Einstein’s obsession: SIMPLIFY
No wonder that the greatest mind we can all think of was obsessed with simplification. He discovered, along many others throughout time, that humans have the unique ability to complicate actions and things during their existence. He needed to avoid this in his science quest.
Like Confucius said: “Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated”. Studies showed that, when facing a problem, our brains tend to favor the complex solution, thinking that the simple one will never work. Is this the result of our complex education or the lack of any real education?
Have we forgotten what centuries of living on this planet taught us or we have just evolved into more complex entities? If we will have to choose between a simple solution and a complex and difficult to manage solution, how many of us will choose the hard way, if they will know the paths to the result? I tend to think that, regardless the level of education, if we know the result, the large majority of us will chose the simple path. Some of us will even copy the result, without even try to understand the problem, because we already have it validated by others. Mihai Eminescu said: “The idea of value is very relative because everyone measures it after his own interest”.
Where are we now?
We have become masters of delivering pain for the sake of pleasure and, we willingly chosen to ignore the simple path, simply because it takes too much time to find it.
It was easier to “copy-paste”, instead of trying to simplify things for a greater good. Somewhere, along our journey, we chose to ignore Earth and his unwritten laws and we have considered it as our property, forgetting that we are only guests. And now our host is fighting back. What are we for Earth? In the best perspective, following this road and history’s events along Earth’s existence, we could expect the “Dinosaurs 2.0” scenario to replay, with some subspecies to make it to the next step.
Could we avoid that?
Some say it is too late, some say there is still hope and other have their priorities. For sure, it will be painful for most of us. Do we have solutions? No, if we choose not to work together and follow only what is important for us.
Search the world wide web for “copy-paste” solutions and decide which you want and may be able to implement first, if you still chose to ignore the SIMPLIFY solution.
Or we can follow the Greenhouse Gas protocol and to tackle emissions in all 3 categories, starting with Scope 1, where we have to reduce emissions produced in our activity (direct operations under energy efficiency rules), Scope 2, where we will have to be sure that all energy we purchase is green and Scope 3, where all our supply chain operations (from sources not controlled or owned by us – mainly purchase and delivery logistics) should be green. So, we are not really green until all of us are green!
If SIMPLIFY does not sound too difficult, then try to make the changes in a more consistent way. Analyze your energy, constantly monitoring it, build your digital twin to help you optimize your flow and adapt it to your needs based on real time data of your equipment’s real status. Choose wise and informed which is your energy path to carbon neutrality and gain the support of your partners. Needless to say, that everyone that works for you and everyone which you choose to work with are your partners. Your green status depends on everybody who shares your mind set!
Now let’s talk about some data.
If you knew that producing a plastic bottle takes a minimum of 4 000 000 Joules (some figures show 5.2 to 10.2 million Joules/liter), would you change your perspective on the use of plastic bottles?
Converting Joules into kWh, we have 1.1kWh for 4 million Joules, 1.44kWh for 5.2 million Joules and 2.83kWh for 10.2 million Joules!
If you think that recycling plastic waste into bottle is cheaper, then imagine that, in order to recycle, you need to collect first, then to transport to a recycling facility, to select from different types of plastic (not all can be used for plastic bottles), shred, grind, wash and dry the material, transport it to specialized recycler and pelletizing it for the process.
Does all this recycling chain look cheaper that the initial process of pellets-to-bottle one?
Some advocates for PET recycling mention a 60Wh energy reduction for each plastic bottle recycled, therefore a recycled bottle can use only 1.04kWh, or 1.38kWh or 2.77kWh if we will consider the figures needed to produce a one-liter plastic bottle. By the way, one-litter plastic bottle manufacturing consumes 2 litters of water in the manufacturing process!
Does now the plastic bottle fit in your SIMPLIFY scenario or in the “copy-paste” solution type scenario?
If we should use specific statistics, we can evaluate local impact on energy conservation and water waste prevention only by ignoring the use of plastic bottles.
The average consumption in Romania was of 77 liters of bottled water/person in 2020, which could be estimated as around 40 plastic bottles/year (considering 0.5liter and 2liter as usual recipients and not only water as product).
In one year, 40 kWh economy does not seem to be much, but if we multiply this with about 19 million (the rough population of Romania for which this statistic was made), we get around 760 000 MWh/year that could be used for something else and about 38 million liters of precious water used for other purpose (let say agriculture). During winter, peak Romania’s energy consumption is around 9000MWh/day. The saved energy would be enough to cover about 84 winter days! And this is only an estimate based on minimal energy consumption for 1 liter plastic bottle…
In the end, we can never know how much of these plastic bottles are manufactured locally or are just imported and filled here, but one way or another, the figures are impacting our life, no matter if we will fill our nature with plastic waste or if we will decide to recycle the plastic produced by others.
The energy will be wasted one way or another for something that is not mandatory to use.
In fact, 40% of the bottled water is … treated tap water (“no springs” attached)!
To Simplify or not to Simplify? That is the question!
Need help to decide?
