In these days of increased costs for almost everything, it makes more sense than ever to protect items that need to be stored outside.
However, the cost of sheds or even pole barns can be prohibitive.
Tarps offer an economical alternative to protect your possessions.
And while you are saving money by prolonging the life of those items, you are also being good to the environment.
Many factors in the out-of-doors can degrade manufactured products.
Everyone is familiar with rotting wood and rusting metal.
These are primarily due to the effects of moisture.
When wood becomes saturated with water the fibers expand, and contract as they dry, leading to permanent deformation.
Water causes checking, cracking and warping.
It leads to decay in wood products because bacteria, fungus and mildew which cause rot thrive in moist environments.
Even worse, when water penetrates wood itself, or even joints or cracks in wood or metal structures, and then freezes, it can lead to immediate structural failure.
Rust and corrosion cause the loss of billions of dollars of product value each year.
Metals such as iron and aluminum oxidize.
Rust actually occupies more space than iron so it can spread joints and cause failure.
Alternatively, it is all too common to hear of mechanical failures when bolts or screws have rusted away leaving the surfaces they are meant to join vulnerable to separation failure.
Ultra-violet rays from the sun will also affect wood, plastics, paint and other finishes.
Within weeks of the beginning of exposure, discoloration due to ultra-violet rays will begin.
The strength of plastic and rubber products begins to be compromised quickly, depending on the material.
With plastics, the short UV rays create a photochemical effect within the polymer structure, which causes color change, the surface to become chalky, and finally the material becomes brittle.
Therefore, it should be obvious that protecting materials stored outside from the elements can protect them from early degradation and failure.
This means that your possessions will last longer and provide more value.
But how does this also help the environment? One of the best ways to calculate the environmental impact of a product is to look at it with a "cradle-to-grave" perspective.
For example, on the surface, paper bags may look more environmentally friendly than plastic because they degrade naturally, while plastic lasts for centuries in a landfill.
However, when one considers the entire manufacturing process it turns out that plastic bags actually require less water, fewer chemicals and a lower environmental impact process to manufacture.
The result is that the eternal question, "paper or plastic?" is meaningless.
The correct answer is to take your own cloth, reusable bag to the store.
Because it lasts longer, and can be used over and over again, its total impact on the environment is much lower.
Applying that logic to this situation, the longer you can make a piece of equipment, a vehicle, or other materials last, the friendlier they are to the environment.
The approach that simply assumes that things degrade and will need to be replaced every few years is tough news for the planet.
Every time you need to replace an item, all of the cumulative environmental impacts of gathering the natural resources, manufacturing, transportation, length of product use, and disposal must be accounted for.
If the lifespan of the article can be extended, then all of the associated cradle-to-grave impacts for each time such an article is produced occur less often.
See how much good you can do for the environment with a simple tarp?