Ecological Intelligence
There’s a new kind of math for the environmentally concerned, one that answers those everyday eco-conundrums like, Which is better: a reusable stainless steel water bottle, or those throwaway plastic ones?
The answers come from life cycle assessment (or LCA), the method used by industrial ecologists — a discipline that blends industrial engineering and chemistry with environmental science and biology — to assess how man-made systems impact natural ones. LCAs tells us that buying food in one store that’s been shipped in bulk leaves a smaller carbon footprint than driving around town to the local bakery, farmer’s market, and dairy. Or that the better wine choice for those living east of Columbus, Ohio, is a French Bordeaux, and for those to the west it’s the Napa Valley.
Those are simple problems in ecological accounting, which is designed to evaluate any manufactured thing — your iPhone, Cheerios, lip gloss — on its entire range of impacts on the environment, human health, and the people who labored to make it. An LCA lays bare the hidden impacts of our stuff from the moment its ingredients are extracted or concocted, through manufacture, transportation, retail, use and disposal. A simple glass bottle requires 1,959 discrete steps from birth to disposal, each of which can be analyzed for dozens of impacts, from particles emitted to air, water and soil, to energy footprint or impact on the incidence of cancer.
Gregory Norris, the industrial ecologist who walked me through these ecological calculations, is putting LCAs to good use in Earthster, an open source website designed to help the folks who manage supply chains identify the impacts of their products and find less harmful upgrades.
And the more we all apply this new math, the greater our collective ecological intelligence. So here’s the lowdown on a very practical question: is it more ecologically correct to tote a stainless steel bottle you refill with water, or to use water in throwaway plastic bottles? As it turns out, it all depends.
Off the bat, making stainless steel has a worse impact profile than knocking out plastic bottles. Food-grade stainless is an alloy of chromium, nickel, and pig iron. The chromium comes from minds in places like Kazakstan and India, where workers have a heightened risk of cancer from exposure to the raw ore. Melting the metals requires heating them to thousands of degrees. All these processes release hundreds of pollutants into air, water and soil — including green house gases like methane and lung-clogging particulates. Then once you have your steel bottle, if you wash it in a dishwasher that uses a half-liter of electrically heated water, somewhere between 50 and a hundred washes result in the same amount of pollution caused by making the bottle in the first place.
Putting aside the question of plastics ridden with BPA, the chemical suspected of being a carcinogen and endocrine disrupter, the overall ecological impacts of a stainless bottle, compared to plastic, are more worrisome pretty much across the board.
So does it pay to use plastic bottles rather than stainless? Yes — but.
You’ve got to use the stainless bottle enough times to offset a great number of the plastic ones. At just five plastic bottles replaced by the stainless, the math starts to tip toward stainless; 25 uses brings you to the tipping point where most of the ecological negatives of the plastic bottles are outweighed by your using stainless steel. And at 500 replaced plastic bottles you pass the last marker — freshwater eco-toxicity — so you’re benefiting the planet every time you sip from your stainless.
Originally published at Huffingtonpost.com
Welcome to the website and blog of psychologist Daniel Goleman, Ph.D., author of the New York Times bestseller Emotional Intelligence and Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships.
9 Responses to “Ecological Intelligence”
By Stewart McLeod on May 17, 2009 | Reply
Where does this leave me? I reuse plastic containers over and over again at least 15-20 times.
By Marci Lamb on Jun 1, 2009 | Reply
I heard your excellent radio broadcast last night talking about non-natural chemicals and how they are manipulating our bodies’ functions. Speaking of manipulation…have you seen the Dow Chemicals commercial with healthy running kids and elephants?
http://news.dow.com/dow_news/ads/dowtv.htm
I was astounded by the aesthetic beauty of this commercial on Sunday morning (5/31/09) during “Meet the Press” until I realized that it was Dow Chemicals repackaging itself with a “feel-good” commercial. Even my 11 year old finds it ironic that kids are used in the commercial to manipulate our emotions. Note: she is not one of those happy kids dancing around in joy over Dow Chemical treatment of our water supply.
Our family was very inspired by a recent TV program on KQED about Orcas and Salmon farming presented by Jean Michel Cousteau in which the idea was put forward that chemicals (particularly fire retardant) still being dumped into our food chain are a critical problem.
Thanks for your excellent suggestions and practical ideas. As you say, consumers can have an effect on company decision making. So now I’m telling friends:
We are boycotting Meet the Press until they stop running those offending ads promoting the “greener” “elephant hugging” “looking left” “human element” at Dow Chemicals.
Sorry Dow, you just went too far…
By Michael Dahlberg on Jun 10, 2009 | Reply
Ecological Intelligence was an interesting read. You do need to correct the usage of “algorithm” on pages 105 and 106 where “logarithm” appears in 3 of 4 cases. Spell check software does not correct these mistakes. Where was the editor?
Aloha
Michael Dahlberg
By Ian on Jun 13, 2009 | Reply
The logic of this article is inescapable, and as a stainless bottle user I of course agree with the premise. It seems a bit obsessive to count the number of uses, since the simple act of daily use guarantees hundreds of repeated uses of a steel bottle.
The battle (in my home) is about convenience: Cleaning and refilling vs. grab & go. Also, losing an expensive steel bottle creates a new cost for us that is mitigated by the low price of plastic disposables.
If only it was this simple, but it’s definitely good to know I’m countering the billions of bottles produced, one drink at a time.
By pankaj on Jun 19, 2009 | Reply
Is there any psychological tool to asses ‘Ecological Inteligence’. If it is than please tell me the detail.
you can reply on my email too.
thanks
By Emily on Jul 7, 2009 | Reply
Probably suffering from BPA ingestion.
By Kathy on Sep 1, 2009 | Reply
It’s interesting to note the effects of even stainless steel cause ecological problems. But I think as a collective; plastic bottles are worse since they leach chemicals into food and water after prolonged exposure or washing; and even their manufacturing releases many synthetic chemicals and when they wind up in the ocean; UV rays will break the chemicals down and release more toxic chemicals into the sea. Personally I am more concerned about synthetic chemical pollution than Global Warming since it is ignored largely and much harder to correct than pulling carbon from the atmosphere with technology 10-25 years from now.
But you did bring up a good point about the dishwasher. I live in the Southwest, where water usage is often monitored and water sometimes even runs short. It takes a lot to wash a large reusable bottle, however I should note that the bigger offenders of water waste does not come from the households themselves but from lawns and golf courses!
Another thing is fair trade vs. local and sustainable vs recycled. Personally I support Fair Trade which fosters independence in impoverished communities rather than exploitation and does respect the local environment. Local on the other hand might be good when it comes to food(or not as you pointed out) and local artists, but not all local food is organic or ecologically minded in anyway. If I lived near a corporate run farm loaded with pesticides I’d still be eating local if I ate their products in a fast food burger. Not all recycled goods are safe either, I cringed when I saw purses and wallets made from recycled tires that are doused in all kinds of chemicals and VOCs, that though wouldn’t be noticeable in your car; it’s not a good idea to have them be touching your skin or indoors often. There are also clip board and card cases made from motherboards; which often contain pthalates and PCBs and other nasties. And then I’ve seen Vinyl records molded into bowls, and even photographed with dry food on them. I’m willing to wager a lead crystal bowl is more food safe than that.
By SV Nagappa on Dec 19, 2009 | Reply
Could some one give me the true LCA of woven cloth bags (woolworths) vs plastic bags Please? Thanks.
By JH Nash on Mar 17, 2010 | Reply
Interesting read. Out of sheer curiousity, it may be fun to find out where glass fits into the equation, as – unless I am in a situation where it could break – it is my vessel of choice for carrying water.