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Of all the things that I think it is wonderful to recycle, I am not sure I agree with paper.

Paper biodegrades easily, and so is not a huge filler of landfills. But the big thing with paper is that it comes from trees. Not meaning to state the obvious here…

If you don’t make paper from trees, then less new trees are grown. It is in the earlier stages of growth that a tree produces the most growth, and the most oxygen.

Rather than using recycled paper products, I prefer to buy those that come from sustainable forests.

Care to share your thoughts on this issue?

I actually have to dissagree with you.

First off the oxygen produced by a tree is so small that it is almost not worth even mentioning. Prairie lands, grass fields and places like that create much more oxygen then a forest.

Aside from the oxygen production, you have to look at the energy being used to make and recycle paper. According to the EIA, a paper mill uses 40 percent less energy to make paper from recycled paper than it does to make paper from fresh lumber. Now we all know that the energy used to make paper is not “Green” clean eanergy, its dirty carbon burning diesels and electricity.

Also, each time a forest is replanted and harvested, many nutrients are stripped from the soil, and eventually these “new growth” farms have to use tons of artificial fertilizer. Of course, this fertilizer is produced and trandported with dirty energy.

All in all, I do believe recycling paper is a great thing, but you did have a good point and I had to go do some research.

I think I watch too much Penn and Teller I have taken a fair amount of consideration of recycling on the whole, for each and every type of product that may be recycled. Paper was, and still is the only thing that I question when it comes down to it.

I agree that the nutrient removal is a problem, and yes, I think I’ll be going to do some more reading on this.

Paper is the the first thing that made sense to me when I was growing up. It seemed the easiest thing to do, and therefore the thing that could have the most impact because more people could potentially do it than anything else. It’s just a shame that this county doesn’t require it.

You make a good point, one I had not considered before. It would seem an easy start for most and for that reason if nothing else it could have a huge impact. People are more likely to do the easy stuff rather than the harder stuff, so maybe I looked at this wrong.

I think the original poster made some good points. Paper is the only item that I really some doubts about in regards to recycling. I recycle it anyway, but I think that there are more important items that should be recycled.

If they stopped giving you 6 paper bags for 10 items at the supermarket that would help

Re: Recycling Paper

The process of recycling paper is so refined that we’d be crazy NOT to do it. It saves us the time it would take for used paper to disintegrate into the soil… we make it immediately available and reusable. This is very efficient, and it helps us stay focused on the issues of the environment.