Today, I completed the final requirements for an ethics presentation for my technical communications class. The project's purpose was show a real-life example of where ethics would play a part in how you do your day-to-day job. As an example, one of the other groups that presented today, chose to tackle the issue of being a bouncer. Do you allow underage drinkers into the bar? Law says no; pocketbook says yes. Is it really immoral to drink underage (between 18 and 21) if you could travel to 92% of the rest of the world and drink by the age of 18?
My group's topic: burning tires in power plants. One of our group members was walking by the coal power plant on Charter Street and was about to kick a piece of coal lying on the sidewalk when he discovered it was not coal. It instead was a stray piece from the heaping pile of sliced scrap tires. Burning tires releases ridiculous amounts of cancerous toxins into the air and surrounding environment.
So why was the power plant using tires for fuel?
At first glance, it seemed the issue was: if you were an employee working at the Charter Street power plant, would you allow the tires to be burned to allow the plant to make money or would you tell your boss you would have nothing to do with it?
Then research happened. It turns out there are over 300 million scrap tires generated every year. That's a lot of tires that would have to go into landfills. Instead, almost 160 million tires are broken down and used for fuel.and another 100 million are recycled into playground pavement, sidewalks and many other municipal items. Also, tires release 25% more energy than the equivalent amount of coal. AND the power plant has scrubbers, which collect most of the harmful chemicals released from the burning process.
Thus, less natural resources are used in energy production, thereby saving the environment. Would you rather have 160 million tires lying in temporary landfills, local burning barrels and rodent infested tire yards or have 160 million tires being used to create the energy needed to post this blog entry?
This is along the same lines for not supporting the creation of large wind-turbines (wind mills without the mill).
My group's topic: burning tires in power plants. One of our group members was walking by the coal power plant on Charter Street and was about to kick a piece of coal lying on the sidewalk when he discovered it was not coal. It instead was a stray piece from the heaping pile of sliced scrap tires. Burning tires releases ridiculous amounts of cancerous toxins into the air and surrounding environment.
So why was the power plant using tires for fuel?
At first glance, it seemed the issue was: if you were an employee working at the Charter Street power plant, would you allow the tires to be burned to allow the plant to make money or would you tell your boss you would have nothing to do with it?
Then research happened. It turns out there are over 300 million scrap tires generated every year. That's a lot of tires that would have to go into landfills. Instead, almost 160 million tires are broken down and used for fuel.and another 100 million are recycled into playground pavement, sidewalks and many other municipal items. Also, tires release 25% more energy than the equivalent amount of coal. AND the power plant has scrubbers, which collect most of the harmful chemicals released from the burning process.
Thus, less natural resources are used in energy production, thereby saving the environment. Would you rather have 160 million tires lying in temporary landfills, local burning barrels and rodent infested tire yards or have 160 million tires being used to create the energy needed to post this blog entry?
This is along the same lines for not supporting the creation of large wind-turbines (wind mills without the mill).
posted by Bruhaha at 9:14 PM
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