Natural Resources are Important

An interesting editorial in the La Crosse Tribune (found via the Wisconsin League of Conservation Voter’s blog) talks about the importance of protecting our natural resources, like groundwater.  I would add the importance of residents participating in their local recycling program as a way to protect natural resources.

Wisconsin requires recycling by banning certain items from landfills.  These include items Waukesha residents can recycle in their curbside bins:

• plastic bottles & jugs (#1′s and #2′s)
• steel cans
• aluminum cans
• paper

Other items including grass clippings, tires, and motor oil are also banned from landfills.  By recycling these items, residents protect natural resources like 

• iron ore
• bauxite
• oil
• divers forests of trees

By reducing the demand for these natural resources we insure that the habitats effected by gathering these resources stay intact.  Two key habitats affected include the rain forests (bauxite) and temperate and boreal forests (trees used for paper products).

Despite the fact that recycling is such an easy way for residents to ease the strain on our natural resources, Wisconsin’s recycling rate hovers around 35%.  The national recycling rate for plastic #1 bottles (i.e. soda & water bottles) is an abysmal 23%.  As we all focus on Earth Day festivities this week and the importance of saving natural resources, consider a small action to make everyday Earth Day and make sure you recycle 100% of what you can.  

Want to do one better?  Tell a friend about the importance of recycling.  I’d love to hear ideas: how do you share recycling with those you know?

Little Bit of Paper: The Importance of Recycling Paper

When I am giving presentations or MRF Tours, people have a lot of questions about recycling paper.  The first tends to be “Why should I recycle paper?”  Recycling paper is important for several reasons.  Like all recycling, it creates jobs and supports a very important industry in Wisconsin.  Additionally, recycling paper saves natural resources.  For every ton of paper recycled:

•  17 trees are not cut down
• 7,000 gallons of water are not used
• 380 gallons of oil will not be used
• 3 cubic yards of landfill space will not be filled
• enough energy will be saved to heat your home for 6 months

So while saving trees as a natural resource is great, it is by no means the only natural resource being saved.  Additionally, when you use recycled paper you are not only saving trees but, in some cases, you are saving diverse forests.  There have been accounts that some forests cut down for paper are not ‘tree farms’, but rather old-growth forests.  A recent article in the New York Times explains that for certain types of paper, old growth trees must be used.  This article focuses on the need to use old-growth forests to make certain types of toilet paper.

Another very common question is “What kinds of paper can I recycle?”  In Waukesha County, Wisconsin the following types of paper can be placed in a paper bag or bundled with twine to be collected for recycling:

• newspapers can be recycled
• magazines can be recycled
• advertisements in newspapers can be recycled
• junk mail can be recycled
• envelopes with plastic windows can be recycled
• old homework can be recycled
• printer paper can be recycled (and also reused!)
• construction paper can be recycled
• cardboard can be recycled (and also reduced or reused!)
• phone books can be recycled
• chipboard can be recycled (i.e. cereal boxes, the box that comes around your soda, etc.)
• toilet paper tubes can be recycled
• paper towel tubes can be recycled

Types of paper that cannot be recycled include any paper that has come into contact with wet or greasy food (i.e. pizza boxes or ice cream boxes) and wrapping paper.  Also, when you get those credit card offers, make sure to throw the ‘sticky booger’ that attaches the credit card to the paper makes it in the trash as well.  All of these items can ruin the paper recycling process down the line.

Reduce, Reuse, & Recycle Cardboard Boxes

What about this reuse idea from craftzine?

As smart2begreen points out, there are a lot of extra cardboard boxes floating around after the holidays.

According to the 5 R’s, the best thing is to try to reduce the number you purchased.  I am assuming it is a little late for that idea this go around.  However, in the future consider:

1. Reusable boxes instead of ‘one-time-use’ gift boxes
2. If moving is in your future, check out companies that supply reusable moving boxes like www.rentagreenbox.com or a similar service.
3. Try to purchase things with less packaging.

 However, since you already have boxes, reusing  is the next best thing.  For those who are  extreemly talented (i.e. not me) you can make  some really cool lamps or furniture from  foldschool.  If you can’t reuse your boxes, consider giving or selling them to someone who could.  Put them up for reuse on-line at sites like craigslist or freecycle.  Do you want someone to do the work for you?  Check out U-Hauls free box trading message boards or see if your local U-Haul store collects them for reuse.  U-Hauls and UPS usually will take packing peanuts as well.

Recycled Cardboard in bales

If your boxes are too damaged for reuse, recycle them.  For each bale recycled: 

-17 trees will not be cut down

-7,000 gallons of water will not be used

-380 gallons of oil will not be used

-the energy saved is enough to heat your home for 6 months! 

But what if your cardboard can not be recycled because it has been contaminated with grease?  Procede to the 4th R – Rot.  For composting information, visit our website.

And as always, if you must buy new – complete the recycle cycle and buy products made from recycled content (preferably post-consumer).  Do you have any creative ways to reduce or reuse cardboard boxes?  Do share!

Recycle More,

recycle raccoon

Robin from Wisconsin

This past weekend I had the opportunity to work with a friend from the Milwaukee office to participate in Halloween Glen with Milwaukee Parks & Rec.  We had beautiful weather and a great time.  The idea behind the event is that families walk around the park and stop at stations to watch funny skits to learn different things about animals and the environment.  My friend and I were a warbler (which I still can’t pronounce very well and really can’t make the proper bird sound despite hours of practice) and a robin, respectively.  Our skit was about these birds migrating and how devastating deforestation can be for migratory populations.  And lots of bird puns – it was down right fowl.  Sorry.  I couldn’t resist.  Deforestation seems like a very distant and not-so-relevant problem when you are living off of ramen noodles and red bull to make it through the next big project.  However, when you need some medication because you have worked yourself sick, remember 1/4 of all drugs prescribed in the US contain derivatives from tropical forest plants and 70% of the plants identified by the National Cancer Institute as useful in the treatment of cancer are only found in the rain forest.  Deforestation also causes soil erosion, disrupts the water cycle (who doesn’t remember having to color that picture in elementary school!?!), and releases carbon into the atmosphere.  

However, recycling and some other very easy, small changes can have a large affect in helping slow or stop deforestation.  Bauxite comes from the tropical regions of Brazil and Jamaica to make our aluminum.  It takes 10 tons of mining bauxite to get 1 ton of aluminum.  Most of this would be unnecessary if we just recycled all of our aluminum.  Despite the high price being paid for aluminum right now, only about 50% actually gets recycled.  In America, we throw enough aluminum away every 3 months to rebuild our entire commercial air fleet.  

Another big culprit of deforestation is paper.  When you purchase items made from virgin tree paper, there is a good chance that an old growth forest may have been cut down for that item.  There is this great statistic floating around that we have more forests in America than we did 70 years ago.  However, this is not accurate.  There may be more trees than 70 years ago, but single species tree farms are replacing diverse forests.  This affects bird migration and wildlife as well.  By using recycled paper products, we can harvest fewer trees and when we do harvest trees, it can be for far more permanent uses than toilet paper.  This is especially a problem in Canada:

“Many logging companies over-harvest and target late seral or “old-growth” forests at levels that are not sustainable. . . . Forestry companies preferentially select the oldest stands for harvest because these stands have the greatest tree volume and are at risk of being lost to fire or insect damage. . . . Catalogs, copy paper, lumber, newspapers, magazines, and even toilet paper are made from Canada’s old-growth forests. U.S. consumption accounts for about a million acres of clearcuts in the Canadian Boreal every year.” 

- Bringing Down the Boreal, ForestEthics, 2004

Also, by purchasing items made from recycled materials, we support the market strength for these items.  

Other causes for deforestation, worldwide, include other mining needs, needs for building supplies, and clear cutting land for growing crops and grazing land.  I’m not building a house anytime soon, but I do eat – a lot.  Beef takes up a lot of space.  By cutting back on the red meat, even a few times a week, will require that less land be used for grazing.

Well, I didn’t think I would end up assessing my own dietary habits (I already reduce, reuse, recycle, and compost all the paper I can) would be a result of dressing up like a bird in a park for a few hours, but I guess that little life lessons can be found everywhere.

recycle more,

recycle raccoon