Friday, June 25, 2010

Stuff I'm Selling - Updated 6/27

Ask for price and pictures if needed. Email davis.randolph.thomas@gmail.com if interested:
  • Spanish 4 Workbook: If you're lazy, here is my workbook. All of the assignments from Kirkpatrick have been filled in, which translates into most of the workbook.
  • Real SAT II: Good information and practice on the SAT IIs.
  • SAT II American History and Social Studies: Good information and practice on SAT II USH.
  • SparkNotes APUSH: Note: I had Plette this year and these questions look awfully familiar. This was in fact Plette's own book....
  • Barron's APUSH 2007: Good information and practice on APUSH.
  • Kaplan APUSH 2006: Good information and practice on APUSH.
  • Kaplan APUSH 2007: Good information and practice on APUSH.
  • Cliffnotes APUSH 3rd Edition: Good information and practice on APUSH.
  • Barron's AP Calculus 2008: Good practice for the class and the AP test
  • Past Homework and Notes from AP Euro, Honors Euro Lit, Honors Spanish 4, APUSH, AP Physics
  • Water Bottles (base price $10 but any customization is $11+): These are the water bottles as advertised by Howler, NTV, the many people who have already received theirs, and by Amnesty International as an environmentally-friendly and fair-trade product.

    As one of the board members on the Environmental Club, the club felt that it was necessary to take a more active role promoting green products and so chose to tackle all the plastic bottles thrown away every year by offering custom engraved, stainless steel water bottles.

    There are also 2 generic ones (wolf on earth, NHS). These are selling for $10 apiece. They will also be sold at club unity week. If you wanted a design that was only a solid color, those would be $11.

    As with before, these can be FULLY customized, including design, color, quote, and anything else written.

    The designs can be one of the stock designs I created (see the bottom link) or ones that you send in to me (Dimensions-1.5"w x 6.5"h). The designs do not have to be at all environmentally related. For those that I have created, see the top link to see if you like the design.

    These 24-oz. personalized stainless sport bottles come in a variety of vibrant colors! Stainless, blue, red, green, white, magenta, and black. Engraving shows up silver on most colors. Engrav-ing comes out smoky gray on black and shows up black on the stainless bottle.

    Stainless Steel personalized sport bottle; 2-tone threaded loop top; no liner, odor, and stain re-sistant; non-leaching; BPA-free; hot and cold drinks; and the weight is 10oz.

    The extra money will be given to Doctors without Borders most likely.

    As with before, there will be my high customer satisfaction with designs and efficiency.

    Also, feel free to buy an Enviro Club t-shirt (also environmentally friendly) and attend our meet-ings every Tuesday at lunch. In addition, check out Otter Club and the other pro-environment clubs, as well as do green activities.

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    Why plastic water bottles are bad:
    Environment----
    The Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club, and World Wildlife Fund have all urged their supporters to consume less bottled water. Anti-bottled water campaigns and organiza-tions, such as Corporate Accountability International, typically argue that bottled water is no better than tap water, and emphasize the environmental side effects of disposable plastic bot-tles. Producing and transporting bottled water requires vast amounts of raw materials and energy in comparison with tap water. In the United States, plastic used to create bottles uses an estimated 15 million barrels of oil annually. Over 90 percent of these bottles are not recycled, and most eventually end up in the ocean (Great Pacific Garbage Patch). Plastics are durable and degrade very slowly; the molecular bonds that make plastic so durable make it equally re-sistant to natural processes of degradation. Since the 1950s, one billion tons of plastic have been discarded and may persist for hundreds or even thousands of years. In some cases, burn-ing plastic can release toxic fumes. Burning the plastic polyvinyl chloride (PVC) may create dio-xin. Also, the manufacturing of plastics often creates large quantities of chemical pollutants. Unfortunately, recycling plastics has proven difficult. The biggest problem with plastic recycling is that it is difficult to automate the sorting of plastic waste, and so it is labor intensive. Typical-ly, workers sort the plastic by looking at the resin identification code, though common contain-ers like soda bottles can be sorted from memory. The biggest threat to the conventional plastics industry is most likely to be environmental concerns, including the release of toxic pollutants, greenhouse gas, litter, biodegradable and non-biodegradable landfill impact because of the production and disposal of petroleum and petroleum-based plastics. Of particular concern has been the recent accumulation of enormous quantities of plastic trash in ocean gyres. Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_debris and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_Garbage_Patch for vivid descriptions of what plastic in the ocean does.

    Health----
    The recycling rate for water bottles is 23.4%. PET bottled water containers make up one-third of 1 percent of the waste stream in the United States. Bottled water processed with distillation or reverse osmosis lacks fluoride ions, which are sometimes naturally present in ground water. The drinking of distilled water may conceivably increase the risk of tooth decay due to a lack of this element. According to a 1999 NRDC study, in which roughly 22% of brands were tested, at least one sample contained chemical contaminants at levels above strict state health limits. The rate of total dissolved solids is sometimes 4 times higher in bottled mineral waters than in bot-tled tap ones. Another study, conducted by the Goethe University at Frankfurt found that a high percentage of the bottled water, contained in plastic containers, were polluted with estrogenic chemicals. Although some of the bottled water contained in glass were found polluted with chemicals as well, the researchers believe some of the contamination in the plastic containers may have come from the plastic containers themselves. In a study with 57 bottled water sam-ples and tap water samples, all of the tap water samples had a bacterial content under 3 CFUs/mL and the bottled water samples' bacterial content ranged from 0.01-4900 CFUs/mL (colony-forming unit). Most of the water bottle samples were under 1 CFU/mL, though there were 15 water bottle samples containing 6-4900 CFUs/mL. In another study comparing 25 different bottled waters, most of the samples resulted exceeding the contaminant level set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for mercury, thallium, and thorium. Being exposed to these contaminants in high concentration for long periods of time can cause liver and kidney damage, and increase risk for lung and pancreas disease. The primary building block of polycarbonates, bisphenol A (BPA), is an estrogen-like endocrine disruptor that may leach into food. Research in Environmental Health Perspectives finds that BPA leached from the lining of tin cans, dental sealants and polycarbonate bottles can increase body weight of lab animals' offspring. A more recent animal study suggests that even low-level exposure to BPA results in insulin resistance, which can lead to inflammation and heart disease.

    Cost----
    In the United States, bottled water costs between $0.25 and $2 per bottle while tap water costs less than $0.01. In 1999, according to a NRDC study, U.S. consumers paid between 240 and 10,000 times more per unit volume for bottled water than for tap water. Typically 90% or more of the cost paid by bottled water consumers goes to things other than the water itself—bottling, packaging, shipping, marketing, retailing, other expenses, and profit. In recent years, the cost of plastics has been rising dramatically. A major cause is the sharply rising cost of petroleum, the raw material that is chemically altered to form commercial plastics.

    Ethical----
    The Showtime series Penn & Teller: BS demonstrated, in a 2007 episode, that in a controlled setting, diners could not discern between bottled water and water from a garden hose behind the restaurant. The United Church of Christ, United Church of Canada, National Council of Churches, National Coalition of American Nuns, and Presbyterians for Restoring Creation are among some of the religious organizations that have raised questions about whether or not the "privatization" of water is ethical. They regard the industrial purchase and repackaging at a much higher resale price of a basic resource as an unethical trend. see http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=324041082257&ref=nf
  • Green, collapsible vuvuzelas
  • The Sims PC
  • The Sims Livin' Large PC
  • The Sims House Party
  • Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 Water PC
  • Lincoln on Leadership by Donald T. Phillips
  • Logitech Mouse
  • Compaq Keyboard with 8 customizable buttons
  • Inland Keyboard
  • Sports Set ( golf club, baseball bat, tennis racquet) for Wii
  • The World Record Paper Air Plane Book by Ken Blackburn and Jeff Lammers
  • TV analog 3-pronged red, yellow, white cords to the same output
  • Rollercoaster Tycoon Corkscrew Follies PC
  • Microsoft Mouse with USB
  • A Series of Unfortunate Events - The Reptile Room by Lemony Snicket
  • A Series of Unfortunate Events - The Wide Window by Lemony Snicket
  • Fold N' Fly - Advanced Tactical Fighter Series
  • The Sims PC Manual
  • The Scholastic Dictionary of Spelling by Marvin Terban 
  • Tricks of the eBay Masters by Michael Miller
  • On the Far Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George
  • The New Successful Coin Hunting by Charles Garrett
  • New Testament Pocket Edition
  • Super Stacking Tops x2
  • The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
  • Shrek 2 - The Movie Novel
  • The Incredibles - The Junior Novelization
  • Yahtzee Free For All
  • Magnets - Detective Files
  • Handcrafted Pewter Little Cross
  • Mini Car
  • Actuator - Expandagon Set
  • The Lucky Pocket Rhyming Dictionary
  • Calendar Creator