Recycling down across Alberta

[RougeUnderoos]

Originally Posted by Hemi-Cuda

ialso it wasn't just about money, they showed that due to the transportation and energy required to transform used material back into new stuff that recycling is WORSE for the environment. and how about the fact that 40% of all that stuff you recycle just goes into the same landfill as the rest of your garbage?

Okay, are you guys really getting all this stuff from Penn and Teller?

I saw a Carrot Top special the other day, and he told me that recycling my bottles was a good thing. I don't know who to believe.

I find it hard to believe that transforming paper back into paper consumes more energy than transforming a tree ripped out of the middle of the forest into paper. If someone could please explain how that could be, I will be forever grateful.

As for the energy required to ship the material being more than it is for new stuff, well golly, that just doesn't make sense.

I don't know about bottles, but recycling metal (ie cans) was something people did long before 5 cent deposits or David Suzuki. They weren't collecting it to throw 40% of it in the garbage then and I'm pretty sure they aren't now.

[Save Us Sutter]

wow... i totally didn't expect such negativity....

Either I've been brainwashed my whole life, or you guys have. I'm going to try to dig up some info on some of the things you guys are saying and see who's wrong and right. It's a little late tonight, but tomorrow I'll post what I find

[redforever]

Originally Posted by West Karma

Just moved to BC (from Calgary) and I am really seeing a big difference on garbage day. They send 2 trucks out on garbage day. One for garbage, and one for recycle. They will not take grass clippings unless you pay another $1.00 for the bag. It seems to be a good system but the two trucks are twice the fuel, twice the pollution, twice the wage, etc.

Who knows........

Why? If you put it all into one place, instead of two places, you would still need about the same amount of garbage trucks. BC just has 2 different destinations for what they pick up. The garbage does not disappear if you do not recycle part of it, it still has to be picked up and taken somewhere. So if you never recycled some, you would require extra trucks to take away the portion that is now recycled.

[redforever]

Originally Posted by Save Us Sutter

http://www.canada.com/calgaryherald/...15bd3a&k=53284

The percentage of containers returned to bottle depots in Alberta has dropped across the province in the past two years...

Not sure why the decline, though the explanation that labour shortages are causing long wait times seems viable. The other thing I've noticed, is that most of the depots close at 5pm or so... not exactly convenient for a city that seems to like working long hours.

But the real question IMO (and I'm new to this province, so excuse my ignorance) is if the Albertan government wants to increase recycling, why not have curbside pick-up? As I type this, I have about 30 bottles/cans in bags in my storage closet. Not enough to justify racing out to the depot after work to catch it before it closes, but annoying and smelly enough that I don't really want them in my house.

If I were back home, I'd throw them in a bag and out to the curb on garbage day.

Obviously there's a cost associated with this, but the government is already paying us 5 or 10 cents for these items. This way they keep their money and landfills get a much needed break.

In Halifax we also have curbside composting... but one step at a time Calgary... one step at a time.

Thoughts?

This has been on the news quite a bit and also written up in various magazines.

1. When you go to bottle depots you face long line ups and hours might not coincide with when you can go there. I think they too are faced with a crunch to find labor.

2. It was pointed out that the biggest problem is generated by the bottled water drinkers. Quite often, they are doing various activities or in locations that do not have separate bins for recycling. So a lot of the empty water bottle containers are just going in ordinary garbage cans and that waste just ends up in the dump. They estimated in the stories I heard and the articles I read, that 40% of bottled water containers end up in the dump.

[Salt Water Cowboy #10]

Originally Posted by Caged Great

If they didn't replant trees that they used for paper, then they would've run out of trees a long time ago.

IF THEY DIDN'T CUT DOWN THE BIG OL TREE IN THE FIRST PLACE YOU WOULDN'T HAVE TO PLANT TWO NEW SAPLINGS. If we try to re-use/recycle paper, then it might save a couple big ones and the two that got planted originally may be large enough to chop down. I can't believe I'm even saying this. At what piont is cutting down a big tree good for the environment?? wake up

[Burninator]

Originally Posted by Caged Great

If they didn't replant trees that they used for paper, then they would've run out of trees a long time ago.

Yeah we are doing great, and there is more of us than in 1920.

Signed,
The Rain Forest.

[Caged Great]

Originally Posted by Burninator

Yeah we are doing great, and there is more of us than in 1920.

Signed,
The Rain Forest.

I was solely refering to the USA, not the rainforest....

[habernac]

Originally Posted by Caged Great

I was solely refering to the USA, not the rainforest....

you're aware that the US has (a very small portion) of rainforest left, right? The whole Pacific Northwest was rainforest at one point, as is a big portion of the Alaskan coast. But 90% of it has been destroyed by logging.

[Burninator]

So can you guys provide any links to evidence that shows we have more trees? Cause anything I've been looking at is saying the opposite.

[badnarik]

Originally Posted by Burninator

So can you guys provide any links to evidence that shows we have more trees? Cause anything I've been looking at is saying the opposite.

These are from the link i posted earlier. It only applies to the US obviously. http://www.fs.fed.us/research/sustai...bleForests.pdf

"The current forest area in the United States is 749
million acres, or about one-third of the Nation’s land
area. The U.S. forest area was about 1 billion acres at
the time of European settlement."

"For the last 100 years, the total forest area has been
relatively stable, while the U.S. population has more
than doubled."

"With the relatively stable base of
forest land available for timber production or timber
land (indicator 10) and a historic pattern of growth
exceeding removals (indicator 13), the volume of growing
stock in the United States has been rising steadily for
more than 50 years. The current growing stock of 856
billion feet is 39 percent higher than the volume in
1953."

"Growth has exceeded removals on U.S. timber lands
for several decades, while the area of timber land has
remained relatively stable. The result has been a
substantial increase in the volume of growing stock
on U.S. timber lands."

"Increased demands for all goods and services from
forests have been supplied from a forest area that has
not changed (in total area) for about 100 years. The
growth in demand has been met through investments
in the basic forest resource (growing trees); in harvesting
and processing technologies; in capital facilities
(including recreation sites); in recycling; and in
research, development, and technology transfer."

Maybe I overlooked something because I didn't read everything in the report, but in the past 100 years at least it looks like the number of trees has gone up.

[Salt Water Cowboy #10]

^

Aren't they getting lots of timber from Canada? I'd prefer to keep our forests in tact. Have you ever been to the Okanagan or anywhere in BC? Trees are beeing destroyed at an alarming rate by fires, and beetles alone. Notice the clear cuts that have been there for years? Trees may be planted but they aren't growing very quickly. We need to protect the forests, and manage them properly regardless of the costs. Or eventually we'll reach a period where we'll have to wait for trees to grow, only to cut'em down again.

[habernac]

What they neglect to tell you is that all of these new trees are tiny as they were recently planted. It will take 100 years to grow to the maturity that the big ones were at when they were clear cut.

[badnarik]

well when they talk about removal and growth i believe they are talking about cubic feet not number of trees. i'm not against recycling as that is one of the reasons the number is positive, even though most trees aren't harvested for paper.

[burn_baby_burn]

Originally Posted by Save Us Sutter

I also don't see how they can plant two trees for everyone they cut down. Are they doubling their area every year? And that's not even getting into the fact that these new trees being planted take years to reach the same level as the one cut down, nor the fact that when they do reach this level they are just getting cut down again to make more paper. Or is that justified because they'll plant four more trees to replace those?

They are not doubling the area every year. The trees that are cut down are fully mature. They replant saplings. In a certain amount of time (not sure about the maturity rate of trees) they will come and selectively harvest half of those trees that were planted. This thins out the tree stand and allows the trees that are left the space to reach full maturity. Then those trees are logged and the process starts all over again.

[Hemi-Cuda]

Originally Posted by Salt Water Cowboy #10

IF THEY DIDN'T CUT DOWN THE BIG OL TREE IN THE FIRST PLACE YOU WOULDN'T HAVE TO PLANT TWO NEW SAPLINGS. If we try to re-use/recycle paper, then it might save a couple big ones and the two that got planted originally may be large enough to chop down. I can't believe I'm even saying this. At what piont is cutting down a big tree good for the environment?? wake up

clear cutting has actually been shown to be quite good for the environment. cutting down the old and dry timber prevents forest fires, and having a large clearcut area gives a buffer zone and stops the fires that do start from spreading

face it, humans have nothing on mother nature, and the amount of trees that we harvest pales in comparison to those lost by natural occurences (ala fire)

[Save Us Sutter]

Originally Posted by burn_baby_burn

They are not doubling the area every year. The trees that are cut down are fully mature. They replant saplings. In a certain amount of time (not sure about the maturity rate of trees) they will come and selectively harvest half of those trees that were planted. This thins out the tree stand and allows the trees that are left the space to reach full maturity. Then those trees are logged and the process starts all over again.

Obviously, I wasn't seriously asking this question. I understand the process. I also understand that a fully mature forest makes a great habitat for lots of plants and wildlife, as well as a great place to camp on the long weekend. A field full of puny saplings...? Not so much.

So far no one has commented on the article I posted about the real financial benefits of recycling. Not just paper, but EVERYTHING. All I have seen is a bunch of outlandish claims (clear cutting is good for the environment) and an article that, from what I can tell, says that the US isn't cutting down any new forests, but managing to get by using the land they have already marked. While this sounds good, I would imagine that they also import a lot of lumber from other countries.

I would love someone to read the article I posted about Nova Scotia's policies and comment on that.

[habernac]

Originally Posted by Hemi-Cuda

clear cutting has actually been shown to be quite good for the environment. cutting down the old and dry timber prevents forest fires, and having a large clearcut area gives a buffer zone and stops the fires that do start from spreading

face it, humans have nothing on mother nature, and the amount of trees that we harvest pales in comparison to those lost by natural occurences (ala fire)

and it's really great when there's nothing to hold the water back and we have massive erosion which drags crap into streams, rivers, destroys the watershed...... There is nothing good about clear cutting.

[badnarik]

Originally Posted by Save Us Sutter

I would love someone to read the article I posted about Nova Scotia's policies and comment on that.

I wish it would show exactly how they came up with the numbers. They say that less greenhouse emissions save them anywhere from 3 million to 80 million dollars, and air pollutants save anywhere from 9 million to 67 million. What I'm really interested in is how they determine the energy savings from recycling.

And then they don't compare the potential benefit numbers to the actual current cost, but instead compare it to the cost before they implemented the new system.

Nova Scotia is definitely ambitious, which is great. I would like to see the numbers in the next report.