Tag: landfill

Aptera Electric Car

On By Michel McDonaldIn TechLeave a comment

I just watched a story on Fox News about this new 3 wheel electric car that is coming out this October.  It only goes 100 miles on an 8 hour charge.  It has solar panels on the roof to keep the inside of the car cool and it keeps the motor cool while it’s parked.  The news reporter showed how durable it is by banging on the top of the frame (before painted) with a really heavy hammer (looked like a small sledge hammer) and it didn’t dent and there wasn’t so much as a scratch.

www.aptera.com

This is basically a commuter vehicle.  It can have 2 passengers so you can pick up a co-worker and drive to work everyday and not spend 1 dime in gas.  But how much electricity does it use every night?  Does it use as much as a refrigerator or a computer or what?  I looked at their FAQ section, they won’t disclose any of that, probably because it does use a heck of a lot of electricity to charge.

There are electric car parking spaces though in some places.  There is an Amtrak station in Lancaster, CA with like 3 or 4 electric car only parking spots.  What you do is you plug it in then I guess put dollar bills in it and let it charge while you are commuting on the train to work.  I guess.  But I’m sure as soon as it becomes the norm for people to have this car there will be more electric parking spots available for employees so they can charge while they work.

Edit: Found it…  Here is a quote on the Live page on the right side at the very bottom of the list of functions of the car.

Plug-in
Okay, almost time for bed. You can be proud of yourself because the 100 miles you have driven since you unplugged this morning only cost you about $0.50. And, just think, tomorrow morning your Aptera will be waiting for your next big adventure.

That’s pretty impressive don’t you think?  And the seats are recycled from plastic bottles.

Recycle
We just think this is cool, but the fabric your seat material is made of prevented bottles from ending up in a landfill. How about that for being environmentally responsible.

Recycling Numbers

On By Michel McDonaldIn GreenLeave a comment

Today we went to turn in our plastic to recycle and found out that different plastic containers have different numbers and they cannot all be recycled together.  See I never knew that.  I found this website that shows you what the difference is.

What do those recycling numbers mean?

I had all these different types of plastics.  I had clear soda bottles, milk cartons, yogurt containers etc. and they had to separate the clear bottles with the rest.  The clear soda bottles had the 1 on the bottom inside that little recycle symbol.  Those get you more money than the other ones which were 2 and up.

We had basically half number 1 and the rest were 2-6.  When the guy gave us the receipt it showed us how much each plastic cost.  The plastic with the 1 was a lot more than the rest.  I think it was $7 something for all the number 1’s but all the rest we got like .45 cents and that’s it and it was half  number 1 and the other half was all the rest and that rest was less money.  So basically it’s not even worth recycling the rest.

They basically told us that it’s a waste of time to save anything but the number 1 plastic as well as even paper.  The reason I am recycling isn’t for the money although it helps in today’s economy but also because those Brita commercials where they say like 30 minutes on a treadmill, forever in a landfill.  Those make me feel guilty for buying anything that comes in plastic or anything lol.  But, you know if they are so concerned with it then they will have a machine that goes through the trash cherry picking all the certain types of plastics and paper etc.  Darrin told me that he read in the newspaper that there is like a mountain of recycled paper that they are having trouble getting rid of, that’s why paper is so cheap to recycle.  That’s probably also why the plastic that isn’t number 1 is cheap.

I’m not saying to not recycle because the CRV items like the soda bottles/water bottles and soda/beer cans give you a lot more money but I’m certainly not going to waste our patio space recycling milk cartons and yogurt containers and other plastics anymore.  I’m going to find out about steel cans too before I waste any more time with those.  I want to save the planet but at the same time if they don’t want to recycle certain things then it’s out of my hands.  I can only do so much by using the cloth grocery bags and recycling plastic and aluminum.

Halloween Pumpkins

On By Michel McDonaldIn HalloweenLeave a comment

I will not be carving pumpkins this year live on webcam due to lack of interest. And I won’t be carving a real pumpkin too. I have 2 tall and 1 small fake pumpkins from Michael’s that I’m gonna put regular faces on.  I don’t want to use a scene that I normally do because these pumpkins will last forever (in a landfill hehe).

Here are the patterns I’m thinking of doing.  I might change them who knows.  These are just the patterns so as soon as I carve them I will get pictures (of course) and then add the pictures to my Halloween page.