All Questions

In the place where I live, hard plastics (e.g. bottles) are valued more and easier to recycle whereas soft plastics (e.g. wrappers), even of the same type (say, HDPE) are valued much less, and it's ...

Why does color matter for PET recycling but not for HDPE recycling? I'm not sure about other countries, but in the place I live in the recycling plant that receives PET from recycling bins I use only ...

I came across a passing mention of a peculiar way they recycle in Belgium (it's not paywalled as you may think, use Google Scholar). They say they sort out plastic containers, cans, and tetrapaks. But ...

My house has two bathrooms, with roughly the same distance of pipe from the water heater to each (see diagram below). One was added during a renovation and has PEX piping from the point where they ...

In landfill conditions, it takes everything forever to decompose, especially plastics. Proper lining, methane capture, it's what developed countries have, and most countries are not developed. So ...

1 kg of firewood is said to have around 4-5 kWh of energy. Some wood stoves claim a burning efficiency up to 90%, and I understand this means how completely the wood is burned. Pipe loss is not ...

How is composting different from regular aerobic decomposition in terms of its (negative?) GHG footprint? Or are those the same thing?

On Monday night, a snowstorm in Virginia stranded drivers for up to 48 hours on Interstate 95. An op-ed this morning in the Washington Post argued that it would have been much worse if all the cars ...

Would blowing a fan on yourself and easing the AC save energy on hot days? Assume we keep the feels-like temperature the same. For example, 23 °C with still air and 28 °C with a fan may feel similar. ...

Today, breastfeeding is recommended for all newborns due to the health benefits for both the infant and the mother. In addition to health benefits, it is cheaper than formula feeding, and once ...

The green technologies require a lot of rare earth and precious chemical elements which are composed of the heavy nuclei that (beyond iron) are quite rare on our planet and our Solar system. All those ...

How is recycling of plastics beneficial to the climate? Using PET flakes, for example, reduces your indirect demand for oil extraction, it's good. But if you break them down to monomers during ...

I am reading https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-nuclear-energy-gas-green-climate-technology/ that this (2022) year the EU will have to decide on the labeling of nuclear energy - is it sustainable and/...

Introduction It seems natural (promoted by the media) that composting is a form of recycling while burning is *no* form of recycling. In this question I'd like to question this way of thinking. ...

What is the difference between a hybrid vehicle and a plug-in hybrid vehicle? And why are plug-in hybrid vehicles better than regular hybrid vehicles, even as good as EVs?

What is the difference between organic and syntropic agriculture? I watched a few of videos on the latter but couldn't get the gist of it. Is it like planting crops among trees or something?

(Sorry if this is the wrong place to ask this. I considered politics--maybe that is better.) I have seen various groups that try to set up small campaigns targeted at individual organizations to ...

I thought it's scientific consensus that landfill paper, as any organic matter with low levels of lignin, is a net source of GHGs. But this Canadian paper of 2008 contains this unusual train of ...

What is the difference between energy-from-waste (EFW) and cogeneration, and why is the latter more efficient (let's compare electricity to electricity)? Aren't both essentially incineration? See ...

What is "Recycled Input Credit" and how is it different from a simple difference of emissions between recycled and virgin manufacture (I read the EPA's definition, it didn't help)? Why do ...

I don't understand this (from WARM v. 15) Most paper products are modeled as being recycled in a closed loop (e.g., old newspaper is recycled into new newspaper). Magazines/third-class mail, ...

What percentage of wood is harvested for paper and cardboard production? I need more or less recent data please. What I found is a 1999 publication that calculated that it's 42% excluding fuelwood. It'...

What do developed nations do with organic municipal waste? Are there separate receptacles in addition to bins for plastics, glass, metals, etc.? Is organic waste then transported for anaerobic ...

Coal is going to be the first victim of the green energy revolution as the least sustainable kind of fossil fuel. What do we do with all the mines, both surface and underground ones? You can do quite ...

Should we recycle paper products given what this paper pointed out? In "Limited climate benefits of global recycling of pulp and paper" (pdf) they write: We [...] show that additional ...

I want to ask what are electronic waste problems and what are the precautionary measure we should choose to overcome e waste problems.

What does it mean? What does Circle Economy (a nonprofit) suggest? Can and should we outsource the computing power of our personal devices to the cloud? It sounds climatically reasonable (it's more ...

I could build a steel box and fill it with the heads, then put a steel plate on top of that, so I can still use my heat powered fan on it as well?

If we can capture landfill gas, why can't we capture cows' burps and farts and use them as a source of energy too? It's the same methane after all

When the topic of transport decarbonization comes up, all I hear is batteries and hydrogen. But what about renewable natural gas (RNG)? The milage is better, less energy loss, as I understand. You can ...

My power company has very consistently reported 45kWh ± 5% per month higher consumption than my grid-tied Enphase system data over the first 6 months of my installation. Why would that be? Is my power ...

I found that story on the site "I Fucking Love Science": https://www.iflscience.com/chemistry/method-that-turns-plastic-into-proteins-wins-12-million-prize/ Do you think this will solve the ...

This is related to Relative carbon footprint of gas or electric heating (UK) but with 2 key differences: things have changed in the 7 years since it was asked; I'm asking about the use of the systems ...

Can a landfill be a source of microplastic in waterways and running water? These studies are paywalled and, I assume, don't answer the following question: can microplastics pass through landfill ...

What's the difference between a synthetics mode and a cotton mode of a washing machine, and does it have any environmental relevance? I think it's better to put it all together and wash in one go than ...

The new CNN Business video This startup is making coffee...without coffee beans describes a recent entry into the coffee alternative market. They use no coffee beans and start with date pits, ...

Forest fires are considered a contributor to global warming, but using firewood is considered carbon-neutral. I'm not sure I understand it. In both cases, only the carbon that had been captured ...

There are simultaneous calls for not using paper in any form because it causes deforestation, but when it comes to building and making products from wood it is considered environmentally sustainable, ...

Is it true that cannabis is not sustainable, for example because of high water consumption? If so, what are more environmentally friendly alternatives? Magic mushrooms, maybe?

Reading the latest IPCC report, I came across an interesting overview of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) options (5SM-16 onwards). I've never heard of some of them: it includes biochar, ocean ...

How is biochar production as a CDR method, which is good, different from crop residue burning, which is bad? Does it have something to do with oxygen availability?

Is mercury still found in modern e-waste? I need an authoritative reference, please. I did try to research it on my own, but got conflicting information.

Tell me about concentrated solar power plants. Under what circumstances are they more feasible than conventional solar panels? It seems to me, a layman, that there are way too many energy transfers ...

Do solar panels generate more electricity in hot or cold climate? Who is right (sorry for the messiness, I currently don't know how to take a long screenshot)?

I still don't fully grasp the climate impact of lumbering (unless its purpose is burning the wood for energy or making space for pastures which is obviously bad). Is cutting down trees and making or ...

With renewables being in large part weather-dependent, the issue of energy storage is slowly moving to the center stage of the incipient net-zero economy. Lithium ion batteries are kinda good, but ...

Problem: I have six 100 W panels wired in series on the roof of my van. I can only get 180 W maximum out of my entire setup (with a Canadian winter, I'm expecting at least 300 W), and I think the ...

In the 1980's, a company I worked at owned a stand-alone building, and they were concerned about their electricity bill. It seemed to be higher than it should be. A manager called the electrical ...

I currently live in an Eastern European country where conscious consumption and recycling is uncommon. For context, I am sometimes frown upon by the cashiers when coming to a grocery store with a ...

When plants grow they absorb carbon-dioxide from air by photosynthesis, but when they die and decompose, then eventually all the captured carbon dioxide in them returns back to the atmosphere. The ...