Lots of Sustainable Things

Tuesday might have well been Sustainability Day. As soon as I got off my plane from California I jetted off to the Sustainable Products Trade Show at UF (yes, I recognize the irony in that statement). Remember my post about the 7:1 garbage bin to recycling bin ratio at UF? Well apparently, Florida is doing some things to lessen their environmental impact. Shocking. I failed to take some pictures of the event despite having brought my camera, but here is a list of some of the cool products that UF is actually buying:

- PLA (corn-based plastic) cups
- Biodegradable plates, plastic-ware, and cups for Gator Dining Services
- Electrical load management for the dorms (so you can see which dorm room is using the most electricity)
- Reusable, compostable, and recyclable, carpet made from sustainable resources
- "green" chemicals/reagents and water filtration systems for labs

As if that wasn't enough action for one day, I then scurried off to my department's weekly seminar, which featured a professor from UMich who spoke about Organic Photovoltaic fibers. Now, I'm not really sure about the practicality of this research, but it is encouraging to see someone trying to think about ways we can actually scale up solar research to make a real impact. Even at 40% growth a year, solar technology still has A LOT to make up to be competitive with fossil-fuel based technology.

My day concluded with my monthly GRU (local utility) meeting for Gainesville Energy Advisory Committee. Here I get to see how energy policy is crafted (or not) and implemented (or not) albeit at a local level. This month I discovered that its pretty difficult to enact energy conservation programs. The problem is that most energy conservation programs are difficult to measure, so their benefits are muddled. The utility would have a pretty large incentive to conserve more energy if they knew quantitatively what each measure would do. For example, how much do CFL's (those swirly energy efficient bulbs) actually save the utility, and who is using them?

One thing is for sure though. When I talked to a company spokesman for NatureWorks at the Sustainable Products Trade Show, I asked him if these seemingly obscure products were actually finding a way into the market. He replied, "The demand is absolutely huge. 10 years ago all this stuff was a fad or a fringe movement, but now it is serious money. These products are here to stay." That seemed like an accurate statement, especially after he pointed to the new biodegradable Kentucky Fried Chicken bag.