Whats so ecological

[auzmink]

For those of us that trawl e-bays european sites I find it amazing that a fake fur on the Italian site is called 'pelliccia ecologica'.

 

Now, given the oil price issues, one could suggest a fake fur is anything but 'ecological' Anyone else see this as odd?

 

I welcome being corrected by my Italian friends if I have this wrong!

 

Auzmink.

[Guest]

I've made this point a number of times at the criminal nature of making things from petrochemicals. Especially when there are superior natural alternatives.

 

The average plastic bottle requires 1/3 its content in oil to make it. That doesn't take into account the environmental impact to get the oil. A point few make over their plastic lives.

 

I'm studying for my LEED exam now and even those that are fighting for more environmentally benign buildings don't fully GET IT!

 

 

OFF

[auzmink]

OFF, what bugs me is the name 'ecological', applied to fake fur. 'Faux' or 'false' translated into italian fine, but 'ecological' !!!!!

 

Beggers belief..

 

Auzmink

[frugalfurguy]

So, Auzmink, is that pelliccia ecologica a term commonly used by sellers or is it an official eBay italia label?

 

If it's individual sellers, it's understandable. They want to get rid of what they're selling and they want cash. If they can boost its image in the eyes of buyers, they'll more quickly get what they want. Sort of like the seller of something that should have been listed as craft cutter who says that the cracks in the pelts are hardly noticeable and easily repaired anyway.

 

 

Otherwise, if it's an official way of designating foe fur ... oh well.

 

frugalfurrealnotfauxguy

[auzmink]

FFG - don't know is the answer. Given that everywhere you shop these days 'organic' or 'green' seems to be on most labels maybe 'ecological' is the new label. Still grates though.

 

Auzmink

[Worker 11811]

I think that very few people really understand what it means to be "ecological" or "environmentally friendly."

 

People tout the environmental benefits of one thing over another without thinking of the overall environmental cost of what they're pushing.

 

Both fake fur and real fur have their environmental costs. I've gone over them so many times, here, that I'm tired of typing it all out yet again. But anti-fur fanatics just never consider the facts that go against their case, simply because it's just not in their interest to think about them. They have a narrowly defined political agenda and the pursuit of it has no room for rational thought about the environment.

 

Since O.F.F. brought up architecture, let's consider those "compact fluorescent" light bulbs that everybody is talking about. Some countries in Europe have even been talking about banning standard incandescent lamps in favor of fluorescents! Even a few U.S. states have been talking about it, IRRC. (California ? Massachusetts ?)

 

I think compact fluorescent lamps are good. They DO use less electricity and they DO last about 10 times longer so the cost of using them IS a lot lower in the long run. But I don't think they are more "ecological". Not by a long shot!

 

They contain mercury and phosphorus. (Environmental toxins and deadly poisons!) The electronic components in the ballast (the plastic gizmo on the bottom) require arsenic, germanium, ferric chloride, sulfuric acid and other nasty chemicals to manufacture them. The glass, itself, is a lot more expensive and energy-intensive to manufacture. And, finally, by the time they make it to the landfill, any environmental benefits will be lost. A regular incandescent light bulb will virtually disappear into the waste stream. It will be crushed into tiny bits and the metal parts will rust away. The bulky, non-glass parts of a compact fluorescent will still be intact in 100 years.

 

Over the long run, I think the "environmental benefits" of a compact fluorescent lamp will wash out and they will be about equal with a regular light bulb. The only difference is that they are more expensive and they'll make more money for the people who manufacture them. (And lobby stupid government officials to ban incandescent lamps.... but that's another story!)

 

I have several compact fluorescent lamps in my house and I DO think they are very nice. They are EXCELLENT replacements for lights in hard to reach places like stairwells where you don't want to risk getting injured (falling down the stairs, etc.) when you go to change the bulb. They are good to use in places where you have to leave lights turned on for a long time (such as a porch light) because they use less electricity.

 

There are also OTHER bad things about them. They have bad color rendition. They make things look "icky" because of the color of light they give off. It looks like you're in an office building. You can buy "sunlight balanced" fluorescent lights but they are even MORE expensive. They also take a second or two to turn on, even though the manufacturer claims they are "instant on". It takes them about a minute to come up to their full light output so, even if they ARE "instant on" it's still difficult to see under them unless you wait a minute. This effect is even WORSE in cold weather. And, finally, you can't use them in dimmable fixtures UNLESS you buy even more expensive dimmable versions of them.

 

In short, people who trumpet the "environmental benefit" of one thing over another before they have considered the true costs of what they are selling have another thing coming to them!

 

Sure! Making fake fur doesn't hurt cute, furry animals and that makes people feel better in the short term. But they're going to be the ones standing there with their asses hanging out when there are NO MORE ANIMALS LEFT AT ALL because they destroyed the environment with petrochemicals and the oil wells and refineries used to produce them!

[Guest]

Let's not overlook the radiation leakage and 60 cycle flutter/hum all fluorescents produce, What is the percentage of perfect ballasts??

 

Not at all good for living organisms.

 

I've never been a fan of any fluorescents

 

LED is another story all together. This is the technology I've been holding out for.

 

Supper efficient AND ecologically sound. There are many other favorable aspects to them s well.

 

As they say .. "The Devil is in the details".

 

 

OFF

[Worker 11811]

60 cycle energy fields have not been shown to be harmful to humans and animals but they haven't been shown to be NOT harmful, either. It has yet to be proven one way or the other. I don't think we will know the answer to that for quite a long time.

 

HOWEVER... With all the electronic gizmos we have in our houses already, we don't need even MORE electromagnetic radiation. We've got microwave ovens which interfere with our cordless telephones. Hairdryers interfere with televisions. And with all the computers, video games and hand held devices in our house, we're living in a virtual jungle of magnetic fields!

 

If you look around on the internet it won't take very long to discover that there are lots of articles that talk about compact fluorescent lamps interfering with Nintendo Wii game controllers. We're getting to the point, now, where we can't use an electronic device without having to worry about interfering with other devices!

 

I really like the idea of using LEDs for interior lighting. I'm waiting for them to become more popular so the costs will come down to the range of most consumers.

[White Fox]

Actually in Canada there have been places where there have been big payoffs for settlements for people right under those highest volt lines. The ones with 4 wires instead of one for a conductor on the huge towers.

 

Re flourescent. You don't need to go to Europe. Standard bulbs will not be sold here in something like 2 years. The only incandescent bulbs that will be allowed are the special small candle like bulbs, etc that there is no flourescent replacement for.

 

The problem with florescent is that you can only get a certain light level with it. Once you hit that level, no matter how many lights you add, you will not get brighter light. They are long lasting, but there is very high concern right now with their being a fire hazard. Many people have had them catch fire right in their light fixtures while they were watching. And as mentioned they must be put into hazardous waste areas and not standard dumps. Which pretty much means someone gets big money for dumping them into an area just like the regular dumps!

 

What really gets me is that I am told that one company has a huge wearhouse full of LED light bulbs in Canada and they have decided not to sell them. If people from Ontario watch on the literature they get from power companies often you can see a photo of one that is very washed out in the background. A round light with LED's pointing in every direction. They are of course yet very low light. But, they are said to be improving all of the time. You could light some of the huge sky scrapers totally I am told with something like 6 circuits, instead of the hundreds or even thousands that they use today. And, if you turned that light on today and left it on continually, it would take something like 25 years to burn out! I forget the ratio. If you could light a full sky scraper with those bulbs the power drain would be something like it would be to light just one room on one floor I believe.

 

W

[Guest]

i was referring to the 60 cycle flicker which is very taxing to the nervous system.

 

There is a small amount of Xray radiation of the ends of the Flour. Tube. I would suspect the screw ins would do the same. They do have the flicker

 

LED's are used in this country now extensively as Stop Lights because of their directional brightness and incredible longevity. They pay for themselves with NOT having to be changed so often. How many guys does it take to change a Stop Light bulb

 

Only one. But there is the bucket operator, the two traffic control guys and the guy that stands around waving his arms in the air.

 

 

OFF

[FurLoverinFL]

Thread moved to the Pub - it's strayed far from the original topic.

 

FLinFL

[JGalanos]

http://www.shortnews.com/start.cfm?id=66950

 

Relevant article.

[Guest]

FINALLY!!!!!

 

 

 

 

 

OFF

[frugalfurguy]

People complaining about the color quality of compact fluorescent bulbs but then praising LEDs seems a bit inconsistent. I'm certainly grateful for the development of white LEDs. My bicycle headlight uses them, and it's amazing how long a charge of my NiCad battery set will last contrasted to the old krypton-bulb headlights. On the other hand, if you're talking about indoor lighting, they've got such a cold color quality to them.

 

Worker's definitely got a point about trying to weigh the lifetime environmental cost of a product: not just what it consumes during its intended use but what it requires to manufacture and dispose of. As to the mercury contained in compact fluorescents, so long as most of our power grid is run with fossil fuels, especially coal, there are mercury emissions from that process. If by conserving electricity, we could slow that production, we might be ahead of the game, even if the mercury in the compact fluorescents weren't contained or (could we really design something to show so much care?) recovered and recycled.

 

My policy--and I don't pretend it's perfect--has been to screw in compact fluorescent bulbs. The more recent ones do pop on in less than a second after I throw the switch, even when the indoor temperature's about 50F (10C) and from there I don't notice an apprciable increase in their intensity. I try to think ahead whether I'll be needing that lamp on for more than 15 minutes. If not, can I make do with the light coming from another lamp elsewhere, or could I use my bicycle headlight to find what I need? These fluorescent bulbs might be relative electricity sippers, but that doesn't excuse my letting them blaze away purposelessly. They're still drawing current, and I'm using part of their lifespan. I figure the more they're off, the longer it'll be before they need replacement.

 

So how many cave men does it take to screw in a lightbulb? They certainly don't buy their furs on eBay!

 

frugalfurguy

[White Fox]

Actually from what I understand, by simply varying a bias voltage, the LED's can change colour to many different colours. I've no idea of what the white colour is though.

[Guest]

WF;

 

Close to correct.

 

More research has to be done for wider color corrections with LED.

 

The one "failing" of clear LED's is the life is half that of the colored. Still a a mgnitude past any other light source however.

 

Of course you can add a red or amber LED to adjust the color since there are always more than one LED in a fixture.

 

 

OFF

[frugalfurguy]

Yeah, OFF, the projected lifetimes of those LED's does kick the a** even of the compact fluorescents. I hadn't thought of that idea of mixing in strains of chromatic LED's to make a more natural blend.

 

One concern comes to me with increasing efficiency. Won't it be another excuse for more outdoor light pollution? It's been years since I got out somewhere where I could see a skyfull of stars. Impressive though that sight was, it was probably still somewhat compromised next to what my grandparents saw when they were children.

 

The examples of LEDs I've seen so far for Edison base screw-in didn't seem bright enough yet for illuminating a room for most uses. However, one use seemed just right: as a light of first resort in a bathroom so I could get up in the night and piss without missing the bowl and not burn out all the visual purple in my eyeballs from a sudden blaze of light from a bulb the equivalent of 75 watts or more incandescent.

 

But then cave men would probably just pee in the cave, right? What bliss: no bowl, no spill, could be executed in pitch darkness. Hey, snuff that mammoth-grease-on-a-stick torch there Thag! I gotta pee.

 

frugalfurguy

[Guest]

Even cavemen had out houses [out caves? ]

 

One LED of lower lumens would work very well for such an application.

 

Thats the fantastic thing about them. Great variety from very low to very high output [lasers]. They also come with various projection angles from "flood" to "spot".

 

Think of the vanishing under cabinet lights. Precise light where you need it.

 

 

OFF

[Worker 11811]

An LED is produced by taking a standard diode manufactured from a silicon substrate and substituting gallium arsenide then doping it with other materials which cause it to emit light.

 

L.E.D.](Light Emitting Diode)

 

By changing the doping materials the wavelength of the emitted photons can be tailored to produce a desired color.

 

An ORGANIC Light Emitting Diode is produced by using a polymer substrate, doped with special chemicals which cause it to produce light when electrified. Several layers of OLED material can be sandwiched together, to produce different colors of light. Changing the bias voltage between the layers can cause the color of the emitted light to change.

 

O.L.E.D. (Organic Light Emitting Diode.)

 

OLEDs are really great but their life span isn't nearly as good as their older cousins and, as the technology stands, they are quite a bit more expensive than regular LEDs. They don't produce as much light and they aren't nearly as reliable. However, in the future, scientists hope to work out these problems and produce OLEDs as cheaply and reliably as LEDs are now.

 

[Guest]

At last years CES I saw the SONY OLED monitor screen. All 13" of it.

 

Quite a sample.

 

 

 

 

OFF

[Worker 11811]

Articles about mercury contained in compact fluorescent bulbs:

 

http://www.financialpost.com/story.html?id=aa7796aa-e4a5-4c06-be84-b62dee548fda

 

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7431198

[Guest]

Don't forget to properly dispose of those old CRT TV sets.

 

They are full of mercury, lead and any number of other contaminates.

 

 

 

 

OFF