Reuse is a process that many of us already implement in our everyday lives without realizing it. Any time you buy or sell a product second-hand, such as from Craigslist, eBay or Goodwill, you are providing an additional use for this product, while at the same time, not requiring another one to be created.
The important thing to consider when you want to reuse is that "creativity is king" in the process. The creativity also provides the opportunity to be thrifty, by reusing what you already have for new, innovative purposes.
* Energy
* Water
* Solid waste
Here's a quick breakdown of how reducing affects these areas:
* Energy—Energy is generated and consumed with most activities, and it often results in releasing carbon into the environment. In addition, there is a finite amount of energy available from traditional (non-renewable) methods such as coal and oil. Developing alternative, renewable energies (such as solar, wind and geothermal) helps to reduce our dependence on non-renewable resources to power our lives.
* Water—Water covers 71 percent of the Earth's surface, but relatively little is suitable for consumption. In many parts of the world, drinkable water is in very short supply. Every time a drop of water goes down the drain, it becomes unsuitable for consumption unless properly treated.
* Solid Waste—There is only so much room available for solid waste disposal, and because landfills are so tightly packed, it takes a great deal of time for material to decompose. The easiest way to reduce solid waste is to reduce your consumption of daily products. Be cautious of what you buy, and whether anything you are going to put in a trash can really belongs there.
Communities as well as individuals are always looking for new ways to address the concern of reduction in the above areas. The most common form is found in household waste and recycling. For example, a new type of waste reduction program is being explored known as a Pay-as-You-Throw (PAYT) trash collection program. Residents will pay a fee per bag of garbage instead of a lump sum for the service. In turn, the curbside recycling program component is offered at no charge or a reduced fee.
The ideal outcome of PAYT is that residents will start recycling more in an effort to save money. According to the EPA, about 75 percent of what is found in the average garbage can is recyclable, so a PAYT program rewards people who choose alternative forms of disposal for this content, such as curbside recycling or composting.
BitTorrent is a P2P system that makes transfering large files (or groups of files) amongst a large group of people easy, fast and efficient. The BitTorrent network is set up in a way that is a little different than a normal P2P network. With this network, you really don't do any searching for files that the other users have using the client as you would with traditional clients. Rather, you go to websites that have lists of recently released files.
The BitTorrent network is impressive mostly for the speed and reliability with which you get files that have been recently released. As long as a .torrent file has enough people sharing then you can be assured that it will start quickly and maintain a good download speed. Most indexing sites have a system of listing the number of Seeders and Leechers for a particular archive.
A seed(er) is a client on the BT network that has a complete copy of a particular archive. For any archive to work, there must be at least one seed to download from originally. Sometimes under certain circumstances, there may be no one seeder but enough people with all the parts to make up the whole archive, this is called a distributed copy. It is HIGHLY recommended that once you have gotten an archive you leave the BT client running for at least the amount of time that it took you to download the archive to help ensure that others will also be able to get it. Share and Share alike!
A leech(er) is a client on the BT network that does not have a complete copy of a particular archive yet. When any new client begins downloading an archive, they are a leecher until they have finished downloading the entire archive and then become a seeder. The name 'leecher' here is an unfortunate use that has become too commonly used even though it is really not applicable to what the meaning is. A leecher normally means someone who downloads without uploading (takes but does not give.) But here, a leecher is part of the network and is uploading as well, many times more KB than they download. But hey, it's worth the new meaning once you appreciate the vast resources that BT brings to you.
To download something with BitTorrent, you must have a .torrent file. This file contains in it a location that tells the BitTorrent client where to go to find the tracker that manages the uploading and downloading of the archive. An archive is a complete set for downloading which may include one file or many files. The one .torrent file contains the archive information also. To download on this network it is simply a matter of clicking on the .torrent file in your web browser, then the BitTorrent client kicks in and asks where you'd like to save the archive. That's it, from there you just sit back and watch the client work it's magic.
In order to take advantage of the technology, you'll need a client software, such as uTorrent (Windows & Mac), BitComet (Windows), or Transmission (Mac).
Since its conception in September 2000, the eDonkey2000 network has become one of the largest P2P communities. eDonkey2000 has distinguished itself from other P2P communities by being a resourceful network for movies, videos, ISO's and full albums. When it comes to ISO's and movies, this network rivals the resourcefulness of IRC or Newsgroups. When used in conjunction with verified link sites, just about any file one could want is within reach.
Although the eDonkey2000 network is centralized, the developers of this powerful community, MetaMachine, played their cards right. Unlike Napster who kept their central servers in Silicon Valley, MetaMachine released their server software into the wild. While MetaMachine develops the technology, it's up to the community to maintain the network.
Unlike most other P2P applications, the eDonkey clients require a bit of maintenance. While both clients come with a serverlist, servers often go offline, or new servers are established. In order to take full advantage of this network, you should maintain your server list, preferably on a weekly to bi-monthly basis. You can download a new server.met file from these sites. Once downloaded, install it to your eDonkey/eMule directory.
eMule is still the most popular client for Windows, though there are hundreds of modified versions out there. aMule is decent a Mac alternative.
Greenpeace praised the Acer Aspire 3811TZ and Aspire 3811TZG as part of a program to encourage companies to produce more environmentally friendly products. The laptops are both part of Acer's Timeline series of slim, light laptops that use Intel's ULV (ultra low voltage) Core 2 Duo microprocessors for long-lasting batteries.
Aside from being free of PVCs and BFRs, with the exception of their power cables, the two laptops are also designed to reduce energy consumption and can be recycled, the company said in a statement.
"The chemical characteristics of PVC and BFRs may generate toxic substances like dioxins and furans at products' end-of-life, therefore, the reduction of PVC and BFRs in Acer products will help protect our environment from being poisoned by electronics goods," Acer said.
PVC is a cheap, durable plastic used widely in electronics casings and cables that has been targeted by environmental groups for not being biodegradable as well as for leakage, including gases given off from some products. The E.U. banned some additives used to make PVC more flexible over concerns about their use in children's toys. BFRs are used in plastics and textiles to prevent them from catching fire, but in recent years some studies have found the chemicals accumulate in the environment and can be absorbed by some animals and passed on to their young. BFRs are used heavily in the electronics industry for fire prevention.
Despite the effort in the new laptops, Acer is behind in its own environmental plan. The company in 2005 pledged to prohibit the use of PVC, BFRs and phthalates, chemicals used to soften PVC, in all products by 2009.
"Acer is working toward this goal. Currently we don't have a new target date," Acer said in a statement.
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