MY VIEW: Destruction of paper provided still an issue
As technology, industry, and capitalism giveth us new horizons, great opportunities and a wealth of information, so it taketh away. At least so it seems, judging from the behavior of many USU students and faculty in the simple choices of disposal options for, among other things, the Statesman that you’re reading. Consumers no longer need occupy themselves with what happens before or after a product is used – the “dirty work,” as it were, becomes somebody else’s business. Let us fill this void and create a flow chart for the newspaper in your hands.
First, a tree somewhere, probably on a plantation in the Pacific Northwest or the North-Central states, is leveled and fed to a pulp mill. This plantation was a natural forest before it was converted to a sterile monoculture, and it will again be planted, manipulated, fertilized and nursed to maturity in a process that mines the land’s fertility with every cycle. Fortunately, newspaper is mechanically rather than chemically pulped, so less dioxin and chlorine is emitted from the mill.
The tree is converted to paper at a ratio of somewhere between 20-30 reams/tree, and joins the 90 million tons of paper products Americans consume annually.
The plant is powered by coal-fired electricity, which produces greenhouse gases, as well as sulfuric acid, mercury and other assorted nasties.
The paper is then shipped to a regional distributor, and again to a printing press (Herald Journal), which requires gasoline, again requiring lands to be confiscated from their natural inhabitants for drilling, as well as more greenhouse gases, nitrous oxides, ozone, particulates and other carcinogens swirling in your lungs at this moment.
The paper is printed with inks containing some of the most toxic metallic compounds known to man when they escape in trace amounts.
After you half-consciously toss it into the garbage, it is collected by Logan City and sent to Cache Valley’s landfill (another round of fossil fuels), where it will join the 44 million tons of paper that Americans waste annually and reside for centuries, decomposing into methane, a greenhouse gas even more powerful than carbon dioxide, and leaching chemicals into a cesspool that requires monitoring forever.
Of course, secondary infrastructure is needed to support the Statesman – the lights, computers and electricity to its office; the paper required to print the paychecks of its employees; the heating for the payroll office; the metal required for the gas piping and so on ad infinitum, in an endless chain of regression that touches every sector of the economy, preventing even eco-conscious people like myself from separating the “good” products from the “bad.”
Consider also that this is only one of the many products that you use daily, and that 280 million Americas are consuming fiber, electricity, oil, calories, metals, water, land and disposal space at nearly this clip, and the impact is staggering.
Several ecologists have estimated that sustaining the present world population (not including the 3-5 billion yet to come) at American levels of consumption would require three Earths. Unfortunately, spare/replacement planets are the one thing not on sale at Wal-Mart.
I won’t ask you here to go live in a cave, but take a nanosecond of your time to find the blue bins marked “recycle.” By re-feeding our used products into the resource flow, we can reduce the demand for these raw materials, rather than sending them to the landfill and crying to our politicians that more lands must be opened to exploitation.
Just as you would avoid littering, flatulence or other antisocial behavior in a crowded room, so too must we avoid being nuisances to our neighbors and our descendants in an increasingly crowded planet.
Do your part. Put your aluminum cans, plastic containers and paper in the appropriate receptacle. Sort them correctly – don’t contaminate a container with the wrong materials. Remove the lids as necessary.
USU currently has a dismal recycling rate, and that reflects poorly upon us. In a world where 800 million people struggle to meet basic nutritional needs and 1.3 billion people live on less than $1 per day, it’s not much to ask. Ignorance, wastefulness and gluttony should not be status symbols.
Jim Steitz is a guest commentator. Comments may be e-mailed to sl8mh@cc.usu.edu.