Stop Recycling Paper

85% of all wood pulp is supplied by tree farms. Tree farms grow trees, harvest them, replant more, so on and so forth. It is a fact that young growth forests utilize more of our naturally produced carbon dioxide than do old growth forests. The existence of these tree farms greatly reduces the amount of carbon dioxide in the air. If we were to recycle all of the paper we use tree farmers would be forced to look to other sources of revenue such as field crops, it is only logical that these young growth forests would cease to exist and carbon dioxide levels would increase. So let's stop doing it all together.
[font=&quot]
1 Shanahan, John[/font] 1994 Clinton's "Voluntary" Global Warming Plan: Expensive, Ineffective, and Unnecessary

 

1) The demand for other wood products (lumber, chipboard etc.) would fill the slack created by recycling paper.

2) It is important to make recycling a habit. Even if recycling paper were resource neutral, getting in the habit of recycling would make it a good thing to do.

3) Paper can be composted. Between recycling and composting; paper should never be sent to the landfill.

 

Paper can be used to make butanol, which we can run cars off of

 

So if we stopped farming trees for paper, we would automatically consume more wood products of a different nature?

Why? Don't get me wrong, I don't think that all recycling is a bad thing, but some of it can be. Besides, recycling is terrible on the economy, and some argue even on carbon emissions. Conserving resources is one thing; if we even need to worry about that.

Well you're right it can, some studies say that paper lasts just as long in a landfill as plastic once things are layered upon it.

 

A properly done landfill keeps O2 away from the garbage. This is done to keep the garbage from rotting, liquifying and poluting the surrounding soil. It also means that compostable materials will not compost in a landfill. So paper and orange peels will last as long as plastic in a landfill.

Landfills are a sucky way to magange waste.

 

stop using paper and start using your minds....
"Treefarm" yeah sounds so fucking boring for the trees...........

 

Recycling itself is quite an energy intensive process. Although i'd have thought it would be a good thing if tree farms could be used for wood to take some pressure off of the rainforests. Although whether people who buy hardwoords could be convinced to buy softwoods i dunno. Either way i doubt it makes a huge difference.

 

black locust is excelent hardwood for burning. it's cheap, fast growing, very suitable for coppicing.

 

That's right! Boring for the trees! Whaaat?

 

Hemp produces 3 times the paper pulp than timber does per year, and requires far less pesticides and herbicides.

Plus hemp can be used to replace many timber products such as plywood.

Hemp can be used to replace many plastic products (most plastic products are petroleum-based).

And of course hemp can be used to make fabric cheaper than cotton, and uses far less pesticides and water than cotton.

Hempseed is an excellent source of food, and hempseed oil is 2nd only to whale oil in purity.

Hemp could cut pollution, feed millions, stop old-growth logging, cut America's dependence on foriegn sources for pteroleum, and make more clean water available.

And industrial hemp has no intoxicating properties.

Now, why is it illegal (in the U.S.) to cultivate again?

 

Hell why don't we just cut down all the old growth? I mean really, what is the point of letting it grow? So it becomes fuel to burn the rest of the living trees? Sometimes, well most of the time, you environmentalists just make absolutely no sense to me. Young growth sucks up twice as much carbon dioxide, why not employ selective logging to REMOVE old growth forests? Plus, I know you guys think little of this but, this is economically (root word is ECONOMY) viable.

 

Sorry I'm calling bullshit on that. 85%? The planet will be using about 400,000,000 tons of paper by 2010. I'd like to see some serious figures on tree farm production for pulp accounting for 85%, and not just one article by some bad science spin doctor. Yes, granted paper companies do operate tree farms, but I doubt very much it's anywhere near 85% worldwide. Here are some paper/logging facts to consider:

"Pulpwood refers to timber stocks that are cut in order to make wood pulp for paper production. In the logging of mixed forest stands, the better trees usually are used for sawlogs for lumber production, while the inferior trees and components are harvested for pulpwood production. However, because of the low value of pulpwood, it is normally harvested only if the logging operation is fairly close to a paper plant (or pulping plant).

Pulpwood usually derives from four types of woody material in a mixed logging operation. First are open-grown trees, that are heavily branched low on the trunk, and so make poor sawlogs. Second are dead or diseased trees. Third are tops and branches cut from trees harvested for sawlogs. And fourth are trees too small to harvest for sawlogs.

However, many stands of trees are harvested only for pulpwood without regard to timber production. This usually happens in mixed forest stands when the stands are owned by the paper company and in close proximity to the plant. It also happens in tree farms grown by the paper companies, where the farms represent monocultures of softwood species intended specifically for pulpwood. It also happens in certain areas of natural forest where there is little or no timber production value, such as some northern aspen forests.

Fiber crops are field crops grown for their fibers, which are used to make paper, cloth, or rope. These crops are generally havestable after a single growing season, as opposed to trees which are typically grown for many years before being harvested for wood pulp fiber. In specific circumstances, fiber crops can be superior to wood pulp fiber in terms of technical performance, environmental impact or cost.

Botanically, the fibers havested from many of these plants are bast fibers; the fibers come from the phloem tissue of the plant. The other fiber crop fibers are seed padding, leaf fiber, or other parts of the plant.

Fiber crops include:

Bast fibers (Stem-skin fibres)
Jute (widely used & cheapest fibre after cotton)
Flax (which produces linen)
Ramie
Hemp
Kenaf
Abaca
Nettles
Other fibers (Leaf, fruit, and other fibers)
Cotton
Bamboo
Esparto
Coir (Fibers of Coconut)
Sisal (Often termed as Agave)"

Some good reading on non tree paper products.

Forests Urged as New Front in Global Warming Fight

By the way Shanahan is a Pentagon spook who also researches and developes chemical weapons systems.

 

Long story, but interesting. One that needs to be looked at:

http://blogs.salon.com/0002762/stories/2003/12/22/whyIsMarijuanaIllegal.html

Amazing what time will bring out every now and then

Although I assumed your question was rhetorical, I thought some might find the link informative.

As for the trees, I'm not really into the numbers or tactics. I just figure if there is a need to supplement our supply of raw materials for paper and other materials, hemp would appear to be a very viable alternative. It was grown and used for years, and the ridiculous laws passed because of prejudice and ignorance 70 years ago should at least be reviewed.

 

Not to mention that hemp fabric lasts much longer than cotton, thereby threatening the cotton industry back then. And if anybody has ever smoked K-pot from Kansas, they know it's not a drug threat. The railroads during the days of early expansion would plant hemp as a cash crop along the rails right of way. The remnants of which grows wild in bountiful quantities in Kansas, still, and, does not get you high, unless you're into a S&M thing and enjoy really bad headaches.

 

Timber is environmentally friendly for a number of reasons, the most important of which are:

Wood is a naturally renewable material, therefore sustainable.
Wood absorbs CO2 rather than increasing emissions. Wood can help in the fight against climate change.
Over 90% of the wood used in UK construction is from softwood grown in Europe. European forests are not only protected, but are well managed - caring for the local environment in the forest and by replacing more trees than are being cut. There is now more than twice as much wood in the forests as there was 100 years ago, and every year, Europe's forests are increasing by an area about the size of Cyprus - that's almost 100 football pitches per hour.

Good managed forestry also helps to counter the "greenhouse effect", since growing trees absorbs carbon dioxide and emit oxygen. They act as a carbon sink.

Managed felling and replanting increases this effect, since young, growing trees absorb more CO2 trees than older, mature trees and 1m3 growth absorbs 1000kg CO2 and gives off 727kg O2.

When timber is converted into different timber products it gives off no toxins nor does it give off harmful emissions.

wood requires less energy to convert it into usable form.

Trees are converted into logs, seasoned and then shipped around the world. Timber is further converted into useable products at the factory. Generally it only requires electricity (usually hydro electricity in Scandinavian) to change logs into blanks of timber. There is minimal waste in the production processes, and the residue material from timber component production is commonly used in the manufacture of other products such as paper, particleboard, wood chip, as fuel sources, or in agriculture.

Many of the larger timber users and poultry farmers forward the shavings onto generating stations where they it is used for fuel. Any timber waste that does find itself discarded to nature is not harmful to the environment as it decays back to Mother Nature.

 

So.....why bother?

In 2003/04, paper and card accounted for almost a third of all household waste collected for recycling, with almost 1.3 million tonnes being collected in England. This means that there is still a considerable amount that isn't recycled and is largely going to landfill or incineration.

Although the raw material for making paper is predominantly trees, it is a common misconception that recycling waste paper saves trees. Trees for paper making are grown and harvested as a long term crop with new trees planted to replace those cut down. Nearly all paper is made from wood grown in these "sustainable" forests. The more important environmental issues are:

The nature of forests and where they are situated. As the demand for paper has increased, more timber has been needed to meet the demand for wood pulp. In some cases this has meant the loss of valuable wildlife habitats and ecosystems, as old forests have been replaced by managed plantations, usually of fast-growing conifers. The lack of tree species diversity in managed forests has a direct impact on the biodiversity of the whole forest.

By using waste paper to produce new paper disposal problems are reduced.

For every tonne of paper used for recycling savings =
at least 30000litres of water
3000 - 4000 KWh electricity (enough for an average 3 bedroom house for one year)
95% of air pollution.
Producing recycled paper involves between 28 - 70% less energy consumption than virgin paper and uses less water. This is because most of the energy used in papermaking is the pulping needed to turn wood into paper.
Recycled paper produces fewer polluting emissions to air (95% of air pollution) and water. Recycled paper is not usually re-bleached and where it is, oxygen rather than chlorine is usually used. This reduces the amount of dioxins which are released into the environment as a by-product of the chlorine bleaching processes.
Paper is a biodegradable material. This means that when it goes to landfill, as it rots, it produces methane, which is a potent greenhouse gas (20 times more potent than carbon dioxide). It is becoming increasingly accepted that global warming is a reality, and that methane and carbon dioxide emissions have to be reduced to lessen its effects.

scary....

 

Hemp kicks ass!!

 

Thats Europe. You guys already raped that place a long time ago. Here in Canada our forests are dissapearing very quickly. I plant trees. I don't plant trees in tree farms that have been harvested, I plant trees in clear cuts. I plant baby trees next to stumps that are waaaay oolder than me.

 

Me and Toto live here in Kans-ass and have seen those wild hemp mothers over 14 ft. tall. You would have to smoke the entire 14 ft. to get anywhere.

BTW, much paper in India and China is made from BAMBOO...radically renewable. Grows and regrows many times faster than trees and yields more per acre. Plus you can eat it in the spring...try that with a pine tree (forgive me Euell Gibbons)