Sustainable Living Stack Exchange
Sustainable Living Stack Exchange

Most Popular

more tags
1500 questions
6
votes
1 answer

What harmful products are used in shampoo, conditioner and body wash that I should avoid?

I have been told by a friend that some ingredients in hair and body wash can harm aquatic life. I live in the UK and I'm not sure how our water processing works, but I can see that the amount of these things we collectively wash down the drain could…
FJC
  • 181
  • 1
  • 4
6
votes
4 answers

How should I store fruits and vegetables in the fridge?

I currently use plastic food containers like those in the below picture of different sizes. Is it better (in terms of energy consumption) for the fridge? Should the containers be sealed or not? Would plastic bags or freezer bags be better? How…
usumdelphini
  • 1,121
  • 1
  • 7
  • 13
6
votes
2 answers

Is distributed computing more or less sustainable than centralised computing?

My case example is blockchain, the main technology behind bitcoin, which is more and more being studied for other uses. As far as I understand, it's great for decentralising a registry/ledger of transactions, that can be financial or otherwise (you…
Aubrey
  • 608
  • 5
  • 12
6
votes
1 answer

What is current best practice for setting up recycling?

I'm interested in public policy as regards recycling. I recently read an interesting Atlantic article on single-stream recycling, which noted that single-stream certainly makes it as easy as possible for end users to recycle, but can raise expense…
Daniel Griscom
  • 269
  • 1
  • 13
6
votes
5 answers

How much firewood does it take to produce the equivalent of 1kWh of electrical heating?

Let's assume 1kWh of electricity is used to run a fan heater. Heat pumps are more efficient, but have a range of different efficiencies, so perhaps aren't a good base comparison. Assuming a good quality log burning fireplace, how much firewood (by…
Highly Irregular
  • 8,795
  • 10
  • 38
  • 78
6
votes
1 answer

cost of energy for old crt vs new flatscreen

My parents recently moved and are going through throwing out and replacing a lot of their furniture. They have 3 large old fashioned crt televisions that are quite heavy, and I'm considering encouraging them to replace those on the grounds that…
dsollen
  • 723
  • 4
  • 13
6
votes
2 answers

What's the most energy-efficient temperature to use when cooking?

Should I use low or high temperature to use a stove energy efficiently? If I use low temperatures a lot of energy will be wasted with time, but using high temperature is not energy efficient as well. So what's more economic?
Mary Fisher
  • 61
  • 1
6
votes
1 answer

What are the five most widely used consumer products made of recycled plastic?

By most widely used I mean in terms of sales annually (worldwide). With consumer products I follow the definition found on the BusinessDictionary, referring to merchandise or other item of common or daily use, ordinarily bought by individuals or…
orschiro
  • 1,389
  • 6
  • 19
6
votes
3 answers

Recycling plastic food tubs that have no resin identification code?

In my local council (I live in the UK), one category of confirmed recyclables is "plastic bottles, pots, tubs & trays". But surely not all plastic tubs can be recycled? Some of the plastic tubs I end up after using a food product may have a Resin…
binaryfunt
  • 161
  • 4
6
votes
3 answers

How difficult would it be to make things out of glass at home, using a solar reflector?

With a solar reflector/concentrator that was a square metre or two in size, I would expect it would be possible to get temperatures high enough to melt glass, even if only for a small sized object. What (high-level, no great detail required)…
Highly Irregular
  • 8,795
  • 10
  • 38
  • 78
6
votes
2 answers

Are ground source heat pumps a form of geothermal energy?

This question may be about semantics as much as sustainability, but let's see... When I think of geothermal energy, I think of hot rocks (or hot aquifers) that are kept warm by the internal volcanic activity of the planet. Some people use the same…
Flyto
  • 3,701
  • 2
  • 21
  • 31
6
votes
1 answer

How far had Iceland gone by 2012 in decarbonising its energy system?

Iceland is an unusual place. Its electricity grid is not widely connected to other countries. It has lots of geothermal energy. And it has been working hard on decarbonising (removing greenhouse gas emissions as close to zero as possible) all of its…
410 gone
  • 14,714
  • 6
  • 41
  • 95
6
votes
3 answers

Oxyhydrogen as home heating method

I'm curious about the efficiency of using Oxyhydrogen as a home heating method. Oxyhydrogen can be generated from water. I understand the fact that it takes more energy to generate the oxyhydrogen, but perhaps if I use a combination of wind/solar…
Andrew Grothe
  • 161
  • 1
  • 6
6
votes
3 answers

Is using copper for gutters and roofs a sustainable choice?

I see with some high end housing construction the use of copper for gutters and drain pipes as well as roofs and flashing. Is using copper where it will be exposed to water runoff from rain a good choice? Will the copper oxide dissolve into the…
WilliamKF
  • 4,341
  • 3
  • 25
  • 38
6
votes
3 answers

tree for carbon sequestration in temperate climate

I want to plant some trees so that I end up having a negative carbon footprint. I'm looking for a tree that can be used for carbon sequestration, which is not very tempting for illegal deforesting. Does such a tree species exist? NOTE: Initially I…
Sustainable Programmer
  • 576
  • 2
  • 12
1 2 3
…
99 100