Educational – Page 10 – Random Thoughts

Recycling Dead Batteries

Batteries: portable power cells that can range in size from the tiny button battery in hearing aids to the boxy lead-acid batteries in an automobile produce electricity through a chemical reaction between two elements inside the battery. One of these elements is typically a heavy metal: lead, manganese, lithium, zinc, cadmium, mercury and silver are common. If disposed of by tossing dead batteries in the trash, which goes to a landfill, heavy metals have the potential to leach into soil, groundwater, or surface water. Dry cell batteries contribute about 88 percent of the total mercury and 50 percent of the cadmium in the municipal solid waste stream. In the past, batteries accounted for nearly half of the mercury used in the United States and over half of the mercury and cadmium in the municipal solid waste stream. When burned, some heavy metals such as mercury may vaporize and escape into the air. Cadmium and lead may also end up in the ash, remaining a pollutant.

Alkaline Batteries

Single-use (non-rechargeable) alkaline batteries account for 80% of manufactured batteries in the US. These are labeled Alkaline and are the typical 9 volt, C, D, AA, and AAA that we use every day in our homes.

Americans buy around 3 billion single use alkaline batteries a year to power our common household items. Modern single-use batteries, including alkaline and carbon-zinc types, are no longer classified as Household Hazardous Waste (HHW), because they contain much less heavy metals than they did before 1997, and can be safely disposed of in the trash. However, they do contain recyclable materials such as manganese, zinc, steel, paper, and plastic that can be reclaimed.

There is also the question of; do you want to add to landfills by dumping this waste when batteries no longer supply power, or do you want to recycle them? Dead batteries do not break down readily and will add bulk to the landfills for a very long time.

Rechargeable Batteries

Rechargeable batteries contain large amounts of nickel cadmium, nickel metal hydride and lithium ion. These batteries are typically found in cordless power tools, cellular and cordless phones, laptop computers, camcorders, digital cameras, and remote control toys.

I recently went to my annual doctor’s visit. I say that as though I go every year, but I don’t. In fact this is the first time I’ve made an appointment because it was time to go again. He had not told me to come in, but it has been a year since I last saw him, and I thought I should check in to see how ‘things’ are going.

He started off by asking me, “Why are you here?”

“Because it has been a year since I last visited you, and I miss you.”

“That’s nice, but you could have called.”

“Everyone everywhere always says that I should get an annual check-up just to see if anything is wrong. So, here I am: poke and prod away.”

“OK. Anything in particular wrong?”

“I have a headache.”

“Who doesn’t, these days. Let me tell you something about annual check-ups.” And he proceeded to tell me this story:

Continue reading “Doctors, Drugs and Dastardly Plans”

The Rise of Urban Farms

Abandoned home: _AP-Paul Sancya To most of my readers a farm is not a strange or unusual sight. Many readers live on farms. But to most city dwellers, a farm is as mysterious and distant as a tropical rain forest is to us. Many city kids have never seen how food is grown; they know only that it comes from a supermarket wrapped in plastic. Some cities have started busing school kids out on field trips (literally) to nearby farms so they can get a look at what a field of produce looks like. Many cities have parks, and maybe a horticultural garden, but not farm land. I bet the last place you’d think to look for farm land would be inside a major industrial city, such as… oh, say… Detroit. The Motor City. And you’d be wrong!

The city of Detroit has for years been the poster child for urban blight: having lost 25 percent of its population over the last decade and with roughly 40 of the city’s 139 square miles vacant, according to The Detroit Free Press. But the actions of some residents and organizations may be about to change all that.

In the wake of the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history, Detroit is rebranding itself as The D.I.Y. City, with projects such as urban farms, encouraging small businesses selling locally made products, and residents pitching in to handle municipal upkeep.

Bands of citizen volunteers have been swarming into vacant properties, abandoned and neglected by their owners, to cut grass, clear brush and pick up litter and debris. Many of the derelict homes are being razed by the city, but some feel there is a better way to go.

Amazon.com drone delivery — Photo via Associated Press

It seems the world is a-buzz (sorry) with the news that Jeff Bezos, head honcho at Amazon.com, spilled on 60 Minutes last Sunday (Dec 1, 2013) about Amazon moving into the use of flying drones to deliver packages. The resulting social media chatter is not decisively for or against this move. Some just make fun of the idea: asking when drone hunting season opens or speculating about getting dinner by knocking down a pizza drone. But then some of the jokes may not be without some truth.

Continue reading “My Goodness the Gnats Are Big This Year!”

Yahoo Mountain Dew!

I felt like doing a “Way Back Whensday” post here at Random Thoughts today and I’ve elected to poke into the history of something that is near and dear to my heart on a couple of fronts. The soda pop marketed as Mountain Dew is one of my favorite ”treat” beverages (I prefer the diet version) and the term “mountain dew” has been slang for moonshine for hundreds of years. The Tennessee county I live in has a well deserved reputation for having been the moonshine capital of the world during the heyday of that illegally produced corn whiskey. There is even a moonshine museum down the road in Cosby! Sorry, they do not give out samples.

Mountain Dew was born here in the hills of Tennessee in the 1940s. Barney and Ally Hartman, who ran a bottling plant in Knoxville, coined the name of their product from the colloquial term for moonshine whiskey. The Hartman’s Mountain Dew, however, was a lemon-lime flavored mixer for whiskey, not originally intended to be drunk alone. But that changed quickly enough.

Continue reading “Yahoo Mountain Dew!”

These Guys Are Really Bugging Me!

At first it was lady bugs – or more properly, Lady Bird Beetles. Not the American Ladybugs: they are beneficial in the garden and non-invasive: we loved them. But the Asian Ladybugs imported by the forestry department to control their Hemlock Borer infestation became a real nuisance. They forced out the American Ladybugs and preferred to over-winter in our home with us. The American Ladybugs were never so rude as to move in en masse uninvited.

This year there has been a distinct lack of Ladybugs of any nation. Japanese Beetles were bad and I put out traps in an effort to control them, but they still decimated my bean plants.

As fall set in and we braced for the Ladybug war, they have not appeared. But an even more heinous cousin did; the Stink Bug. There are thousands of them in our yard, hundreds crawling on our home; including our porch, and dozens of the odiferous insects in our home.

Where Did These Bugs Come From?

It seems these nasty fellows hitched a ride here from Asia (where else), probably in some packing crates. They were first collected in September 1998 in Allentown, Pennsylvania.

Since then these pests have spread north into Maine and south into Florida, and are now moving west across the entire country. In the past, there have been one generation annually, but recent mild winters and warm springs enable additional generations to reproduce, increasing the population everywhere.

words, word pictures, writing, narrative, story — by Smock Art

Words carry a lot of meaning. I don’t mean that in the sense of synonyms and homonyms, but in the sense that the way we construct our sentences and phrases can carry – or not – far more meaning than the words alone should. It’s sometimes called “word pictures”

If you want to paint a mental picture of a girl who is sickly and frail, you would do well to stay away from the words “light” or “fair” in describing her skin and use “pale” or “ashen”. A dog that is scrawny will likely be viewed as unhealthy, while “slender” or “thin” may be viewed as fit and toned. If moving a bag or package, “hoisted”, “heaved” or “hefted” brings to mind a good deal of weight while “tossed” or “flipped” indicates a light load and easy task. A good thesaurus will help you find alternate words and a dictionary will help make sure you’re using them correctly. But it goes beyond this.

Continue reading “The Emotion of Words”

The Next Big Thing in Microchips

There has been a considerable amount of talk, speculation and fear-mongering going on about the next big leap in personal information and records keeping, namely: microchipping.

Recently I’ve read articles, watched clips of talk shows and seen many YouTube videos on the subject of placing microchips in people. Some say it’s a great idea, some have concerns over privacy, and some are yelling “Mark of the Beast” and quoting scripture.^[1]

Microchips in Pets

As a pet owner I have been, and continue to be, a proponent of having pets chipped: this vastly improves the chances or your pet being returned to you if they somehow get away from you and lose their collar or tags.

These chips store a 12 to 16 character alpha-numeric code. That’s all. When a scanner triggers the microchip, it transmits its code and the signal can be read for a distance of up to 10 centimeters (about 4 inches). The veterinarian or animal shelter then uses the code shown on the scanner to query a database^[2] over the internet which returns the name, address and phone number of the animal’s registered owner. But why chip people?

Continue reading “The Next Big Thing in Microchips”

Interview or e-Terview: When and Why

interview, Q&A image In our modern world of highly connected, internet based communications writers sometimes resort to e-mailing questions to an interview subject instead of doing a personal or telephone interview. Whether this is a good thing or bad thing depends on a lot of factors. Continue reading “Interview or e-Terview: When and Why”

Thou Shalt Not Whine: The Eleventh Commandment?

If God had inscribed an 11^th commandment, it might well have been, “Thou shalt not whine.“

Two Kinds of People

happy face sad faces

Motivational author Keith Cameron Smith says that there are two kinds of people: winners and whiners and they are easy to tell apart: winners brighten a room when they enter it, whiners brighten a room when they leave it. Continue reading “Thou Shalt Not Whine: The Eleventh Commandment?”