{"id":3820,"date":"2008-11-13T11:18:17","date_gmt":"2008-11-13T17:18:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress-367309-1145705.cloudwaysapps.com\/?p=3820"},"modified":"2008-11-13T11:18:17","modified_gmt":"2008-11-13T17:18:17","slug":"freedom-to-waste","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/articles\/freedom-to-waste\/","title":{"rendered":"Freedom to Waste"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>I got an email this morning and it appears that it\u2019s my lucky day, Not only have I won the UK lottery but a barrister in South Africa <\/a>has a client with an enormous estate who has left me millions. This makes total sense to me being that the deceased gentleman had no living relatives, so it seems perfectly natural that I would be next in line to inherit his money. I also found out this morning that a company called FedEX Couriers has a package that they\u2019ve been trying to deliver to me. I suspect that this box might also contain cash.<\/p>\n

These things are funny and relatively easy to delete from my in-box but there\u2019s still some sort of energy I have to exert to do so. A few spam emails are fine\u2014but hundreds can seem exhausting, even though it\u2019s more mentally exhausting than physically so. Still, even though I know it\u2019s junk mail, I must have a vitamin deficiency because I actually read some of them and get my hopes up. I know it\u2019s crazy but I seriously do get a little excited. My gullability is lessening somewhat having read dozens but I still fall for it for a split second. I know what you\u2019re thinking: I am a chump. And I admit it\u2014it\u2019s pathetic! But then I think, who knows, maybe there is a package of cash waiting for me. It could happen. Couldn\u2019t it?
\n
\nIn between reading my morning spam and trying to figure out how to reduce the energy exerted in deleting all of them, I\u2019ve been thinking about a sustainability competition. The focus is on concepts that address air, water or energy improvements. It\u2019s sponsored every other year by the Japanese Design Foundation<\/a> (www.jdf.or.jp\/eng\/) and I try to have my product design company enter whenever we have an interesting product idea that relates to the theme that year.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a very competitive design competition and although we\u2019ve never won, a couple of years ago we were close to qualifying with an energy monitoring concept. So, I was thinking about that and brainstorming about possible new ways to reduce energy consumption. And I started thinking that you only really hear about very specific kinds of energy waste: cars, batteries, light bulbs, coal power plants, appliances, etc.<\/p>\n

But what about all of the other kinds of wasted energy that happen around us everyday? Like deleting emails. Or like working out. About nine years ago Michael DiTullo and I created a concept for a competition which was a fitness center that harnessed all of the wasted energy expelled in fitness centers. It takes energy to move weights and run on a treadmill and that energy comes from the food we eat. That food takes energy to produce. Could it be seen as a waste of time and energy to grow, ship and package food that\u2019s eaten to excess only to be intentionally burned off? Perhaps I\u2019m thinking like this because I really hate working out but still, I wonder what the energy savings would be if we all consumed just enough food to go on with our daily life, but not a calorie more.<\/p>\n

I started to think about other kinds of energy waste like creating, emailing, reading and deleting spam. And certainly junk mail being carried by the mailman fits the description. And what about newspapers? Does anyone still do recreational \u201cSunday drives\u201d? For that matter, why is there still petroleum-powered racing? What would the impact be if we all agreed to not cut down Christmas trees for a few years and just planted new ones? Imagine the energy savings. It seems like to me that the only way to change these things is to take away some freedom. Freedom to cut trees, send spam and eat too much.<\/p>\n

Okay, taking these things away is going to annoy and offend people, but what about some changes that are less confrontational? So I put down my coffee and wonder why is it that I can\u2019t seem to remember to bring a reusable cup to Dunkin Donuts? I mean seriously what is my problem? Can you imagine how much energy has been wasted to make me a new cup every Monday, Wednesday and Friday and deliver to me? Maybe they could stop giving away cups and make it so only people with their own cups could get coffee. No cup, no coffee. Is that crazy? It seems like it would be simpler for me to just remember my cup but experience tells me that this is as likely as being able to stop people from sending me spam.<\/p>\n

Everyone agrees that changes are need. But would people accept it if their disposable cup privileges were taken away? I think not. No one wants to deal with an angry mob who hasn\u2019t had their cup of coffee in the morning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I got an email this morning and it appears that it\u2019s my lucky day, Not only have I won the UK lottery but a barrister in South Africa has a [ … ]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":3821,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,24,7],"tags":[2038,2039,48],"yoast_head":"\nFreedom to Waste • Sustainablog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/articles\/freedom-to-waste\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Freedom to Waste • Sustainablog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I got an email this morning and it appears that it\u2019s my lucky day, Not only have I won the UK lottery but a barrister in South 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