Stop Noise: it's making you stressed!

Noise is something I’ve been thinking a lot about while walking the swarming streets of Chicago and living a block from a fire station this summer. While sirens are loud for a reason, other loud noises seem unnecessary and just annoying.

There are many groups out there taking a stand against noise pollution  The EPA even had a noise control program for a while and for good reason. Turns out constant noise can have real health effects.

In 2007, The Washington Post reported:

“… study after study has found that community noise is interrupting our sleep, interfering with our children’s learning, suppressing our immune systems and even increasing — albeit just a little — our chances of having a heart attack. It is also tarnishing the Golden Rule, reducing people’s inclination to help one another.”

Turns out our bodies have actual chemical reactions (adrenaline) to the noise we are exposed to. “’The idea that people get used to noise is a myth,” the Environmental Protection Agency has reported. “Even when we think we have become accustomed to noise, biological changes still take place inside us,’” according to the Post.

So if you don’t want a beautiful, wildlife and people friendly no-mow lawn and you don’t want to go the livestock route (rent-a-goat!) than the Neuton seems like a quiet, clean alternative to gas mowers. They even have battery recycling!

Elizabeth Ulion is a graduate student at Northwestern University. She hopes her lawnmower loving father sees this post and takes note! Hi, Dad!

Photo Courtesy of fluzo/Flickr

With fuel prices rising and cap-and-trade policy putting a price on carbon, American Airlines is using technological innovations to cut down on fuel use. A recent flight from Paris to Miami put this to the test.  New practices included “single-engine taxi on departure and arrival, continuous climb out and descent, optimized routing over water, and a ‘tailored arrival,’” according to a press release from AA.  Before this, “blended winglets”  which cut down on drag and increase fuel efficiency were tested on an American Airline plane in March. This winglet technology could save 500,000 gallons of fuel per aircraft each year, reported Reuters.

As part of the Atlantic Interoperability Initiative to Reduce Emissions (AIRE), a collaboration between American and European airline regulators, American Airlines is working to put fuel efficient practices and technology to work today.

Those who fly with American also have the option of purchasing offsets for their flight emissions.

Green wash or real change? Join the conversation at SocialYell today!

Elizabeth Ulion is a graduate student at Northwestern University.

Photo courtesy of birdlike/Flickr

 The truth is simple: we feel that we need paper to survive.  Super printers allow us to shoot out multiple copies within seconds and we have freely used this privilege for its convenience.  As we continue this trend as a society of convenience, why not make things even easier by having all digital documents?  Photos, plans, paper documents and even microfiche could exist in the digital sphere with the use of various types of scanners and copiers.  But we are easily restricted by copyright laws, business and government regulations that are slow to accept completely digital documents, as well as our own difficulties reading, receiving and editing electronic “papers.”  And there is always the fear of electrical failure and our inability to completely trust computer systems to maintain longevity of memory. 

 This is all plausible and understandable, but there are options open to those who want a paperless office.  With easily transportable technologies on the rise, including the iPhone, small laptops and PDAs, paperless offices would allow us to work on the go and leave behind the disorganization of shuffling multiple papers.  We could work from anywhere, on anything.  It would eliminate the clutter and criteria of modern offices, including filing cabinets, shelving units and folders.  Instead, your office could be anywhere that afforded you a chair, desk and computer.  Bosses could dictate to speech recognition software rather than a secretary writing on paper or typing a letter.  Email has already replaced most of our snail mail, but enough of it occurs to add to our landfills (because many are too lazy to recycle).    

 Sponsored links on the Internet offer you the chance to go paperless in 30 days by offering scanning software or other systems.  Could this really be your “office of the future”?  Perhaps a less cluttered cubicle is in your future; it may even be on your back patio.  But all of this talk of a paperless office inevitably leads to another discussion: will we even be using ANY paper in the future?  The economy has caused more publications to fold than ever, especially magazines and newspapers that were considered luxuries.  Other publications have struggled to survive in print and have reverted to online versions with more content.  Amazon introduced their Kindle reader sometime ago, a replacement for the paperback novel.   

 Some say that online publications are the way of the future.  For example, the Grady Journal, an innovative publication of the University of Georgia, is a completely online news source (full disclosure: the author works with the Grady Journal).  It has no other outlet, yet has seen great success in its first year.  Will we have a future without newspapers and magazines that you can hold in your hand?  Only time will tell, but paperless offices are in the very near future.  

What do you think about paperless offices?  Do you use one or does the very idea terrify you?  Let us know at Social Yell!

Ashley Strickland is a senior at the University of Georgia. She is a summer intern for SocialYell and blogs about health, social equity, consumer advocacy, charity, sustainability and just about anything green.

But what happens when the office of the future needs an upgrade? With consumers constantly hungry for the newest technology, electronics are a constant source of waste. And e-waste is causing damage to the environment and people all over the world.

Much of our electronics waste ends up in developing countries where workers are exposed to dangerous chemicals while burning through old computers, cell phones and televisions to get valuable scrap metal.  Frontline investigators visited sites in Hong Kong, Ghana and China which are receptacles of e-waste from other countries. “The southern Chinese city of Guiyu has been completely built around the e-waste trade. Miles and miles of nothing but old electronics,” reported Frontline. Kids grow up surrounded by broken LCD screens and smashed dvd players while their parents constantly inhale lead from burning circuit boards.

These areas are environmental catastrophes and extreme health hazards.

Luckily some U.S. states are on the right recycling path with laws mandating electronics companies take responsibility for the entire lifecycle of products. “Since 2004, 18 states and New York City have approved laws that make manufacturers responsible for recycling electronics, and similar statutes were introduced in 13 other states this year,” reported the New York Times Tuesday. The article noted that hopefully the burden of cleanup will prompt companies to rethink the lifespan of their designs.  While this doesn’t stop the stream of e-waste to poor cities it’s a step in the right direction.

If we’re going to make our offices paperless let’s make sure we’re not just trading one problem for another less publicized problem.

Yell your opinions on going paperless at the SocialYell Forum!

Elizabeth Ulion is a graduate student at Northwestern University. As a summer intern for SocialYell she is constantly looking for blog topics so yell ‘em out at bethulion@gmail.com!

Photo courtesy of JohnJMatlock/Flickr