Decommissioned oil rigs look dull and lifeless as you drive by them or look at them from afar. Below is another story. There’s teeming life. There are 12,000 oil rigs worldwide, and at some point they stop being useful to the oil companies, too costly to maintain. Removing them is expensive as well as labor intensive and leaving them as they are can be dangerous to marine life. But as of 1984 with the US Congress National Fishing Enhancement Act the benefits of artificial reefs have been recognized. The Gulf states of Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Florida and Texas have converted some 500 rigs into reefs. In time the substructure rigs provide the skeleton for coral reefs. They become nurseries for certain species, and can be bountiful human made marine habitats for colorful fishes, crabs, starfish and mussels to congregate there. Sometimes they can be more protected from predators than they would be in other parts of the ocean. Converting platforms into reefs is an attractive options for oil and gas companies which can save them millions of dollars. Campaigners for decommissioning the rigs say that it is a win/win situation for those companies. They are allowed to spend half their savings for the state artificial reef program to maintain the platforms, marine conservation and education. In some areas in the Gulf of Mexico, the abundant marine life there have made them hot spots for diving, snorkeling and recreational fishing. As the world moves away from fossil fuels, a viable solution for decommissioned rigs needs to be found. I for one like the reefing one because it takes something that has been harmful to the environment and redeems it to be helpful.
March 2022
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A New Durable Fabric
Some recycling stories, are more than being about recycling. They reveal creativity, initiative, cleverness, intelligence, and it took all that for old fabrics to become something new. Actually it is more than old fabrics, it is fabrics for clothing nobody wants, it is fabrics too old or too whatever to be useful. To just recycle fabric is complicated, because there are so many kinds of fabrics, and there are dies too. Some fabrics are just called unrecyclable. But all the obstacles were overcome and the result was something durable and useful. The design studio Envision partnered with an engineering company Imat-Uve to tackle the project. The result is called Fiber Unsorted. The recycled fabric made from fabrics that would have otherwise ended up in landfills ends up as something that when processed is a textile of high quality and strong enough that it can be used for instance for car interiors. One of the techniques that made this new fabric possible is Imat-Uve innovation to unweave the fabrics without damaging them so that the fibers can then be spun into high quality yarn. The technique can be used on just about any type of garment or fabric filtering out only about 15% usually because the fibers are too short. In addition the technique involves no chemical process making the innovation environmentally sustainable. Once the yarn is ready Envision then refines it using different textures, patterns and colors. Besides the automotive industry, the fabric can be used in furniture design, upholstery, even flooring. I may not know if my next car will use some of this fabric, but it’s enough to know it might.
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Doughnut Economics
Doughnut Economics–Amsterdam adopted it, now others will hopefully too. Its advocates seek to have more cities in the world also adopt it. It comes from a 2014 book of the same name by Oxford economist Kate Raworth who describes it as an economic model for the 21st century. The doughnut of course is used as a metaphor to better convey the idea. Here is how it works. The inner ring of the doughnut means people meet certain basic standards for a good life, food, clean water, health care, gender equality, housing and income of course. Also included is having a political voice. People not able to meet this minimum fall into the doughnut hole. Outside the doughnut ring is what is called the ecological overshoot, that means anything that would harm climate, soils, oceans, pollute water, interfere with biodiversity. Two young Israelis have teamed up with the Hershel Center for sustainability to promote the idea, and are holding meetings on Zoom. They hope to introduce it to the Tel Aviv-Jaffa community and hope to be the leaders of a pilot program there. In a post covid era, new economic models to create human prosperity are needed, and the one from Doughnut Economics, may well be an answer. It is based upon the UN sustainable development goals. It aims at not only protecting human life, but planetary life. A goal is to meet human basic and social needs without exploiting resources or overusing them. Kate Raworth, The author, has launched a Doughnut Economic Action Lab or DEAL, which one can watch online and have a better idea of how it would work to be a positive force.