There’s a lot of debate over how to say the word “aluminum” or is it “aluminium.” I personally believe in the former pronunciation but the latter spelling. But this debate has little consequence. The question that should be asked is: Aluminium is the third most abundant element, why are we wasting petroleum, a non-renewable resource on plastic bottles? There a many much more important industrial and medical uses for plastics that cannot be substituted.

Here’s a brief introduction on the benefits of Aluminum:

–       It has remarkably low density that makes it very light relative to its strength. Ever wonder why Airplanes are made out of aluminum?

–       Living organisms do not metabolize aluminum. It’s everywhere and exposure to it doesn’t affect your health at all – meanwhile if you leave a plastic water bottle in the sun you’re giving yourself a little dose of carcinogens!

–       Re-iterating how healthy it is – Aluminum has an LD50 of 6207 mg/kg which means that to run a 50% risk of dying an adult human would have to eat slightly over one pound of the stuff.

–       Aluminum is way more recyclable than plastic. Actually it’s nearly infinitely recyclable because it’s so easy to separate chemically from other compounds.

–       Aluminum prices have declined over the last 25 years… clearly it’s not being used enough

Aluminum isn’t perfect, nothing ever is. It also would stand to reason that there’s no one-stop solution to sustainability. The problem is over-reliance on one resource. The US Economy is addicted to Oil and Corn, for example.

The thing is consumption of plastic, especially plastic bottles is a really understated problem. Plastic, which is a petroleum product – is causing serious environmental harm, raising toxicity levels in the environment and killing or disfiguring animals, especially birds and marine life. Let’s not even discuss the Pacific Garabage Patch sitting in the Pacific gyre. Even the recent Malaysian Airlines flight disappearance has brought to light how much plastic debris is just floating everywhere in the ocean.

A serious downside of Aluminum is that making it is a fairly high-energy process from Bauxite ore. Critics of Aluminum point to this as being a key reason why plastic is better, especially plastic wrap versus aluminum foil. Except as Slate’s Nina Rastogi points out:

“if you use one piece of foil three times, it will contribute less aquatic toxicity than using three pieces of LDPE [plastic cling wrap], and it just about matches the plastic on fossil-fuel usage and eutrophication. You’d have to use that foil six times, however, before the greenhouse gas emissions and human health impacts were comparable as well.”

Eutrophication is the response aquatic ecosystems have to aritifical materials, especially plastics, being introduced, which is characterized by prolific toxic algae blooms.

Even when it comes to re-usable bottles, steel or aluminum are better options than plastic. Toxins from plastic will always leech into water while the worst that happens with metal is a slight metallic taste but no physiological harm.

When it comes to the disposable bottle versus the can the can is also clearly the better option. According to the EPA the US overall plastics recycling rate is 9 percent, or 2.8 million tons in 2012.[1] This means that some 28.3 million tons of recyclable plastics is put into landfills each year. By comparison to all waste this is a disaster considering that in 2009 Americans recovered 34% of waste generated.[2] By comparison when looking at Aluminum cans: “The U.S. recycling rate for aluminum beverage cans reached 58.1% in 2010- a rate that is more than double that of any other beverage container.”[3]

Because Aluminum is so recyclable it quickly offsets the initial energy cost of making it from virgin ore. Aluminum cans in circulation typically contain 68% recycled aluminum and “twenty recycled cans can be made with the energy needed to produce one can using virgin ore.”[4]

The “Story of Bottled Water” really reveals the problem with plastic water bottles:

Several points are made in the video:

–       We shouldn’t be buying bottled water anyway because tap water is prefectly safe in most places.

–       Tap water typically tastes better than bottled water.

–       Bottled water costs thousands of times more than tap water.

–       The consumption of bottled water relies on an economic principle called manufactured demand. Manufactured demand play on people’s emotions, specifically fear, to create an artificial need for something. A deceptive yet clearly commonplace and accepted practice.

–       The plastic water bottle industry has resulted in the US Government under-investing in tap water infrastructure by $24 billion dollars.

–       The billions of dollars spent on bottled drinking water and cleaning up the mess it causes could be used to address the actual challenge of communities with poor access to water. It could also be spent on making tap water the best water to drink!

So this seems fairly daunting. The evil capitalist machine is going to destroy humanity? No, because we are all individuals living in a society and with free will you can easily do things to change the current predicament:

1)   Boycott bottled drinking water

2)   Reuse the plastic bottles you do buy

3)   Support your local politicians who want to invest in public water infrastructure including treatment, purification and public drinking fountains.

4)   Ask for tap at a restaurant!

5)   Spread the word that Bottled Water is a colossal waste. With social media it’s very easy because you can share an article or a funny comedy sketch.

Students at universities often demonstrate how institutional change can be affected. As a member of USC’s collegiate sailing team I served on the Pacific Coast Collegiate Sailing Conference’s (PCCSC) Executive Board. During my tenure I witnessed the then 24 teams of the PCCSC ban plastic water bottles at regattas. I have done a little bit of math to demonstrate how much a big deal this is.

Let us assume that a team buys two racks of 30 water bottles for a two-day regatta. I would also hazard that the typical PCCSC regatta conservatively has 20 teams attending and the average team sails 10 regattas over the course of an academic year:

2*30*20*10=24’000 plastic water battles

That’s the amount of plastic water bottles reduced just by banning them for college sailing in California, Arizona, and Hawai’i. Make a difference, don’t use plastic water bottles at events your club or organization participates in or hosts.

Imagine now that plastic bottles were banned or made obsolete at a university of tens of thousands of students. Seems unlikely? Think again. Many students have pushed to remove plastic water bottles from their campuses. Most recently students at University of Wisconsin – Fond du Lac began a fundraising effort, not to ban plastic bottles but to encourage re-using plastic water bottles.

They hope to purchase water fountains for the university that are designed to fill water bottles. In other words with a tap style spout rather than your typical up-facing waterspout. By making sustainability easier they are reducing the effort required and making a behavioral appeal for good.

 

 

It is no surprise that the price of college tuition has increased dramatically over the last few years. With the Great Recession, many public colleges suffered from a severe cut in funding from their respective states. Prices were hiked, followed quickly by a rise in tuition in private colleges. Unfortunately, however, tuition prices are just the first thing that students have to worry about. Other college related expenses – housing, food, and transportation for example – have also seen drastic increases in prices. What is most alarming, however, is the dramatic increase in textbook prices.

Technological advancements in the last decade have allowed for new ways for students to obtain textbooks such as the advent of e-books, online retailers, textbook rental services, and free textbook databases. Furthermore, there have been initiatives taken by the government on both the state and federal level to combat textbook prices such as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Despite all of this, however, textbook prices continue to rise. What is the main cause for increasing textbook prices? What sort of disruptions – if any – is the textbook industry seeing, and how is that affecting them?

BRIEF OVERVIEW OF THE TEXTBOOK INDUSTRY

 

Historically, textbooks in the US have been high – and prices of textbooks have only risen over the last 30 years. According to a study conducted by The American Enterprise Institute’s Mark Perry, the prices of college textbooks in 2013 have increased 812% since 1977. (In comparison, the Consumer Price Index – a standard measure for inflation – has increased by 250%). In fact, the rate at which textbook prices have increased is higher than all other expenses related to college – including college tuition. The Bureau of Labour Statistics reported that from 2006 to 2011, the cost of textbooks increased by 38.6% while the cost of tuition had increased by 32.2%.

 

 

Rising textbook prices – along with rising tuition costs – have long been a concern. According to the National Association of College Stores (NACS), students spent an average of $370 on course materials during the fall 2013 term. Furthermore, “40.6% of students said they usually pay for course materials with grants, scholarships and student loans during the fall 2013 term. Financial assistance covered, on average, 57% of the costs of the course materials for those students.”

However, in a survey conducted by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, “7/10 students stated that they had not purchased a textbook at least once because the price was too high.” A significant percentage of students receive financial aid or student loans – however it is evident that this aid is not nearly adequate enough to cover the full cost of college – both tuition and textbooks. The gap between the cost of textbooks and the amount of aid a student receives and subsequently, their ability to afford the textbooks is steadily increasing.

BREAKDOWN OF A COLLEGE TEXTBOOK: WHERE IS YOUR MONEY GOING?

There are several reasons that help explain the expensive nature of textbooks. First of all, printing and publishing any book is a hugely expensive process. Textbooks require many additional costs compared to a novel, for example. Textbooks deal with highly specialized material. The content of any textbook is often the result of extensive academic research that also needs to be constantly updated in subsequent editions. Furthermore, many textbooks have multiple authors – all of whom the publisher needs to pay a copyright fee to. This fee is increased exponentially in textbooks like literature anthologies which contain the works of dozens of different authors.

Textbooks also often come with supplementary materials – online-access codes, DVDs, or subscriptions – the costs of which are bundled in the cost of the book itself. Furthermore, traditional brick-and-mortar bookstores (such as the ever-present college bookstore) can be expensive to run. Rent, utilities, shipping in the supplies and salaries are just a few of the costs that bookstore owners have to worry about. It is no surprise that these costs often trickle down for the consumer to pay in the form of a more expensive textbook.

NACS reported that, on average, new textbooks in college bookstores are sold with a margin of 21.1% (the average difference between the cost price and the retail price of a textbook) After all expenses have been paid, “a college store makes less than 4 cents on every dollar’s worth of new textbooks sold.” For the majority of cases, this money goes back to the school in order to pay for financial aid, scholarships, and student programs.

If the profit margins for college bookstores are so small, then it clearly must be the publishers or the authors who are reaping the benefits of soaring textbook prices. The textbook industry is highly oligopolistic in nature. As mentioned previously, the subject material in textbooks are highly specialized and require extensive research; as a result, there are substantially fewer options when choosing a textbook in a specific field of study as opposed to a novel of a particular genre. Furthermore, there are often no alternatives offered to a textbook which is assigned for a class – the student may opt out of buying a book but at the cost of their grades: Nicole Allen, program director for the Scholarly Publishing Academic Resources Coalition, an alliance of academic libraries noted that “Publishers have been able to drive up textbook prices because students “have to buy whatever textbook they’ve been assigned.” As is the case with any other scarce good, when demand exceeds supply, the prices of the good increases.

 

The actual textbook industry is dominated heavily by just a few players. According to a report conducted by the Council of Economic Advisers at the Whitehouse, there are just three companies which almost completely control the textbook publishing industry: Pearson, McGraw Hill, and Houghton-Mifflin. Between the three companies (including smaller companies that they own), they control over 85% of the textbook market. In 2013, for example, Pearson reported £5,690 million in sales and £736 million in adjusted operating profits. The North American Education division was responsible for the vast majority of these figures. In sales, the North American Education division reported £2,779 million, and in profits £406 million – accounting for 55% of Pearson’s overall profits. In addition, McGraw-Hill’s profit margin was 25% in 2012.

Despite these impressive figures, these companies are actually showing some struggles in maintaining – let alone improving – profits in the educational sector. In February 2014, The Wall Street Journal reported that Pearson “issued a profit warning amid continuing weakness in its core U.S. education business.” The metric for North American education “fell 24%.”

According to Chief Executive John Fallon, “Our biggest business, North America, is facing the most difficult trading conditions in a decade.” The company blamed the tumultuous education sector in the U.S. as well as the “short but difficult transition” its business faced as it transitioned from print to digital.

Clearly, traditional textbook publishing companies are feeling pressure from the new technological age and various alternative methods of textbooks. But what are these alternate methods, and how popular are they among students and professors?

ALTERNATIVE METHODS

Surprisingly, the most disruptive force in the textbook industry is not the e-book, but the market for used textbooks and textbook rentals. This doesn’t mean that the digital market is not significant, however. According to Forbes, e-book sales make almost a quarter of all consumer book sales. Digital textbooks – especially in K-12 – have slowly become more accepted and more widely adopted by schools, with more than “20% of all schools saying they now use digital textbooks and another 37% saying they will within the next five years.”

Recognizing the gradual and inevitable shift to digital textbooks, in 2012, Pearson, McGraw-Hill and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt announced that they would be partnering with Apple to include textbooks in Apple’s ‘iBookstore.’ These e-books would not be merely digital versions of the analogue version; instead, the textbooks will be designed to be interactive and multimedia to utilise features that the iPad offers and create a different learning experience.

However, these statistics do not directly translate to college. According to a study conducted by the research firm Student Monitor, only “2% of college students surveyed said they bought all of their textbooks in digital form, and only 14% said that they had classes that required online texts.” The NACS reported that “e-textbooks made up only 2.8 percent of total U.S. textbook sales in 2010.” Furthermore, a study conducted by the non-profit arm of the Pearson Foundation showed that “55% of students still prefer print over digital textbooks.”

There are several factors which account for college students’ ambivalent feelings towards e-books. Many students who were surveyed stated that they preferred the hard-copy so that they could highlight passages and take notes in the margins (features which are available in many e-books.) Most importantly, however, was that e-books are not significantly cheaper than the print copy. Forbes investigated the differences in the prices of textbooks using the example of “Chemistry” published by Brooks/Cole. According to Forbes, “the new book costs $205. For a used copy you’ll pay somewhat less than $155, and be prepared to fork over $167 for the digital version.” Renting the book however, costs a mere $65.

The internet has been instrumental in facilitating the growth of the textbook rental industry. For one, the internet allows students to easily search and compare prices for textbooks. Several key players such as Amazon, Chegg, and TextbookRentals offer textbooks for rent at a substantially lower cost than buying digital or used versions of the books. NACS reported that students can expect to save between 35% – 55% when renting a textbook, and that about 3,000 campus bookstores now also offer this service (albeit at a higher cost) The vast amount of online retailers also enable students to easily sell and buy used textbooks from each other, further undermining the profits of the publishing companies.

The textbook rental industry is clearly growing. While they charge students a significantly lower price compared to buying a textbook outright, the cost still adds up. There are several initiatives that aim to absolutely minimize the cost to students and relieve some of their financial burden.

NON-PROFIT AND GOVERNMENT INITIATIVES

 

Boundless, based in Boston, Massachusetts, is a company which creates both free and inexpensive textbooks and distributes them solely online. Boundless has online textbooks in over 20 college level subjects, and offers these books for free. Paying $19.99 will get you the premium service, which includes “interactive study materials for each subject, including flashcards, quizzes, and summarization to help students retain information. It will also give students access to enhanced content and the native mobile apps.”

They also recently released 18 textbooks under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (the same license used by Wikipedia.) This will allow students and professors to use, change, and share the textbooks for free. Other similar initiatives include Flat World Knowledge, OpenStax College, and Bookboon.

The Michelson Twenty Million Minds Foundation supports “non-profit initiatives, for-profit start-ups, and policy thought leaders that utilize disruptive digital technologies to create a “higher education 3.0” system that can sustainably increase access, affordability, and student success.”” They provide free textbooks on a limited range of subjects, as well as a search engine to find the cheapest new, used, digital and rental textbooks online. Other non-profit organizations which fund similar initiatives include The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and the Laura and John Arnold Foundation.

The idea of creating a database of free, open and high quality textbooks have also been supported by the government. In 2012, Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation which would “fund the creation by California universities of 50 open textbooks targeted to lower-division courses.” The textbooks would be hosted by the California Digital open Source Library, with the California Open Education Resources Council overseeing the book approval process. The books would be free to download or a physical copy could be purchased for $20. Similar initiatives have been made in Utah, Florida, Main and Washington State.

In November, 2013, Senators Durbin and Franken introduced “The Affordable College Textbook Act.” This piece of legislation would “authorize the Secretary of Education to make grants to institutions of higher education to support pilot programs that expand the use of open textbooks in order to achieve savings for students.” The main goals of the act are to help “achieve the highest level of savings for students, expand the use of open textbooks at other IHEs, and produce open textbooks that are of the highest quality.” Unsurprisingly, such initiatives have been met with some resistance from the major publishing companies who claim that these actions interfere with the free market.

FUTURE OF THE TEXTBOOK INDUSTRY?

It is clear that textbooks will remain an integral part of a college education, despite the rising costs. Unfortunately, the mind-set of today that “everyone should have and deserves a college education” has justified these skyrocketing prices. However, the textbook industry is shifting. The initiatives to cut the costs of textbooks are still fairly recent, and its effects haven’t been fully realised yet. The continued rise of textbook prices suggests some sort of bubble; the intrinsic value of a textbook has not increased, so the prices must be a reflection on a tumultuous industry. It is possible that in the future, textbooks will be free or a minimal cost to a student’s education – or that textbooks will settle at a constant yet expensive price. In any case, if textbooks and indeed tuition continues to increase at the same rate at which it has over the last few years, it is not clear whether the investment in one’s education remains a sound and smart choice.

Kaká has sadly been left out of Brazil’s roster for the upcoming 2014 World Cup but he still very much on the list of prospective players to move to the MLS later on this summer. Along with the AC Milan midfielder, Anderlecht midfielder Sacha Kljestan’s name was “tossed around the rumor mill” according to a Fox Sports article.

Many successful international players have migrated from the European league to Major League Soccer. David Beckham had a great run with the Los Angeles Galaxy. Theiry Henry is still enjoying his time with the New York Red Bulls.

The European soccer season is slowly coming to an end, and with the attention slowly turning to the American soccer league (leaving out the World Cup from this discussion), now is the best time to compare the two leagues and how both handle their transfer windows.

The European Transfer Market

The common rationality for any transfer window is that Team A offers a certain amount for a specific player, the player’s current team (Team B) negotiates the prices offered, negotiations reach a certain agreement and finally Team A obtains the player that they desired.

It’s simple, right? Not quite.

The European transfer market is one of the most expensive markets in the world, millions of Euros are exchanged every season.  Speculations influence transfers; dozens of media stories being released on who might be sold, sports analysts doing multiple segments on the subject and now, social media users voice their opinions on which players are the best fit for their teams. 

But aside from speculation is the freedom that the European leagues offer. For one, there is no salary cap. Teams can spend as much money as they want on the player and resources of their choice.  Back in 2003, Roman Abramovich bought Chelsea and took over west London with his one billion euro investment. This sort of “big money” is not just seen in the English league, but in Spanish and Italian leagues as well.

The other factor is the contingency that allows players to leave their clubs at any time—before, during or after the transfer window—and the club is responsible for making those arrangements happen. The most recent example of this was when Juan Mata, unhappy with Chelsea, was able to leave and be traded to Manchester United for 37.1 million Euros.

While this trade still occurred during the time of the transfer window, it does prove a point when it comes to the freedom that players, even big commodities such as Juan Mata, have when it comes to playing for the teams of their choice.

But as previously mentioned, players are able to leave regardless of the “boundaries” that the transfer window claims to have.

As the English Premiere League website states:

There are two transfer windows in each Barclays Premier League season.

The first commences at midnight on the last day of the season and ends on 31 August if a working day – or, if not, on the first working day thereafter, at a time determined by the Board.

The second transfer window commences at midnight on the 31 December and ends on the 31 January if a working day, and again, if not, on the first working day thereafter, at a time determined by the Board.

Temporary transfers can be made permanent outside of the transfer windows. For further information please see the rules in the Premier League Handbook.

This, also, is the same framework used in other European soccer leagues.

 

The Dilemma

As the rule with materialistic items is “the more exotic, the more expensive” the same rule is somewhat used when it comes to soccer players. Soccer players prices are based on one thing more than anything: location, location, location—in this case, where they were born (or what country they decided to nationalize themselves in). Neymar is a great example of this. His performance as a player was impressive but him being Brazilian was what made him that much more valuable. South American players are a big commodity as well as European players, but there is hardly demand for players from Canada or even Russia.

Country of origin is not the only thing that defines a player’s value but there is also the factor of what club owns the player. Continuing with Neymar, he started his career off playing with Santos FC  in Brazil. If he had decided to continue there, his value as a player would not have been as significant. The level he had and the competition he played against also play into this as well (performance being the third factor). So when Barcelona FC (one of the top teams in the Spanish league) purchased him, his value as a player soared through the roof.

While Neymar’s stories is a “Cinderella story” that is continuously seen not just in soccer, but in sports in general, these factors are what create a giant gap between different nations and clubs. The role that the transfer market plays creates a hierarchy of clubs that will always be at the top of the table that the “poorer” clubs will never be able to catch up to. Note: it is important to mention that performance for clubs has nothing to do with the system per se. Even though Manchester United did horrible doing this season in the Premiere League, they are still one of the richest teams in the EPL and will continue to stay in that position.

Continuing with the Neymar example, there is no regulation on the amount of money that is being spent. This led to Barcelona sparking a media frenzy regarding the purchase of Neymar.

 

American Soccer Transfer Market

The transfer window for Major League Soccer (MLS) works a bit differently than Europe’s.

For one, MLS works as a close league and not the European open league. Players are not able to leave clubs when they please and to even the playing field more and avoid this gap of rich and poor clubs, there is a draft is held around the time of the two transfer windows that occur during mid-February and another that opens on July 8^th. Teams’ position in the draft is based on: their performance and what the standing was in the previous season.

As with other American sports, the highest pick goes to the worst performing team and the best teams find their slot at the very bottom. These teams draft in rounds, which goes from #1 to however many rounds indicated.

This allows for something that occurs in the MLS draft that does not appear in the European market at all—the role of trading draft picks. So, a team somewhere towards the bottom can trade their pick in the draft with a team that is a little higher up.

Another difference between the European transfer market and the MLS is the salary cap. As the MLS “Roster Rules and Regulations” states:

• Players occupying roster spots 1-20 count against the club’s 2014 salary budget of $3,100,000, and are referred to collectively as the club’s Salary Budget Players.
• Roster spots 19 and 20 are not required to be filled, and teams may spread their salary budget across only 18 Salary Budget Players.  A minimum salary budget charge will be imputed against a team’s salary budget for each unfilled senior roster slot below 18.
• The maximum budget charge for a single player is $387,500.*

* See section entitled Allocation Money below, under Player Acquisition Mechanisms, for details on buying down a player’s budget charge.

As one can see, there is a budget that is upheld within the MLS; there is accountability for each player and how much can go when it comes to salary. That is not seen in European (as is evidence with the large amount of money that soccer stars such as Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo are paid).

The MLS looks to have a more even playing field and does so by regulating all aspects of the transfer window. This also helps to create greater competition for teams, regardless of how much money they have, because they have a better chance of obtaining a good player.

 

The Dilemma

The dilemma with the American transfer window is the role of politics. Players are not given as much freedom as there is in the European market when it comes to where and when players want to play. Though there is a disparity in income with European players, American players have very strict contracts with their teams that are often too expensive for any team to simply pay off to get that specific player.

As is noted:

• A Team may buy out one (1) guaranteed player (including a DP’s) contract during the off-season and free up the corresponding budget space. Such a buyout is at the particular MLS Team’s own expense.
• A Team may not free up budget space with a buyout of a player’s salary budget charge during the season. Such a buyout will be conducted by the League and count on a Club’s budget in a manner consistent with current MLS guidelines.

As with anything, is a very strict, orderly procedure that takes place for the buyout to even occur.

Nothing happens outside the transfer window that is not seriously examined for a long time.

 

Conclusion

Both the European and the American soccer transfer markets have their flaws. One seems to have a very free and open place that creates disparity while the other seems too strict to even try to mention the word “freedom.” What is important to note though is the simple question about the love of the game. The American soccer league is very strict about making sure they make a profit or do not spend any more than they have to  to avoid a deficit. However, what is important to note about the European market is this lack of salary cap that allows for people to waste so much without a worry; they simply do it for “the love of game.” Going back to Roman Abramovich and his purchase of Chelsea, economically it is seen as a bad investment. But from a pride standpoint, the investment was definitely worth it (it brought a Champions League Cup, two League Cups and two FA Cup wins).

So whether you enjoy soccer from an economic standpoint or for the love of the game, both have their flaws but both also have their benefits.