when you recycle paper mother nature kills a kitten

leila hamaya wrote:i've also ranted this rant before.

the real issue with paper is that IT SHOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN made of trees to begin with. wood is just a bad choice for paper making.
stopping paper making from other fibers and from easily grown and harvested plants was, IMHO, a big mistake. so we should again start making our paper from the traditional fibers, its also better quality paper which doesnt require chemicals to produce, easily grown and harvested annually, and leave the trees alone.
/quote]

like WEED!!!


(sorry for the enthusiasm folks - I've been saving that one up for a while and been putting in my due diligence plugging the stinging nettle which is also awesome but not quite as good in this case)

I could go around pointing fingers at DOW and slagging William Randolf Hearst for the monopolist he was, or decrying the white man who landed on these shores and eventually spawned me via my Tuscarora (hemp gather) ancestors.

I could even point out that the backbone of our countries economy as run by the most influential people in our nations history (*cough* Jefferson *cough*) for centuries was based on timber and hemp. The truth is out there and pretty clear cut.

Speaking of... We have paper birch plantations around here too - and I agree with Burra - densely planted monoculture messes.

I agree with pretty much everything I've seen thus far. The key is to use less, re-use more, and question why we need the supply in the first place.

Burra Maluca wrote:We have 'paper-plantations' all around us.

Wonderful places. Full of trees. Not much else apart from trees. Nice highly-flammable trees.

And no nasty wildlife to clutter the place up.

Or kittens...

leila hamaya wrote:yes, cannabis makes a good paper fiber, and the excess waste stalks and other parts of the plants not used for medicine can be used. the paper produced from the waste of cannabis production is equal in quality to hemp paper. we could be making paper from this waste, but currently it is often discarded, burnt or composted.

HOWEVER, it does take almost twice the energy and time to make paper from hemp/cannabis rather than other fibers, though the finished product is stronger and more durable, a better quality, than most other plant fiber paper.

there have been literally hundreds, if not thousands, of different plant fibers used for paper making in different regions. i personally like to talk about
both FLAX, a highly useful and easy to grow plant with multiple other uses (seed, oil, fabric) and kenaf. kenaf is considered by many alternative fiber paper makers to be one of the best alternatives. though it is limited in where it likes to grow, but there are many different plants that are acclimated to different regions and climates.

Dale Hodgins wrote:
Are those eucalyptus trees? Not only do they provide little for wildlife, they suck up all of the ground water. People in India have rioted over plantations that provide nothing for them to gather.

Landon Sunrich wrote:
Little known fact, with enough fasting, sweating, and self flagellation you can totally get high on stinging nettle

Landon Sunrich wrote:


I've done a pretty good amount of reading on papyrus as well. Papyrus is bitchin'.

Little known fact, with enough fasting, sweating, and self flagellation you can totally get high on stinging nettle

Thekla McDaniels wrote:But what does all this have to do with KITTENS?

I think of it as a depot for exchange.

Gilbert Fritz wrote:

I think of it as a depot for exchange.

We really need LOTS of depots for exchange. Craigslist helps, but it is too scattered and too hard to keep track of. What we need are scavenging groups who can even out all the flows and needs in a given area, where people can just take all their "junk" and "recycling" to be up cycled and put back to use.

Sharon Hilchie wrote:Just wanted to chime in and say the kitten thing is just an old meme.  "Every time you x, y kills a kitten" is the "proper" form.  where x and y are replaced with what you're talking about.

Just a figure of speech to say something is bad.  

Language is always evolving, this particular phrase is >10 years old now, most popular amongst techie Americans in their thirties, I'd say.

Gilbert Fritz wrote:Recycling is so yesterday. UP cycle! Up cycle! UP CYCLE Forever!

Actually, don't use it in the first place . . .

Seriously, though, from what I've read, most recycling of anything is a scam. Hauling all that junk to a central location, sorting it, processing it, etc. is very un-permacultural. Metals might be the only materials that make sense. Scrap iron can be tossed right back into a blast furnace, offsetting some of the iron ore, and come right back as Iron again. Copper and Aluminum tend to cost enough to make it worth while, and cost can be a daily good indicator of energy usage.

But recycling paper, plastic, and glass makes no sense on any level. So we should reduce our use, then figure out how to up cycle or reuse things. How about a local dairy that reused bottles again? Or a local ketchup factory? Or apple juice plant?

Besides, I can't get enough quart plastic containers for seed starting and dozens of other uses. Don't get me started on 5 gallon plastic buckets! They can literally be life to people in the third world, and we put stacks of food grade ones in the trash . . .

Tyler Ludens wrote:I think books may be one of the most permanent forms of paper.  I have some which are over 100 years old. Very stable.  Walls lined with bookcases full of books may be effective insulation.

I agree.  
I suspect that a physical book, a good quality one, is far less damaging to the environment than an e-text.

Gilbert Fritz wrote:

But low quality books are just a waste of paper; they fall apart in a few years and don't have the proper structure to be rebound.

...how many ounces of fuel it takes to bring a pound of vegetables from California by truck or train. It takes much more fuel per pound for me to take them into town in my pickup truck.