Buildings contribute to a large part of our electrical demands as a society. To lessen the demand identify and/or reduce wasteful energy uses in your home. Such as killing vampire lights or simply turning off the lights when no one is in the room.
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DAILY ACTIONS
Materials
Recycle Everything I Can
Recycling
Contamination prevents what is recyclable from being recycled. I will research and recycle all materials that are accepted by local haulers or drop stations in my community, making sure to not contaminate recyclables with non-recyclables.
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DAILY ACTIONS
Materials
Research Cement Alternatives
Alternative Cement
I will spend at least 120 minutes researching cement alternatives that reduce the carbon footprint of concrete.
COMPLETED
ONE-TIME ACTION
Participant Feed
Reflection, encouragement, and relationship building are all important aspects of getting a new habit to stick.
Share thoughts, encourage others, and reinforce positive new habits on the Feed.
To get started, share “your why.” Why did you join the challenge and choose the actions you did?
In our architecture school cement and concrete are described as default material due to their common use in our built environment. The commonly used material of cement has some drawbacks sadly. The production of cement accounts for 5-6 percent of the world's emissions annually. This is because the most common type of cement relies on limestone and aluminosilicate clay mixed at high temperature to change them atomic makeup and releasing carbon dioxide in the process. The Limestone in the formula releases sixty percent of the carbon dioxide. Project drawdown defines cement alternatives as “the partial replacement of clinker with alternative materials.” The carbon emission can also be reduced by replacing old cement kilns with newer more efficient ones. Project drawdown made two model scenarios within the context of the international cement standards and calculated the results. Scenario 1’s model sets the clinker to cement ratio to 0.61 and assumes 39% of the market uses cement alternatives. Scenario 2’s model sets the clinker to cement ratio to 0.46 and assumes 54% of the market uses cement alternatives. Scenario 1 predicts “8 gigatons of carbon dioxide abated by 2050.” Scenario 2 predicts “16 gigatons of carbon dioxide abated by 2050.”
I had the hardest time trying to recycle this aluminum during quarantine. My place doesn't accept aluminum so my family and I usually take it to our old high school where a trailer is kept for collection. The problem was the school was taped of and patrolled because it became a hangout location. I drove all over town looking for alternatives just to come back to where I started.
Changed to living in up north in Michigan this place used to be able to recycle plastics, papers, and some metals if presorted. Now though with the corona virus outbreak underway we have to revert back to only paper again. :(
Moved to my sisters place today their waste management company that their community hired only accepts cardboard for recycling. The community was told that it was because recycling the other products wasn't profitable anymore. I believe this is because the company hade to do heavy filtering because they only had one large dumpster for all the recyclables vs having people pre separate the recyclables.
How could you incorporate other "R's" -- reduce, reuse, refuse, repair, repurpose, etc. -- into your lifestyle? How does considering implementing these "R's" make you feel?
Some of the everyday plastics I find I sometimes choose to keep them so that I can use them for other private projects I work on. The only problem is that I sometimes feel like a hoarder.
