Mother Earth News - Mother Earth News 1984

In these days, when squeezing every bit of warmth from your home heating fuel is important, you cant afford to overlook the energy loss that may occur when hot water passes from your boiler to your radiators.

For example, in my home, as in so many others, hot water travels through a number of exposed pipes-in an unheated basement-before it actually starts to warm the living room, a process that wastes energy (and money). The answer, of course, is water pipe insulation... but the cost of manufactured pipe insulation is surprisingly high. Happily, though, Ive found a way to make high-efficiency insulation myself, and-since the raw materials consist of discarded plastic foam drinking cups-the price is right!

As any heat-transfer expert will tell you, wrapping water conduits with just any old material can actually result in heat loss instead of conservation. Thats because placing anything around a pipe increases the surface area thats exposed to cold air. Therefore, whatever wrap you use must have a high insulating value in order to offset that factor. Fortunately, polystyrene foam is one of the very best insulators around, and used coffee containers have two other features that contribute to their efficiency. First, only the edge of each cups bottom is in contact with the hot pipe, which effectively limits conductive heat loss. Second, since the overlapping cups were originally intended to withstand the temperatures of boiling water, theyre not likely to be melted by hot pipes.

Gathering enough used cups to insulate an entire heating system at one time can be quite an undertaking, since about two dozen containers are required for each running foot of pipe. So I decided simply to add to my pipe wrappings as the cups became available. (The bulk of those that Ive used to date were picked up from the highways and byways, where they form omnipresent-and regrettably durable-debris.) I graded them roughly according to capacity, and employed different sizes on different pipes.

Before you install this recycled litter, however, youd better soak the cups in water and give them a quick rinse... to prevent your cellar from smelling like a coffeepot whenever the heat comes up. Then cut a circular hole in each cups bottom to fit the pipe on which youre going to hang it, and make another slice from the hole, across the bottom, and up the side to the rim. (The material is easy to cut if your knife is sharp.)

By spreading the cut side open and twisting the container a bit, you can pop the insulation over the pipe without any difficulty. And, if the cup is spread open so far that it cracks, a bit of tape will save it. In fact, at first I placed a short piece of tape across every cut side after installation... before I realized that the precaution was unnecessary. As you put the cups in place, though, its best to stagger the cuts to prevent their alignment.

Quite frankly, when I look at those rejected coffee cups marching down the pipes in my basement and know that Im recycling a discarded petroleum-based product to cut down on my fuel oil bill, I feel a great deal of satisfaction!

ILLUSTRATION: MOTHER EARTH NEWS STAFF

Make your own water pipe insulation with foam coffee cups.

Ever since its inception, MOTHER EARTH NEWS has preached the importance of our preserving the unique planet on which we live and has stressed the inevitably dire results of failing to do so. This month, rather than going into the short-term economic consequences of our over-consumption folly"; were going to look at the topic from another perspective... namely, one that looks back on our current situation with the 20/20 hindsight of a person living in the future of America!

The following excerpted address, given by Colorados Governor Richard D. Lamm at the National Audubon convention last summer, pretends to actually have been delivered by Secretary of the Interior Lamm to the 100th anniversary celebration of that same conservation group in the year 2005. Secretary Lamm uses this future-view device in a tongue-in-cheek manner, but we think youll find some real food for thought in the possibilities he presents. They serve as a further reminder of how important it is that all of us-individuals and nations alike-constantly cherish our connection with the earth and use resources that we can provide for ourselves on a sustainable basis. For this type of economic strength is truly the only secure one... for us and for our planet.

I appreciate your invitation to address your convention and, as Secretary of the Interior, I am honored to be here in this momentous year to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the incorporation of the Audubon Society.

The President has sent me here to defend the record of this administration. We do not appreciate the strident and coercive criticism we are receiving from conservation groups in general or from this group specifically. The President is doing the best she can, and has asked me to come and respond to your criticisms. I sincerely believe this President is a dedicated environmentalist, unlike some predecessors in the Oval Office. Unfortunately, she does not have the choices that were available in the late 20th century. We do not believe you understand all the pressure on this administration as we enter the 21st century. We do not have the options they had back in the 1970s, the 1980s, or even the 1990s. We live in a world that is crowded, hungry, and in conflict. These matters demand your total attention.

Let me start by saying that I really do sympathize with your viewpoints, but you must try to understand some of the problems we have running a country of 430 million people, and dealing with a world that has over 6 billion people.

You and others have objected to the Presidents statement that birds dont vote, comparing it to former President Reagans statement that if youve seen one redwood, youve seen them all. That is a tragically mistaken analogy. The President was acknowledging a political reality, not expressing a philosophical preference. Truly, birds dont vote-and in an overcrowded, chaotic world, if you dont vote or have a sponsor who votes, your political agendas are meaningless.... politics today is the science of accommodating people, not peregrines; of humans, not hummingbirds....

You all know of the many problems incurred in just trying to feed America, the breadbasket of the world. But perhaps you dont realize the current global farmland crisis. The vast areas of prime farmland we once knew are now history. Over 25 percent of the farmlands of 1980 are now devoid of the topsoil essential for high-yield production, and we have lost 5 billion acres to desertification. In addition, the inexpert use of irrigation in the eighties and nineties created salinity problems we still are unable to solve. Of course, most farmland loss was incurred by simply trying to house our exploding population. We as a planet wasted the onetime inheritance of a foot of the best topsoil that God ever gave anyone.