13
votes
Accepted
Which consumes more carbon dioxide: a fully grown forest or a newly planted one that is growing?
A forest of old trees sequesters more carbon per year than a forest with the same quantity of young trees.
When I first saw this question I thought I knew the answer -- trees grow faster when they're ...
- 11.9k
12
votes
Accepted
For the exactly same income, does a person pollute more when living in a big city or in a small town?
Quick summary:
The city and the country both have positives and negatives in pollution production... the data here suggests perhaps the urban core produces slightly less pollution (depending upon how ...
- 236
8
votes
How do I get rid of numerous small pieces of charcoal?
You are talking about black gold that has a value of AU$40 per 25 litre bag in my area. I would suggest either selling it or putting it back into the soil.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biochar ...
- 2,854
8
votes
Accepted
Does my facial scrub contain microplastics?
Ingredients
I used beatthemicrobead.org to check the ingredients which gave the following:
The following ingredients are considered microplastics:
carbomer: environmental impact article
...
- 223
7
votes
Which consumes more carbon dioxide: a fully grown forest or a newly planted one that is growing?
As LShaver writes, larger trees sequester more carbon than smaller trees, but only if they are still growing. In a "fully-grown" forest (as per the title) that process has ended — decay and regrowth ...
- 2,854
7
votes
Accepted
Does 1 container ship really pollute as much as 50,000,000 cars?
It depends on how you define "pollution".
Cargo ships use some of the dirtiest fuels available: bunker fuel is basically what's left over after you refine all the good stuff out of crude oil....
- 618
5
votes
Do electric cars create more particulate pollution than petrol cars?
Battery Weight
Batteries are heavy
- a Tesla 85kWh battery weighs 540kg.
- VW Golf 55.7kWh battery weight 330kg
you are looking at around 6kg per kWh.
The main part of this argument is based on ...
- 667
5
votes
Accepted
Does oil spilled in backyard contaminate groundwater?
I question the blanket assertion of 1 liter of oil contaminating 1 million liters of water. That's 1 part per million.
This article:
https://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/water-quality/...
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5
votes
How is "recovered ocean bound plastic" any different from recycled plastic?
Ocean-bound plastic refers to all plastic on land within a 50 kilometer (30 mile) distance of the ocean. The term was popularized by Jenna Jambeck PhD, a professor at the University of Georgia, who ...
- 14.5k
4
votes
Dishwasher or paper plates: which are worse?
I'm not typically an answer-my-own-question kind of person, but this has been on the back of my mind for days. The challenge in answering this is that we do not have an apples-to-apples kind of ...
- 249
4
votes
Dealing with waste in countries without waste management infrastructure
I compost all organic material, with the exception of paper. I bury meat and animal bones bc it can attract other animals.
I have been known to re-use cardboard as a one-season box garden.
It may be ...
- 375
4
votes
How can we all together clean up the vast plastic carpets in our oceans?
Prevalence of garbage in the oceans
A recent study in Nature Scientific Reports finds that the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch" is massive, and keeps growing. From the article, "Evidence ...
- 11.9k
4
votes
Do electric cars create more particulate pollution than petrol cars?
No. Electric cars emit less particulates.
Main sources of particulate emissions from transport are:
brake wear
tyre wear
road wear and resuspension of road dust/soil
exhaust
Exhaust particulate ...
- 1,082
4
votes
Is plastic recycling mostly green washing?
Great questions and important ones
Is plastic recycling really not a viable solution?
Sustainability talks about 3 Rs: "reduce, reuse, recycle" and "recycle" is the last R. Hence ...
- 151
3
votes
Is there a scientific consensus whether lifestyle or amount of human population the biggest problem
There are a couple of errors in your question.
Firstly regarding environmental damage in pre-industrial times, in the Middle East they ran out of trees over two thousand years ago and had to import ...
- 1,220
3
votes
How to design a taxi rank to charge electric vehicles whilst waiting for fares?
You could have a number of electric charging booths dedicated to taxis which consist of a parking space and an electrical charging point.
We allow a maximum of 3 taxis to wait directly outside the ...
- 667
3
votes
How to prevent pollution caused by a taxi rank? Is there a solution to the 'edging forward' cost of cars in a queue?
A variant of the system suggested by @LShaver, would be to use the numbered ticket system sometimes found in supermarket deli counters. Each arriving taxi takes a sequentially numbered ticket (which ...
- 783
3
votes
How to prevent pollution caused by a taxi rank? Is there a solution to the 'edging forward' cost of cars in a queue?
Have the taxis (*) fill two or more lanes (| |) leading to the station, with one ready to pick up the next passenger (:)) coming out.
|*|*|
|*|*|
|*|*|
|*|*|
:) *
Once that cab ...
- 11.9k
3
votes
Accepted
Motor oil and environment
Here is a document from the National Park Service which summarizes a lot of information about environmental effects of used motor oil. It includes references to many other papers. The primary ...
- 333
3
votes
How is "recovered ocean bound plastic" any different from recycled plastic?
I've found two websites with similar definitions of recovered ocean-bound plastic:
Website 1,
Recovered Ocean-Bound Plastic as plastic waste collected from land areas where the plastic would ...
- 3,517
2
votes
Are The Great Lakes Getting Cleaner or Worse?
This is more like a comment than an answer, but I have insufficient rep to comment. I think the short answer is that we lack the data to say for certain. And it definitely does depend on what ...
- 306
2
votes
What impact do CFCs have on ozone?
Yes - CFCs interact with and break down ozone.
It's basic chemistry:
CFCs are lifted by buoyancy into the stratosphere, where they are broken up by the sun's ultraviolet radiation (1), and the ...
- 14.7k
2
votes
Types and quantities of air pollutants by fuel, per kWh, for electricity generation?
I found this interesting research paper that answers some of your questions, at least for US power plants. For people who don't like to read research papers, there's an easier-to-read summary in this ...
- 14.5k
2
votes
Is there a scientific consensus whether lifestyle or amount of human population the biggest problem
The core problem is the scale of pollution overall.
Let's take excess anthropogenic greenhouse gas releases as being our single worst problem, which, broadly speaking, it is.
We know we need to get ...
- 14.7k
2
votes
Is there a scientific consensus whether lifestyle or amount of human population the biggest problem
You don't need a "scientific consensus", you just need "math".
Consumerism (the exploitation and consumption of natural resources to support modern/unsustainable lifestyles) is what produces ...
- 2,854
2
votes
Accepted
Comparing train station pollution with smoking
On average, smoking one cigarette results in inhalation of roughly 600 billion ultrafine particles (UFP).
From a joint research study by universities in Lebanon, the U.S., and France: "Comparison ...
- 11.9k
2
votes
Dealing with waste in countries without waste management infrastructure
The question has two general aspects. First how to collect plastics efficiently and second how to treat it afterwards.
Best supporter for collection is to generate a value that people perceive and ...
- 929
2
votes
Preventing idling - ideas to keep warm in a car when the engine is off and it is cold outside
It's possible to fit a dedicated heater run off the fuel system. This is a much more efficient way of turning fuel into cabin heat. They're common in motorhomes in a form that directly heats the ...
- 2,126
2
votes
Preventing idling - ideas to keep warm in a car when the engine is off and it is cold outside
Wear a woolen underlayer (woolen socks + woolen long sleeve t-shirt + woolen long pants)
Wear warm clothes (hat, snood, scarf, warm jumpers, warm trousers)
Wear winter driving gloves (or any warm ...
- 667
2
votes
How to design a taxi rank to charge electric vehicles whilst waiting for fares?
I'll re-suggest my answer to your previous question (https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/a/9679/4155):
Use the numbered ticket system sometimes found in supermarket deli counters. Each arriving ...
- 783
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