What if recycling/eliminating the need for paper resulted in less trees?

[seeker5]

The maintenance of forest is a well research science. Nowadays, papermill companies grow trees in a scientific manner to provide paper. When a tree is taken down to provide paper, it is replaced by another trees. For example, I hear the statistic that in the U.S land area, the area covered by forest is greater now then it was several hundred years ago. I assume that is due to tree farming, although I'm not sure.

What if the increase of paper recycling and eliminating paper products under the label "save the tree" ends up doing just the reverse? Without a need for farming the trees, then the economical need for putting aside land for trees may go away. The land owners, may clear out the forest and trees and turn it to some other use to make up the loss of revenue that results from the decline in demand for paper. This would be similiar to the way that replacing horses by cars led to a dramatic decline of horse population in the U.S.

For sure, eliminating the use of paper, and recycling paper has other benefit, such as conservation of energy, and eliminating waste that results in landfills. However, on the other hand, reducing the economical need for trees and forest to provide paper will have a negative effect on the oxygen generation of our atmosphere.

So, what do you guys think - is this what would happen? Would increasing the efficiency of our paper recycling, or reducing the need for paper lead to a decline in the surface areas of forest and decline in the number of trees in the U.S. and the world?

[StacyT]

This is interesting to me - because trees are a renewable resource.

On a related note, I also often wonder if the actual recycling process is worse for the planet than just cutting down a tree to make paper?

[Gabo]

Originally Posted by StacyT

I also often wonder if the actual recycling process is worse for the planet than just cutting down a tree to make paper?

It often is.

Usually when paper is recycled, it has to be bleached in order to remove what was already on the paper. This bleaching process uses factories that create pollution, which is bad for the environment.

As long as paper farming continues to provide a healthy population of trees, recycling paper is a bad idea.

[seeker5]

Originally Posted by Gabo

As long as paper farming continues to provide a healthy population of trees, recycling paper is a bad idea.

That's the interesting thing, how the advertisement for recycling paper says "Save trees, buy recycled!"

[Gabo]

Remember kids: Don't eat apples! Save the apple trees from extinction!

[ar81]

Originally Posted by seeker5

What if the increase of paper recycling and eliminating paper products under the label "save the tree" ends up doing just the reverse? Without a need for farming the trees, then the economical need for putting aside land for trees may go away. The land owners, may clear out the forest and trees and turn it to some other use to make up the loss of revenue that results from the decline in demand for paper. This would be similiar to the way that replacing horses by cars led to a dramatic decline of horse population in the U.S.

BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | Climate shift 'killing US trees'

BBC NEWS | Americas | Amazon 'faces more deadly droughts'

[Brutha]

Remember kids: Don't eat apples! Save the apple trees from extinction!

Or for that matter:
Don't be cruel to animals, don't eat them.

[funchy]

Good theory but there are other reasons why land is planted with trees:

- Watersheds: We now realize we should not be farming or developing sensitive watesheds. Some are also flood plains and would be better off allowed to grow over. Planting trees along side rivers also controls erosion and keeps excess silt out of waterways.

- Some of the land that had been farmed had such poor soil anyway that tilling it was not worth the money. With modern farming we produce many times the amount of food per acre produced 100 or 200 years ago. We don't need it. It's too rocky, steep, poorly situated, or otherwise not useful.

- Development, zoning laws, aesthetics, and farmland/open-space preservation also give reasons for land to be covered in trees. If you shut down a working farm and turn it into a park instead of sell to developers, all those open fields are going to need some shade and landscaping.

- Environmental laws and "green" movement makes planting trees attractive in and of itself. Some companies try to offset their carbon emissions by planting X trees a year. A property owner can sell the timber rights to someone who *won't* cut the trees, as a 'green' preservation or environmentalist gesture.

- Trees are intentionally planted to give us renewable sources of lumber. Even with recycling, you still need to add some virgin pulp. There will always be a need for logging.


Understand also that logging is not why we have national forests. If logging were to stop completely in this country tomorrow, the forests would remain. Does logging really add enough value to offset what it's taking away? Logging roads, for example, disrupt some species normal hunting/wandering or migrating patterns. Logging in some areas may drive some species to extinction. Logging is not "renewable" in the sense the trees they plant replace the 100 years it took for that oak tree to grow to full size. Some areas still allow clear-cut logging which decimates entire forests into muddy empty stump-dumps, killing most all the wildlife in it. Logging closes some parks to visitors and even when the machines are gone, it remains an eyesore, deterring those seeking a naturalist experience. What's worth more: cutting old forests to make paper bags or the experiences hundreds of thousands of visitors get annually when vacationing in Yellowstone National Park?

[seeker5]

Originally Posted by funchy

What's worth more: cutting old forests to make paper bags or the experiences hundreds of thousands of visitors get annually when vacationing in Yellowstone National Park?

I'm not sure it's that cut and dry. Trees cut for making paper bags aren't trees cut from Yellowstone National Park. Those trees, I assume, would be from trees that can grow in tree farms as the tree quality doesn't need to be high, unlike trees cut down to make nice furniture.

[funchy]

Originally Posted by Gabo

It often is.

Usually when paper is recycled, it has to be bleached in order to remove what was already on the paper. This bleaching process uses factories that create pollution, which is bad for the environment.

As long as paper farming continues to provide a healthy population of trees, recycling paper is a bad idea.

I disagree. Both kind of papers use bleaching agents. Paper mills are huge polluters.

Recycled paper means you're not filling up your local landfill with paper pulp. An overfilled landfill is not just an environmental mess, it's expensive. The cost/ton to landfill household waste keeps going up. That cost is going to be passed on to all of us in higher disposal costs.

Recycling paper means you take a waste product and make something useful out of it. Cutting virgin wood means you disrupt an entire ecosystem, making the park into an eyesore for years to come. Freshly logged land is not a pretty sight, even if they do promise to plant seedlings.





What is the environmental cost of logging? Every time you cut part of a forest down, you not only remove the carbon sink, you open up bare disturbed soil to the elements. With the next rain, the clear mountain stream runs brown, choked with mud. Now you have fish kills and damaged drinking or recreation water. You also lose quality of the soil which makes each successive re-planting more difficult.
Erosion - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Realize there are only so many acres of log-able forest in the US. Some of it is Federal lands set aside for parks/recreation. Are you going to kick out the vacationers so you can get cheap wood pulp? Alternatives are to plant over usable farm land, possibly making US-produced food prices rise. Or we can ship in more wood from overseas. In south America, they're burning and clear-cutting most of the rain forest to give countries like ours dirt-cheap lumber and beef.
Deforestation in the Amazon


Articles of interest:
Paper Usage Statistics

Clearcutting and forests management

[Gabo]

Originally Posted by funchy

I disagree. Both kind of papers use bleaching agents. Paper mills are huge polluters.

I had not thought of this. That is a good point.

Either way, recycing paper uses at least as much bleach as making new paper.

Recycled paper means you're not filling up your local landfill with paper pulp. An overfilled landfill is not just an environmental mess, it's expensive. The cost/ton to landfill household waste keeps going up. That cost is going to be passed on to all of us in higher disposal costs.

Paper decomposes fairly quickly. It does not need to go into a landfill with trash. It can become compost.

Cutting virgin wood means you disrupt an entire ecosystem, making the park into an eyesore for years to come.

Most paper is grown on paper farms.
These trees are grown for the specific purpose of becoming paper.

Cutting trees from a farm is no more disrupting to an ecosystem than cutting down corn fields raised for food.

What is the environmental cost of logging? Every time you cut part of a forest down, you not only remove the carbon sink, you open up bare disturbed soil to the elements. With the next rain, the clear mountain stream runs brown, choked with mud. Now you have fish kills and damaged drinking or recreation water. You also lose quality of the soil which makes each successive re-planting more difficult.

The same argument could be made for any farmed plant.
The bottom line is that trees are not disappearing any more than wheat or soy is.

[funchy]

Originally Posted by Gabo

Paper decomposes fairly quickly. It does not need to go into a landfill with trash. It can become compost.

IF it's exposed to ample water and put into a large enough compost pile the pulp breaks down quickly... and IF you have the room for this.... and IF you address the problem of toxins in ink ending up in compost -- then yes, it could in theory be composted.

I use some extra newspaper to line rows between my vegetable plants in my garden. It keeps me from having to use any herbicides. But I am careful to choose only a newspaper with soy-based inks and not use any of the glossy-ink pages. But the labor involved in carefully choosing the kind of paper I use is time consuming. Who does this? And what of the apartment dweller, school, or business which doesn't have a place to do the composting?

Most paper is grown on paper farms.These trees are grown for the specific purpose of becoming paper.

I'm sorry. I still disagree. I see woods and rainforests being reduced to paper pulp or being cleared to create the room the wood plantations require.

And even if they are tree paper farms, every acre wasted created fresh pulp is an acre we can't grow food on or an acre endangered species can't live on.

Cutting trees from a farm is no more disrupting to an ecosystem than cutting down corn fields raised for food.

Corn fields are planted on open land and rotated with other crops, so the land is disturbed 2-4x a year. Soil is tilled or heavily sprayed with each new crop, so there are no burrows, mosses, or tiny plants to house animals. Corn fields are large homogenous barren rows of just corn-corn-corn, no cover or perches for animals. There isn't much of an ecosystem to disrupt.

A grove of trees can take decades to mature. By then you've got everything from rare salamanders to spotted owls to bear habitat in your trees. There is no way to remove those trees without destroying everything living on/in them.

And the bigger picture is that there is only a finite amount of open, usable land. If we recycle, we don't need to add more acres of timber land. If we don't recycle, where does the land come from to grow all the paper we produce?

And by recycling, you don't do the environmental cost of logging, fossil fuels for hauling the logs to a pulp plant, disposing of waste products of logs such as bark, and converting logs into pulp.

The same argument could be made for any farmed plant.
The bottom line is that trees are not disappearing any more than wheat or soy is.

I feel that you're comparing apples and oranges.

"Trees" are any woody plant. "Wheat" is one species of one grain plant. No, "trees" in general, aren't vanishing. But we're replacing the pristine diverse multi-species forest for row after row of specially-bred pine trees. We'll always have some sort of trees, but forests are in danger. I don't want live in a world where all wild species of woody plant become extinct and our "forests" are farmed rows of one species of pine or oak.

I just can't get past the bigger picture: if people want to get rid of a resources and by reusing that resource to make more paper, why not take advantage of it? You're solving two problems at once, plus saving money, and not wasting space in landfills.

Personally given the choice between reusing dead pulp and killing a living forest, I admit a personal bias towards recycling.

Just my 2 cents worth.

[Gabo]

Funchy, I believe we have an underlying disconnect with regard to what we're talking about. When I refer to farming trees, I am talking about land that is already being used to exclusively grow trees for paper.

When you talk about farming trees, it appears you are talking about cutting down areas of forest that have never been disturbed, or haven't been planted for the purpose of becoming paper.

Let me make myself clear: I agree that recycling old paper is much better than cutting down undisturbed forests for new paper.
However, I see nothing wrong with continuing to use paper farms that already grow trees precisely for the purpose of turning them into paper.

With regard to the issue of space and running out of room, I disagree with your statement, at least for the United States. We have a lot of uninhabited, unused land to put to whatever use we desire. As our demand for food grows, we build more crop farms. As our demand for paper grows, we build more tree farms.

With regard to the issue of disturbing the ecosystem that grows on a tree farm while the trees are maturing, I understand your concern. However, that same concern exists with crop farming. A section of homogenous cropland houses various other plants and animals, as does a section of trees. These ecosystems are regularly destroyed as we harvest our food or paper crop, and then regrow between harvests.

Either way, the habitats disturbed when we harvest our farms are not endangered habitats or native habitats.

[Brutha]

With regard to the issue of space and running out of room, I disagree with your statement, at least for the United States. We have a lot of uninhabited, unused land to put to whatever use we desire.

It isn't inhabited by humans but it is inhabited by animals and all sort of rare species.

[funchy]

Originally Posted by Gabo

Let me make myself clear: I agree that recycling old paper is much better than cutting down undisturbed forests for new paper.
However, I see nothing wrong with continuing to use paper farms that already grow trees precisely for the purpose of turning them into paper.

But if the population keeps growing and when we stop recycling, the number of acres of land we need to log goes up ever year. It's impossible to only use 'tree farm' trees.

[rhonda524]

And don't landfills emit methane which is a contributor to global warming? In addition the rainforests are something we need. The oxygen content of our air that we breathe is decreasing.

[Barcs]

Interesting theory, but I disagree with the premace that recycling more is going to reduce trees.

The real solution, however, is not recyling paper, it is eliminating it or replacing it with hemp. We have the technology to do practically everything digitally these days. We are still in a transition from paper to digital, but we will get there if we keep it up. I do all of my banking and everything else online. I opted to receive no statements from any of my banks or credit card companies. Everything should be online these days. Snail mail should eventually be eliminated, with the exception of package delivery. With email, there's no need for paper for anything, except official documents and certificates, which could be done with hemp.