Maizy Guinn
Joline Blais
NMD 200
14 November 2019
Speed radar
Speed radar signs in a simple view are nothing more than a painted piece of metal with a few sensors and a monitor right, nope. They are a thick aluminum coated in a plastic enamel with a monitor built-in with an led lights displaying the number throw a circuit board that is wired to a sensor that is also made of circuit boards and wires that is powered by a solar panel. We saw in class how some of the world’s recycled copper is sourced from Ghana by children breathing in cancerous smoke. For government-regulated signage, most are produced by USA traffic signs, Which promise to be made in the united states even displaying photos of the factory. It is hard to say the aluminum sign is 100% American made if they do not disclose the supplier of aluminum because children in third world countries could be producing it. This is the same with the wiring and circuit boards which according to Radar Sign are “designed and manufactured in the USA”. These are all the little pieces to us but could be destroying other countries and even putting them at war. According to mining.com China produces a majority of the world’s aluminum in bauxite mining using the Bayer method. A byproduct of using the Bayer method is “red mud, a mix of un-dissolved alumina, iron oxide, silicon oxide, titanium oxide, and multiple other metals in smaller quantities. It’s the iron oxide that gives the residue its distinctive red colour”. The countries way of dealing with waste is by storing it in dams and ponds. Red Mud has been reported to have killed ten people and give hundreds of burns back in 2010 when a plant in Hungary overflowed. In the US we get to skip the politics and buy these cheap metals to keep our people safe.
Obviously, in the town of Acton Massachusetts, we aren’t going to open a mine and start sending our children to burn computers for scrap metal like we force other countries to do. We could produce these life-saving signs with less of a carbon footprint. After doing a little research I found instructions on how to make these signs by Instructables. Every piece of these can from recycled materials, the brain of it is an Arduino which you can make from an old USB, the number display can be repurposed from the collection of broken scoreboards at the local high school, enough aluminum from cans at lunch could be melted down and reused, and wires can be found in most old computers. These could be made by kids in High School taking Ecological design as a way the learn about sustainability and how they can help right in their own town.
Like any change to the town, the people should debate and vote on placements and ethics of these radars. With the project potentially being done by students, it would also have to go through a school board and art department. If a green-lighted which in our very green town I think it would, our town would become a little more self-sufficient.
How to cut down cost
https://www.instructables.com/id/Low-Cost-Radar-Speed-Sign/
What they are made of
https://www.usa-traffic-signs.com/aboutus.asp
China
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