Sustainability, society and you: A FutureLearn Course

I first found out about FutureLearn at some point last year, and I signed up for quite a few course. I maybe got too keen too quickly as over the Christmas break I had a few busy days catching up with some of my old course.

But this week is the start of a new learning experience, and in line with this blog it's all about sustainability, and one of our first articles is a thinking exercise on sustainable choices which posed three questions.

Which is better for the environment - incineration of waste, or disposal via landfill? 

I think we are all aware that non-biodegradable waste sitting in a landfill is not a good thing in any sense but I know that a lot of folks also don't like waste incinerators, irrespective of the power generated being used back into the lcoal network. I think incinerators are quite scary things, and certainly not something that you would want in your back yard, but they have to go somewhere. I guess if you can't reuse or recycle it, better that it gets burnt that sits inertly for the next thousands of years...

Which do you think is more sustainable? Drying your hands with hot air dryers or using paper towels?

Just how many times are paper towels recycled? Most paper towels are in public toilets aren't they? Most of them probably just get shoved in the bin, so not very often I am guessing. Yes, air dryers use electricity, but how much power is used in recycling the paper or even, heaven forbid, actually chopping down trees for their manufacture. Hmmm... I might not actually be thinking about this one, I feel that I might have already made my mind up in my head.

Having a nosy on google brought me this as well: Guardian Article on Paper Towels & Hand-dryers

If you have the option of using a dishwasher, do you think it is more sustainable than washing up by hand? 

I did have a dishwasher. It's broken. We haven't fixed it. What some people don't seem to realise is that you can't push terribly dirty dishes in, they need a rinse down before they go in. I think this question might be a matter of numbers. If you only have a couple of glasses, then wash them up by hand. If you have a full load it might be more economic to use the dishwasher. Water wise anyway. You then have to factor in the electricity. Does the dishwasher use hot water or does it heat it itself? You know I don't know. How weird is that, you just accept that these appliances do their thing and don't look too deeply.

Another bit of google-fu tells me that a dishwasher uses about 3 gallons or 13-14 litres of water per cycle but that an average kitchen sink has a capacity of about 20 litres. Who knew!