Sustainable Living Stack Exchange
Sustainable Living Stack Exchange

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1500 questions
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2 answers

Improving heirloom crops by selection (legumes, grains)

Short version I want to know of methods (and devices) of selecting the biggest/heaviest bean and grain seeds from my garden, to re-sow the next season. I would like to hear from people that have done this, how they went about this, and if the…
frIT
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How much water and energy does it take to produce canned jams in large/medium scale operations?

I'm canning my own cooked jams, and I'm estimating that I'm wasting half gallon (1.9 liter) of water per cup produced, for canning and dishwashing mostly. Not including the water and energy used to produce the ingredients (fruits, sugar, pectin) how…
Droopycom
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Why refrigerant cooler is more popular than evaporative cooler?

When I look at how houses/offices are cooled in my area I see that refrigerant cooler is far more popular than evaporative cooler. I did not find any company which serves evaporative cooler services/devices so there must be some downside of…
Marian Paździoch
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How did the people living on Easter Island go extinct?

According to a professor in this article on phys.org it's because the population exploded when they wiped out all the forests. What caused the population explosion? Was it the development of a new technology that enabled them to consume at a faster…
Timothy
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How do I get airflow through my building

I am trying to build a passively cooled building in equatorial Indonesia. Here is a rendering of the ground floor: There are existing structures on the left and right side of the building, however they are lower than the ceiling of the first…
thelawnet
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What are the power requirements for typical water desalinization devices?

I'm interested in marine desalinization. Most every device I have seen this far is some fossil-fuel driven high pressure pump. Are there electric ones? Is high pressure even that necessary to produce a reasonable amount of potable water?
TomSchober
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How does bioplastic recyclability compare with petrochemical-based plastic recyclability?

I am curious to know how recyclable bioplastics are. For example, how recyclable would a polylactic acid (PLA) cup be when compared to a conventional PET cup? Can the material go through a comparable number of recycling cycles? I assume it depends…
stragu
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Best vegetables for roof top garden?

I have a small garden on the roof of an appartment Building, and I have an area of 3 square meters to plant crops. Last year I planted carrots and got around 100 distributed over the year. This year i'm planing on planting common beans, but I still…
Jerry
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The more miles a car drives, the more economical battery packs become?

I was reading here: Here’s How Electric Cars Will Cause the Next Oil Crisis, that the more miles an EV drives, the more economical battery packs become. I don't understand this assertion. I see battery packs as a resource with limited amount of…
balborian
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Sizing a stormwater detention pond

I am building a small building on top of a hill. The roof area is 600 square feet. In my area, we get about 39 inches of rain each year, which amounts to 600*38/12 = 1950 cubic feet ~ 14500 gallons of rainwater. If I wanted to store all of this…
Steven Gubkin
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What is the Degrowth perspective on ad blocking and online advertising?

From a Degrowth perspective, how would one argue in favour or against ad blocking and online advertising? Degrowth is a political, economic, and social movement based on ecological economics, anti-consumerist and anti-capitalist ideas that tries to…
orschiro
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How do the environmental impacts of sky lantern and firework displays compare?

http://theguardian.com/environment/ethicallivingblog/2009/jul/31/sky-lanterns and http://bbc.com/news/magazine-23129276 are critical about use of lanterns which float into the sky using hot air because of risk of fire and litter, but the same sites…
Gnubie
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What is the impact of switching to smart metering?

Is there some way to estimate the environmental impact on overall carbon emissions of a community switching from normal to smart meters, with all the integrated solutions(monitoring, for instance)? I assume that the impact happens in the following…
Sustainable Programmer
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How can I recycle a disposable lighter?

I have been collecting lately disposable lighters as these: I want to recycle them but I don't know exactly what I should do. Should I separate the metallic and plastic parts and recycle them normally? Or should I take the lighters to some special…
S -
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Can we design an everlasting toothbrush?

Lately, I have been thinking about the wasteful use of toothbrushes. I assume that most people replace their toothbrushes every 4-6 weeks. This, of courses, generates a lot of plastic waste. I guess it is not in the interest of the industry to…
orschiro
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