Because plastic bags are light and compressible, they constitute only 2 percent of landfill, but since most are not biodegradable they will be there for decades.

According to the International Herald Tribune, “By ‘bagging it,’ Ireland rids itself of a plastic nuisance“by Elisabeth Rosenthal,

There is something missing from this otherwise typical bustling cityscape.

There are taxis and buses. There are hip bars and pollution. Every other person is holding a cellphone to his ear. But there are no plastic bags, the ubiquitous symbol of urban life.

In a determined attempt to deal with litter, Ireland passed a plastic bag tax in 2002 – now 22 euro cents, about 33 U.S. cents – at the register if you want one with your purchases. There was an advertising awareness campaign. Then something happened that was bigger than the sum of these parts.

Within weeks, there was a 94 percent drop in plastic bag use. Within a year, nearly everyone bought reusable cloth bags, which they now keep in the office and the back of their cars. Plastic bags became socially unacceptable – on par with wearing a fur coat or not cleaning up after your dog.

“When my roommate brings one in the flat, it annoys the hell out of me,” said Edel Egan, a photographer carrying a load of groceries in a red backpack.

Countries from China to Australia, cities from New York to San Francisco, have promulgated laws and regulations to address the problem, with decidedly mixed success. Continue reading →

Portable Armored Wall System Replaces Sandbags

February 2010

By Austin Wright

Marines in Afghanistan might soon scrap the sandbags. Instead, they’re snapping together armored walls that connect like Legos.

The Marines Corps in December spent $797,400 on 14 kits of McCurdy’s Armor, a patent-pending portable wall system. The service has already tested 25 kits.

The 6.5-foot-tall units can be assembled into bulletproof walls and forts — a process that can take less than an hour. This could save days’ worth of work digging trenches, laying sandbags and constructing outposts, according to the manufacturer, New Jersey-based Dynamic Defense Materials. “We’ve seen them used on everything from a podium to a guard tower to a long wall,” says Joe Dimond, a product specialist for the company.

The product offers protection from mortars, grenades, rockets and improvised explosive devices. It has aluminum frames that connect using steel pins, and the units can be arranged in several formations: U-shape, V-shape, J-shape or a wall.

It also has ballistic windows that open and close so service members can fire downrange. Four men can assemble one unit in less than 10 minutes without any tools or equipment, according to the company’s website.

“If you’re worried about armor-piercing rounds, you can also put on a second layer of armor,” Dimond says. “And you can add more if you’re going to be there a while.”

The product was named for Ryan S. McCurdy, a Marine who was killed in 2006 by insurgents in Iraq while pulling a wounded friend to safety.

via Portable Armored Wall System Replaces Sandbags.

Attention recruits. Those of you landing in Afghanistan in coming months may not have to engage in the sandbag stacking and trench digging usually associated with lowly grunt-dom. An $800,000 investment in an armored wall system known as McCurdy’s Armor could have Marines rapidly erecting 6.5-foot-tall mortar-, RPG- and bullet proof fortresses in less than an hour, saving the days it can take to fortify an area by conventional means and making forward-operating units more nimble.

Named for Ryan S. McCurdy—a Marine killed in Iraq in 2006 while hauling a wounded comrade to safety—the system is designed to offer troops increased protection and mobility when setting up outposts in hostile areas. The walls can be ferried into place in panels that are easily stackable in a truck or trailer. Once in position, four Marines can assemble a single panel in less than ten minutes without any special tools or additional equipment. The panels then snap together like bomb-proofed Legos secured with steel pins to form a blast- and bullet-proof shelter.

Related Articles

In Defense of Cyborg Athletes

Fossett Still Missing

NASA Plans to Give Data Transfer Connection Speeds in Deep Space a 50X Boost

Tags

Technology, Clay Dillow, armor, defense, marines, military, modern materials

The armor can be set up in a variety of arrangements (U-shaped, J-shaped, etc.), and in instances where troops are worried about armor piercing rounds a second layer of armor can supplement the structures. But the walls aren’t just a protective cocoon for far-flung outposts; ballistic windows offer protection while giving Marines a line of sight and the ability to fire downrange, meaning McCurdy’s Armor can be deployed as both a defensive stronghold as well as a tactical firing position.

When it’s time to pull up camp, Marines can quickly break down their ersatz stockade, stack it back in their vehicles and move on to fortify the next position without leaving a single thing behind. Just try pulling that off with sandbags.

[DDM via National Defense]

via New Armored Wall System Assembles Like Legos, Could Replace Sandbags in Afghanistan | Popular Science.

This

After installing the georss.mm Metadata Module and enabling it in the Advanced page of Awasu’s Program Options dialog, there will be two new Metadata values that you can add to the Item Pane: Elevation (georss/elev) and Point (georss/point) as depicted below (along with the geo/latitude and geo/longitude Metadata values).

For additional help on adding columns to the Item Pane see the Channel settings help topic.

Once the GeoRSS Metadata values have been added to Awasu’s Item Pane it should look like this:

Here are a couple of sample feeds that contain GeoRSS-Simple elements:

• USGS M2.5+ Earthquakes
• Pt. Reyes, user-contributed places

For other ways to extend Awasu with GeoRSS support, click this link: GeoRSS

via GeoRSS Metadata module – AwasuWiki.

The culture that is Japan, snow removal edition

Tyler Cowen

Robot Snowplow from Japan Eats Up Snow, Poops Out Bricks.

Japan

It has a camera and GPS. Here is a further report from Japan (remarkable detail at that link):

One protective measure against snow and ice for railroads and roadways is the “slush removal system” that hydraulically transfers collected snow that has been removed from the railroad tracks or roadways and deposits it in a river. Also, there is the “sprinkler snow melting system” that melts snow by sprinkling water on the road surface.

Here is a longer study of geothermal snow melting systems. Here is a discussion of numerous other Japanese snow treatment and disposal technologies. Here is a report from Tsuruta:

In town several additional unique ways of dealing with this snow exist. A concrete-contained stream runs under downtown sidewalks, covered by hinged, lightweight metal grates. People who have access to this “river” can shovel their snow into the running water, sending it floating to the nearby Sea of Japan. Around the nicer homes in town (luckily, including mine) pipes spray a constant stream of hot water onto snow, quickly melting it.

Still, the snow can gather, breaking the delicate branches of Japan’s carefully tended trees and plants. The solution: wooden cages and bamboo teepees, odd-looking sights.

The abundance of snow in Japan spawned a bewildering variety of shovels with distinct shapes and purposes. Most are plastic. There are wide shovels for moving large quantities of snow; there are smaller shovels for weaker shovelers; there are shovels with handles and shovels without; there are shovel-sleds designed to allow the user to push a large load of snow a long distance; there are also metal shovels for breaking up hard-packed snow.

The shovels come in a selection of neon colors: green, yellow, purple, orange, and blue — some marketer’s feeble attempt to make snow-shoveling fun. Shovels cost from five to thirty dollars. Most people own at least two different types, selected by need.

via Marginal Revolution.