So, my wife and I were sitting at our local coffee shop the other night when I was struck (not literally) by the cardboard sleeve on my mint mocha. Why had I never noticed this before?! The sleeve was essentially two layers of cereal box type cardboard, and yet it had enough insulating value to protect my hand from the hot coffee. That got me to thinking that perhaps cardboard could be a candidate for alternative insulation.
What you're up against is all the embedded energy that goes into recycling things like cardboard. There is a fine line in my mind concerning the benefits from using the energy to recycle the material (thus using less of the resources needed to constantly crank out "virgin" cardboard) and re-using the cardboard in close proximity & with minimal processing. In other words, while the cardboard might be a good insulator, using gobs of cardboard for this purpose only means that more new cardboard must be produced to keep up with the demand. What we need to look closer at is our demand for these products in the first place. Remember, the first step in the recycling paradigm is "reduce".
No comments:
Post a Comment