Rachel Carson and the Unexpected Ripple

Silent Spring left me with the inescapable conclusion of the interconnectedness between our industrial complexes, the very water we drink and the air that we breathe.  In this same water, fish swim, and in the same air, birds fly.  If we change one aspect of the air that we breathe or the water that we drink by our use of toxic chemicals, we establish an unexpected ripple effect with these biospheres.

That being said, we assume that organic is good without looking to consequence or the unexpected ripple.  Let me give you an example.  A naturally occurring bacterium called Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) is used extensively to control the larvae of mosquito, beetle, and caterpillars.  It is considered one of the organics that does no harm.  Is it harmful?  How do we know?

Cornell University has produced an important decision-making tool called the Environment Impact Quotient.  This report focuses chemical use and its impact on the farm worker, the consumer, and effects on fish, birds, bees, and beneficial insects.  The highest EIQs will be around 100, and the lowest are at about 10.  When selecting a chemical you should try to avoid those that are over 20, if possible.

Using this tool, lets examine Bacillus thuringiensis.  In the farm worker category, we notice that it is rated at 6.9.  Looks good so far.  In the consumer effects, we are at 2.5.  Outstanding so far!  In the fish, bird, bee and beneficial category we are at 30.6 with a significant portion of this ratio allotted to birds and beneficial insects.  That’s high.  The overall EIQ for this chemical is 13.3.

What does this all mean?  Well, I think we need to view our chemical use as a situational decision and not make a blanket assumption that organic is good and synthetic is bad.  While the overall EIQ of Bt is low, if we were using this chemical in an area that was a heavy feeding area for birds, or an area designed to attract beneficial insects, we will be at 30.6.  We need to look at the EIQ chart and see if there is something else that will do the same job without affecting birds and beneficials.

The EIQ is a place to start when we need to assess the prospective damage when using a chemical.  It has a place in an integrated pest management program but must be used with other tools to further the decision as to what chemical is the best to use.  In the next few installments, I want to look at the individual chemicals and assess the good, the bad, and the ugly.  I will be using the EIQ as a basis for this assessment.

What is Rachel Carson Thinking?

I sometimes wonder what Rachel Carson would think about our current positions on pesticide use and testing.  On the one hand, I feel that she would be pleased about the responsible use of pesticides that we espouse; and on the other hand, I know she would still be asking questions.  While it may not be possible to truly assess the far-reaching outcome of her book, Silent Spring, we do have to acknowledge the social and political activism around the environmentalism it birthed; and yet I wonder if we have done enough.  I have this little voice in the back of my head that says that she would not have allowed the present organic versus synthetic pesticides debate to be a part of our contemporary culture.   Simplified, it is “synthetic pesticides bad, organic pesticides good.”  No questions, this is dogma. Believe it, or face the scourge of excommunication. Because the synthetic pesticides are “bad,” we test them, we research them, we cover them with lawyer talk, we brand them evil, and we ostracize anyone who uses them.  And yet we are complacent about “the good” because it is organic.

There is magic to that word, organic.  The word evokes comfort, it is guilt free, and it is good for you.  We use organic this and that, we eat organic this and that, we bathe in it, we drive it, we wrap ourselves in it, and we billboard it as the new nationwide hymn.

I somehow feel that Rachel Carson would be lifting our collective organic heads out of the sand shouting, “Wake up, show me the data, show me the science.”  You say that you are a steward of the earth because you use organic, but I, too, want to see the science.  I want to know that when I put an organic product on my tomatoes that I am truly doing what is right.  And that is what I am going to attempt in the next few articles in my blog.  With the spirit of Rachel Carson sitting on my shoulder asking questions, I want to look at the science and know in my gut that organic is good.  I want to know that I am truly a steward of the earth.

Dollar Conservation

We like to comparison shop, and we like to understand whether we are truly saving if we choose one product or another. Many times the options are not clear-cut and straightforward, especially when we are talking about water, landscapes, and dollars. But today I want to present a very clear case of saving dollars, water, and the environment.
In 2003 the City of Santa Monica installed two gardens in adjacent residential yards. Both gardens were 1900 square feet. Both sites had compacted soil that was low in organic matter, alkaline, and had high levels of heavy metal. One garden was installed using sustainable practices, and the other was installed using traditional practices. We will call them sustainable and traditional gardens, respectively, just so we can differentiate between them. The gardens were monitored from 2004 until 2008 for water use, green waste, and maintenance costs. The traditional garden cost $12,400 to install, and the sustainable garden was $16,700 to install. The additional costs for the sustainable garden were for the installation of permeable pavers and tying all of the rain gutters into an underground infiltration pit to recharge the aquifer.
The traditional garden was installed using a standard user-controlled irrigation system, plants from northern Europe and the eastern United States, and no system for capturing water runoff.
The sustainable garden was installed with climate-appropriate California natives, low-volume drip irrigation with a weather-sensitive controller, and a system for capturing storm water runoff to recharge the ground water.
So far it has cost me $4,000 more for a sustainable garden. Where are my savings? Let’s look at the numbers over a 4-year period.
  

	Traditional Garden	Sustainable Garden	Difference
Installation Costs	$12, 400	$16,700	$4300
Water Use	283,981 gallons	64,396 gallons	219,585
Green Waste	647.5  pounds	219.0 pounds	428.5
Maintenance	$223.22/month	$70.44/month	$152.78
Four-Year Savings		$18,312.69

Four-Year Savings $18,312.69

Over a 4-year period you would have saved $7,333.44 in just maintenance costs. And how much could you have saved in water? Water costs about a nickel a gallon. Multiply a nickel by 219,585 gallons and another $10,979.25 could have saved. Total up the maintenance costs and the water costs that you could have saved and we have $18,312.69. So sometimes, it is not just all about saving the environment it’s about saving a buck. I work too hard to lose $18k because of some wrong choices. We’ll talk about saving the environment another time.

Paper or Plastic

Paper or Plastic

 

Simple actions in the realm of ecology make a big difference.  And so it is with the simple question of “paper or plastic?”  Do you know which one to ask for?  I hope that this short essay will help answer that question. 

 

I will be comparing two common grocery sacks normally found at the check stand, and I will be assessing each bag using two measures.  The first will be the amount of total energy used by the individual bag.  This includes the energy to make the bag (process energy) and the energy embodied within the physical materials of the bag.   The second measure is the amount of pollutants produced by either paper or plastic.

 

In determining the energy used to make the bag, I will consider transportation, electricity, fuel extraction, and processing.  To help simplify the energy units used, I will use the designator for energy of kilojoules (kJ).

 

Let’s have a look at paper.  In the manufacture of paper, high amounts of coal, petroleum, and wood are used.  A single paper bag uses 350 kJ of coal, 500 kJ of petroleum, and 550 kJ of wood to be produced.  The total amount of expenditure of energy for a single paper bag is 1680 kJ of energy.

 

How does plastic compare to paper?  Plastic uses natural gas, coal, and petroleum.  Two plastic bags use 240 kJ of petroleum, 160 kJ of coal, and 990 kJ of petroleum.  The total amount is 1,470 kJ, or 13% less energy to produce 2 plastic bags to 1 paper bag.  So far it looks like plastic has the lead.

 

Pollutants come in three basic flavors: solid, airborne, and atmospheric waste.  Solid refers to the bag arriving at the landfill and to how much material is thrown away at the manufacturing facility.  Airborne and atmospheric waste is concerned with materials that are discharged after receiving emission controls or wastewater treatment.  Because plastic bags have less overall mass than paper, they produce less solid waste at the landfill.  One paper bag contains 50 grams of waste, and two plastic bags produce 14 grams of waste.  Plastic also produces less atmospheric pollutants.  Two plastic bags produce 1.1 kg of waste, while one paper bag produces 2.6 kg of waste. 

When we look at waterborne pollution, we consider it to be pollutants that harm the ecosystem.  Plastic produces 0.1 g and paper produces 1.5 g of waterborne pollutants. 

 

So far it seems that plastic is the winner and should be the one you need to ask for at the grocery store.  Plastic, in comparison to paper grocery bags, consume 40% less energy than paper, produce 70% fewer atmospheric emissions, releases up to 94% few waterborne wastes, and generates 80% less solid waste.

 

From what I have written to this point, your choice is simple and clear.  Next time you are at the market and you are confronted with the words “paper or plastic” you will shout with facts backing your decision, “Plastic, please.”  Well, I wish the decision was that clear cut and easy, but there are some other issues that we need to look at.  The factors that come into play in this equation are the bag manufacturers, garbologists, the environmentalists, and human nature. 

 

Let’s start with the environmentalist’s take on this issue.  Plastic bags end up on roadsides, in our waterways, and in landfills.  Wildlife swallow them because of the food scents that are in the bags, get their feet and wings caught in them; sea turtles mistake them for jellyfish and eat them causing blockage in their stomachs; whales eat them; they clog sewer lines causing stagnant ponds of waste water; and if the bags are not properly recycled they do not degrade. 

 

Paper has its list of problems as far as the environmentalists are concerned.  Paper has a higher volume, take up more space at a landfill, and the amount of trees that are removed for the manufacture of paper bags is astronomical.   If 1 ton of paper grocery bags are recycled, 13 to 17 trees are saved.  Because of landfill policies of layering trash and then compacting it, the paper does not degrade because it is deprived of oxygen and water.  Garbologists estimate that it will take a paper bag 40 to 50 years to decompose.

The tally so far is that the bag manufacturers favor the plastic bag and have the data to back their decision, and the environmentalists do not favor either plastic or paper.  The garbologists favor plastic because it takes up significantly less room in the landfill. 

The human nature factor is the only other significant factor in determining the right answer. 

 

Four to five trillion plastic bags are produced every year, and about 3% are not recycled.  They become litter.  They are in every corner of the planet, including the remote areas of Antarctica.  Although littering and trash laws have reduced the amount dumping, 3% of four trillion is a big number. 

 

The partial answer to this complicated problem of paper or plastic is to reuse and recycle them.  Recycling centers will take plastic bags as well as most supermarkets.  They are then shipped to centers that reduce them into pellets for the remanufacture of plastic bags.  If 1 ton of plastic bags is recycled the energy equivalent of 11 barrels of oil are saved. 

Reuse means that we need to use them.  This has a huge impact.  If, in the San Francisco Bay area, every person used one less grocery bag per year, it would reduce waste by 5 million pounds and save a quarter of a million dollars in disposal costs.  Take them back to the grocery store to bag your groceries a second, third, or fourth time.  Use them until they wear out and then recycled them. 

 

You can use them as wastebasket liners, store your craft supplies in them, or fill them with a bag of food to take to the homeless shelter. Stash them in your suitcase for storing wet bathing suits, as laundry bags, and even as an emergency suit case for those extras that always accumulate when traveling..  Wrap your shoes in them when packing your suitcase.  This will keep the dirt from your shoes away from your clothes.  Store a paintbrush full of oil-base paint in a plastic bag for use the next day.  Wrap the brush in a plastic bag and place it in the refrigerator overnight.  Make a kite out of them.  Store Christmas decorations in them.  Use them for a lunch pail.  Use them as a pooper scooper.  Place outdated or used clothing in them for donation to your favorite charity.

It is a tossup whether paper or plastic grocery bags are the best for the environment.  So what is the answer to “Paper or Plastic?”  They both have their drawbacks.  Neither of them is beneficial to the environment.  They both cost us in terms of dollars and environmental damage to make and to dispose.

My recommendation is that you bring your own cloth bags to the supermarket.  Then you will not have to stand there pondering “paper or plastic, paper or plastic.”  THE ANSWER IS CLOTH.  

Integrated Pest Management

Integrated Pest Management

Six men brandishing various types of weapons are barricaded inside a building with hostages.  Three of the hostages are police officers, another hostage is a father with his 2 young sons, and the last hostages are a mother and her daughter.  A crowd has gathered outside including TV crews, a swat command center, lots of police, and an assortment of emergency vehicles.  While the TV audience is following this tense drama, they notice that there is no identification of the hostages or the hostage takers.  There has not been the usual attempts to negotiate with the hostage takers nor has there been any attempt to contact them.  To the astonishment of everyone a war plane streaks out of the sky and lets loose a barrage of chemical missiles, hitting the building, the swat teams, TV crews and the audience outside killing them all.  At this point you are asking yourself what country would allow this type of barbarism to happen?  How can this behavior be justified?  We all agree that this is a sad and deplorable waste of life.  And yet this is how we administer our pest control management on plant material.  We do not identify the plants, the insects or even check for beneficials that are looking for a way to take out the insects.  We send the warplanes in to blast the whole area with a chemical that takes out the bad guys, the good guys and anything that happens to be in the neighborhood.  In this type of scenario we are not allowing the natural process to play out.  We are intervening.  Using the example of the hostage situation how would we setup our pest control program.

First of all we need to identify the pests.  What if we looked into our computer database and found that our hostage takers had a rap sheet with the most offensive crime on this sheet was jaywalking.  And we also noticed that the hostage takers did not have any weapons. Do you think that the police officers inside the building could handle the situation?  I think so.  But, Frank, nature is not this clear cut.  I disagree.  How about spittlebug.  It is an innocuous little creature that hangs around for about 6 weeks, does not harm the plant and yet I have seen the harshest of chemicals used to control this critter.

Okay let’s up the ante.  If our database indicates that the bad guys are convicted felons with a record of bank robbing and they are in the library.  Doesn’t this change the situation slightly?  Many times we see insects on a plant the insect does not eat and we spray anyway.  Identify your plant and then look to see if this insect eats it.  Oleander aphid is an excellent example of this scenario.  If the oleander aphid is on xylosma I don’t think that we have a problem.

Kick it one more notch.  Let’s say our research says that indeed these felons are in a bank, have a history of robbing banks and that the cops inside are just security guards for the local flea market.  We would be justified in using an action that would take them out.  An example is spider mites.  They need to be dealt with immediately or they will do some significant damage.

Okay same scenario as above except that the cops inside are Inspector Harry Callahan or Dirty Harry, and Sergeants Riggs and Murtaugh from Lethal Weapon and they are well armed.  I don’t think we will need outside help.  This is an example of preying mantis working in conjunction with ladybug larvae and trichogramma wasps on roses controlling the aphids.  These beneficial insects will take care of the problem unless we spray.  The spray will kill the good bugs, the bad bugs, and any bugs that happen to be near.  The problem with this scenario is that the bad bugs can out-propagate the good bugs and they will increase their population numbers higher than the original infestation.  If the good guys can come back, the population of the bad guys is so overwhelming that they may not be able to bring the population down to acceptable levels.

So the bottom line is that you need to evaluate each scenario and make a decision based on knowledge and not reach for the spray out of ignorance or habit.  That is what integrated pest management is all about.

I have always strived to understand the magic in seeds and Nature.

Specialties

Sustainable landscape management, Integrated pest management, certified water manager, organic soil specialist, native plant specialist, consulting horticulturist, lighting design and installation, speaker and educator, garden coach