Behaving ecologically

Behaving ecologically

Are you dissatisfied how nature is destroyed by wasting paper on advertising? How products are produced in developing countries and then unnecessarily transported instead of being produced right close to the place of destination? Are you concerned that manufacturing processes in developing countries pay little regard to ecology?

You can help against this a tiny little bit when instead of buying complete goods, you buy just the parts and do the manufacture yourself. A lot of heavy parts you buy are often locally produced - smoke pipes and caps, steel sections, tin, nuts and bolts, printed circuit boards, silica gel. They don't need to travel thousands of kilometers just because work in developing countries is cheaper.

Of course you pay with your own time which is typically expensive. But you save on transport, marketing, taxes, advertising, intellectual property battles fought using lawyers, on security measures to keep intellectual property secret, on company management. Your own work is ecological too - moving your hands doesn't produce much more environmental load than a small amount of carbon dioxide. As a free sideffect you get extra training in certain technical skills.

Electromagnetic pollution

Wireless networks are traditionally built on radio systems, not on FSO. However radio systems inherently generate electromagnetic pollution - that's the way they communicate.

"There is also a body of evidence which supports the existence of complex biological effects of weaker non-thermal electromagnetic fields (see Bioelectromagnetics), including weak ELF magnetic fields and modulated RF and microwave fields. The theoretical mechanism of action of non-thermal electromagnetic fields is not fully understood, but there are some established biological effects.

[...] A common position presented regarding these effects is that, since they are not well understood, a precautionary principle approach would suggest minimizing exposure whenever possible.

[...] Some studies have even suggested that a small percentage of the population may be electromagnetically sensitive and can physically react to very low level fields even in double-blind experiments."

- Wikipedia, Electromagnetic pollution

Ronja doesn't use radio waves to communicate. Ronja is fully shielded, so any electromagnetic radiation that comes out is just an imperfection of the shield. We took special care to minimize these imperfections and according to crude measurements we did, it looks like that Ronja radiates many times less than an ordinary non-radio consumer electronic item passing FCC.

Light pollution

Now maybe you are asking a question "But doesn't Ronja just replace electromagnetic pollution with light pollution?" We asked the International Dark-Sky Association which are fighting against light pollution and this is what they replied:

Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 14:45:56 -0700
From: Peter Strasser 
To: clock at twibright dot com
Subject: IDA approval
Organization: International Dark-Sky Association

Hello, Pete Strasser here.  Intriguing product.  I can't see how the
device could be the source of any offensive light pollution. I presume
that aiming one at a telescope would be counterproductive to the
intended system function.  As such, go ahead and say that your products
do nothing to harm the night time sky and we agree.

Best regards, Pete

--
Pete Strasser
Technical Associate

International Dark-Sky Association (IDA)
3225 N. First Avenue
Tucson, AZ 85719-2103

(520) 293-3198 (voice)
(520) 293-3192 (fax)
pete@darksky.org (IDA office)
http://www.darksky.org

IDA's goal is to preserve and protect the nighttime environment
and our heritage of dark skies through quality outdoor lighting.

Recycled material

Some parts of Ronja can be made of recycled material, for example this Twister has been done from leftover copper roofing (0.7mm copper):