Posted by Bill Robbins on Sun, Jan 30, 2011 @ 06:43 PM
There’s nothing environmental about concrete, let me explain…
Concrete is formed by mixing hydraulic cement, water, and aggregate materials (sand, gravel, or crushed stone). It is the most common construction material used in the world. Cement is the principal ingredient in concrete, making up approximately 40% by volume of concrete, as estimated by the EPA in the Profile of the Stone, Clay, Glass and Concrete Industry. Portland cement is at the heart of concrete’s environmental problems. In the cement industry, natural resources are a core part of the final product. Included in this are alumina, silica, limestone, clay, and iron oxides. Producing one ton of cement results in the discharge of approximately one ton of CO2, created by fuel combustion and calcinations of raw materials. The EPA also stated that pollution outputs from cement manufacturing plants include process waste, primarily cement kiln dust; air emissions; waste water; plant maintenance waste, and research laboratory waste. They also noted that the largest emission source within the cement plant is the kiln operation, which generates nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxides, carbon monoxide, and hydrocarbons. The cement manufacturing process also generates a great amount of wastewater from the cooling of process equipment. Although the cement industry has reduced CO2 emissions through improvements in process and efficiency, these improvements are limited because CO2 production is intrinsic to the simple process of calcinating limestone.
The EPA also found that the concrete and cement industries reported high volumes of solvent releases. Trichloroethylene and 1,1,1-triochloroethane together accounted for more than a third of total releases from concrete industry. Also, concrete batching generates particulate emissions, paint wastes, and plant maintenance wastes. Particulate emissions which occur in concrete batching consist primarily of cement dust, but some sand and gravel dust emissions also occur.
The problem with concrete is the industrial extraction of the materials, the mixing, and the application of concrete that is ceases to be environmentally friendly. And besides the three primary components, that is, cement, aggregates, and water, numerous chemical and mineral admixtures are incorporated into concrete mixtures. They too represent huge inputs of energy and materials into the final product. What about batching, mixing, transport, placement, consolidation, and finishing of concrete? All these operations are extremely energy-intensive. The problem also stems from volume; approximately 2.35 billion tons of concrete are produced each year according to the World Business Council for Sustainable Development.
Posted by Jamie Rexinger on Tue, Dec 21, 2010 @ 10:34 AM
Mr Crumb just read an article that relates to RubberForm and the issues that we face in selling our American made product here in America. Over the years we have been conditioned to look for the best deal and save our pennies, but as we all have found out at some point cheaper does not always mean better. Cheaper many times means a product made with lower grade materials and more recently found out materials that may not be healthy for humans to be around. We are buying products that are made over seas simply because the cost a few pennies less and in many cases will need to be replaced in a shorter time.
Jim Hightower from The Progressive writes an article that shows so of the issues that we face as consumers:
Jim Hightower tallies the cost of cheap goods. Like a cat watching the wrong mouse hole, we’re being told to look to Chinese manufacturers when assessing blame for the toxic products that are being exported from there. But wait a minute—where, oh where, are our own country’s regulatory watchdogs?
The big shock is not that Chinese-made toys are laden with lead, but that America’s Consumer Product Safety Commission is a toothless watchdog that employs exactly one inspector to oversee the safety of all toys sold in the U.S. Likewise, the Food and Drug Administration has licensed 714 Chinese plants to manufacture the key ingredients for a growing percentage of the antibiotics, painkillers, and other drugs we buy, but provides practically no oversight of these plants. In 2007, for example, the FDA inspected only thirteen of them.
An even bigger shock is that our consumer protection laws are so riddled with loopholes that unsafe products can legally come into our country. Take phthalate, a chemical additive in plastics that is suspected by scientists here and in Europe of inhibiting testosterone production in infant boys. Yet, Mark Schapiro, author of Exposed: The Toxic Chemistry of Everyday Products and What’s at Stake for American Power, reports that while the European Union has banned the use of phthalates in products aimed at children under three years of age, our government has refused to act.
Thus, China has factories that manufacture two lines of toys—one without phthalates for shipment to European countries, and one with phthalates for export to our children.
The problem is not with the Chinese, but with our own corporate chieftains who have moved their manufacturing to China specifically to get these kinds of low-cost shortcuts in production, while simultaneously demanding that Washington cut back on regulations that protect us consumers. We must put our own house in order.
Such giants as Wal-Mart, Dell, and Disney are profiting enormously from this double whammy of low-cost production and lackadaisical regulation. Not content to profiteer, however, the top executives insist that they should get credit for serving the moral good. Look, they say, we are helping American families by bringing cheap products to them. What these moral exemplars don’t mention is that the goods are cheap only because the lives of Chinese factory workers are so undervalued. It’s common to find child labor, sixteen-hour days, constant exposure to lead and other poisons, wage rip-offs, and other abuses in factories that stock the shelves of our stores and line the pockets of our corporate CEOs.
You want cheap? What’s a finger worth? A study of factories in just one area near Hong Kong found that workers there lose or break 40,000 fingers on the job every year.
Or consider the cheap treatment of a sixteen-year-old boy in China who works from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., six days a week, running a plastic molding machine to produce stuff for Wal-Mart stores. His hands are covered with blisters, because, as he explained to a New York Times reporter, the machines are “quite hot, so I’ve burned my hands.” The boy’s reward is to be paid even less than China’s poverty-level minimum wage of 55 cents an hour.
Corporate officials here claim that they’re appalled by these conditions, but they shrug and say they simply can’t keep track of what goes on in all those factories. BS! They’re the ones demanding cheap production, even if it cheapens lives in China and endangers consumers here.
Note that Wal-Mart boasts that it’s able to track every penny of cost in its sprawling system of procuring and marketing products. Its bean counters know the price of every item coming out of even the most remote Chinese factory. The corporation simply values price over lives.
Posted by Bill Robbins on Mon, Feb 01, 2010 @ 07:23 PM
During the first quarter of 2008 we posed this question to Mark Piepkorn of Building Green. Do we want to clean up another country's scrap tire problem? Today lots of recycled products are coming into our country from off-shore manufacturers. The original waste could have come from the US but what is environmental about shipping waste to another country, remanufacturing into a product and then shipping it back to the US? You need to ask when you buy recycled, where do these recycled products come from and for scrap-tire product, where are the recycled rubber products made and where do the scrap tires comes from, hopefully the US.
Please read Mark's article...
The title of this post is taken from a question we received about the source of recycled rubber used for a parking-bumper and speed-bump manufacturer. It motivated me to do some digging to get a better understanding of the scrap tire industry. As it turns out, it's actually kind of fascinating. The following is unverified single-pass research, and any thoughts, additions, or corrections are welcome.
The Rubber Manufacturers Association (RMA) provides a bunch of info on domestic scrap tires in a 2006 report titled Scrap Tire Markets in the United States. According to their data, in 2005 almost seven-eighths of domestic scrap tires were finding their way to end-use markets - about 259 million tires. Nearly seven-eighths, or 87%, is an exceptionally respectable rate of reuse. (The EPA estimated an 80.4% end-use market rate in 2003, two years earlier.) For comparison, a reclamation fact sheet from the The Aluminum Association shows that just 52% of aluminum cans were recycled in 2005 (down from a 1997 high of 66.5%).
The RMA estimate appears to be based on U.S.-manufactured tires only, however. Their report says that "about 299 million tires were generated in the U.S. in 2005" - seven-eighths of that number is right in the neighborhood of the number of scrap tires generated. It's not clear, however, that the scrap tire number excludes tires of non-domestic origin, which would change the figure some. A 2006 article in the Toledo Blade titled U.S. tire maker betting on China reported, "Nearly 102 million passenger tires were imported into the United States last year, estimates the Rubber Manufacturers Association. And although $7.7 billion worth of rubber tires and tubes were imported into the United States last year, only $2.8 billion worth were exported, according to the U.S. Census Bureau." It's a little frustrating that they switched from units to dollars in mid-stream, but we can derive that in 2005 we imported about 36% more new tires than we exported, and it appears that something over 25% of the tires sold in the U.S. came from somewhere else. (In 2005, anyway. In 2006, Tire Business magazine ran an article titled Off-shore tire influx deepens amid slumping domestic production that reported, "Every other replacement market passenger tire sold in the U.S. today is made outside the U.S. Three out of five replacement light truck tires sold in the U.S. are made elsewhere. Two out of three replacement medium truck tires sold in the U.S. are made outside the U.S.")
One more little complication: In addition to not counting "retreadable casings" as scrap tires, the RMA also doesn't count "used tires" that are either resold in the U.S. or - more significantly - exported for sale in other countries. RMA notes that "there is a significant likelihood that more tires are exported than have been reported." The EPA chimes in, "Many scrap tires are exported to foreign countries to be reused as retreads, especially in countries with growing populations of automobile drivers such as Japan and Mexico. According to Mexico's National Association of Tire Distributors, as many as 20% of tires sold in Mexico are imported as used tires from the US and then retreaded for reuse. The downside of exporting scrap tires is that the receiving countries may end up with a disproportionate amount of tires, in addition to their own internally-generated scrap tires."
An argument seems to be shaping up that scrap tires, like just about every other complex manufactured thing, generally aren't very local to anywhere. The constituent materials of tires include natural rubber (a.k.a. polyisoprene - 95% of which comes from Asia... and tires and tubes account for over half of total global use); synthetic rubbers such as styrene-butadiene co-polymer (SBR), polybutadiene, and halobutyl (crude oil is the principal raw material of synthetic rubber - RMA indicates that it takes about five gallons of oil to make a tire, and two more for the energy of the manufacturing process... which accounts only for the onsite manufacturing part of the lifecycle); carbon black (a nanomaterial used for coloration and reinforcement, it's generally produced by the incomplete combustion of 'sour' natural gas); and smaller amounts of other reinforcing, cross-linking, accelerating, activating, and antioxidant compounds and materials.
But it remains that reducing the transportation energy along any part of the lifecycle of tires is to be applauded. And even when mitigating factors like how things are counted or not counted are considered, the reuse ratio is still nothing short of inspiring.
So to what markets are these scrap tires going? Mostly, they're getting burned at cement factories. According to the RMA report, 52% were burned as fuel for cement kilns, pulp and paper mills, and industrial and utility boilers. 16% were used for civil engineering and construction purposes - such as using shreds in road projects, septic fields, and landfill construction (which is evidently different than putting shredded tires in a landfill). Ground-rubber applications including playground and sport surfacing, rubber-modified asphalt, and feedstock for new products had a 12% share... which, unfortunately, is still catching up with the 14% "land disposed" slice of the scrap tire pie. (Only two years earlier, however, 25% were being landfilled.)
This brings me to an uplifting note to close on: tire dumps - that is, "stockpiles" - are being rapidly and significantly depleted... over 80% since 1990. Which sets the imagination looking toward the future, when demand for dead tires exceeds supply.
Orginally Posted on Building Green February 26, 2008 1:57 PM by Mark Piepkorn
Posted by Jamie Rexinger on Fri, Jan 15, 2010 @ 02:40 PM
At RubberForm we care about the environment on a large scale and continue to do our part to help in cleaning up America by using recycled tires and creating green products for everyday use. However things can not be done on a national level with out the help of local communities doing their part to pitch in.
It takes many small steps to make a large change and recently a local coalition was formed near RubberForm's headquarters called the Western New York Environmental Alliance (WNYEA). They put together the following to ensure that the WNYEA would be consistent in its activities toward developing and implementing a plan for action on the environment.We, the people of Western New York, are resolved to work collaboratively to improve our environment and our regional, international community. We are a Great Lakes region and stewards of the world's largest supply of fresh water, vast forests, rich agricultural land, abundant wildlife, an incredible built heritage, historic park systems, the magnificent Niagara Falls and hundreds of wonderful communities. Unfortunately, much of our natural heritage has been lost and what remains is threatened. And, like the rest of the world, we face the prospects of climate change. We therefore establish this agenda to protect and restore our globally significant environment.
We know that our environmental resources are immeasurable assets; they have direct impacts on our quality of life and our economy. Healthy ecosystems provide habitat for wildlife; they provide clean air, clean water and other ecological services such as stormwater control and carbon sequestration; and they provide recreational and business opportunities. The environment is a source of wealth for all of us.
Like our natural heritage, our environmental community is strong. We are the birthplace of the environmental justice movement, a product of both our legacy of contamination and our determination to seek action through justice. We are home to thousands of individuals and hundreds of organizations aiming to improve our region.
Although our assets are plentiful and our voices numerous, our region and its people have suffered through the despoiling of our environment and the fragmentation of our collective efforts. Our dwindling population, declining health, vacant and contaminated land, and faltering economy are proof of this. Although some progress has been made, much more is needed. At this time, we make a commitment to collaboratively increase our region's environmental literacy, preserve its biodiversity, and ensure that our energy is sustainable, our air is clean, our water drinkable, our fish edible, and our forests, farms, and gardens plentiful.
With Our Shared Agenda for Action, we have a vision for our future. Together, we are committed to strengthening the work of our environmental community through collaboration and implementation. This includes long term, overarching goals as well as specific measurable actions that can be accomplished soon. We are determined to leave those who follow us a sustainable, thriving community where they can live healthfully, work productively, learn, teach, grow old, and choose their own path. This is the aim of the Western New York Environmental Alliance
- the purpose of Our Shared Agenda for Action.
If more communities took a proactive stance to the natural beauty that surrounds them and perseveration efforts to keep it looking that way we would be one step closer to correcting the environmental issues.
To read more about this idea and the Western New York Environmental Alliance visit them on the web by clicking HERE
Posted by Jamie Rexinger on Sun, Dec 13, 2009 @ 12:34 AM
A company that is considered "eco-industrial" has more involved than just efficiency. Eco-industrial manufacturing goes beyond the basics of complying with the law, cutting waste and operating efficiency. These companies take environmental considerations into all aspects of their operations; RubberForm Recycled Products is one of these "Eco-Industrial" manufacturers.
The "Eco-industrial" concept has one goal in mind; to make industrial manufacturing processes cleaner and more sustainable. This is accomplished by emulating how nature deals with waste, through reduction, recycling and reuse. In nature, the waste output of one organism becomes the nutrient input of another organism, so that all of earth's nutrients are endlessly recycled. Eco-industrial companies display this idea exactly; the wastes of one manufacturer become raw materials for another. Companies may also recycle and reuse most materials and chemicals used in industries instead of dumping them into the environment. These practices use less raw material and energy while cutting pollution and waste at the same time.
In addition to these practices, a company can further exemplify "Eco-Industrial" practices by locating itself on rehabilitated damaged sites - vacant property, reusing old - recycled machinery, using eco-distribution channels and creating products that conserve energy and other precious resources. This is taken into consideration through raw materials acquisition, production, manufacturing, packaging, distribution, transportation of finished goods, reuse, operation, maintenance and proper disposal of the waste.
For help on Eco-Industrial Manufacturing, check out National Center for Eco-Industrial Development website and for more background info please Google "Eco-Industrial"
Posted by Jamie Rexinger on Thu, Dec 03, 2009 @ 01:16 PM
Although today's tires endure additional miles than they have in the past, the amount of cars on the road is increasing along with the average number of miles driven annually. According to the ninth report on scrap tire markets issued by the Rubber Manufacturers Association (RMA), one waste (also known as scrap) tire is discarded annually per person in the United States.
But where do all these tires go? To help us answer this question, RMA did an analysis of scrap tire management in the United States. In their latest report for 2007, they found that more scrap tires were consumed in end-use markets than ever before, 89.3 percent to be exact. These markets include tire-derived fuel, in which about 54% of the total scrap tires generated were burned for its use. Civil engineering, ground rubber applications, and other smaller markets are included in this.
Yet, even with all of the reuse and recycling efforts, a great amount of scrap tires still end up in landfills each year. At the end of 2007, about 594.0 thousand tons of scrap tires were landfilled in the United States. This compares to the 477.2 thousand tons that were reportedly landfilled in 2005. These data indicated an increase in scrap tire landfilling in the last two years.
It was also reported that at the end of 2007, about 128.36 million scrap tires remained in stockpiles in the United States. Stockpiles truly are liabilities and are a growing issue of much concern. Aside from being unsightly, rainwater accumulates in these stockpiles which then become a breeding ground for an enormous number of mosquitoes that can transmit infectious disease. The real primary concern though is fires. Tire pile fires have lasted for months, cost millions of dollars to fight, and required the evacuation of neighborhoods. They cause significant environmental harm from toxic soot fall-out and the run-off of oil and water. When burned, tires release irritants and potentially carcinogenic compounds into the atmosphere. Some experts no longer consider the question of "if" a stockpile will catch fire but "when" it will burn.
Considering all of these statisics, we should have more of an incentive to buy American-made products. So before we purchase "recycled" products sourced and manufactured off-shore, keep in mind that we need to clean up our enormous scrap tire problem here first.
More on the latest Scrap Tire Report
Posted by Bill Robbins on Thu, Nov 19, 2009 @ 01:37 PM
Are you part of the quickly growing "going green" movement? Do you look for an organic label on your food, energy saver sticker on your appliances and ways to lower your "carbon footprint?"
But what does it mean to be "green" exactly? It seems lately that being green is simply just a transient fad or a way to sell things. Rather, being green is a choice of living. Living green means keeping the environment in mind through smart, sensible, and practical ways in our everyday lives. Not only does it involve consideration of our actions on the potential impacts of the planet, but it also includes the choice of action that leaves a minimal footprint. The three R's - reduce, reuse, and recycle is imperative to achieving this goal. Green is not merely a synonym for eco-friendly either. It means stopping to examine every single choice you make as it affects you, others around you, and the environment. This includes the affects of not only where you live, but everywhere, and at all points in the future as well as this moment.
Going green involves taking care of the environment which takes care of you. If you are ready to go green, investing in companies that engage in environmentally friendly practices is the easiest and most obvious way to show your support. Energy efficiency ranks first in definitions of green, and green energy offers the most benefit to our environment as well as yourself.
Yet, in an effort to making conscious decisions among this growing fad, you have to accept more than vague general claims like ‘We're environmentally friendly' and ‘We care about the planet.' Living green means to know where the resources originate, and examining the details. Simply put, it signifies understanding the lifecycle of any given product, and properly restoring the nutrient to the cycle in which it belongs.
Making a commitment to do our part in order to take care of our earth can only be accomplished if everyday actions are taken into consideration. To see what savings you can make for yourself and for the plant, calculate these simple changes in your home and everyday activity with this exercise - Household Savings Calculator
Posted by Deborah Robbins on Thu, Nov 05, 2009 @ 01:02 PM
Greenwash - verb: the act of misleading consumers regarding the environmental practices of a company or the environmental benefits of a product of service.
More than ever before, consumers are clamoring for ‘greener' products. To take better care of their families and their planet, they want goods and services that are genuinely more sustainable (‘greener' in other words); products they can find easily, trust implicitly, and use effectively. Manufacturers and marketers are trying to meet this demand. Green advertising has increased almost tenfold in the last 20 years and has nearly tripled since 2006.
Yet, there are more products claiming to be green on the shelves of stores these days, and those 'all-natural' and 'organic' products are likely committing at least one of the Seven Sins of Greenwashing, by not telling the complete truth. TerraChoice Environmental Marketing recently released its Seven Sins of Greenwashing report, finding that 98% of products are committed to at least one Sin of Greenwashing.
The Seven Sins of Greenwashing, from most common to least common, are:
1. The Sin of the Hidden Trade-Off
2. The Sin of No Proof
3. The Sin of Vagueness
4. The Sin of Worshiping False Labels
5. The Sin of Irrelevance
6. The Sin of Lesser of Two Evils occurs
7. The Sin of Fibbing
Consumers have to be skeptical of all the environmental claims, and practice smart and savvy shopping. Consumers can help by continuing to support greener products and choosing products with reliable eco-labels. In the absence of a reliable eco-label, consumers should choose the product that offers transparency, information and education.
For more information on what you as a consumer can do to avoid these problems, continue reading the full text article of The Seven Sins of Greenwashing.
Posted by Bill Robbins on Mon, Oct 26, 2009 @ 09:15 AM
Even advocates for more responsible, environmentally benign ways of life harbor misunderstandings of what "sustainability" is all about.
Recently, Scientific American posted an interesting and well written article on the Top Ten Myths about Sustainability written by senior science writer Michael D. Lemonick.
When a word becomes so popular you begin hearing it everywhere, in all sorts of marginally related or even unrelated contexts, it means one of two things. Either the word has devolved into a meaningless cliché, or it has real conceptual heft. "Green" (or, even worse, "going green") falls squarely into the first category. But "sustainable," which at first conjures up a similarly vague sense of environmental virtue, actually belongs in the second. True, you hear it applied to everything from cars to agriculture to economics. But that's because the concept of sustainability is at its heart so simple that it legitimately applies to all these areas and more.
Despite its simplicity, however, sustainability is a concept people have a hard time wrapping their minds around. To help, Scientific American Earth 3.0 has consulted with several experts on the topic to find out what kinds of misconceptions they most often encounter. The result is this take on the top 10 myths about sustainability. And after this introduction, it's clear which myth has to come first....
Myth 1: Nobody knows what sustainability really means.
Myth 2: Sustainability is all about the environment.
Myth 3: "Sustainable" is a synonym for "green."
Myth 4: It's all about recycling.
Myth 5: Sustainability is too expensive.
Myth 6: Sustainability means lowering our standard of living.
Myth 7: Consumer choices and grassroots activism, not government intervention, offer the fastest, most efficient routes to sustainability.
Myth 8: New technology is always the answer.
Myth 9: Sustainability is ultimately a population problem.
Myth 10: Once you understand the concept, living sustainably is a breeze to figure out.
By Michael D. Lemonick is a senior writer at Climate Central
Source: Top 10 Myths about Sustainability
Posted by Bill Robbins on Sun, Oct 25, 2009 @ 06:30 PM
RubberForm's team and associates will be writing about all the exciting developments and advancements in the field of North American manufactured recycled products. Products made from your scrap tires and other materials that you place in your blue boxes every week, makes a considerable difference. The computers, electronics, monitors, and even the ink cartridges that you return to your printer supplier for recycling purposes is what RubberForm uses to create our high-value, niche products.
We want to hear from you; the recycled material products that you use, the products you want, and the products that are in need of improvement. Our team and our network of environmental professionals want to make the recycled material products that you desire.
There is one thing we request of you - which is to question where the recycled, green products came from. If they did not come from North America, put them back on the shelf and demand the product that was created on our continent. There is no reason to clean-up other countries waste, right?