What's Wasted?

[EyeKhan]

What a waste - waste of resources, waste of time, waste of space, waste of effort, waste of money, waste of life . . . This is one of those terms that two entirely different entities, like Aimless and Loki, will agree with each other over in a series of posts, yet I'm certain they each have a different concept of what constitutes a waste. (Is that a miscommunication? Or is close enough close enough?)

Some people think that throwing out a half-eaten Big Mac is a waste. Others consider it health maintenance, or at least a step in that direction.

A hard core capitalist might think that providing health care to the unskilled in a country like China at a time when there's a long-term surplus of unskilled labor would be a waste of sorts.

Some people think that telescopes are a waste. Others think cathedrals are a waste. Is studying history a waste, especially since its typically nationalist cheerleading, in public schools anway?

I asked Dread what he thought was a waste of Money. I considered asking Aimless the same question, but did this instead.

FOR EVERYONE WHO READS HERE, I'D LIKE TO EXPLORE WHAT WE THINK OF AS A WASTE. PLEASE EXPLAIN WHAT IS (OR WOULD BE) WASTED MONEY, RESOURCES, EFFORTS, TIME, ETC AND WHAT IS NOT AND WHY YOU THINK THIS WAY.




(Illusions, yes this is another one of those threads. Thank you for your patience. )

[Dreadnaught]

When it comes down to it, I suppose wastes of energy and water are more egregious than most. Both are demonstrably finite and both can be used much more efficiently.

[Aimless]

I have no idea whether or not Loki and I would agree over the concept of "waste". A tentative definition might be that waste is anything unwanted or unusuable. Or anything that either hinders or does not contribute to some desired work Or just using more than you really need in order to accomplish something

Bah what am I doing trying to define waste... there are definitions out there.

Re. examples, one I am fond of bringing up is the waste in eg. healthcare where a lot of money may unnecessarily go towards things other than quality healthcare. The emphasis is on "unnecessarily".

[GGT]

FOR EVERYONE WHO READS HERE, I'D LIKE TO EXPLORE WHAT WE THINK OF AS A WASTE. PLEASE EXPLAIN WHAT IS (OR WOULD BE) WASTED MONEY, RESOURCES, EFFORTS, TIME, ETC AND WHAT IS NOT AND WHY YOU THINK THIS WAY.

Waste not want not? Pretty big list there. Food, electricity, gas, water, household products....not being wasteful of those things was drilled into me at a young age. My gramps used to save soap slivers and glue them together. (Depression baby.) My folks ran a re-useable house, from hand-me-downs and leftover foods, to re-purposing tires for sand boxes.

It must have made an impact on me because I go around turning off lights and harping about 30 minute teenage showers. I cut up used printer paper to make note pads, save bread crumbs for birds, stuff like that.

One of my beefs is seeing people waste water on their grass, or their auto sprinklers running right after a rain. Or those who brag about driving across town and back to save .02/gallon on gas prices. I can also be pretty critical of redundancy waste in places like hospitals and schools, and municipal operations.

[Dreadnaught]

Our water system would likely be so much more efficient if we had built a double water system. One intake of purified water for drinking, cooking, washing, etc. Another intake of unpurified water for lawns, toilets, car washing, firefighting, etc.

Obviously building two water systems concurrently is enormously expensive and would have taken tons of foresight, but it would certainly save a lot of energy spent finding and treating water to drinking-quality to go dump it on your car.

[GGT]

Houses can make grey water systems without too much trouble (gutter water for gardening, dish water for laundry, holding tanks for toilets). We have swimming pool water tankers, it's not drinking water because chemicals will be added. I thought some fire depts had water tankers with the same idea....clean but not potable water for fires.

People in the southwest and golfers will hate me saying this, but there's no reason to waste water on grass to grow in deserts, or greenways for little balls.

[Loki]

Waste is the consequence of the inefficient use of resources. Most of Minx's favored economic policies generate massive waste, but that's clearly not the kind of waste he's interested in (i.e. he only cares about the waste that can be seen immediately, and not in the medium to long term).

[GGT]

Waste is the consequence of the inefficient use of resources.

Not always, not strictly. Human sweating is a good example of an efficient use of resources to lower our body temp. In fact, negative consequences come when we can't sweat.

[GGT]

Come to think of it, moving sweat around might seem "efficient", but after a while it loses its logic by being circular.

Example: office / desk job means a certain amount of sitting, and many hours filled doing brain work. Taking cars or planes to meetings. Busy thinkers need to hire baby-sitters (to romp with their kids at the park or run after them while they learn to ride a bike), house cleaners (to run the vacuum and run the stairs), house painters or gardeners (to climb ladders, push mowers, do the heavy lifting).

But they then join a gym and pay a trainer to make them run, lift, carry, move, sweat. Which takes even more time away from doing their "own physical work". They could achieve the same type of results, if they'd just work a little less. It's often said that busy thinkers need to make a lot of money, to hire out all the things they're too busy to do themselves. Rinse, repeat.

Something seems wasted in these scenarios. Then again, it's late and a tiny bit of rule 12 is present so......

[Aimless]

Waste is the consequence of the inefficient use of resources. Most of Minx's favored economic policies generate massive waste, but that's clearly not the kind of waste he's interested in (i.e. he only cares about the waste that can be seen immediately, and not in the medium to long term).

To take a page from Nessie's book, no, I am not particularly interested in finding more efficient ways to make Axe

I'm also not particularly interested in adopting an economic system that wastes one trillion dollars out of three trillion spent on healthcare, or the system where drug companies spend far more on marketing than they do on R&D.

Instead I am interested in finding more efficient ways to make society more beautiful forever I understand you have a vested interest in our ability to efficiently produce Axe, but it's not my goal.

As for the long term... dude, when are you going to realise that you favour a system that rewards destructive or unproductive short-term exploitation??

[EyeKhan]

When it comes down to it, I suppose wastes of energy and water are more egregious than most. Both are demonstrably finite and both can be used much more efficiently.

And with these two its also important to note that lots and lots of people don't have access to clean water (especially) and sufficient energy. Food falls right in here too. On the other hand, when mom tells you about starving people in Africa so eat the rest of your meat loaf, the fact is that meatloaf has no chance at all, even before mom bought and cooked it, of helping starving people in Africa.

I have no idea whether or not Loki and I would agree over the concept of "waste". A tentative definition might be that waste is anything unwanted or unusuable. Or anything that either hinders or does not contribute to some desired work Or just using more than you really need in order to accomplish something

Bah what am I doing trying to define waste... there are definitions out there.

Re. examples, one I am fond of bringing up is the waste in eg. healthcare where a lot of money may unnecessarily go towards things other than quality healthcare. The emphasis is on "unnecessarily".

In the US its common to spend a LOT of Money keeping the elderly alive for six more months. Do you think that's a waste when we commonly have younger people who have no access to health care?

Waste not want not? Pretty big list there. Food, electricity, gas, water, household products....

Is water wasted if you pay for it and the money you pay goes toward maintaining the purification and distribution system? One of my family members was complaining last week at a Gathering that their local water rates went up because people were conserving too much and there wasn't enough revenue coming in to support the system maintenance.

There's lots of useless stuff we spend money on all the time that, on the one hand seems like a waste of that money, but on the other hand it supports the wider economy, which depends in large part on people spending money on useless stuff. When the economy hurts, we all hurt, so isn't better to spend some money on useless stuff?

I remember when I was a kid my parents would buy a pass into the local state park and rather than stick the sticker to their windshield permanently they would affix it with vasaline so they could use it on multiple cars. At the time we all thought that was pretty clever. IMO, unless you're dirt poor - which they were, btw - its better to buy more than one sticker because the parks - today at any rate - are starving for funds. Is it a waste to buy two? I also remember as a kid cramming 3 kids into the trunk of a big car to sneak them into the local drive-in. Well, that drive-in's closed today because, presumably, it wasn't making any money. Maybe if everybody who watched a movie bought tickets . . . .

[Aimless]

Re. energy, I'm very glad to see a trend towards less wasteful products minimising waste and reducing usage are good steps towards a more sustainable civilisation

I love instructables.com. It's a site dedicated almost as much to repurposing and to reusing as it is to anything else

[Aimless]

And with these two its also important to note that lots and lots of people don't have access to clean water (especially) and sufficient energy. Food falls right in here too. On the other hand, when mom tells you about starving people in Africa so eat the rest of your meat loaf, the fact is that meatloaf has no chance at all, even before mom bought and cooked it, of helping starving people in Africa.

However, by killing off the cows we may save the environment maybe

In the US its common to spend a LOT of Money keeping the elderly alive for six more months. Do you think that's a waste when we commonly have younger people who have no access to health care?

This is true of most of the Western world. Most of the money spent on the care of a person tends to be spent in the last portion of that person's life. I can't say very much against prolonging a person's life for six more months, provided that it doesn't 'cause the person unnecessary suffering and provided it's not against their wishes. I can, however, say that we can become more efficient at prolonging the lives of the elderly for six more months

[Aimless]

More importantly, we can make healthcare for everyone far more efficient. If it were more efficient then perhaps it wouldn't hurt very much to purchase six more months of life for the elderly.

[GGT]

And with these two its also important to note that lots and lots of people don't have access to clean water (especially) and sufficient energy. Food falls right in here too. On the other hand, when mom tells you about starving people in Africa so eat the rest of your meat loaf, the fact is that meatloaf has no chance at all, even before mom bought and cooked it, of helping starving people in Africa.

Meatloaf is just the tool to educate about food and wasting food. It's the perfect example because it takes an inferior fatty cheap meat cut, adding fillers and binders, to show how to stretch the food dollar. Balking at meatloaf in the US is like turning away watered down corn mush in Africa. ie you don't turn away what feeds you and sustains life.

In the US its common to spend a LOT of Money keeping the elderly alive for six more months. Do you think that's a waste when we commonly have younger people who have no access to health care?

You didn't ask me but I'd say Yes, we have our priorities messed up. I'd much rather use those funds for education and preventative health care for younger people, than trying to extend an elderly terminal person's life for two months.

But don't ask anyone whose spouses or parents are terminal, when all they want is just one more day, strings of just one more days......

[EyeKhan]

Our water system would likely be so much more efficient if we had built a double water system. One intake of purified water for drinking, cooking, washing, etc. Another intake of unpurified water for lawns, toilets, car washing, firefighting, etc.

Obviously building two water systems concurrently is enormously expensive and would have taken tons of foresight, but it would certainly save a lot of energy spent finding and treating water to drinking-quality to go dump it on your car.

It would be an interesting cost study. Building and maintaing water distribution systems is a huge cost. My neighborhood has retention ponds that capture the storm drainage from all the flat surfaces, which in older neighborhoods used to go into the sewer system which typically had combined sanitary and storm sewers. (Separating those systems, because they overflow in big storms putting raw sewage into the local waterways, has been a major cost in the older communities.) It seems like with a little regulation and stimulation a relatively cheap local system for using the retention water to water the lawns could be set up. Not sure we'd want to be washing our cars with pond water though...

[Ominous Gamer]

Houses can make grey water systems without too much trouble (gutter water for gardening, dish water for laundry, holding tanks for toilets). We have swimming pool water tankers, it's not drinking water because chemicals will be added. I thought some fire depts had water tankers with the same idea....clean but not potable water for fires.

People in the southwest and golfers will hate me saying this, but there's no reason to waste water on grass to grow in deserts, or greenways for little balls.

Tampa has a double system, the hook up fee isn't pretty but we have separate lines for drinking and lawncare. Working on a directive to make it required for all new owners, same as the requirement of a mailbox at the street, and sidewalk across the front (even if none of the neighbors have either).

[EyeKhan]

More importantly, we can make healthcare for everyone far more efficient. If it were more efficient then perhaps it wouldn't hurt very much to purchase six more months of life for the elderly.

i agree. with a severly constrained resource critical to the quality of life of everyone, waste is unconscionable.

[GGT]

Is water wasted if you pay for it and the money you pay goes toward maintaining the purification and distribution system? One of my family members was complaining last week at a Gathering that their local water rates went up because people were conserving too much and there wasn't enough revenue coming in to support the system maintenance.

Did you add this while I was replying? Sorry, I must have missed it!

Water is wasted even when we pay for it. You'd have to show that your township or state doesn't contribute to a purification or distribution system, but it's most likely their rates went up because for too long they were TOO LOW to anticipate replacing outdated and antiquated systems, not that people were conserving too much. People like to think water systems are either related to consumption OR taxes, but not both.

There's lots of useless stuff we spend money on all the time that, on the one hand seems like a waste of that money, but on the other hand it supports the wider economy, which depends in large part on people spending money on useless stuff. When the economy hurts, we all hurt, so isn't better to spend some money on useless stuff?

You mean like a society where paper towels and scented dryer sheets are considered "staples"? We should feel good about being consumers, even when it doesn't make sense, because it employs other people? hmmm

I remember when I was a kid my parents would buy a pass into the local state park and rather than stick the sticker to their windshield permanently they would affix it with vasaline so they could use it on multiple cars. At the time we all thought that was pretty clever. IMO, unless you're dirt poor - which they were, btw - its better to buy more than one sticker because the parks - today at any rate - are starving for funds. Is it a waste to buy two? I also remember as a kid cramming 3 kids into the trunk of a big car to sneak them into the local drive-in. Well, that drive-in's closed today because, presumably, it wasn't making any money. Maybe if everybody who watched a movie bought tickets . . . .

I doubt many people here remember drive-ins, but it wasn't cramming kids in trunks that caused them to go bust. They charged by the car, because it was the car that took up space, it really didn't matter if one car had one person or twelve.


Those were good times tho, sneaking a couple of kids in the trunk. I think the theatre knew but didn't care, they could make their money in concessions.

[littlelolligagged]

Meatloaf is just the tool to educate about food and wasting food. It's the perfect example because it takes an inferior fatty cheap meat cut, adding fillers and binders, to show how to stretch the food dollar. Balking at meatloaf in the US is like turning away watered down corn mush in Africa. ie you don't turn away what feeds you and sustains life.

Who the hell makes meatloaf out of an inferior fatty meat cut?

I'm also not sure how meat-loaf counts as cheap food to feed the masses. It costs me more to make a meatloaf for my family than to buy chicken, pork, or even steaks.

Maybe if I made it taste terrible it would last longer, or something.

[GGT]

Who the hell makes meatloaf out of an inferior fatty meat cut?

I'm also not sure how meat-loaf counts as cheap food to feed the masses. It costs me more to make a meatloaf for my family than to buy chicken, pork, or even steaks.

Maybe if I made it taste terrible it would last longer, or something.

It's a metaphor Lolli.

If you're making meatloaf from prime cuts of meat, grinding it up and adding a bunch of other ingredients in order to bake it, then yeah---you may be doing it wrong.

[Ominous Gamer]

meatloaf isn't exactly a 5 star meal. its considered a comfort food and comparable to a meatball

[littlelolligagged]

It's a metaphor Lolli.

If you're making meatloaf from prime cuts of meat, grinding it up and adding a bunch of other ingredients in order to bake it, then yeah---you may be doing it wrong.

Hardly. If I served my family crap I'd be doing it wrong.

Meatloaf only takes 5 ingredients. And one of those is optional.

Using the leanest ground beef available is not optional, though. Even using 95% lean ground sirloin it winds up swimming in a bit of fat while you bake it. It would be completely inedible if you used anything fattier.

[Aimless]

I thought fatty meat was more expensive

Anyway I can't believe people are still living under the impression that eating super-lean meat is vital to a healthy life. Chillax, stay up-to-date with the science kthx, and don't forget that the stuff it's swimming in is partly water.

[GGT]

I have no idea how meatloaf can cost more than steaks, chicken or pork. How does that work, Lolli?

[Aimless]

Before we get into a fight I just wanna say that all I'm objecting to is the notion that it's crap if it's got a bit of fat in it

[littlelolligagged]

I'm concerned with the taste, Minxy, not it being vital to a healthy life. I also "waste" the fat off of steaks, and trim as much fat as possible before I cook things, even though I already buy the leanest things I can find. Fatty meat is much cheaper. Unless it is bacon. Then it just gets bizarre.


Because, in general, a pound of ground meat costs the same as a pound of chicken or pork - and I only buy my steaks on sale so they also cost about the same.

Then, with meatloaf, you have to add an egg, some Italian bread crumbs, and some tomato paste. Therefore it costs more.

edit: oh, Minxy - I use butter and olive oil. Fats are gooooooooood. I just dislike meat fat - particularly off cow.

[GGT]

Hardly. If I served my family crap I'd be doing it wrong.

Meatloaf only takes 5 ingredients. And one of those is optional.

Using the leanest ground beef available is not optional, though. Even using 95% lean ground sirloin it winds up swimming in a bit of fat while you bake it. It would be completely inedible if you used anything fattier.

Maybe no one taught you how to bake a meatloaf. You're not supposed to use lean sirloin. You make hamburgers from that.

Meatloaf uses "inferior" cuts with fat and water, you add binders and spices, onions and carrots or whatnot, and you DRAIN the fat as it cooks. The purpose of a meatloaf is to feed a family of five by stretching meat with fillers.

Otherwise, you'd buy a steak and cut it five ways.

[littlelolligagged]

Maybe no one taught you how to bake a meatloaf. You're not supposed to use lean sirloin. You make hamburgers from that.

Meatloaf uses "inferior" cuts with fat and water, you add binders and spices, onions and carrots or whatnot, and you DRAIN the fat as it cooks. The purpose of a meatloaf is to feed a family of five by stretching meat with fillers.

Otherwise, you'd buy a steak and cut it five ways.

My mother taught me to make meatloaf, and it is apparently far superior to the shit you make.

She, like you, used the cheap meat, though. She much prefers mine.

The purpose of a meatloaf is to do something different with your meat.

[EyeKhan]

Meatloaf is just the tool to educate about food and wasting food. It's the perfect example because it takes an inferior fatty cheap meat cut, adding fillers and binders, to show how to stretch the food dollar. Balking at meatloaf in the US is like turning away watered down corn mush in Africa. ie you don't turn away what feeds you and sustains life.

You should try my meatloaf.

With food so ridiculously plentiful in the US, does it make sense to talk about wasting it? Certainly not in terms of starving children in Africa. And when you consider the rising obesity rate in the US which underlies lots of medical costs, it would be an interesting cost study to look at the possible consequences of 'clearing your plate.'

You didn't ask me but I'd say Yes, we have our priorities messed up. I'd much rather use those funds for education and preventative health care for younger people, than trying to extend an elderly terminal person's life for two months.

But don't ask anyone whose spouses or parents are terminal, when all they want is just one more day, strings of just one more days......

Exactly. When you're staring death in the face, talk of efficiency isn't so important. And if you decide that's an issue that needs to be fixed, how the hell do you go about it???