How ECO2 Plastics Turns Our Idea of “Washing” on its Head

Although recycling plastics contributes a great deal to the effort to reduce waste and dependence on landfilling, and must become standard practice by society in general (we’re not there yet), the process does have one big downside, and that is water use.  What many people may not realize is that the recycling of plastic requires vast amounts of water for cleaning and other processes, amounting to billions of gallons every year.  With this challenge in mind, not to mention the increasingly strict water use policies in place in the State of California, Gary De Laurentiis, a world-renowned plastics recycling industry expert, founded ECO2 Plastics, and in turn, began to utilize an industry-changing process.

Referring to the process as “eco.logical.recycling”, the San Francisco-based company, along with Honeywell, has developed a method by which to clean plastic PET bottles using an FDA-approved biosolvent at a stage when typical plants use a great deal of water.  The solvent is then distilled to remove sugars and glues, and sequestered for ongoing reuse, at the same time that carbon vapors captured from power plants (an additional benefit of the process) are then converted into liquid CO2 form, which serves as the “bath” in the final stages of the process.  Once the FDA approves the resulting recycled plastic as food safe, the company will then be able to offer it for reuse in beverage containers.  Although ECO2 currently only utilizes PET, which is the most consumes plastic in the U.S. by volume, the company may soon work with HDPE bottles as well as ASR (auto shredder residue) from the auto industry, which will help reduce waste even further.  According to CEO Rod Rougelot, ECO2’s Riverbank, California plant will be joined by another plant to go online within a year, and the company hopes to introduce its waterless process to countries such as India and others, which have water crises even more dire than those in California.

ECO2 Plastics

Why is it so Hard to Build a Small a House?

(Image courtesy of Tumbleweed Tiny House Company)

With the economy on the verge of a recession and the urgency to lessen environmental impact at an all-time high, it’s no wonder many people are turning to smaller homes. Marty Pieroni, a developer from Kuna, Idaho, has dealt with consumers that are seeking smaller spaces due to financial restrictions or just a need to simplify their lives. Although he signed a contract for 1,400 square foot houses with the City of Kuna, he recently requested to build 20 houses that were 1,250 square feet, 150 square feet less than his minimum. The City Council turned down the request, saying that they want to increase the value of housing in the area and attract buyers. Their fear is that Kuna would soon be known as a city with inexpensive starter homes that would deflate values of surrounding, established properties. However, Pieroni told them this wasn’t the case. He emphasized that with the help of sound material choices, a smaller house can appear aesthetically similar to a more traditional larger house, but with 695 square feet less space than the average house last year. And in using better quality and long-lasting materials, less maintenance would be required on the part of the owner, and ultimately environmental impact would decrease - even more so, with the integration of on-site solar, wind, and/or geothermal power.

What are the actual benefits of a smaller house, anyway? Quite simply, it is better for the environment and more economical at the same time, counter to the reflexive notion that all things green building-oriented are more expensive. Furthermore, a small house encourages simplified living, which results in less waste, less clutter, less use of electricity, and less water consumption. The less space that’s available for habitation, the less power is consumed for heating and cooling, therefore removing fewer overall resources from our ever depleting supply.

City of Kuna 

Small House Society

Tumbleweed Tiny House Company

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Nicole Maccarone is an Ecolect Super Intern based in the East Coast office in Providence, RI.

The Virtual Water Project

By now you’re probably familiar with the concept of carbon footprints, but if you’ve ever wondered how much water is required for the production of the food you eat, then the visually stunning double-sided poster by German designer Timm Kekeritz, will provide a worthy introduction to the concepts of virtual water and water footprints. As defined by Waterfootprint.org, the result of collaboration between the Universtity of Twente and the UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education in Holland, virtual water refers to the “volume of freshwater used to produce the product, measured at the place where the product was actually produced” or the “sum of the water use in the various steps of the production chain”, and water footprint represents the “total volume of freshwater that is used to produce the goods and services consumed by the individual or community or produced by the business.” The terms were coined by Professor John Anthony Allan of King’s College London in 1998, and led to a number of studies, including one in 2004 by Arjen Hoekstra and Ashok Chapagain, the data from which Kekeritz created his poster. On one side of the Poster are depicted the water footprints of various countries (featuring import/export of virtual water and per capita consumption), and on the other side are the virtual water contents of various foods and commodities.

Although there is some criticism of employing the concept of virtual water as a measure of water usage and a way to determine water policy, - a topic far too complex on which to elaborate in a brief blog post - the concept certainly brings to light the fact that fresh water is a scarce, and many say dwindling resource, a concern about which we should all be conscious. With this poster, Timm Kekeritz hopes to bring to the forefront this very issue, and he has already garnered a great deal of positive press for his efforts. One may purchase the poster directly through the site, and visit Waterfootprint.org for a more in-depth description of all of the concepts involved and to try their Footprint Calculators to determine your National or Individual water footprint.