Environmental Paradox in perception

[aspearin1]

Today was "Earth Day" and my company celebrated by implementing a paper recycling program (I'm really not sure what took them so long, they're only an 80-yr-old company). It was a nice presentation with educational pamphlets. I consider myself an enviromentalist, but I'm also an industrialized engineer, as are most in my profession. Amidst all this hard work to make things more presentable, there were helium balloons. Now I have 2 kids, and helium balloons are abound around the house, but I was momentarily brought back to my high school chemistry teacher on his soap box, telling the class the helium is a non-renewable resource. It is released from the ground during oil drilling, and once released, it floats forever into space, never to be reclaimed. So I have to think that on Earth Day, using helium balloons is a slight paradoxical oversight. Kinda like staunch vegetarians eating cheese and eggs. Any opinions?

ChemE, M.E. EIT
"The only constant in life is change." -Dan Andia; 1999, Chemical Engineering Progress

 

[IRstuff]

According to:

http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/helium/330397.pdf

we have about 50-100 yrs of reserves at current consumption.

Your balloons are probably a rather tiny fraction of the domestic consumption of about 70 million cubic meters.

TTFN

 

[aspearin1]

50-100 years? So my great-great grandchildren won't have floating balloons?

ChemE, M.E. EIT
"The only constant in life is change." -Dan Andia; 1999, Chemical Engineering Progress

 

[IRstuff]

They're already in a world of hurt, anyway, since they'll have to build on top of the garbage we've generated in the meantime.

TTFN

 

[bltseattle]

OOPS! But how many people know where helium comes from anyways - seems like an honest mistake.

Here's another environmental paradox, for your consideration as a ME/ChemE (I'm a civil): fuel cell powered vehicles hold promise for reducing our future dependency on oil. But just how much energy does it take to produce hydrogen, then transport it & package it for consumer use? Will nuclear/coal/oil/incineration be used to generate the electricity needed to produce the "clean" hydrogen, especially in the northeast U.S., where acid-rain is a problem? What are the life-cycle energy "costs" of using fuel cells?

It's all shades of gray in the end!

 

[jheidt2543]

What is an enviormentalist anyway? Everybody is an eviormentalist in one form or another, just ask them! If you REALLY want to be an "enviornmentalist" (IMHO) then take care of your own little acre of land, clean it up, don't throw trash in it and take care of it yourself.

I was stopped at a stop light the other day and the guy in the car next to me opened his car door and set the fast food tray, from the lunch he ate will driving, down on the pavement. When the light changed he drove away. That is the perfect example of what an enviormentalist is not. If all the protesters (and each of us) would just take care of their own little area, what a "wonderful world this would be".

 

[DRsquare]

When you consider that thrre are a crop, just like corn, you no more save a tree by recycling paper than you save a corn plant by not eating corn. With the cols of collecting, transporting, repulping, and cleaning used paper, it ends up costing more than virgin pulp. Thirty percent of the recycled paper fibers are too short to reuse, but are still transported, etc. It just shifts the landfill cost from the communities to the mills. But hey, like lots of ideas, it looks good on paper!