Here at Future Footprint we receive piles of myths about environmental issues. No-one ever has a clue where these myths originated and generally yet people seem to believe them adamantly with no evidence whatsoever. Kinda like homeopathy in that respect... So what else could we do but dedicate a portion of Future Footprint to blowing these myths wide open for the good of the planet! Wootang!

Really? Do you really think that under normal wind conditions a wind turbine could catch a bird and slice it up? If you do then please humour me and visit your nearest wind farm to search the ground for freshly filleted wildlife. Believe me, your search will be futile. This is a video of a massive windfarm in America with a good strong breeze against it and not a one of these turbines could slice up a bird - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9_FKGxD27g Only under gale force conditions is it possible for a wind turbine to spin fast enough to do that sort of damage, and you'll notice that birds aren't particularly taken with flying when the wind is that strong. Indeed if they were to do so they'd be in much greater danger of being smashed into a building or a cliff than becoming 'turbine-kill'.

People use this myth as an excuse never to turn off their computers when they're not being used. How many times have you heard something along the lines of 'I'll need it again after lunch and it takes more energy to turn it off and on again than to leave it on'?
Thankfully this myth is very easily debunked!
 
I bought myself a power consumption meter which gives you a readout of the consumption of whatever bit of electrical equipment you have connected. The reading you see is power in Watts
 
Whist booting up

 
Booted and running normally

 
As you can see there is no difference whatsoever! Future Footprint 1, Myth 0

Just think about this for a minute.
Do you really that it takes more energy to ship old paper to a local (at least in your country) paper mill, pulp it, screen it, clean it, de-ink it and press it into new paper than to chop down a forest full of Scandinavian timber, transport it in massive trucks to a sawmill, pulp it, clean it, bleach it, press it and then ship it across the north sea for all your office needs?
No chance!

OK this is one of the most ridiculous claims ever and if everyone in the world thought like this then the world would be totally screwed. What I'm going to do here is prove to you what a difference one single person can make using the simple example of lighting.
 
Let's assume a single person lives in a one bedroom flat. He has a hallway, a living room, a kitchen, a bedroom and a bathroom. He has a 100W light in his hallway that stays on for 12 hours a day (he leaves it on when he's out to deter thieves) and combined usage of the other lights in the house is equivalent to about another two 60W lights on for 12 hours a day. You'll agree this is quite a conservative estimate for energy usage - I'm giving this myth a chance!
 
100 + (2 x 60) = 220 Watts required to power the bulbs
220 x 12 = 2640 Watt hours (Wh) or 2.64 kiloWatt hours (kWh) of energy is used by the bulbs per day
 
A 100W equivalent energy saving bulb uses only 20W and a 60W equivalent energy saving bulb uses 11W
 
20 + (2 x 11) = 42 Watts required to power the bulbs
42 x 12 = 504Wh or 0.504kWh of energy is used by the bulbs per day
 
Over a year the energy saved in this one house is
(2.64 - 0.504) x 365 = 779.64kWh
 
Now according to this article one litre of petrol produces approximately 33.0 kWh of energy so 779.64kWh is equivalent to 779.64 / 33.0 = 23.625 gallons of petrol.
 
My car (a 1.2 litre Honda Jazz) will happily do 45 miles per gallon which means that the energy saving over a year could take me
23.25 x 45 = 1063.145 miles
 
Or from my home in Manchester to London (184 miles away) and back 2.89 times!

This is a myth I've heard many times and is used as an excuse to leave lights on all day and night. Fortunately this can be debunked very easily with science. Try to keep up ;-)
 
Assume you have a single fluorescent tube that operates at 60W. This is a very conservative estimate as big strip lights are often rated at 70W and above and there can be dozens of them lighting a decent sized hall.
 
Next assume that it takes an average of five seconds for the light to come on. Strip lights flicker slightly as the starter charges and kicks the tube into life but even five seconds is quite a long time for this process. I've really giving the myth a chance here with my estimates.
 
A 60W strip light uses 60 Joules per second by the simple equation - Power (W) = Energy (J) / Time (s)
 
For a strip light to use an hour's worth of electricity in 5 seconds we must multiply this figure by a factor of 3600/5 (the number of seconds in an hour divided by our estimate of a five second startup time) which makes 720.
 
This would mean that the light would, for that five seconds, be operating at 60 * 720 = 4320 Joules per second or 4320W.
 
If anything in your home ever ran at anywhere close to 4320W you wouldn't be worrying so much about the environmental impact, more about the massive fireball you have suddenly found yourself engulfed in.
 
This myth is completely busted. The TV show Mythbusters also recently went out to test this one and determined experimentally that a strip light uses about 23 seconds worth of electricity as it starts up. So if you're leaving a room for more than 23 seconds TURN OFF THE DAMN LIGHT!

Rubbish! The good guys at Earth911 write here about how brown glass is processed.