my wu-chi blog

Hopefully, a sign of things to come

I read an article a while back that I have been meaning to share. It describes how many Coke cans are sold every year and suggests that if they went with a ‘naked’ design, i.e., no paint on the can, then

naked can help to reduce air and water pollution occurred in its coloring process. It also reduces energy and effort to separate toxic color paint from aluminum in recycling process. Huge amount of energy and paint required to manufacture colored cans will be saved. Instead of toxic paint, manufacturers process aluminum with a pressing machine that indicates brand identity on surface.

I am sure that there would also be some energy and pollution savings when the cans get recycled.

You may be wondering how many Coke cans are sold every year? The article looked up some figures from 2007 and came up with almost 25 billion or 25,000,000,000 worldwide. Can you image if Coke, Pepsi, and all of the other cola and beer manufactures went this route how much pollution and energy could be saved?

Food Stamps

Came across an article about food stamps that stated “nearly half of all U.S. children and 90 percent of black youngsters will be on food stamps at some point during childhood.” Another article states that “more than 36 million people use inconspicuous plastic cards for staples like milk, bread and cheese.”

How freaking scary is that! I am very grateful that the program exists and is able to take care of so many people, but it is sad that the program is even needed.

For my dad

This was his favorite song growing up.

Japanese Garden

Last weekend I finally made it to the Japanese Garden in Washington Park. Continue reading Japanese Garden

E-waste

Came across an article tonight about e-waste and what happens to a lot of ‘recycled’ electronics. At the end of the article is a link to a PBS Frontline/World video about e-waste in Ghana and China. I highly suggest you read the article and watch the video.

Weekend Visitors

This past weekend my dad, his wife Carolyn and my aunt Judy came out for a visit. I enticed them, well my dad mostly, to come out for ASU was playing at Oregon. Continue reading Weekend Visitors

Coincidence

I had Veteran’s Day off last week and planned on going to the Japanese Garden for I heard it was free that day. I ran some errands in the morning and then looked up the hours while I was eating lunch. Closes at 4 – damn. I finished eating and quickly left for the train ride can take at least 30 minutes to get there. Continue reading Coincidence

Photos

I walk by a federal building on the way to work and I see the President and VP photo above the entrance. How many of these photos are there in federal buildings around the world? How much money is spent developing the photos and shipping them to where they need to go? What happens to the photos after a new president comes into power? And are these photos even necessary? If they weren’t there, would people somehow behave differently?

Observations

Over my time here I have made some observations and thought that I would share them.

It is all about parallel parking here. Somehow I have only needed to do it a couple times, but if you drive here, expect to parallel park at some point.
The streets are not very wide, at least in the area I live in. If cars park on both sides of the street, only one lane of traffic can go down the road at a time.
Continue reading Observations

Walkabout

Went for a walk today and ended walking down the Eastbank Esplinade of the Willamette River and then up the westbank and then back home. It was a nice day out – mostly cloudy and the last half it rained lightly. Along the esplinade, there were signs talking about the building of the bridges, the building of the westbank wall and other historical items. For some reason the Hawthorne drawbridge went up even though there were no ships in site. It was cool to see it in action for it is a vertical lift bridge and I have not seen it in action yet. I later walked across the bridge and a gaggle of geese flew over squawking away.

The sad part of the walk were signs posted all along the eastbank that said do not go into the river after a rain storm for sewage may empty out into the river. It made me think about an article I came across this week that listed the most toxic towns in the country and Portland, the ‘green’ city, was sadly number 10.