Plastic Roots

Everyone is "going green" these days. The cloth shopping bags, turning off the A/C, hybrid cars, and organic foods. You name it, it's green these days. But to really tackle the problem, the world must focus on the roots. What does it matter if you buys reusable shopping bags if the manufacturing process for these bags emits more carbon than the process for plastic bags. Why save paper if more paper is just produced everyday? Why recycle if recycling bins are dumped into trash bins? It probably sounds like I'm just being pessimistic and ignorant. However, what starts as the negative questions I proposed evolves into constructive ways to think. The shopping bag criticism turns into "How can I revise textile production processes to reduce their carbon footprint?" These driving questions fuel the research and work of "green" engineers every day. These "green" engineers are trained as chemical, industrial, or mechanical engineers but just serve to revise processes rather than to create them. Some of these engineers are even part of a coalition fro EPA which work in strategic companies such as Coca Cola or Unilever that produce a lot of consumer products. This "control room" type of job makes it easier to reduce carbon footprints as opposed to spending long hours without heating in the winter (Are you crazy, people?!). Now, this is not to say that small efforts are negligible, because it is a joint effort. But I'm just proposing a new way to view combating climate change: attack the polymer roots, not the rubber branches.

For an interesting ppt on this: http://www.authorstream.com/Presentation/aSGuest10663-138214-david-shonnard-green-engineering-business-finance-ppt-powerpoint/

HAVE you done something GREEN today? Start now.