Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

One wasteful practice I hate is the packaging of small items in large bubble 
packs or cardboard backs with plastic domes over the item.  I know they are 
packaged this way to help prevent theft, but sometimes I would like to see 
items sold without packaging at all.  No recycling, no waste...but probably 
more theft.

Barbara

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David LeBlanc" <dleblanc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <rides2far@xxxxxxxx>; <ridecamp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, July 19, 2008 1:18 PM
Subject: RE: [RC] Conserving paper


> Angie said:
>
> > "...a National Wildlife Federation study shows that recycling one hundred
> tons of newspaper produces forty tons of toxic sludge. Thirteen of the 50
> worst Superfund hazardous waste dumps were once recycling facilities" 
> (also
> Taylor of the Cato Institute)
>
> So we're getting 60 tons of something useful when we would have had 100 
> tons
> of toxic (remember what I said about the ink?) landfill waste. Seems like 
> we
> ought to be able to do better than that, but I see an improvement by 60
> tons. What this also leaves out completely is how much waste you get out 
> of
> creating that 100 tons of paper in the first place, and that creates quite 
> a
> lot of sludge, dioxin, and so on. I don't have the data, but I'd expect 
> it's
> as much or more than the recycling.
>
> The water treatment effects of paper creation is mostly what makes the 
> paper
> vs. plastic grocery bag debate come out pretty close to a draw.
>
> Many of the really, really bad superfund sites were around recycling
> lead-acid batteries. My father told me about a dead _swamp_ he visited in
> Florida that had this problem. Lead and sulfuric acid are nasty things.
>
> My last bout of grad school was environmental engineering - people who do
> that don't tend to be the Greenpeace tree-hugger sorts, but we do get 
> taught
> how to properly treat emissions from places like paper mills, as that's
> often where the jobs are.
>
> Figuring out how to deal with all of the waste we emit is a big problem, 
> and
> just about anything you can name that we use is a disposal problem.
>
>
> =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
>
> Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net.
> Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/Ridecamp
> Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/logon.asp
>
> Ride Long and Ride Safe!!
>
> =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=


=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net.
Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/Ridecamp
Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/logon.asp

Ride Long and Ride Safe!!

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=