Some helpful and not so helpful ‘hacks’ on saving electricity

August 13th, 2008 • 1 comment environmentalism
Tags: environmentalism

Here’s a Carnival of the Green #140 (URL lists it as #2 because it’s the second time Everyday Trash has hosted it).

However, if you read the list carefully, there are some very glaring errors:

1. Not exactly a way to save electricity but a way to identify biggest consumers of it (always these: big screen TVs, fridge, A/C, hot water heater, multiple computers).
2. If it’s off and not on standby then it’s using no electricity at all, not even phantom energy.
4. Small conventional TVs and small LCD TVs consume very little power to begin with. Better tip: watch TV on your PC as much as possible. One device, one source of consumption.
6. Use a push-reel mower instead of either. An electric mower uses…electricity and I thought this was a list on how to cut down on usage? Use a gasoline mower if you have a huge yard as you will not have an extension cord long enough and arguably less stamina to push a push-reel around.
8. Use a ceiling fan instead of A/C if possible. This is not always feasible in places with high humidity (Florida, much of the South) or people with airborne allergies.
11. Instead of turning off, set heat lower than needed and bundle up on blankets. It’s easier to take them off in the middle of the night than to add them or to jack up the thermostat.
21, Should be common sense to anyone, I don’t call common sense a ‘hack’.
23. Letting certain foods rest outside of a cold temperature can invite bacterial growth or make them spoil more quickly.
24. Defrosting isn’t about keeping foods cold, it’s about defrosting them to warm them up. If really worried, let the food sit out in the kitchen and use the microwave. 2 minutes in a microwave versus a day or two in the fridge consumes much less energy.
31. Vacuum the coils if you can, not a lot of people can — or want to — move a fridge that weighs a few hundred pounds.
33. Wash and rinse clothes in cold water. If warm or hot water is needed, use a sink. Washing for a few minutes in the sink versus a 20 to 30 minute wash cycle consumes much less electricity from the water heater.
35. Take a navy-style shower or simply fill a bucket with water instead. Both will use less water and electricity than a shower or a bath.
37. Again, common sense. I don’t know any men that shave with running water except in the shower (closer shave) and I don’t know any women that shave in a sink (they just shave in the shower/bath too).

There are some helpful hints there otherwise, despite the fact that many of them are a bit off base given both common sense and what many ecogeeks already consider ‘standard practice’. Here are some things that should’ve been on the list instead of others (like putting your computer into sleep/standby/hibernate, just turn it off):

-insulate your water heater
-get an on-demand water heater
-use a solar water heater
-insulate your fridge
-use a smaller fridge
-use a laptop instead of a desktop
-use energy efficient PC components, such as ULV (ultra low voltage) processors and EnergyStar rated components
-use smart power strips or unplug devices when not in use (or turn off existing power strips)
-use light timers
-switch as many bulbs as possible to fluorescent, CFL, or LED.
-use natural sunlight during the day to light your house/apartment/condo, this is completely free
-use window films to reflect light (summer) or hold in heat (window)
-use windows with higher R values
-use higher R value insulation in your walls and roof
-dress warmly in the winter and try to utilize space heaters
-use small area fans in the summer to cool yourself instead of the entire room
-make sure your ceiling fan is rotating the proper way during summer or winter
-instead of boiling a pot of water for a cup of tea or instant coffee (yuck!), simply microwave a cup of water;it’s faster and uses less electricity
-slow cook or smoke your foods
-contact your power company about energy saving options such as smart meters, on call boxes (to turn off idle appliances during peak usage times)
-conduct an energy audit and implement those changes; if conducted by your power company, they can sometimes give you incentives to use less energy
-use solar panels to charge/power small electronics
-use wind-up electronics such as radios

These are more tried-and-true than some of the options on the other list, put them together for more savings.

(I’m not bashing Kacper’s list entirely but much of it won’t actually save you much, if any, electricity overall hence my numbered list rebutting portions of it. Much of my list aren’t things I’ve thought of but suggestions people have been giving out for quite some time.)

Florida Governor Crist starts statewide push for alternative fuels

August 4th, 2008 • environmentalism
Tags: environmentalism

In a statement at the 3rd annual Florida Farm to Fuel conference, Crist announces enhanced support for alternative energy sources. No doubt much of his new found environmentalism enthusiasm has been spurred by his recent visit to the UK, meeting with leaders in their country’s push to energy alternatives.

I never thought much of Crist when he was elected, I knew I was just happy to have Jeb Bush no longer in office and in a position to plummet our state further away from progress. While there were some recent slip-ups with the proposed “I Believe” rights-infringing license plate and the push by legislators to “teach the controversy” in science classes — both of which failed — Charlie’s proven to be a pretty resilient guy in office. It seems not a week goes by when Gov. Crist isn’t making a statement about a support for or a push for developing alternative energy sources or trying to increase government-backed conversation efforts in the state. I applaud pushing for more alternative energy sources, especially in the way of solar and wind given that there are literally huge portions of this state completely unused. Putting up wind farms in central and coastal Florida can generate quite a bit of energy but one must be careful of ecological damage. The latter will be difficult to avoid with solar farms given how much room they need so I hope that Crist is taking it to his cabinet and underlings to vie for and research ecologically-sound and profitable solutions for us to use.

Maybe he’ll start taking hints from places like California that are offering huge incentives to install solar panels on homes and increase grants and incentives for businesses and developers to build more environmentally intelligent.

Orlando’s LYNX transport switching to biodiesel

August 3rd, 2008 • environmentalism
Tags: biodiesel, environmentalism

While there isn’t much information coming out of the 3rd annual Florida Farm to Fuel conference, it was announced last week that Orlando’s LYNX bus lines will be switching to biofuels entirely by Fall 2009. The transport authority serves much of the Central Florida region but has its highest traffic in Orlando, no doubt due to both the University of Central Florida and the numerous theme parks in the town. I see dozens of these buses when we go to Orlando so this will help their local economy quite a bit and will help cut down on their growing smog problem.

It’s reported by LYNX’s CEO that they will not only be switching their buses to biodiesel, they’ll also be building their own manufacturing and processing plant for making the fuels. This will greatly cut down on external costs for LYNX and will create a number of green jobs in the area. Movements like this will undoubtedly help convince Gov. Crist and his cabinet that we, Floridians that is, don’t need any new off shore drilling projects to more imports to sustain transportation, especially in the larger cities. If this LYNX project proves successful, I’m almost positive that transport in other cities like Tampa, Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, Gainesville, and Jacksonville will want to convert to similar methods if not the identical ones using the same contractors. I know Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, and Gainesville could see huge savings in public transportation costs since two are huge college towns (Miami and Gainesville) and two have heavily trafficked bus systems as it is now (Miami and Ft. Lauderdale).

If this proves more successful than they realize, hopefully the cities can also convince their local cab companies to switch to alternative fuel sources as that would help immensely as well. With night life such a huge part in some of the larger cities in Florida, there are hundreds of cabs in use late at night and even more during the day, even here in Boca where more and more people are driving less. When I was living in Ft. Lauderdale, I would see a few dozen cabs on the way to school during the afternoon and I would only drive about 5 miles. I hope the savings accrued by LYNX will be a model to other transport systems both statewide and nationwide.

Biodegradable coffee bags

August 1st, 2008 • 7 comments coffee, environmentalism
Tags: coffee, environmentalism

Now, anyone that’s been reading this blog since some time last year, knows I like a lot. Apparently there’s this coffee place called Larry’s Coffee that now offers biodegradable bags that they ship their coffees in.

Yes, even though they’re still made from petroleum plastics, the vendor Larry’s gets these bags from say they biodegrade 100%, there’s even EPA-backed tests to prove it. This is a great change in the delivery of small batch coffee, I hope that more roasters start doing this. I really hope my current favorite roaster, Gorilla Brand Coffee (Blendimentosis is amazing), starts offering these soon. I’m always torn up about what I should do with my empty coffee bags. I can’t tell if they’re totally recyclable (foil inside, unknown ink outside) and I’ve yet to find a good use for them. Maybe I’ll start hauling out the cat poop in them like I do the paper bags we get.

I’m going to order a batch or two from Larry’s so I can fondle these fancy new bags in person. I like the sound of the Bean Martin Blend. Catchy name.

Via Treehugger

3rd annual Florida Farm to Fuel

July 30th, 2008 • environmentalism
Tags: conference, environmentalism

The 3rd annual Florida Farm to Fuel conference starts in about 9 hours in Orlando. According to Domestic Fuel it sounds like it’s going to be thoroughly interesting this year given Crist’s recent pushes for environmentalism in Florida. He and a few people from FAU recently returned from their ten day jaunt in the UK, gaining knowledge on what the Britons are doing in the fields of alternative fuel sources and how they’re working to educate consumers about eco-friendly choices.

From what I’ve found, there hasn’t been a lot of public talk about what they learned on their trip but I have a feeling that’s due to the fact that the conference was (is) right around the corner from their return date. Wouldn’t want to spoil all that green goodness before the conference! The conference lasts until August 1st at which time I’m sure Florida news websites will be clamoring to publish what happened in Orlando this week; at least I can dream that they will. No doubt Crist and Charles Bronson (not that Charles Bronson!) will be discussing FPL’s upcoming solar farm plans. I hope they’ll also be discussing some options regarding offshore wind turbine generator farms, rumors that have been floating around for about a year now. I know they’d probably get demolished by even light Category 2 hurricanes, it’d be nice if they were an option for us.

With all of the sugar cane production and waste produced from it, this will hopefully be discussed in a way to use that waste as biofuel, either through syngas or other means. There will be a panel discussing a number of different feedstocks for biofuels but I hope this is a discussion of feedstock waste for biofuel and not food-from-the-food-stream for biofuels. Unfortunately, these feedstock panels seem to constitute a huge portion of the panel time which can only mean the latter will more than likely be the topic of focus. Why can’t someone from Maker’s Mark be there to discuss how they’re turning biowaste into biofuel to fuel their distilleries? I know that’d be a lot more interesting than “oil feedstocks for biofuel” (whatever those would be).

I’m looking forward to it to say the least.

Pope preaches environmental stewardship

July 15th, 2008 • environmentalism
Tags: catholicism, environmentalism

This is something I can finally agree on, without issue, with Catholics: the Pope preaches to Australian Catholics about climate change (WSJ, sub. not required!). I’m fairly certain this will be the only time I agree with Catholics, or even the Pope, on an issue that’s actually important.

Thankfully this isn’t one of those brain-dead “God did/said it” speeches and makes humans solely responsible for their actions, Pope Benedict XVI uses Biblical messages to promote stewardship and engender care for the environment. I can’t find any specifics on exactly what he said just yet (I haven’t found an online transcript) but I’m sure he used things such as tithing in part of planning for his speech itself. See, tithing isn’t just about giving money to the church/clergy but also about community. The men who wrote the Bible understood that the message of sharing and donation were important which is why they stated all men who are able, should leave a portion of their crops for harvest by those who are needy or cannot afford to buy food stuffs (see Deut. 26:10-13). This was especially important in regards to Levites and Levite Priests but applies just as aptly to the poor, widowed, homeless, and outcasts.

Of course, this doesn’t mean much today as I doubt Catholics want to tithe to Jewish priests but the point is still the same: help people. The Pope was preaching his message heaviest to those who will make the most difference long term, young Catholics. Other leaders and companies need to take a lesson from this as for many products and issues are pitched at the wrong age groups. The most impressionable age group will be from roughly 12-30 since they will grow up learning that taking care of the environment is important and that will reflect later on in their life choices. It’s important to get this message out to as many as possible but like many things, it’s important to get this ingrained into the minds of kids as they will undoubtedly carry the most weight and purchasing power during the periods of when this is most important. Pushing EVs and hybrids to adults is important and a smart move as they have the buying power to get companies to recognize trends but making sure kids understand this same thing is more important as they’ll be far more likely to want to purchase an EV once they can drive or can purchase their first car (EVs are just an easy example but it’s applicable everywhere).

Movement in masses is exactly why (most) politicians try and up-play the younger generation, those freshly able to vote in their first Presidential race or Congressional elections. Companies should make the same moves, although more intelligently since they can have limitless coffers of money to spend on surveys and focus groups of 16-24 year olds. If politicians can wrap their heads around things like Twitter and Myspace, what’s stopping Toyota or Nissan or GM from listening to their customers and creating truly earth-friendly products, especially when money is involved? Or making best use of the mediums available to them for information dissemination and gathering? With mountains of free and readily available data, they’d be foolhardy to not heed it, even in the least amount possible.

Recent movements in Southern Baptist circles, the Religious Right, and Catholics are stirring to get their constituents involved more as the Bible clearly has messages about caring for the earth and fellow man. I may not agree with the overall message and its delivery but I do agree that getting more people on board the “green”, sustainable, “hippie”, environmental, or whatever-you-want-to-call-it movement is going to make a lot of important sit up and take notice. Companies understand what their customers want through marketing and surveys but they’ll understand what’s important to us a lot more if we start allocating spending dollars to more sustainable products and methods. They’ll switch over to get our money a lot quicker than if they had simply listened to market test groups and survey results.

I’m not sure where the Popeplane is touching down again but now that the G8 summit has concluded, one can be certain that he’ll be making more environmentally-focused speeches in the short-term and reaching out to the young Catholics at hand to try and make a difference, or try and convince their parents or politicians or companies to make a difference. Whatever he says to those ends is what matters and raising awareness is the biggest hurdle that we all have to deal with.

Consummate consumer apathy

July 9th, 2008 • 1 comment chatter, environmentalism
Tags: environmentalism, rant, recycling

Before I get into the meat and potatoes of this post, let me present you with a list. It’s a list of stuff I’ve dug out of our Waste Management waste dumpster in the last 10 days or so:

1 1/8″x15 1/8″x48″ pressed pine wood panel (according to Lowe’s, this retails for about $17)
5 or 6 aprons, at least 3 chef’s/frontal aprons and a few waiter’s aprons (just one chef’s apron is roughly $16 at Bed, Bath, & Beyond)
1 bread pallet from a restaurant (#3 or #4 HDPE, wholly recyclable)
1 24″ women’s 15 speed mountain bike with cantilever brakes (a little rusty in spots but works fine)
1 empty and depressurized (presumably) propane tank (shouldn’t have been there in the first place)
1 3′x4′ wood frame (about $20 worth of pine)
1 pair of men’s slacks, 32×32, looks to be barely worn (probably $30)
a whole mess of clothing (mixed womens and young mens clothing but I didn’t pull this out, it was covered with all sorts of trash at the moment)
1 black bookcase made of particle board (easily $50, obscenely more at IKEA)
20-30 birthday cards for “Shane” or “Shaun” from a recent party

Without counting the price of the bike when new, people threw away at least $200 worth of stuff that anyone can use, right now at this very moment or could easily be recycled (which I did do my best to sort, something I pretty much do daily for these lazy folks). We kept the aprons and I’ve saved all the wood. With this wood alone, I’ve probably saved myself close to $50 in costs for some shelves I keep talking about building. Why would anyone throw away perfectly good usable wood is beyond me. Granted, I do need another jigsaw blade to cut the large frame’s wood but it’s about 80% usable and the wood panel is wholly usable. I got free shelves. And now we have a whole bevy of aprons, which I’ve been searching for — cheaply — for about a month now. Now I’ve got at least 3 for free. At $16 each, I saved $48 minus taxes. The bike’s going to someone on Freecycle this week — today if I’m not mistaken.

What the hell, people?!

I’ve been dumpster diving for years now but it was always for discarded electronics and such but now, I look for just about anything. This is something that’s pissed me off for years about America: rampant disposable consumerism. I don’t understand why everyone must simply throw away everything at some point. Did their parents never take them to thrift stores or Goodwill in order to rummage through used stuff? Or teach them that just about anything can get repurposed for something else? Or that when they (the parents) were growing up they had to reuse everything and use as much as possible of everything they consumed, simply because they had no other choice? Why is now any different from then, we don’t really have much more resources at our disposal to just throw away and no real reason to throw away most consumables. I’m fairly certain most of these people drive used cars, something someone else discarded intelligently for whatever reason. Why must this be different for anything else we consume? I believe this weekend we are drafting signs for clothes collection in our complex, I know it’ll get mixed reception. Some people will be thrilled at the fact that they don’t have to do any “dirty” work to get rid of their clothes and that they’re be helping others or some crap. Others just won’t care no matter what the sign says. Whatever the reception, we know it’s better than just throwing them away entirely.

And of course, this goes on everyday all around the world and everyone wonders why pollution is such an issue. For all the hemming and hawing 1st world/developed countries make about recycling and reducing emissions and so forth, we all do a pretty pathetic job at actually doing it. This isn’t indicative of every country mind you, many in Europe have a firm grip on these issues and execute them in much better ways than say, England or America are doing or have done in the recent past. There are even lesser developed countries whose populations are far exceeding our capacities to reuse and recycle, just look at the electronics recycling boom in China or all the cool gadgets/toys villagers make in Africa. Comparatively, the West is far more developed and we’re lagging behind those two countries — I stress comparatively for a reason.

We personally started recycling and reusing much more simply because I was tired of throwing away my money all the time. Now, I don’t have much more money to spare in comparison to before but I surely do have a lot more stuff to no longer feel guilty about if it goes in the trash (or recycling bin). This has also landed us two free, brand new bikes, a nice little spice box, a shelf for my hookah and shelves for all of my shisha/accessories and a buttload of other stuff.

With gas, food, and other consumables prices rising, what will it take for “developed” nations to stop throwing money away (figuratively) and start giving a damn? Will it take us literally throwing away money, just as a demonstration? Unfortunately, I think it will.

Ethanol is coming to the Turnpike

July 4th, 2008 • 4 comments environmentalism
Tags: crist, environmentalism, ethanol, florida

Well, at least at the Port St. Lucie service plaza according to TCPalm.com (don’t bother reading the comments, they’re pretty much focused on bashing Crist). While this is a welcome addition to the CITGO pumps already in place that readily provide gas for travelers approximately every 45 miles, is this “too little, too late”? Quite possibly. They’re adding E85 pumps to this service plaza in order to help people squeeze more value from every tank although, it’s at a cost anda disadvantage. This pump will more than likely carry the highest priced E85 gasoline in the state — all of the plazas already have gas prices some 7%-10% higher than the rest of the state. It’s going to be a distinct disadvantage because the number of cars able to easily run on E85 are much smaller than people realize. Ford’s dual fuel cars and Chevy/GM’s Flexfuel cars probably number 1 in every 200 or less, it’s not a very high ratio. Even when I was commuting heavily for work, I probably saw only a few Flexfuel vehicles a week (and of course, they were all trucks and SUVs, not vehicles that can benefit from it the most).

So why use E85 if it’s not going to be selling like hot cakes?

Because I believe that Governor Crist is trying to do everything he can to help his state out. After approving the state-funded buy-out of US Sugar, Crist’s green-o-meter shot up quite a good bit. He’s looking to hit another sweet spot with us environmentalists with his latest move, thinking we’ll kowtow over getting a readily available E85 distributor on the Turnpike. However, why not simply go the route that Shell’s going and put E10/E15 in all the gas as a standard? I suspect this has more to do with CITGO than Crist, though. Nearly all gasoline-powered cars manufactured in the last 10 years can run on up to 15% ethanol without any modifications whatsoever. About 90% of all Fords manufactured in the last 8 years state this very clearly in their manual and I’m fairly certain my 15 year old Saturn will have no issues with it as well. I do whole heartedly admit that adding this option is a step in the right direction but it’s leading with the wrong foot entirely. Besides the fact that the ethanol will probably be more expensive than the stations in both Tallahassee and Miami, many people may simply ruin their engines thinking they can run it in their cars without any modifications whatsoever. Using E85 not only means you’re using more fuel due to lower detonation pressures, you also get lower miles per gallon because of this.

Is this state approved greenwash?

I’m going to have to side with “yes” on this one. Besides the above points (potentially higher cost, can’t reliably run in unmodified engines, loss of MPG, etc.), most people have absolutely no idea what E85 really is. All they know is it’s “gas made from corn” and that it’s supposed to be better for the environment. My father, who pays little attention to news other than local news and politics, even knows that ethanol sucks and is doing damage to the food industry and food stream. I can’t even get him to recycle on a regular basis but he knows that using corn for fuel is boneheaded. And he’s 66. Well past the target market of most green/sustainable advertising and marketing. Sure, he’s an outlier because he knows that I care about what’s going on but that doesn’t mean other people shouldn’t be made aware. I know this is posited in so many other places and much better than I can say: using food stuffs for fuel kills our appetites. I know that corn is over $7 a bushel now thanks to ethanol and that’s great for farmers who primarily grow corn. But it’s bad for the fact that other farmers are jumping on the bandwagon and converting their well-bedded plots to corn fields. Why is this an issue? Just ask any corn farmer and they’ll tell you growing corn simply destroys soil after a meager number of harvests, this is why they routinely rotate corn for something else and wait a few harvests before planting corn again (some even wait a full season or two just to let the soil regain nutrients). This means that with more farmers converting to corn, it has a two fold effect: 1. it’s taking corn from the food stream, driving up the price of food (many farm animals eat corn and if it costs more to feed them, it costs more to make your hamburgers or hams or buffalo wings or whatever), 2. it reduces arable land for other crops and corn (leading to infertile soil and lots of soil erosion, I only know this part because friends of mine in NC had to rotate corn in their harvests). If you take your 2000 acre farm that’s used to grow many different food stuffs and convert a large portion of that to corn just to see a short return on investment, you’ll be missing out after harvest time comes and your soil is incapable of growing your other crops.

But back to the greenwash. Little other alternative sources are as available right now as corn-based ethanol is in the US but that’s going to change since much of the Midwest was flooded this year, killing hundreds of thousands of acres of arable land. This now means that 9 ethanol production plants are now getting canned altogether or building is delayed since there’s suddenly a whole lot less corn to go around to waste on fuel production. And based on data from previous studies (this was also covered in National Geographic Magazine, October 2007 edition), corn — by the ton — is shown to be extremely inefficient in fuel production compared to other biofuels like soy and algae (not that soy is much better, nor are grasses). People are making biofuels out of almost anything these days and much of it is more efficient than corn. But hey, it’s not gasoline — totally — so it must be good for the environment, right? That’s what Crist is banking on most people thinking, I can guarantee you.

Where to go from here

Combine fuel production inefficiency with the fact that E85 can make your engine explode or simply eat through your fuel lines, placing these pumps on the Turnpike is a terrible idea. Besides the infrastructure cost required (pumps can cost upwards of $200,000 and will require an entirely different fuel delivery truck thus doubling the gas wasted to deliver gas to the station), I doubt that there will be usage warnings posted about what E85 works in and what it doesn’t work in. Consumer education will go leaps and bounds higher than these pumps would and could easily be more effective in teaching people to simply develop better driving techniques. What is going to be more costly for a consumer who already has a car in this situation and they decide they want to use E85? Sure, they’ll save a few dollars at the pump but if their engine decides to detonate from ethanol’s higher explosion pressures or eats their fuel lines, they’ll then get to spend untold amounts of money on repairs and a rental car. Or they can simply trade in their current car for a new flexible fuel vehicle that will cost more monetarily and more than likely, environmentally as well. You can go and buy a new Chevy Impala with FlexFuel (since it’s the only car option they offer, everything else is a truck, van, or SUV/cross-over) and happily spend what little money you have left on a biofuel that’ll make you feel better.

Would I like to shell out a few thousand dollars to replace the engine in our Focus? Yeah, I would but not because I blew it up using the wrong fuel. I’d rather spend that money overhauling the engine, boring out the throttle body, using lighter engine parts, adding a more efficient air supply system, and a whole host of options to make it run more efficiently. I can think of much better ways to spend that money.

I don’t know how much research was conducted on the viability and consumer usability of ethanol biofuel, but I can almost guarantee you that Crist was telling his team to do anything to help his constituency save money at the pump. Unfortunately, this was a bad move on their part. Opting to institute E10 on all pumps would’ve been much cheaper because you don’t have to replace anything at all and all it requires from CITGO is another delivery to completely replace the current one and then some signage to proudly display the use of ethanol for all engine types. Hell, they can take it one step further and add in biodiesels to help out our trucking industry since their rigs can readily run biodiesel with little or no modifications at all and would benefit from it much more than a regular consumer ever would. If we can drive down the cost of logistics and over-land transport, we’d be solving a lot more economic problems than a few new gasoline pumps will.

I congratulate you, Charlie Crist (especially now that you’re engaged!), but you need to make sure that your aides and staff members are doing research that makes sense for all of us, not a minority of the auto-owning population. There’s so much more that you could be persuading companies and consumers to do than gobble up even more gas in their corn cars.

New milk jug design causes furor

July 2nd, 2008 • 2 comments environmentalism
Tags: environmentalism

So apparently someone designed a new milk jug (decent aggregator of some articles regarding this as I didn’t want to do 15 different links). It’s supposed to cut down on plastic use and be lighter and a bunch of other crap but really, what does this thing look like to most people who’ve ever worked fast food? A grease jug, just a small opaque one. Or a small metal gas can like you’d see on WWII-era Jeeps. Either way it’s ugly and doesn’t look like it took a whole lot of thought to “design” (see grease jug, shrink, make white, profit). But it’s supposed to be very good for the environment because it uses less plastic and is in fact lighter all the while delivering fresher milk to consumers. I’m all for fresh milk although, I only drink soy. I know that my girlfriend and my father will be happy about that. However, this isn’t what has customers pissed off, it’s the poor design.

Have you ever tried to empty a grease container to fill a fryer? All it does is glug-glug straight out. While not messy once you get the hang of it, the sheer force of a gallon — or 5 — shooting out of a small opening does create a certain amount of inertia, enough to jerk it from a steady hand. I can see this having a similar effect since it’s basically the same design and design flaw. Lacking a proper amount of plastic to create a raised spout means you’ve got an entire gallon of milk trying to bust out of that jug at once and you’re supposed to keep hold of it. But that lack of a spout means that these are more flat and infinitely more stackable which is a plus I supposed — this is mentioned at the NY Times but I didn’t read that article so go there for more stacking info.

Apparently this thing was designed by an engineer and not a designer. Call me shocked. The fact that this was designed at all shocks me. As previously alluded to, it’s a white near carbon-copy of grease jugs in fast food places so I don’t see much design here at all. The handle is placed near the top, creating an excellent imbalance when all that milk is gushing out and the force slaps the bottle against your wrist or rips it out of your hand. Didn’t anyone market test these things or were they just straight to production? I can just see some poor waif/schlep buying some of this at Costco and taking it home busting their wrist on it or breaking a foot bone and suing over poor design,

All in all, this is an OK first try, certainly not something I would’ve expected to be fast-tracked to stores with such a badly designed milk delivery mechanism (flat top, no spout, bad handle placement). You can tell this was more about efficiency of the product and inventory control than it was about a product delivering on multiple fronts for consumers.