By Gene Ayres, Your Consumer Curmudgeon

The Holiday Season is upon us. And a lot of us use this as yet another good excuse to indulge, or perhaps overindulge, or, to apply my favorite maxim: moderation in all things. Including moderation.

For health reasons alone (and I feel so very righteous writing this!) I have one glass of wine every evening for dinner (OK, OK, sometimes two on weekends and, well, Holidays). The French have been doing this since they were, well, French, and they are way healthier than we are, even with all that horrible national health insurance they're stuck with.

The French eat the fattiest foods south of Nome, and are no worse for the wear. Their average cholesterol levels are about half ours, likewise heart disease, not to mention their average body fat. The reason why, as many of us (and all of them) have known for some time, is red wine. Researchers pondered this miracle for decades, this so called “French Paradox,” and finally isolated the cause of all this rampant good health: a naturally occurring (at least in red wine) chemical compound called “resveratrol” (I keep wanting to call it “reservatrol”). This substance is “a phytoalexin produced naturally by several plants when under attack by pathogens such as bacteria or fungi. Resveratrol has also been produced by chemical synthesis and is sold as a nutritional supplement derived primarily from Japanese knotweed. (Also) Resveratrol is found in the skin of red grapes and is a constituent of red wine, but apparently not in sufficient amounts to explain the French paradox. Experiments have shown that resveratrol treatment extended the life of fruit flies, nematode worms and short-lived fish but it did not increase the life span of mice.”

So says Wikipedia. But as usual, the French beg to differ, perhaps not being mice, and also as usual, seem to be enjoying themselves immensely in doing so.

Which brings me to this week's actual consumer-related subject, and latest justification for drinking red wine (or, in a pinch, white wine and taking a resveratrol capsule). I've been blogging about new ways to recycle consumer-generated waste recently, and just came across the best one yet: recycling winery waste, into hydrogen fuel, no less! According to MSNBC, a winery in Napa Valley (Oakville, CA) called, appropriately enough I suppose, the Napa Wine Company (makers of such boutique labels as Oakville, Napa, Blackbird, and Crocker and Starr), has found a way to recycle waste water from their grape processing plants through a refrigeration unit that actually feeds the waste matter to a colony of lurking microbes—those little devils—who chow down, chaw it up, and spit out hydrogen. At this stage it's just at the experimental level, but the winery expects, before long, to produce enough of their own hydrogen fuel to power the winery, as well as vineyard farming machinery. At the moment it's kind of a wash: the winery is mainly using the energy thus far produced to complete the wastewater treatment itself. But then this water, too, is recycled into the vineyards, thus eliminating the middleman (per that old beer joke, those of you old enough to remember it).

So, Happy Holidays. And relax a little, over a nice glass of Napa. It's good for your health, not to mention enjoyment. Before long it will also be good for the environment.

Cheers!

Sources:

Winery waste makes fuel: Electricity, bacteria break organics in wastewater into hydrogen gas, Charles Q. Choi, msnbc.com, 11/3/09.

By Gene Ayres, Your Consumer Curmudgeon

This week, with a gasp of relief, I'm happy to move on from the excretory to the exhausted exhilarating exhalations of exasperation with exfoliates. And stuff. This week marks the 32nd Great American Smokeout, as if anyone was paying attention, since such a commemoration is likely to be just about as successful as a plea to, say, politicians to repent and start being honest and responsive to their voting constituents instead of just their rich and powerful friends—namely Corporate America.

Getting people to give up smoking, especially given that it is driven by one of the most powerful addictive substances in the world, is of course not an easy task. But I'll take a shot at it, because smoking killed my father, and he wasn't even a smoker. He worked for 40 years at AT&T, a then-progressive company that provided numerous benefits to its employees, none of which, unfortunately, included a smoke-free environment. Not even, in my father's case, in your own office, because he was a mid- level executive with a private secretary: one who, unfortunately, smoked. I guess it never occurred to Dad to replace her with one who didn't smoke, or ask her to do it elsewhere. Those notions had just not come into fruition yet. Years later, I was heavily involved in the struggle and campaign, first with airlines, then later (against much heavier resistance) with restaurants and retail spaces, for the right to breathe clean (or relatively clean) air not contaminated by somebody else's pollution. We started in New York, then Los Angeles and the Bay Area in California, and thanks to the Surgeon General's warning way back in the 60s, it began to work. As for Big Tobacco, it became increasingly difficult to deny, let alone gloss over, the fact that half a million Americans were dying from smoking every year, and that was just those who actually smoked and didn't include those who got emphysema and pneumonia from constant exposure to often thick clouds of so-called “sidestream” smoke everywhere they went. Like my father.

So now we have smoke free zones and that's great. But it hasn't stopped the huge nicotine cartel from continuing to expand their stranglehold on the world's health, legally hook addicts for life, and then slowly killing them, if not so many of their friends, relatives and associates. The World Health Organization reports at latest count 1 billion smokers in the world, or about 20% of the population. That's a lot of smokers, and a lot of profit, and a lot of poison, and a lot of death: all very profitable industries overall. The tobacco industry is thriving despite efforts to regulate it. And while I don't expect any increasingly defensive and hardcore smokers to suddenly find Jesus this week, there are some new, or at least newer things to consider:

The tobacco industry is a major cause of environmental destruction, using some 25 million pounds of pesticides a year. This means over 2 million pounds of pesticides continue to pollute our air. As much as ten percent of the pesticide applied to the tobacco crop can appear in the sidestream smoke that person next to you is emitting, and which killed my father. As with all big agribusinesses, pesticide and fertilizer runoff contaminate our nation's water supplies including rivers, streams, lakes, groundwater, and adjacent seas. As if that wasn't bad enough, the curing of tobacco leaf with wood fuel leads to massive deforestation. An oft-cited, in-depth study shows that an estimated 200,000 hectares (about 772 square miles) of forest/woodland is lost to tobacco farming each year.

While you might not be sympathetic any more than I am, any more than to the opium growers in Afghanistan there are substantial health risks for tobacco farmers themselves. From inhalation of pesticides and tobacco dust to a fungal disease called "Green Tobacco Sickness" caused by handling the plant's wet leaves. Unfortunately, whether or not we love them dearly, we end up picking up, or at least subsidizing the tab for their much greater healthcare needs than most of ours.

Other profiteers thrive from this product as well, including a huge global criminal industry. Cigarettes are the world’s most widely smuggled legal consumer product. In 2006, about 600 billion smuggled cigarettes were sold worldwide. Also, tobacco companies get a huge quid pro quo by funding university and lab research into ways to maintain and control nicotine, including the effects of everything from tobacco advertising to cancer drugs. No doubt we can all rest easy with corporate assurances that all this money will have “no influence whatsoever” on the outcomes of this research. I can't wait to be told (again) that there is no proven connection between tobacco and any disease, and that was a big fat lying myth over the past forty years of liberal misinformation, and nicotine is actually good for you, and so is meth, and by the way, there is no such thing as global warming, so feel free to light up!

Next comes the human exploitation angle, another issue that was hardly a blip on the radar three decades ago: it's called “product placement.” Did you ever notice how movie producers always seem to slip slick, glamorous (and expensive) products into their productions? This is just another form of baksheesh, of course (also known as bribery). But the real kicker is the way all these marketers and advertisers use Hollywood movies to target children and youth around the world to glamorize smoking. Here's a petition to take action: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/870523336.

Next is the exploitation of women issue. Ever since Virginia Slims (crediting themselves for the numerous accomplishments of women athletes worldwide), women, like children, are being targeted by cigarette marketers. Especially in China. According to Thomas Glynn (MD) of the American Cancer Society in an interview with Voice of America, 4 to 6 percent of women in China presently use tobacco. He added this: "In places like Shanghai where tobacco companies are focusing, we are starting to see figures like 20 or 25 percent."

Finally, there's the food supply issue, which is not a dissimilar counterpart to the way McDonald’s and pals are gutting forests to make room for huge beef ranches in Brazil and elsewhere. Big Tobacco displaces potential food production on almost 4 million hectares of the world’s agricultural land, equal to the world’s entire crop of orange groves or banana plantations.

Welcome to Marlboro Country. It never went away.

Sources: WHO The Tobacco Institute American Cancer Society Killer Crop: Tobacco Facts To Inspire Quitting for a Healthier World, Nancy R., Care2.com.

By Gene Ayres, Your Consumer Curmudgeon

You had to see it coming, didn't you? How else to follow up on a story about the amazing power potential of pee, than with one about poo? And I don't mean as in Winnie the. Granted I may have thrown you a curveball with my hint at the end of last week's dispatch, “Next time: methane.” But this is but a feint, a side step, in truth, because methane is very much a byproduct of waste, human and animal and otherwise. It too is a very useful energy source and could be competitive with natural gas, and maybe, for the same reasons alluded to last week, it isn't going to go away any time soon, given its source (we, the human race, all our crap in all senses and forms, plus all that of our domestic mega-herds). The average American landfill repository of all that junk we consumers toss, just oozes with methane. Like at that cool dinosaur fossil pit in L.A., it is literally bubbling out of the ground. And it burns just like gas, natural or otherwise.

There is a direct connection, however, between human solid waste matter, pee's natural counterpart, if you will (or even if you won't, or sometimes can't), and methane: disposable diapers. According to the National Diaper Service (Yes Virginia, there is such an agency) the average baby uses from 6 to 10,000 diapers before being officially declared as potty-trained. And yes, a lot of that does turn into methane in all those landfills (some of which some of you may be living on top of—a not so beneficial form of land recycling that has been around since before Love Canal). Thus it will end up in our atmospheres (both personal and public) instead of our gas tanks because, well, we let it.

Now, getting back to those diapers. In the USA, 95 percent of all diaper changes are disposable diapers, and most of them end up in landfills, according to John A. Shiffert, executive director of the National Association of Diaper Services. Given that as of 2006, the last year statistics are available, 4,266,000 babies were born in the USA. That comes to 405.27 billion (that's billion, folks) dirty diapers getting thrown away and dumped into landfills, just in the USA alone. Way to go, consumers! Of course, statistics tend to be unreliable, and often wildly conflicting. According to the American Petroleum Institute, 3.5 billion gallons of oil and 250,000 trees are used to produce just 18 billion throwaway diapers used in the US each year. Either way it's a lot. Huge volumes of wood are pulped (using an enormous amount of water) and then commonly bleached white with chlorine, a process that produces dioxin, one of the most toxic substances ever made by humans.

Once in the landfill, diaper waste has the potential to pollute local groundwater and the diaper itself has little chance of ever decomposing. When your baby’s great, great, great, great grandchildren come into the world, those diapers will still be lying in the landfill (EcoCycle). The EPA was ordered to stop looking into these matters back in 1998, even before Bush, and thus all figures are hopelessly outdated. But as of then, disposable diapers made up 3.4 million tons of waste, or 2.1 percent of U.S. Garbage sitting in landfills. And those diapers don't decompose. They'll just sit there as long as those dinosaur bones, seeping poison. Dioxin comes to mind. We've found creative uses for animal fecal matter, like recycled paper or valuable fertilizer for lawns and gardens, so why can't we find a more productive way to keep all this organic waste from spending an eternity underground? Well, finally the good news. Now two upstart UK companies, Versus Energy and Knowaste, are putting all this basic (as in, really basic) common sense to good, and perhaps even profitable, use. These two companies are forming a partnership (dare we call it a marriage?) to create Britain's very first disposable diaper plant which will get 100 percent of its power from the organic materials in disposable diapers. But according to CleanTechnica, only 2 percent of a used disposable diaper is comprised of organic waste, so what happens to the other 98 percent? Pretty soon we'll all be sitting on top of it, I suppose. Literally.

Sources:

Poo Power: Used Diapers Will Fuel U.K. Recycling Plant, by Beth B.

The Poop on Eco-Friendly Diapers, Elisa Batista, Wired Magazine, 4/27/04

By Gene Ayres, Your Consumer Curmudgeon

You'd almost think we were swimming in the stuff. First came that Off-Broadway hit, Urinetown, which made the subject downright trendy, and somehow garnished a heap of rewards, if not rashes. And for those who survived Katrina, or who swim regularly in, say, Lake Washington (where more than once I have watched mothers empty their young children's bladders into said lake), maybe you are. Or will be. Urine is everywhere, like it or not, we all produce a lot of it every day (granted some more than others) and just flushing it out of sight is proving less and less viable as a method of disposal.

Granted, it is a completely natural impulse to get rid of the stuff as quickly and efficiently as possible. Urine, of course, is not something we generally want to keep around, for obvious olfactory and other sensory, health-related, and aesthetic reasons. Anyone remember that nationwide drought in the ‘80s? We were all supposed to take fewer showers and there was a slogan we were supposed to use on bumper stickers in regards to flushing and when not to that I won't repeat here.

But now it turns out the stuff may actually be useful. Even valuable! And I don't mean as an emergency disinfectant, which properties it allegedly has. No, I'm talking about a new energy source! This past year scientists at Ohio University have found that urine can be converted to hydrogen with a simple nickel based electrode that can release the four atoms of hydrogen found in every molecule of urea, the acidic main component of all urine. This method offers a way to bypass the currently cumbersome and expensive methodology of hydrogen production and storage that requires extreme high pressures at extreme low temperatures—not something you can do at home.

But the idea that you could soon bypass BP by, well, topping off your gas tank yourself (perhaps the ultimate in “self service!”) offers a lot of convenience, even righteous appeal, if not fodder for crude jokes. And not just to the tailgate crowd. Granted this would be a lot easier for men, I also realize this sounds like an Irishman's pipe dream, or at least pub dream, in a way: a trip to the pub could theoretically provide the fuel to get you home! And instead of smelling up the men's room yet further (or the outhouse, or the neighbor's tree) you just pee in your gas tank (when no one's looking, presumably?) and off you go. Amazing.

And in fact, a fuel cell powered with urine should be able to propel a car a lot further than, say, home from the pub. According to the EPA, a hydrogen fuel cell-powered car is capable of getting 90 miles per gallon or better. But we humans are not, in fact, the worst offenders when it comes to pee production and disposal. And therefore not even the prime potential source for said conversions. According to Prof. Geraldine Botte, one of the developers of the new process at Ohio University, “One cow can provide enough energy to supply hot water for 19 houses.” Livestock farmers, for whom animal waste is a major expense and headache at present, would soon be able to convert waste into sufficient energy to power their entire farms, including buildings and vehicles.

The possibilities in all this are staggering, new fodder for late night pundits notwithstanding. It might prove to be the most promising (and obvious) form of recycling yet to be invented. Waste products that currently pollute so much of our world, especially agricultural waste, being turned into biofuel would seem like a no-brainer. As Botte also points out, soldiers, for example, while in the field, “could carry their own fuel.” But then, other great ideas and inventions have also come and gone, thanks to the huge persuasive, legislative, and financial clout of the powers-that-be determined to maintain the status quo no matter what. I can just see BP and Exxon teaming up with Pampers and Cargill to block further progress in this direction. No doubt on spurious health grounds.

Of course developing this “new” energy source would require urinals everywhere, even the ladies' rooms (someone else can work out the logistics for that one), and redirecting all our plumbing, or at least some of it, to hydrogen facilities instead of sewage processing centers. Or the two could be combined. And look how this might offer employment, or at least an outlet, for all those homeless people currently peeing in our parks! And best of all, instead of having to pay to use a public toilet, maybe it could pay you! This could be a godsend for all those cities that still dump sewage effluents into our waterways, as well. If all that runoff could be channeled and funneled into hydrogen, what used to be pollution and literal waste could become not only profitable for cash starved municipalities, for whom waste water treatment and sewage removal is a huge expense, but make our world markedly cleaner (and better smelling) as well.

Next time: methane.

Source: Urine: a 'Clean' Energy Source, by Eric Bland, Discovery News http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/07/08/urine-power.html

By Colleen Rothe

Once again, as Halloween happens to be approaching, the volume of the rallying cry to think environmentally friendly is being cranked up.

But Halloween has always been the more environmentally friendly of holidays in my household: pillowcase trick-or-treat bags, recycled costumes, and decorations made from up-cycled materials or from nature’s autumn’s bounty.

And even given the New Depression, retailers are buzzing about the upswing in Halloween purchases. It’s a good escape, as I’ve blogged before to you. When life is tedious, stressful, and overwhelmingly negative, having something fun to plan and look forward to helps folks refocus energies. Oh, and if you can scare the pants off your neighbors or the irritating teenager next door, bonus points. Besides, it can seem kind of easy (even if not smart) to find a few extra bucks in your budget for a bag of Mini-Snickers.

So given the call to be Green (even if Orange is the predominant color) and the need to be cheap, you can still have a fun Halloween and make the tree-hugger and tightwad inside you happy.

What’s your unusual or potentially spooky money saving idea to scare up some fun without frightening your wallet?

By Colleen Rothe

Hopefully, you’re not in the nearly 10 percent of Americans that are out of work today. But even if you are, here are some tips to put money back into your wallet or bank account and save for a day that might be even leaner than today. Even if things don’t get tougher economically, you’ll have a good chunk of change to do with as you please.

Some of these are painful re-examinations on things we may take for granted every month. But, when you need to save, sometimes you have to completely re-think your strategy.

1. Stay away from the store. Most of us began a bad habit when we were teenagers and didn’t have anywhere else to go, except hang out in the mall. But each time you go to the mall, even if you tell yourself it’s just to “window shop” or “go do something,” you’re opening the door to blow a few bucks here and there. That “play money” adds up to big dough very quickly, especially if you’re hitting the food court while you’re there, or if you’re visiting the local mall once a week or a few times a month. Find another activity, one that doesn’t cost money, like taking a walk in the park, or going hiking or biking with your kids. Heck, you could even go play basketball with your grandson.

2. Figure it out before you shop. Don’t go to the grocery store without a list. The food budget is always the easiest to trim. If you go to the market without a plan, you’ll likely spend more than you need to do. Do an inventory of what you have already and make meals from that. Have a bag a rice? Plan your meal around that. I’ve even gone to having a mini white board on the outside of my pantry and freezer so I know what’s in it. I can add and erase as needed. At a glance I know what I have. I keep my list on my phone, so I never have to worry about where I put that dang piece of paper. Having a plan keeps unnecessary and always more expensive trips to the grocery store out of your routine.

3. Learn to love Leftovers. Don’t be afraid of leftovers. Learning to love leftovers or making a meal around the leftovers is another great way to minimize your food budget. Roast a chicken one night (or pick up the already roasted from your grocery store’s deli when they are on sale – often the price can’t be beat). Then take the left over meat and make a stir-fry, jambalaya, or soup the next day. Also, learn to love things the second day. Meals like spaghetti, lasagna, and chili always seem to taste better the second day. So, make big portions of that – you often save when buying in bulk – and eat it more than one day. When folks talk about stretching your food budget, this is exactly what they mean.

4. Turn off your TV. For the most part, TV used to be, after the initial investment of purchasing the television, cheap entertainment. But that’s not necessarily the case any more. Take the time to review the cable package you currently have. Do you really need it? Can you really afford it? Is there a less costly one that would suit you even better? Seriously, who can watch 199 channels every day anyhow? Would you really miss your cable show? Or would you rather have some extra green in your wallet?

5. Throw out the House Phone. Emergency Managers in every city and town are probably cringing at this, but if you’re in dire straits with your money situation, this is a great way to save you money each month. Considering that most folks have a cell phone, you should examine if you really need the extra monthly bill of a landline at the house. Besides, many of the emergency notifications can now go to cell phones too.

Next week I’ll give you five more tips to put money back into your budget. If you have another tip – something seemingly entrenched in American Life that isn’t really necessary and you can re-examine from a different perspective in order to save some cash – what is it?