Does recycling increase consumption?

Does readily available recycling cause increased consumption?  According to a recent study out of UC-Irvine (#Kiron), yes it does.

In order to come to this conclusion, the authors ran two separate experiments.  In the first, volunteers were divided into two groups - one with recycling bins and one without – and asked to test a new pair of scissors by cutting different shapes out of paper.  The group with recycling bins used, on average, almost twice as much paper as those without.  In the second study, a recycling bin was placed in a restroom on a university campus that previously only had a trash can.  After the recycling bin was installed, paper towel usage increased.

One theory put forward for why this occurs is that the availability of recycling might counteract the guilt that comes from over-consumption and wastefulness.  If the products are being recycled, then you don’t really feel like you are wasting them.  Sort of like the rebound effect, except that instead of reducing monetary costs, you are reducing emotional costs.

We should note that the study only tested free resources.  If these were products that had an actual cost to the end user, we probably wouldn’t have seen a consumption increase.  Of course, we didn’t expect an increase in the free scenario either, so hopefully there will be a follow up study soon.

Another interesting factoid from this study (yes we read the whole thing) is that the average office worker uses 10,000 pieces of copy paper annually.  This number seems absurdly high to us: assuming you work 50 weeks per year (at five days per week) that comes out to 40 sheets of paper per day.  Have any of you out there ever used this much paper?  If so, what kind of work were you doing?

Mike Tyson's Punch House

 

We already covered gamification once, but we recently came across another example that is too good to ignore.  A few weeks ago at the Cleanweb Hackathon in Boston 16 teams of programmers spent the weekend creating applications that attempt to monitor and increase the efficiency of energy usage.  The winning application was a game called Michael Tyson’s Punch House, and if that name doesn’t sound familiar (and awesome) to you, then your parents didn’t love you.

To play, you upload your daily Green Button data (more on that in a minute) to the site and your house is randomly matched up with another of similar size.  Your energy usage data scrolls across the bottom of the screen as the two houses duke it out.  In the end, the house with the lowest cumulative energy usage during the day scores a K.O., while the loser can try to use less energy tomorrow and return for a rematch.  We think it would be even more fun in real-time but that doesn’t seem practical.

Green Button is a data standard that allows consumers to download and view their utilities consumption data in a simple, easy to understand format.  A list of participating utility companies can be found here.  In addition to punch house, green button data should allow developers to create a range of different applications aimed at energy efficiency and awareness.

Inter-continental Solar Flights

So what about solar flights?

About a week ago, Solar Impulse attempted and successfully completed its first inter-continental solar flight which took place in Europe including our home base, Madrid!! This is one step closer to attempting its goal of achieving a 24 hr flight. Not bad...

This made big news as solar energy and more complex technologies are being used to prepare the world in its transition from moving away from fuel and other traditional-based energies and moving towards greener and sustainable energy solutions.

However, the solar aircraft faced headwind which hindered the its attempt to cross Morocco. So although this technology has made remarkable advancement in the last few years, it still faces other struggles including speed (40 miles/hour), weight and power capacity (four 10 horsepower electric motors & 12,000 solar cells);

Clearly, the technology hasn't  reached the point where it can be used for chartered flights or mass use, but let's see where it goes in the future. After all, you wouldn't drive a Model T in 2012 would you?

Check out the best moments from Solar Impulse's Madrid-Rabat flight;