Paper, Metal, Plastic, and other Trash

I've been thinking a lot about trash lately...I mean we really throw a lot of that stuff out. I think about MacDonalds. Everytime they sell a burger you get a bag, a napkin and a wrapper that gets tossed away within a half an hour...and then if you include a drink and fries there's a cup with a lid, a straw, a fries wrapper and probably a ketchup packet or two... In Gainesville there are probably five or six MacDonalds...think about all the trash these five or six places will generate in one hour on an average day...never mind a day, a week, a month, or a year.

I stopped buying newspapers every day because I would read the headlines, the sports and an article or two and throw it away. What do we do with all the newspapers that are tossed out everyday...I mean to tell you, the NY Times, LA Times, the Boston Globe, the Washington Post...every little podunk has got its own daily or weekly rag that gets partially read and then thrown out...that's a lot of paper and a lot of trees. I wonder how much of it gets recycled. Are there any newspaper recycling facilities in Florida?

I recently heard and interesting statistic about China. It seems that they threw out 45 billion pairs of disposable chop sticks last year...this accounts for about 25 billion trees...where do they throw it all?

Solid wast is indeed an incredible problem. Our landscape is spotted with landfills that are filled with our daily garbage and trash. Have you ever though of what is in a landfill...bottles, cans, food, diapers, yards trash, plastic, cardboard, organic waste, aluminum foil, tissue paper and used paper towels...shall I continue? What a lot of people don't realize is that there are a lot of liquids that are throw into landfills. From the little tiny bit of milk left in a milk carton or orange juice in an orange juice container to engine oil left in a plastic oil bottle to shampoo to cleaning solutions to disposed medicines to anything liquid that goes in the trash...it all leaks down to the bottom of the landfill and eventually into the ground water. And we are doing this all over our country. Solid waste management has actually become a major industry in the United States.

If you add up all of the solid waste generated by restaurants (fast food and otherwise), school lunch programs, the construction industry, and the professional sports entertainment industry it is mind boggling.

These are just my thoughts as I sit around and think while I drink my coffee which was probably exploited from some third world nation. I shall return and we can talk solutions and stuff.

Electric Field Mapping

We did a pretty interesting lab yesterday (3-28) although everyone thought it was rather boring. We actually mapped out an electric field in a 10 X 10 voltage matrix. In one direction (horizontal) we measured electric field lines and in the other direction (vertical) we measured equipotential lines.

The electric field lines went from the positive plate to the negative plate as in the figure below. So what is the trend of your voltage readings along your electric field lines?

Now the equipotential lines are also shown in the figure. They are vertical. Can you see a trend in those numbers?

Here's another talking point: what do we mean by voltage? Every reading we took was in volts. What does it mean? What are the units of a volt? Does a volt imply anything about work?

Think about this: if you take an electron and put it next to the negative plate will you have to do a lot of work to keep it there? And what about the same thing for a proton against the positive plate?

Respond to the blog posting, first of all, by responding to the "thought" questions posed above. Along the way make sure you define the following: electric field lines, equipotential lines, and voltage. Make your response at least two large paragraphs and sign only your first name to the blog. Also, remember to respond to one other posting from one of your classmates.

Do a good job. This is a lab grade.