Environmentally friendly? I’m just not convinced…
Like many of you in the Yukon, I got my free sample of an environmentally friendly fluorescent light bulb a few days ago. Being an earth-friendly-minded guy, I drove down to Home Hardware yesterday and bought a few more for the house (no, I didn’t ride my bike or take the bus 🙁 ). I’ve always wondered about the true big-picture advantage of some of these supposed environmentally friendly products, but these bulbs take it to a new level.
Okay, they save energy – I can buy that. Lighten the load a bit for poor beleaguered Yukon Energy and their inadequate systems. But look at the package these bulbs come in – it’s huge, heavy, and largely petroleum based. Hardly environmentally friendly. They weigh perhaps 4 times what a conventional bulb does – more resources consumed. And they’re very expensive. The weight and price I can live with, the packaging is just unacceptable.
That sort of flow goes on in my head every time I drive down to Raven Recycling. Is there really an advantage to recycling after I use water to rinse the cans and bottles, and gasoline to take the stuff to Raven? Yes, it keeps stuff out of the landfill – again, I can buy that as long as you don’t b.s. me about saving resources and energy by recycling.
Even public transit in Whitehorse – is there an environmental advantage to running those massive, almost-empty buses around, or are we just assisting the folks who can’t afford cars? I have no problem with that as long as that’s what it’s called – assisting the financially disadvantaged, rather than being earth-friendly.
Oh the moral dilemmas of the consumer society…
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