I certainly enjoyed hearing the other side of the question.

http://www.weyerhaeuser.com/Sustainability/CurrentIssues/BorealForest

“After producing wood products for more than a century, 91 percent of Canadian land that was originally forested continues to support a growing forest.”
“We hold licenses to roughly 15.2 million acres (6.2 million hectares) of forestland in the Canadian boreal forest, as of Dec. 31, 2008.”

“Our 2008 harvest in the boreal forest was 0.4 percent of the forest area we manage.”
a harvest that is four thenths of a percent of managed forests seems like they dont use much overall forest land at all.

For examples:

“it is usually not clear whether secondary manufacturing such as recycling produces less pollution per ton of material processed than primary manufacturing processes.”

then she says:

“Manufacturing paper, glass, and plastic from recycled materials uses appreciably more energy and water, and produces as much or more air pollution, as manufacturing from raw materials does. Resources are not saved and the environment is not protected.”

Can we get a reference, please? I am sure many enviros would claim different and provide some statistics to back it up.

Another example:

“Landfills are no longer a threat to the environment or public health. State-of-the-art landfills, with redundant clay, plastic liners, and leachate collection systems, have now replaced all of our previously unsafe dumps.”

Really? They are all completely safe? No state of the art liners have ever cracked or leaked? Never? And we are sure they never will? Sounds pretty pollyannaish. Please provide a reference from a garbage scientist.

Also, in terms of mercury in CFLs she fails to mention that coal burning electric plants put out lots of mercury. Advocates of CFLs claim that the amount of mercury in the bulb is significantly less that the amount not put out by the energy saved over its use.

I suspect there is truth in this article, but I don’t believe everything I read because the author happens to understand the economics of inflation.

Recycling is the last option on the list.

is there a significant difference in the Hg in a flourscent tube, tech that has been around since the late 60′s or so, and the compact fl’s?? have the millions of 16″ to 72″ and ge circulons tubes been carefully hauled away for decades? if so, one would think that a flourescent light removal apparatus would already be in place?

“After producing wood products for more than a century, 91 percent of Canadian land that was originally forested continues to support a growing forest.”
“We hold licenses to roughly 15.2 million acres (6.2 million hectares) of forestland in the Canadian boreal forest, as of Dec. 31, 2008.”

“Our 2008 harvest in the boreal forest was 0.4 percent of the forest area we manage.”

if the above linked info is true….it would seem that the timber resources arent in any delpetion danger on the NA continent. if the wood/pulp recycling is truly less resource intensive than taking new trees from a small portion of forestland the great…but if the tree resources are managed as stated above then resource depletion doesnt seem to be an issue.

Creativity has nothing to do with it. Some people wouldn’t bother trying. It is easier to just dump it. And yes, possibly on someone else’s property (when they aren’t looking).

This is a ridiculous assertion. Dumping your trash on somebody else’s property means carrying your trash to that party’s property, which means expending time and effort.

Where I used to live (Monterrey, Mexico), horse-driven carts (called “Carretoneros”) would come and pick up your trash for a price. They came 2-3 times per week. The county sent their trucks only ONCE per week, sometimes every 10 days. If you did not want to accumulate your trash in your front porch, you simply paid the “Carretonero” to take your trash. That was in MY neighborhood. Other counties actually forbade the “Carretoneros” from picking up the trash, leaving many people with no other recourse but to accumulate trash in their front porch.

So don’t say people are not smart enough to come up with solutions. The impediment is always the State.

Great link to Penn & Teller. Thanks!

“Creativity has nothing to do with it. Some people wouldn’t bother trying. It is easier to just dump it. And yes, possibly on someone else’s property (when they aren’t looking).”

Maybe. But as Wayne mentioned, this would violate private property rights. In addition, just “dumping it” requires more work (loading/unloading the rubbish) than paying a private company do pick it up and take it away; thus, very few people would just dump trash any place they desire.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1444391672891013193&hl=en#

Now, if only we could do that with every service…

Do you disbelieve there are areas of the country where people pay for private garbage collection? Well there are, and I for one don’t dump my garbage on my neighbors lot, I pay a private company to come once a week to take it away.

You know what? People dumping on private property are breaking the law, and can be prosecuted as such (at least for trespass).

The problem with statists is they thing no one would follow the rules unless the guys with guns forced them to. Funny thing is, people don’t always follow the rules even when the guys with guns are forcing them to! It’d probably be the same people breaking the laws of common sense if the state didn’t have legislation forcing a course of action.

There is a guy who comes into my business’ parking lot and throws a couple bags of what look like household garbage into the dumpster, then leaves. He doesn’t even work in this building! He’d rather steal garbage services than throw his garbage on someone else’s lawn. Seems like he’s ok with the opportunity cost of the extra work vs paying a residential service.

I know you wouldn’t see wide spread garbage issues if people were left to their own devices to hire a company becuase it happens now in suburbs and rural areas. What you would see is a more efficient, private system where competition would drive prices down and services up. Instead we get a poorly designed, inefficient government organ with low customer satisfaction, paid for with our ever increasing tax dollars.

Thanks nanny state but I Can clean up after myself.

“And yes, possibly on someone else’s property (when they aren’t looking).”

This is exactly what’s going to happen as an unintended consequence of the anti-trash laws in California and San Francisco.

Instead of getting into the trouble of sorting their trash, they will just dump it in the streets and on public land and the government is going to end up with a very dirty state and dirty cities.

Lookup Naples trash crisis on google to understand what’s awaiting San Francisco.

Concerning CFL’s and their disposal problems, here’s what I suggest.

When your mandated CFL bulb fails, crush it into pieces and put it in a box and mail it to your favorite congressman.

After all, they forced us to buy unwanted bulbs, so they should be forced to pick up the trash.

Yeah, because only the government can provide that service, since, as any intelligent statist knows, people are not creative enough to provide that service in the private sector.

Creativity has nothing to do with it. Some people wouldn’t bother trying. It is easier to just dump it. And yes, possibly on someone else’s property (when they aren’t looking).