Sustainability: finite resources, waste and the impact of new products

Can we ever run out of the helium in a party balloon? It is a gas, and there is a little of it in the air all around us. Most people would say no. If it is in the air, surely there is always more. But the helium in a balloon is not taken from the air. It is pumped up from deep underground with natural gas, where it built up over millions of years. And once a balloon lets its helium go, the gas drifts upwards and, in time, escapes into space. It does not come back. Helium gets its proper label at the end, once the planet's two kinds of resource are clear.

Sustainability asks whether the planet can keep supplying the materials products are made from, and keep coping with the waste they leave, at the rate we use them. Those materials start as resources, things taken from the planet, like oil, metal ores, trees, plants and animals. Resources come in two kinds. A finite resource formed over millions of years, or exists in a fixed amount, so it will run out. Once it is used up, it cannot be replaced. Crude oil is finite, and almost every polymer, the material most people call plastic, is made from it. The PET of a water bottle and the ABS case of a games controller both began as oil. Now try one: is the bauxite dug up to make aluminium drinks cans finite, and why? Yes, bauxite is finite. It is an ore, a rock with a metal locked inside it, and there is a fixed amount in the ground. Mining it uses it up for good. Iron ore, made into steel, is finite for the same reason. So are coal and natural gas, which formed over millions of years like oil. A non-finite resource can be grown or replaced. Pine from managed forests, cotton, wool and bamboo are all non-finite. There is a catch, though: non-finite only holds if the resource is replaced. A forest felled faster than it regrows is being used up, just like oil. Here's a quick sort: pine, wool, acrylic or cotton. Which comes from a finite resource? Acrylic. It looks clean, almost like glass, but it is a polymer made from crude oil, so it traces back to a resource that will run out. Now a reason, not a label: on what condition do wool and cotton stay non-finite? Wool is sheared from sheep every year, and cotton is grown every season. Each stays non-finite only while the sheep are kept and the cotton is replanted and farmed with care.

Using up resources is half of the problem. The other half is waste, and every product makes it twice: once when it is made, and again when it is thrown away. Waste in manufacture is what the factory throws out, such as offcuts, scrap, sawdust and packaging. Waste at the end of a product's life is the product itself. Most of it goes to landfill, a huge pit where rubbish is buried, or it is burned. Landfill uses up land for many years. Some materials take a very long time to break down there, and harmful substances can leak into the ground and the water. Burning shrinks the pile, but it sends fumes and carbon dioxide into the air. Now a different question: why does the waste grow each time a new model is launched? Because people replace the old one, often while it still works. The old model joins the waste sooner, on top of the waste from making the new one. Comparing the ways to get rid of a product, and keeping products out of landfill at all, belong to the videos on the six Rs and on recycling.

A new product changes the environment in four named ways. Two are good news, continuous improvement and efficient working, and two are bad, pollution and global warming. Continuous improvement means many small improvements to a product over time. Picture a row of kettles, each new model boiling faster on less electricity. Efficient working means making the same product with less wasted energy, material and time. Picture one kettle factory cutting down its offcuts and switching idle machines off. So continuous improvement is the product getting better, model after model. Efficient working is the same product, made with less waste. Neither one means storing waste. Take a phone maker that brings out a new version every year. This year's runs a day longer on one charge. Which of the four impacts is that? Continuous improvement. The phone itself has got better, one small step on from last year's. Pollution is harm to the air, the water and the land. It comes from making products, using them and throwing them away: factory fumes, dye in a river, litter on a beach. Global warming is the planet slowly heating up. Burning fossil fuels to make and move products releases carbon dioxide, a gas that traps heat in the atmosphere, so the planet warms. That is four links: fuel burnt, carbon dioxide released, heat trapped, planet warmed. Saying it causes global warming, with none of the links, explains nothing. A company launches a new electric toothbrush. In one statement, its body is moulded from a polymer made from crude oil. In another, the factory now switches its moulding machines off between batches. In the third, the brushes are flown to the UK so they reach the shops sooner. In the last, owners throw their old toothbrushes away when they upgrade. Which statement is the good news, and which of the four impacts is it? The machines switched off between batches. That is efficient working: the same brushes, made with less wasted electricity, so less fuel is burnt at the power station and less carbon dioxide is released. The other three are bad news. The moulded body uses up a finite resource. The flight burns fuel, adding pollution and carbon dioxide. And the old brushes add to the waste in landfill.

Naming an impact is a start. Explaining one takes three parts: what the impact is, why it happens, and what it does to the planet, for this one product. Take this prompt: give one environmental problem with a new games controller. One student writes: it uses plastic, which is bad for the environment. Another writes: its case is ABS, a polymer made from crude oil, a finite resource, so every controller made uses up oil that cannot be replaced. Which answer is specific enough, and what is the other one missing? The ABS answer. It names the material and where it comes from, then says why that matters for the planet. The first gives no material and no reason, so it explains nothing. One examiner's report says this: Many candidate responses were quite vague and did not give a specific enough example to be awarded the mark. The fix is to name the material inside the product every time: the ABS case of the controller, never just plastic. A bigger task now. A company launches a new smart speaker. Explain two problems for the environment that launching it could cause. Can you plan two linked points for the speaker, then compare them with these? Point one, finite resources. The speaker's case is ABS, made from crude oil, and its circuit board needs copper and tin that have to be mined. Every speaker made uses up resources that cannot be replaced. Point two, disposal of waste. People who buy the new speaker often bin the old one. Its ABS and metal parts are hard to separate, so it may go to landfill, where it takes up space for years and harmful substances from its electronics can leak into the ground. A third, if one is asked for: making and shipping the speaker burns fossil fuels, releasing carbon dioxide that traps heat and warms the planet. One examiner's report, on a question about the environmental problems of a new product, records this: Many candidates scored at least one mark on this question with the most common response being related to the amount of potential waste being dumped or sent to landfill. So if landfill is your first thought, you are on the right track. The habit that lifts it is saying what landfill does, then adding a second, different point, such as finite resources.

Four questions to finish, and the last one takes you back to the balloon. A fleece jacket is made of polyester, a polymer. Finite or non-finite, and why? Polyester is finite. It is a polymer, so it traces back to crude oil, which took millions of years to form. Now another: a bamboo toothbrush handle. On what condition is bamboo non-finite? Only while the bamboo is replanted and grown back at least as fast as it is cut. Here's a different one: a factory's lights now switch off in empty rooms. Which impact? Efficient working. The same products are made with less wasted electricity, so less fuel is burnt and less carbon dioxide released. One more: the party balloon's helium. Can it ever run out, and why? Helium is finite. It built up underground over millions of years, and once a balloon lets it go, it escapes into space, so it cannot be replaced.

If finite, non-finite and the four impacts all make sense now, you've got it, and a thumbs up will tell you later that this one is finished with. If they still feel shaky, save it, because the rest of this chapter leans on these words, so they get plenty of use.

Next in the chapter is The six Rs: reduce, refuse, re-use, repair, recycle and rethink. Hopefully that's next in your feed, but if not, search for ScholaFly D T oh seven, oh two.

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