We use so many items every day without really thinking about it, since they’re so cheap. Aluminum cans, printer paper, plastic bottles, batteries pencils – they hardly cost a thing. At least, in terms of money. But there’s an underlying cost to that item in terms of environmental effects. Did you know, for example, that graphite is nonrenewable, or that one kilo of cotton requires between 7,000 and 29,000 liters of water to grow? Were you aware that the energy required to make a single aluminum can is equal to roughly the energy that would be obtained through half that can’s volume in gasoline?
Eco Salon has a great article full of such facts and statistics, and many of them will surprise you. From Eco Salon:
White Granulated Sugar
What we know as “white sugar” comes from a mixture of sugar cane (between 60% and 70%) and sugar beet (the remainder). Around 120 countries worldwide are involved in producing the 100+ million tons of sugar crops – in temperate zones (northern Europe, for example) it is the hardier sugar beet that dominates.
Requirements: large quantities of water (processing cane requires 4 times more water than beet); vegetable transportation costs to processing plants; extraction of raw sugar juice from cane or beet via pressing or diffusion; clarification of juice; crystallization of sugar liquor; evaporation to create syrup; centrifuging (how molasses are extracted); drying. Then a long process of refining that ends with granulated sugar’s characteristic whiteness. Heavy machinery, staffing costs and startling amounts of power are included in these requirements. The final stages of refinement into white sugar may involve the use of phosphoric acid, carbon dioxide or filtration techniques. Throughout, a number of pollutants (PDF) are created from the burning of oil, coal or bagasse (sugar cane residue) –such emissions are monitored and regulated by specialists.
Once a luxury, sugar is now used as a flavouring and preservative in countless varieties of food and drink. With the assumption that it’s easy to make. (Not so).
But even after all that, you’re paying just $1.50 for 16 oz. No wonder we love the stuff so much!
It really makes you think about whether that item is really worth all the trouble – at least, the mass produced version of it. Mass production may be more efficient, but it’s certainly still a long journey from raw material to finished product, a journey that produces a lot of greenhouse gases and requires a lot of resources. I don’t know about you, but reading about things like this really inspires me to seek out alternatives – handmade, organic, sustainable. Because, we can do so much better.
Link [Eco Salon]
Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons
