Show HN: Find Eco-friendly alternatives to Products You Use Everyday(ecoalternatives.to) |
Show HN: Find Eco-friendly alternatives to Products You Use Everyday(ecoalternatives.to) |
The sustainability and "eco-friendliness" of products is a complex question, and there is often no such thing as a simple list. See for instance the extensive study by DTU on plastic vs. paper vs. cotton bags: https://www2.mst.dk/Udgiv/publications/2018/02/978-87-93614-... The study shows, e.g., that paper bags need to be used at least 50 times to achieve the same ecological impact as the thin plastic bags (LDPE).
A green alternative to steel cutlery is bamboo cutlery? Stainless will last 50 or 100 years, or more. Bamboo isn't going to.
Bamboo dinner napkins? WTF? Linen will last 20 years or more. So lets replace those with single use throwaway.
Don't get me wrong, I love this idea and hope it helps more be aware of what they buy and use. But maybe my hopes are for what is planned in version 3 of this. Good start, hope to see improvements
The described use scenario was as follows:
"...visitors are very upset if Mike has previously promised to meet with them at a certain time, but when that time comes around, Mike is nowhere to be found. This happens because Mike doesn’t know what time it is. At his secretary’s recommendation, Mike signs up for a WhatTimeIsIt.com account. Now, whenever Mike is wondering about the time, he simply logs onto WhatTimeIsIt.com, enters his username and password, and finds out the current time."
Years have passed and now, if Mike can't think of an eco-friendly alternative to a paper coffee cup, he can go to the ecoalternatives website to find out he could get a stainless steel coffee mug with autoseal and thermalock instead. Eureka! ;)
(I'm honestly not sure if that's really the equivalent of a paper cup - personally I'd think a regular ceramic cup, 10 times cheaper, would be more accurate in reproducing the same functionality, but let's assume Mike is capable of figuring this one out without a website).
Citation needed. I've never seen anyone not using their plastic ice trays for a decade. Sometimes more like 3 decades.
If people focus on ice trays and straws and forget large sources of pollution [1] we get what looks like an avoidance/displacement/procrastination behavior.
It's like taking vitamins as an excuse to delay a needed surgery, so to speak.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/jul/10...
Yet somehow Google Analytics made its way into the source code...........
I think you should add more context to each item. I'd like to see specifically why an item is bad and how the replacement is better.
The toothbrush is a good start but it would be more impactful if credible studies were linked. I have a hard time imagining that my toothbrushes end up in the sea.
New category: deodorant, https://nuudcare.com/
New "product": shampoo, https://www.nopoomethod.com/
Some of the items I'm confused about — are plastic ice trays so bad for the environment? I thought the "bad" plastic products were bad because they're typically not reusable (bags, straws, etc). Ice trays aren't single use.
In any case, great website!
This is a bad website to be honest, as ordering consumables off Amazon least environmentally friendly ways to distribute them. Far better to ship via pallet to a local supermarket.
Or... Eliminate the need entirely. We need to change our entire way of thinking from 'buy and throw away', to 'invest and re-use'.
I had an environmentalist complain about a leather guitar strap I've had for 10 years, and that I should throw it away and get one made from an eco-material, such as recycled denim.
The leather guitar strap was ...
* More durable than any other guitars strap I've ever had
* A by-product of the huge meat industry (I'm a veggie myself)
* In my possession and functional
A lot of the buzz around small changes to help the environment, but the real change needs to happen to the consumer lifestyle we all seem to have. There is no quick fix.
I'm an environmentalist, but only with a little e.
I completely disagree, although there are cases where non-disposable plates are too expensive to have due to various reasons, but if that's the case you probably shouldn't be doing what you're doing.