’t it be better if the TV personalities would talk serenely about facts rather than loudly bashing someone or some idea.   Wouldn’t it be better if we stopped listening to them;  just shut them off, because we were all two busy admiring people who are discovering and inventing stuff. Science claims that basically we are herd animals.  Maybe we need to classify ourselves as a home planet herd.  We’ll just push the loudmouths to the outside of the herd for the lions to eat.

the desire to classify is inherent in humans, as we crave a sense of order. Similarly,  humans are predisposed to impose group boundaries and to see outsiders as a threat. We seek every opportunity to identify with a home land, a home tribe, a home religion, a home team, and to declare everybody else the enemy.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20327275.900-immigrant-species-arent-all-bad.html

Wheee – chromosomes!

Human DNA By ed_case

http://www.scq.ubc.ca/filter/?cat=3

But some of you are doing fascinating things with your time.  check it out

Inventor Shawn Frayne has come up with a device that harnesses the power of wind without any rotating parts. Instead, his company’s Windbelts capture energy using fluttering fabric.   Air passes over a taut membrane, it induces a vibration, somewhat akin to a violin bow.   Magnets mounted on the membrane bounce back and forth between metal coils, inducing an electric current.

What makes this so way cool is that it can be put on fences in urban areas and it can be palm sized or room sized and the materials it is made from are all available right here in the good ole USA.

http://www.terrapass.com/blog/posts/windbelt

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Scientists from Ohio State University report that marijuana, contrary to the conventional wisdom,  may help ward off Alzheimer’s and keep recall sharp. Are you kidding me? The only thing I was able to recall was where the ice cream was. Their findings, released today at the Society for Neuroscience meeting in Washington D.C.:  chemical components  of marijuana reduce inflammation and stimulate the production of new brain cells, thereby enhancing memory. I don’t know, I’ll need more evidence before I believe this one.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/60-second-science/post.cfm?id=pot-joins-the-fight-against-alzheim-2008-11-19

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two students (from MIT, of course) put together a low-budget rig to fly a camera high enough to photograph the curvature of the Earth. Instead of rockets, boosters and expensive control systems, they filled a weather balloon with helium and hung a styrofoam beer cooler underneath to carry a cheap Canon A470 compact camera. Instant hand warmers kept things from freezing up and made sure the batteries stayed warm enough to work.  Show this to your kids next time they whine about being bored.

Of course, all this would be pointless if the guys couldn’t find the rig when it landed, so they dropped a prepaid GPS-equipped cellphone inside the box for tracking. Total cost, including duct tape? $148.  they must have giggled after they pulled this off.

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/09/the-150-space-camera-mit-students-beat-nasa-on-beer-money-budget/

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This is my favorite story.  Click the link to see the full story.  I’m not doing this fascinating kid justice with this short introduction.

The extraordinary true story of a Malawian teenager who transformed his village by building electric windmills out of junk is the subject of a new book, The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind.

Self-taught William Kamkwamba has been feted by climate change campaigners like Al Gore and business leaders the world over.

“People thought I was smoking marijuana,” he said. “So I told them I was only making something for juju [magic].’ Then they said: ‘Ah, I see.’”

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8257153.stm