Reading List
In an effort to help improve our planet through education, we have set aside this area of our website to post articles on our planet. We hope that you find these postings informative. Please stop back often as we will update this area as we come across new information.
The New York Times
OP-ED COLUMNIST
Trucks, Trains and Trees
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: November 11, 2009
Without a new system for economic development in the timber-rich tropics, the only Amazon your grandchildren will ever know ends in dot-com and sells books. To read further click HERE
The New York Times
BY DEGREES
In Brazil, Paying Farmers to Let the Trees Stand
By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL
Published: August 22, 2009
In an effort to prevent farmers from cutting down rain forest, environmental groups are offering money. To read further click HERE
Time.com
Are the Earth’s Oceans Hitting Their Carbon Cap?
By BRYAN WALSH
Published: Thursday November 19, 2009
Like the vast forests of the world, which continually suck carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and release oxygen, the planet’s oceans serve…. To read further click HERE
TheTyee.ca
Online Blog
Wood War Sprawls to IRS, Fortune 500
Published March 17 2010
By Monte Paulsen
“SFI Inc. is a fully independent, charitable organization dedicated to promoting sustainable forest management.” So says the Sustainable Forestry Initiative’s web site. And so says the U.S. Internal Revenue Service.
To read further click HERE
TheTyee.ca
Online Blog
LEED Accused of ‘Conspiracy to Monopolize
By Verle Sutton
Published March 18, 2010
The Forest Stewardship Council calls its forestry rules the “gold” standard, and its allies have accused the rival Sustainable Forestry Initiative of promoting “vague” rules that wind up certifying “status quo” forestry.
To read further click HERE
Paper and Other Absolute Truths
Online Blog
Forest Certification: FSC vs SFI
By Monte Paulsen
March 24 2010
The long standing feud between ForestEthics (FSC certification) and SFI has reached another level recently. ForestEthics is, as reported in Wood Wars Sprawls to IRS, Fortune 500, challenging SFIs charitable status. This short article is good update. To read further click HERE
The Democratic Republic of Congo
Online Blog
by Anup Shah
August 21, 2010
There have been a number of complex reasons, including conflicts over basic resources such as water, access and control over rich minerals and other resources as well as various political agendas.
This has been fueled and supported by various national and international corporations and other regimes which have an interest in the outcome of the conflict.To read further click HERE
Keep Recycled Paper Here at Home
Finch in the Forest Blog
With Roger Dziengeleski
July 19th, 2011
Americans are doing an increasingly good job of recovering waste paper for recycling. We’re now recovering approximately 64% of all paper, compared to just 26% of glass, and only 7% of plastic, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
This successful paper recovery effort achieves the primary environmental benefit of recycling — conserving landfill space.
There’s just one big problem.
As United Steelworkers Union International Vice president Jon Geenen pointed out in a recent issue of Pulp & Paper International magazine: 61% of the paper recovered in the U.S. in April was exported, which means:
We’re taking nearly two-thirds of the paper that we so conscientiously keep out of our garbage bags and sending it overseas (think of the energy use) to be processed into recycled paper products that are, in many instances, shipped back here (more energy) to compete with American-made papers.To read further click HERE
Taxes are taking a Toll on Forests
Finch in the Forest Blog
With Roger Dziengeleski
August 9th, 2011
The majority of the private forestland in the United States today is owned by family ownerships that are having an increasingly difficult time affording their land — and that’s something we all should be concerned about.
These are the forests that pull greenhouse gases from our air, filter our water, offer homes for wildlife, and provide us with scenic beauty, recreational opportunities and the wood for essential products.
When forest owners can no longer afford the costs of ownership, they often have no choice but to sell — to people who can make a return on their investment by clearing and converting the land for residential or commercial development.
In 2005, a U.S. Forest Service study found that the privately owned “forests that provide about 90% of timber harvested in the U.S., nearly 30% of all freshwater, and the key to conservation of many fish and wildlife species are increasingly likely to experience housing development.”
“Every day,” the Forest Service says, “America loses more than 4,000 acres of open space to development; that’s more than 3 acres per minute, and the rate of conversion is getting faster all the time.” To read further click HERE
Deinking
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Deinking is the industrial process of removing printing ink from paper fibers of recycled paper to make deinked pulp.
The key in the deinking process is the ability to detach ink from the fibers. This is achieved by a combination of mechanical action and chemical means. In Europe the most common process is froth flotation deinking.
Paper is one of the main targets for recycling. A concern about recycling wood pulp paper is that the fibers are degraded with each cycle and after being recycled 4-6 times the fibers become too short and weak to be useful in making paper.[1] To read further click HERE
Down to Earth Series
Get the facts about paper, printing and the environment.
DOWN TO EARTH
INTERNATIONAL PAPER
International paper launched an environmental series in 2008 called Down to EarthTM that has received outstanding responses. With Down to Earth, we hope to clear up some of the myths and misconceptions about our industry and dispel these myths with thought provoking educational pieces that help our collective customers and others better understanding complex environmental topics.
Series 1: Where does your paper come from?
There is much confusion and misinformation surrounding sustainability and paper’s role in ensuring a sustainable future. To help printers, end-users and our merchants, we have created the “Down To Earth” educational series. A 3 piece series which provides a practical look at environmental issues and trends.
The first installment: “Where does your paper come from”? encourages the reader to question the source of the fiber used in their paper. It stresses the importance of effective forest management and explains what certification is and how multiple certifications lead to improved availability and cost control.
Series 2: Is recycled paper the best you can do?
This second installment in the “Down To Earth” educational series focuses on the topic of recycled vs. virgin fiber and poses the question –>
Advocates finding a balance as it relates to virgin and recycled content. Nothing that more recycled content isn’t always best. Highlighting these 2 types of fiber are complementary and that various factors should be considered:
. Costs
. Downcycling vs. upcycling
. Global considerations.
To read further click here HERE
Issue: Why Is Tree Farming Important For America And America’s Forests?
In the U.S, private forest ownership represents almost 60 percent of all forestland. Maintaining these forests for such uses as tree farms provides advantages for the environment, local communities and private landowners, while easing pressure on public lands that may be better suited to conservation and/or recreation.
The Dilemmas Faced By Private Landowners
There are more than 11 million individual owners of private forests in the U.S. Over 90 percent of wood harvested to make the paper and wood products we use everyday comes from these private landowners. These private landowners provide an important raw material – wood – for the forest products industry. They also provide critical ecological and social benefits. But land ownership isn’t free, and without a positive economic balance, many owners unfortunately decide to sell land for development.
To read further click HERE
Issue:Is Recycled Paper The best We can do?
USE Virgin Fiber For Your High-Quality Paper
HOW CONCERNED should you be about the amount of post-consumer waste in your paper? That depends on the kind of paper you’re using. Recovered fiber is best used in “dark” papers. In a process called down-cycling, recovered fibers from recycled office paper or high-end printing paper are used in papers designed for less demanding applications, such as manila folders or cardboard.
Down-cycling is the most efficient form of recycling.
On the other hand, when the recovered content is used for a white, bright sheet, we call that up-cycling. Up-cycling demands extra chemicals and resources to de-ink and make recovered fibers white again.
For these reasons, virgin fiber makes more sense for bright white papers,
Another concern is quality. Each time fibers are recovered and recycled, they become shorter and more brittle. As a result, too much recovered fiber can compromise a paper’s performance and strength. This is why high-end printing papers may contain small amounts of post-consumer waste, or may not contain any at all. Not to worry. Virgin paper can be down-cycled multiple times to become packaging, newsprint and other paper products.
To read further click HERE
Consumer survey Results Reveal Direct Mail Still Prefered
December 1, 2011
DALLAS- Dec, 1, 2011- Epsilon Targeting, a leading provider of consumer information for targeted marketing solutions, released the “2011 Channel Preference Study,” which shows that direct mail continues to deliver as consumers’ preferred means of receiving marketing messages even through the economic turmoil, technology advances and channel proliferation.
The 2011 research shows that despite direct mail’s reputation for being “old school” or expensive, it is the top choice of U.S, and Canadian consumers for the receipt of brand communications in almost every category, ranging from health to household products, to household services, insurance and financial services, including credit cards offers. The preference for direct mail also extends to the 18-34 year old demographic.
Key findings from the study include:
• 36 percent of U.S. consumers and 40 percent of Canadians said direct mail is the
preferred channel to receive financial services information;
• 26 percent of U.S. consumers and 30 percent of Canadians said direct mail is more
trustworthy than e-mail;
• 50 percent of U.S. consumers and 48 percent of Canadians said they pay more
attention to postal mail than e-mail;
• 60 percent of U.S. consumers and 64 percent of Canadians said they enjoy checking
the mailbox for postal mail, highlighting an emotional connection;
• 30 percent of U.S. consumers said they’re receiving more mail that interests them
compared to a year ago, and just 50 percent (down from 63 percent in 2010) said
more information is sent to them in the mail—indicating marketers are improving
targeting efforts; and
• the perception that reading e-mail is faster declined among U.S. e-mail account
holders to 45 percent in 2011 (from 47 percent in 2010), suggesting clogged in-boxes
are draining time.
To read further click HERE
War of words between Greenpeace, Asia Pulp & Paper over deforestation allegations:
Rhett Butler, mongabay.com
November 16, 2011
Greenpeace and Asia Pulp & paper(APP), a giant global paper supplier, are locked in a heated battle over the activist group’s allegations that APP products contain fiber sourced from the destruction of forests in Indonesia. At stake is APP’s access to some of the world’s most lucrative markets.
After losing several high profile customers in recent months due to the Greenpeace campaign, APP earlier this month fired back at Greenpeace in a press release that accused the activist group of making “false allegations.”
The APP press release asserts that “claims by Greenpeace International that two Asia Pulp & Paper products were ‘proven’ to contain ‘Indonesian rain forest fiber’ have no scientific basis, it has been confirm.”
APP claimed that a letter issued by Integrated Paper Service (IPS), the company that provided the testing services Greenpeace used to demonstrate the existence of mixed tropical hardwood (MTH) fiber – typically sourced from natural forests – in APP products, disproved Greenpeace’s claims. To read further click HERE
11 Facts About E-Waste:
1. The nation now dumps between 300 million and 400 million electric items per year, and less than 20% of that e-waste is recycled.
2. E-waste represents 2% of America’s trash in landfills, but it equals 70% of overall
toxic waste. The extreme amount of lead in electronics alone causes damage in
the central and peripheral nervous systems, the blood and the kidneys.
3. Because computer processing power doubles roughly every two years, many old
computers are being abandoned. Only 15% recycle their computers, which means
the other 85% end up in landfills.
4. It’s energy efficient to rebuild old computers, but only about 2% of PCs ever find their way to a second user.
5. About 50 millions cell phones are replaced worldwide a month, and only 10% are
recycled. If we recycled just a million cell phones, it would reduce greenhouse gas
emissions equal to taking 1,368 cars off the road for a year.
6. Flat panel computer monitors and notebooks often contain small amounts of mercury
in the bulbs used to light them.
To read further click HERE
A Crumpling Paper Industry
Once-mighty Oregon industry losing to mills overseas
BY STEVE LAW
The Portland Tribune, Mar 31, 2011, Update Mar 31, 2011
Far West operates three of the Portland area’s six materials recovery facilities, which sort and resell recyclables collected by garbage haulers from businesses and residents’ curbs.
Portland has three paper mills within 70 miles that use locally collected paper, Murray says, before correcting himself to say two – now that Blue Heron has closed.
Now the lion’s share of recycled newspaper collected in the Portland area goes to SP Newsprint in Newberg and Norpac Resources Inc. in Longviews, Wash., he says.
Far West is locally owned, and its philosophy is to sell its recycled paper first to regional mills, Murray says. Long-standing business arrangements with the ,ills help assure a steady supply of paper to them, he says, and provide some assurances that locally collected paper will be used domestically.
“There’s a different ethic” here, he says.
But even the massive amount of paper recycled in the Portland area is not enough to feed area mills, which must collect paper from several surrounding states.
To read further click HERE
Freedom on paper
Published on Wednesday, August 22, 2012 | Written by Steve Law
Ten men clad in pink T-shirt and rubbery sandals sit around sit around an oblong table, a torrent of words flowing from their pens onto pads of paper.
Inspired by a series of photos displayed by volunteer Graham Murtaugh, the men waste little time, with no sign of fidgeting, clock-watching or writers`block.
“I ask you to come but you never will,” writes Clifford Jackson, looking at a photo of a cat. “I wonder where you will go.”
“The sun is getting as low as my eyelids…the edge of the road came up to meet me,” pens another man, triggered by an image of a pickup truck.
Their focus, and respectful reactions to written words of their peers, would delight a college writing instructor. But these are no ordinary students. They are inmates at Multnomah Country’s Inverness Jail, in week seven of a 10-week class offered by nonprofit Write Around Portland.
Sometimes Murtaugh, the class facilitator, gives the men five minutes to write, using magazine cutouts and photos as prompts. Sometimes he gives them only 30 seconds, such as an exercise requiring them to lead with “In the blink of an eye.”
To read more click HERE
