Posts Tagged ‘savings
Car-Sharing Done Right
I often dream about creating a system that allows real car sharing. There will be a set of similar cars shared among all the users, and each will pay a quote of the global expenses every month. Nobody will own a car but will be allowed to (respectfully) use one from the pool.
When you need a car, you will just pull out your phone and say where you need to go. The system will indicate the closest car that you can take. You go there, the car will unlock, turn on, and you’ll be ready to go. At destination, you will turn off the car, get out, and it will be locked automatically ready for somebody else to pick it up.
You will be able to book cars in advance, of course. The system will automatically account for the fact that trips to the grocery store need a ride back, while trips to the airport may not, but users will be able to book slots of times in advance, or include return trips.
This will also help people to car-pool to work. There may not be a car available for you to take, but there may be a user close by that goes to the same place where you go. When cars will drive by itself it will be even better, they will all act as small buses which stop on demand.
The system will compute statistics on the times and locations in which cars are needed the most and facilitate to moves accordingly. Since it will know the destination of everybody, it can do a great deal of planning and optimization. In the end the number of cars in the system will not be minimal, but it will be way smaller than the number of cars that circulate today and stay idle for 95% of the time.
Since the majority of cars will be mostly used for small trips, electric cars will be able to thrive in the system. Charging station will be positioned in strategical points, starting from the most covered areas, and electric cars introduced there and used strategically until all of them can be substituted.
When cars will drive itself there will be no need for driving licenses. Kids will be able to get rides by their-selves as well (only in authorized places and not farther than a certain distance from their home) and parents will get an alert. A few mini-buses will also be in the system for trips which require just a bit more of space.
This system may also create jobs for people which will be tasked with check on the cars, perform maintenance, gas them up, move and clean them.
I really hope this is the future, and that we will get there pretty soon. There are too many cars around, too few parking spots, too many reckless drivers and too many accidents. And the Earth will thank us as well.
Gyms should Switch to Cloth Towels to Wipe-off Equipment, it’s Cheaper too!
My gym provides plenty of disinfectant and paper towels to wipe off equipment before/after each use. I have seen this in other gyms here in the US and it is a nice thing, especially during the fall and winter months when more people are sick. On the other hand thought, it is a bit sad to see all that paper get wasted every day, which probably can not even be recycled due to the disinfectant used.
So why not switch to cloth towels and natural disinfectant? I did some back of the envelope calculations and it seems to work out really well.
I figured that my gym probably has 500 people working out every day and that each uses 3 paper wipes. On Amazon you can find 2200 paper towels for about $40. So assuming people work out all year around, they spend about
365 x 500 x 3 x 2c =~ $11,000 per year in paper towels
Now, assuming to buy from Amazon 1500 good cloth towels (12×12 inches, they survive 500 washes) for $1 each and to wash one of them for each member every day with a cost of $10 for laundry/drying (3 loads) they will spend
$1500 + ( $10 x 365 ) =~ $5,150 per year using cloth towels
The actual cost may be even lower since this assumes that they will replace all of the clothes every year, while they should last longer. With part of the savings they could buy some natural and gentle disinfectant, so the facility can both save money and be more green.
