Katie, The Answer Lady from Alaska

Katie is back to answer your questions.

This month, she answers Alan’s question on recyclable plastic bags and Janice’s request for some information on her summer research work in Alaska.

If you go to our Rogues’ Gallery at the left of the Blog page, you will see photos of Katie at work and get a sense of the area in which she is working.

So here’s the question from Alan…

“Many stores are trying to encourage use of recyclable bags. I have heard that this strategy is not as environmentally friendly as one might think because of the energy costs of producing the recyclable bags and the fact that some of the bags are also not biodegradable. Can you please tell us what the "real story" behind this strategy is -- how much will it help Mother Earth?" Thanks, Alan

And here’s Katie’s answer.

I think that one of the best ways to begin to answer this question is to give you some idea about exactly how damaging plastics and plastic bags can be. Here are some truly astounding figures:

· Plastics do NOT biodegrade. Rather, they photodegrade. This means that when exposed to enough UV rays, they will begin to break down into smaller and smaller pieces which can then be incorporated into smaller and smaller creatures who mistake these plastic bits for food. Even plastic bags that propose to be biodegradable require extremely high temperatures (i.e. 100 ˚C) and will even then probably leave behind polymer fabrics that originally bound the biodegradable material together.

· Depending on who you ask, somewhere between 500 BILLION and 1 TRILLION plastic bags are consumed worldwide each year.

· Plastic pieces outweigh surface zooplankton in the Central North Pacific by a factor of 6-1.

· Plastic bags cause over 100,000 sea turtle and other marine animal deaths every year as they can easily be mistaken for food.
There are a few questions you should ask yourself when trying to determine the benefits of reusable bags. (Reusable bags are those sort of sturdy ones....either the ones that you buy at the grocery store for a dollar, or the ones that you pay a bit more for which are a good long term investment.)

The first question being - is this bag a quality product? If the bag was made out of durable materials then chances are you can truly use and re-use this bag over a long period of time. If the bag is flimsy or made from cheap products, you may only get a few uses out of it before it breaks and becomes another throwaway.

Many companies offer reusable bags made from recycled and natural materials, so choosing these products will help you to both recycle old waste, and limit the production of new waste.

Secondly, who made it? A number of retailers offer bags that were made in co-operation with sustainable development initiatives and according to Fair Trade work standards. While these bags are generally more expensive than the ones you might get at the grocery store, you can be sure that your money is going to support people in need without exploiting them or the resource base in which they live.

A good, reusable bag has the potential to save over 300 plastic bags over the course of a year (and many reusable bags come with a lifetime guarantee!). Moreover, if you shop at a store that offers a discount for bringing in your own bags, you will re-coup the money you invested.

While it is true that the production of all reusable bags requires some input of energy and materials, these costs are offset when you consider the amount of plastic that they can prevent from being put into our streams, oceans and sea creatures.

Overall, the key to making sure that you’re having the biggest positive impact on the environment is to use these bags as they were intended: Repeatedly!

Here are some links to companies that offer reusable bags made from either natural or recycled materials:

http://www.reusablebags.com/store/acme-bagsâ

http://www.envirosax.com/

http://www.rumebags.com/

Janice wrote,
Hi Katie,
Can you tell us about your research in the Artic?

My Research!

I’d like to start off by thanking all of you for your interest in, and enthusiasm about my work. I’m very lucky to be able to live and work in such a remarkable place as Alaska, and I’m happy that I can share that with all of you.

I work in peatlands. Peat, as any recreational gardener may know, is extremely rich in carbon. Peatlands are very good at taking up atmospheric carbon in the form of carbon dioxide, incorporating it into new plant material and then burying it in the ground.

Northern peatlands in particular are great at storing carbon since they’re often found in areas of permafrost (or, permanently frozen ground) where the cold soil temperatures limit the amount of decomposition that can occur. In fact, despite covering only a small percentage of total land area, peatlands in northern latitudes store approximately one third of total global soil carbon.

In the past, my advisor Dr. Merritt Turetsky has, therefore, referred to northern peatlands as a ‘ticking time-bomb’ since there’s so much carbon stored in these sensitive regions. Any changes to global climate patterns (read: Global warming) may affect the way these areas take up and store carbon. Moreover, any changes to the storage capabilities of these areas may result in large releases of the carbon that has been stored in these peatlands for millennia.

Carbon can be released from peatlands in two forms: Carbon dioxide (CO2) and Methane (CH4). I’m sure you’ve all heard about the dangers of high CO2 levels in the atmosphere, but you may not know that CH4 is, in fact, over 20x more powerful as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.

CH4 can be released from peatlands in three ways: through plant stems, through soil diffusion or through bubbling. My research is aimed at figuring out exactly how much CH4 is being released from a peatland that has recently undergone permafrost thaw from each of these three pathways, and to try and identify what factors (i.e. soil temperature, local plant community, water level) play the biggest role in determining which pathway the CH4 will take to leave the soil and enter the atmosphere.

In order to complete this work, I get to spend my summers in sunny Alaska! There’s a saying about Fairbanks: The people are unusual and the beer is unusually good. I’m very lucky that I get to work with an amazing group of students and researchers in one of the most wild and untouched places on earth.

If you have any more questions, or want more detailed information, please let me know and I’ll be sure to pass it along to you!

This is great, Katie. So interesting and the photos really help us visualize where you are and what you are doing. Thank you so much and more photos please…

Media:

Videos:

The Impact of Plastic Bags
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeBuHqomufk&feature=related

Plastic Bags - JUST SAY NO!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktLG5Iw_kC8&feature=related

Morgan Hoesterey Message in the Wave

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVjue0R5tHQ&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Eplasticbagfree%2Ecom%2Fiframe%5Ffacts%2Ephp&feature=player_embedded

Shannon wrote,

“I can’t get the question I found on your site out of my head "When birds are carrying unlaid eggs, in early spring for instance, do they look pregnant?"!! I know I should know the answer but I’m not certain. One more random thought rambling away in my head. :)"

Well, our most loyal and avid Virtual Member, Caroles, has the answer for Shannon and the rest of us.

Caroles writes,

“I have a wonderful friend here in Almyros (Greece), a vet, Glika Hatzi. She also has 4 kids! Her practice includes cows, horses, goats/sheep, chickens, all kinds of birds, cats, dogs (OF COURSE!), and whatever else… She told me a bird carrying an egg, fertile or not, does not look pregnant!
I did enjoy the idea of watching for the bulky tummies of a passing flock, tho!"

Caroles also has a question for us. Keeping in mind that she lives in Greece, do any of you know the name of her plant?

Here is what she emailed, “Hi!! Again, thanks for 'blogging'!! and sharing. Thought you might like this odd plant, whose name I don't know. (photo of this green plant is in the Rogues’ Gallery) I dug it up on a mountain in Greece while on a trip with a high school friend. It has lived for about 5 years now in our garden, and has had many offspring, each one replanted where it will fit and be allowed to beautifully groundcover.
This lime-shaded sphere is it’s flower. It's green all year long, despite below zero and above 40! This flower's almost done; the sphere got bigger and bigger as it matured. Enjoy spring!"

Still looking for a Naturalist to join us. Minimal work, wonderful working conditions, terrific pay – benefits are great, and can’t say enough about the working community. Apply by emailing me at moczero@sympatico.ca

Short stories of your special experience or place in nature needed for The Narratives Postings.

Short simple articles needed for the Guest Writers Postings.

And, Katie, The Answer Lady awaits your latest questions.

I hope you have been looking up towards the sky, noticing the various cloud formations and the change in constellations in the spring night sky.

June’s Full Moon will take place on June 7th. Some names given to this moon are: Flower Moon, Strawberry Moon, Green Corn Moon and Honey Moon.
http://www.fabandpp.org/cotm/moons.htm

Let’s meet again next week with a lovely piece from Angela for the Guest Writer Posting.

Oh! And just a little tip re: the Rogues' Gallery. If you move the curser onto a particular photo in the Rogues' Gallery, Katie's photo for instance, a title or explanation of the photo will show up.

Earth Family First,
maureen
(Photos from Google Images)