Prize for ‘Sun in the box’ cooker

09Apr09

BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | Prize for ‘Sun in the box’ cooker.

I’m glad to see such high publicity for solar cookers, but so far I am a bit surprised that such an established idea won a contest for “green ideas”. I built my own solar cooker on a whim last summer, and I found a wealth of information online to faciliate the process.

I’d like to explore the realm of solar cooking more (perhaps this summer), but the first thought that comes to my mind is whether it is truly necessary to create new cardboard boxes for the Kyoto Box (or similar cardboard solar cookers). Bohmer frames the fact that we can “take existing factories like cardboard factories” as an asset to this project, but we should keep in mind where cardboard ultimately originates from…

I first learned about the three R’s (recycle, reduce, reuse) way back in elementary school, but schooling (and common sense) tells me that the last R (reuse) handily beats recycling (which introduces transportation, industrial and other inefficiencies into the pipeline).

I understand what I’m about to say is more of an anecdotal note than the result of any substantial study, but everytime I visit a place like Costco I see mountains of boxes piled high from unpacked products. There must be a wealth of boxes from other groceries, warehouse and retailers, and perhaps these can be repurposed into solar cookers (I’m not sure about their alternative fate, but I imagine they are burned or repulped).

I’ll post more of my own thoughts on this matter in the near future, but please add your own voice if you have any ideas to offer.

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