Warning! Don't eat while reading this!
This week's Hard-to-Recycle item is one of the most difficult materials to recycle by the sheer nature of its use and our consumption of it, but it's cost to the environment is one of the highest out there, and therefore makes it deserving of discussion. Toilet paper, tissues, moist toilettes, napkins, diapers and tampons can all be lumped into a category I will call sanitary paper/fiber. With a pun about how it's literally a pain in the ass to recycle out of the way, (everyone say poop!) I will try to address the most eco-friendly choices you can make regarding these products. By NO means should any of these used products be put in the recycling! Some things were meant to be disposed of. I can't tell you how many diapers come out on the sorting lines every day. Hopefully, the offending young parents of Boulder County will read this post and this particular contamination problem will be allayed, but doubts remain.
Toilet paper can be traced back to ancient times, mainly from quotes about the Far East (leave it to the Chinese to invent all the necessary things in life), but its modern commercial use and production only goes back as far as the late 19th century. Benjamin Franklin and the rest of the founding fathers must have been struggling; you would think the developer of electricity and libraries would have thought of a clever way to clean his arse. Conversely, bidets were around as early as 1700, but only for royalty or noble usage (I feel like I should put quotes around noble usage), and for some reason never caught on in America, unfortunately (yes, I am a fan). History majors would have a unique and fascinating thesis in studying bathroom habits for the last few hundred years, but I digress.
The convenience of disposability and the fact that soiled sanitary paper can't really be reused makes it near impossible to recycle. The eco rule holds that one should use cloth napkins instead of paper ones, handkerchiefs instead of Kleenex, and even cloth diapers if possible. Cloth toilet paper (and tampons) would just be disgusting unless one washed them right after use, but this extra water usage would negate the positive impact you'd be having on the environment for using the cloth in the first place. Still, one can decrease the pain inflicted on forests by buying and using less sanitary paper in general. The rule (from Elaine on Seinfeld) is three good sheets, and when I say good, I mean the multi-layered kush stuff not the sandpaper single-layer stuff (please ask Matthew Sanchez for his opinion on cheap toilet paper which he turned into a song accompanied by Davey Rogner on guitar). I would also argue that the multi-layered toilet paper is not only more comfortable but more eco-friendly than the cheaper, single layered rolls (lord knows I've bought my share of .99 cent 4-packs) because you use less sheets as the multi-layered absorbs more. All college students should take this into consideration.
I haven't really counted this past year, or any year for that matter, but each American uses about 24 rolls of toilet paper annually on average, which leads to an astounding sum of 26 billion toilet rolls consumed as a nation, yielding $2.4-5.7 billion each year (Wikipedia). That's a lot of money, and that's a lot of trees, seven million to be exact. Luckily, a growing number of those toilet paper rolls are being manufactured using post-consumer fiber, or in layman's terms, recycled paper. Look for labels that may include the recycling loop, or say somewhere the product is made using post-consumer fiber. Abbreviations such as PCF or TCF mean the paper is totally/partially chlorine-free, chlorinated paper being another leachate problem that affects septic tanks and landfills once the soiled paper in question reaches there. If you need further help, all those street canvassers from Greenpeace asking for your donations and signatures were able to pull together this guide to sustainable tissue paper purchasing. Greenpeace was also able to take a break from aggravating whale hunters and launched a successful campaign against Kimberly-Clarke, one of the largest tissue paper corporations in the world and the maker of Kleenex, that effectively compels the company to stop using trees from Canada's ancient Boreal forests, the world's largest terrestial storehouse of natural carbon and a sacred habitat for caribou and migratory birds, as well as a commitment not to use virgin fiber wherever possible. Greenpeace kept up extraordinary pressure on the company throughout the 5-year campaign and was able to move from conflict to agreement. This is the type of pressure needed to persuade unruly companies employing harmful environmental practices for profit. Next up is Georgia-Pacific, but the Boreal forests of Ontario are still in danger from other lumber practices.
One brilliant but expensive idea that's highly unlikely to catch on is a machine that converts office paper into toilet paper all at the office! For $95,000, a Japanese company will send you a ginormous machine that will convert 16 pounds of 8x11" printer paper into two rolls of toilet paper. If that last sentence didn't describe enough logistical problems with the machine, then imagine having to wait two hours for the whole process to complete itself when you're trying to answer nature's call.
So remember, when you're wiping up whatever bodily fluid, secretion or excretion that decides to make a journey from one of your orifices, try to use cloth/fabric instead of paper wherever possible. As Douglas Adams writes in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, "the towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have." If necessity requires that you use paper, use as little as possible; or in other words take what you want, but use (efficiently and effectively) all that you take. The plus side of sanitary paper is that it will decompose, eventually, somewhere far from home, and so should not pose a waste stream problem unless wrongfully disposed of in the recycling (in which case I've trained a pack of wolves that will track the scent of you and your baby's waste back to you for an unpleasant reckoning). However, the threat to forests like the Boreal and Central American rain forests by using virgin fiber is real. Look for the paper brands that have post-consumer content in them, or buy the toilet paper converter machine, but never, ever, buy that cheap sandpaper substance. The eradication of single layer toilet paper must be a goal for all of us, as should changing the financial incentive to use virgin materials by buying recycled products.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
MLK Day of Service
Recycling program kicks off at Casa de la Esperanza on Day of Service
By Magdalena Wegrzyn
© 2010 Longmont Times-Call
LONGMONT — Jose Jimenez, 11, held up a dirty diaper with one glove-encased hand.
“I’m brave,” he called out as the other volunteers at Monday’s clean up of Casa de la Esperanza inched away from the offending piece of garbage.
Jimenez grimaced and gingerly threw the bundle into an outstretched trash bag.
At the end of the day, 16 trash bags of assorted litter — including plenty of diapers that had just missed the Dumpster — were collected by children in Casa de la Esperanza’s resident services program.
The cleanup was part of a new campaign sponsored by Eco-Cycle and the city’s public works department to encourage recycling at apartments. During the next 10 months, Eco-Cycle will provide residents at 10 apartment complexes in Longmont education and resources to recycle.
The first site was Casa de la Esperanza, a 32-unit community that houses migrant farm workers and their families. The rest of the sites have not yet been determined.
Eco-Cycle launched the campaign Monday to coincide with the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, which Congress designated a National Day of Service in 1994. It was also a day off for students in the St. Vrain Valley School District.
As part of the program, volunteers helped sort the collected litter into recycled items and trash. The children also painted blue single-steam recycling bins, which will be distributed to each family.
Javier Gonzalez, 9, painted “Recycling Only” on his bin in olive green paint. The third-grader at Indian Peaks Elementary said his teachers have taught him about the importance of recycling.
“Trash makes landfills, which sometimes produce the greenhouse effect,” he said, never taking his eyes off his bin.
Western Disposal will provide four bins for recycling alongside the Dumpsters at Casa de la Esperanza. Eco-Cycle will monitor both the trash and recycling bins for two months to see if the approach is working, said Cynthia Ashley, community campaign manager for Eco-Cycle.
“Our goal is to have as much in the recycling bins as in the garbage,” she said.
Apartment recycling can be difficult because property management companies don’t always provide residents with accessible resources, Ashley said. And even if they do, education is essential.
“It’s very hard to get residents to do it without education, and that doesn’t happen just by sticking a sign on a bin,” she said.
Casa de la Esperanza, which is owned and operated by the Boulder County Housing Authority, supplied recycling bins for residents years ago, said program coordinator Carlota Loya-Hernandez. But the recycling program was canceled because it wasn’t working, she said.
“The education component was missing,” she said.
Children of residents are now “immersed in recycling” at school and bring that knowledge home to parents, she said.
“We are definitely ready for it,” she said. “It’s something that has been missing for a while.”
By Magdalena Wegrzyn
© 2010 Longmont Times-Call
LONGMONT — Jose Jimenez, 11, held up a dirty diaper with one glove-encased hand.
“I’m brave,” he called out as the other volunteers at Monday’s clean up of Casa de la Esperanza inched away from the offending piece of garbage.
Jimenez grimaced and gingerly threw the bundle into an outstretched trash bag.
At the end of the day, 16 trash bags of assorted litter — including plenty of diapers that had just missed the Dumpster — were collected by children in Casa de la Esperanza’s resident services program.
The cleanup was part of a new campaign sponsored by Eco-Cycle and the city’s public works department to encourage recycling at apartments. During the next 10 months, Eco-Cycle will provide residents at 10 apartment complexes in Longmont education and resources to recycle.
The first site was Casa de la Esperanza, a 32-unit community that houses migrant farm workers and their families. The rest of the sites have not yet been determined.
Eco-Cycle launched the campaign Monday to coincide with the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, which Congress designated a National Day of Service in 1994. It was also a day off for students in the St. Vrain Valley School District.
As part of the program, volunteers helped sort the collected litter into recycled items and trash. The children also painted blue single-steam recycling bins, which will be distributed to each family.
Javier Gonzalez, 9, painted “Recycling Only” on his bin in olive green paint. The third-grader at Indian Peaks Elementary said his teachers have taught him about the importance of recycling.
“Trash makes landfills, which sometimes produce the greenhouse effect,” he said, never taking his eyes off his bin.
Western Disposal will provide four bins for recycling alongside the Dumpsters at Casa de la Esperanza. Eco-Cycle will monitor both the trash and recycling bins for two months to see if the approach is working, said Cynthia Ashley, community campaign manager for Eco-Cycle.
“Our goal is to have as much in the recycling bins as in the garbage,” she said.
Apartment recycling can be difficult because property management companies don’t always provide residents with accessible resources, Ashley said. And even if they do, education is essential.
“It’s very hard to get residents to do it without education, and that doesn’t happen just by sticking a sign on a bin,” she said.
Casa de la Esperanza, which is owned and operated by the Boulder County Housing Authority, supplied recycling bins for residents years ago, said program coordinator Carlota Loya-Hernandez. But the recycling program was canceled because it wasn’t working, she said.
“The education component was missing,” she said.
Children of residents are now “immersed in recycling” at school and bring that knowledge home to parents, she said.
“We are definitely ready for it,” she said. “It’s something that has been missing for a while.”
Role Models - No Agent for Agent Zero
With all the hoopla over Wizard's star Gilbert Arenas, I figured it was time to take a break from recycling matters and weigh in with my own thoughts regarding Secret Agent Zero. The conflict over bringing unloaded firearms into the team's locker room, and using them as a prank against teammate Javaris Crittenton, and then going so far as to present a gunslinger pose in the pregame huddle for cameras in Philadelphia following the incident, is naturally, a serious violation of league rules, not to mention a breach of standard conduct for normal human beings. What made the superstar athlete commit such hasty, ill-advised "jokes" can be found in the impulsive, answer-to-no-one, goofball nature that is Gilbert Arenas. The fact that Agent Zero has no agent, no publicist, no one telling him what to do but himself, is probably the uttermost reason for why he went through with the act, and all the other obscure dramas that have dotted his career.
While substitute teaching a couple years ago, I couldn't help but feel hometown pride when I saw all the youts sporting Arenas jerseys. At the time, it seemed like Washington had a bright future ahead of them, but now it looks like the purchase of a Jamison or Butler jersey (yeah Sanchez) would have been more prudent. It disheartens me to think how those students are making sense of this situation now (as we all are), but those who worry about all the kids who looked up to Gil as a role model should sit back and contemplate the fact that Gil himself seemingly has no role models. His mother was a drug addict that left him and his father, Gil Sr., at a young age. While Senior-Junior nomenclature is usually a sign of strong family ties and affection, it can often leave the younger individual with a sense of abjection and a desire to be different. A "no heroes," "look what I can do" sentimentality seems to course through Gil's veins, a similar vein of thought attributed to feisty teenagers who make rash decisions, perhaps highlighting his appeal to youngsters and noncomformist ballers like myself. It's not quite immaturity, but rather a Clint Richie "everybody needs a gimmick" mixed with a Deshawn Stevenson/Magic Man "now you see me, now you don't" mentality. Combine this history and personality traits with the calculating will and talent to succeed at the game of basketball and you get Agent Zero.
There's no doubt in my mind that Arenas was, is, and will still be an amazing basketball player, despite this season's mishaps. I'd pick him up on my squad any day, and if the NBA/Wizards don't forgive him in time, then Europe will pay him to play. This is why this whole fiasco is so bittersweet; another Washington sports star taken down in his prime. And this time, it is all his fault, but this infraction is so minor compared to other crimes in the world. People seemed to forgive Dick Cheney for actually shooting somebody. Police get acquitted every year for shooting young black men in the back of the head. The NRA is a cherished American institution (I guess basketball players don't have the right to bear arms). Referees regularly gamble on NBA games, making calls that change the course of the game, yet only one has eve received punishment while the practice is still running rampant. People seem to forget Gil's appearances at street ball games in underserved neighborhoods across the area, his monetary donations to local schools in the 06-07 season, as well as his mentoring of a ten year-old D.C. orphan. It is in these acts that Arenas' redemption lies, not in the bragging rights of Hibachi and Agent Zero.
Unloaded gun pranks are forgivable in my book and the suspension at most should have been 10 games. The fact that this man spent the last two seasons benched with a horrendous knee injury/surgeries makes the cause for forgiveness and reconciliation even more arguable. I've run the whole gambit of the stages of grief for this episode: anger (at the league), denial (nothing's going to happen), bargaining (if he sits out, other Wizards will step up) depression (the Wizards are utterly hopeless), and hopefully this note will lead to acceptance, but at this point, the NBA is not very fun to watch anymore. Our sports teams could be a whole lot worse, but this does not comfort fans of such a fluke professional sports scene. Thank God for the Caps. Thank God for college basketball, although even colleges are seeing gun charges with the recent Tennessee scandal. Is stability and success such a hard thing to grasp for a city that transitions and leads so well?
While substitute teaching a couple years ago, I couldn't help but feel hometown pride when I saw all the youts sporting Arenas jerseys. At the time, it seemed like Washington had a bright future ahead of them, but now it looks like the purchase of a Jamison or Butler jersey (yeah Sanchez) would have been more prudent. It disheartens me to think how those students are making sense of this situation now (as we all are), but those who worry about all the kids who looked up to Gil as a role model should sit back and contemplate the fact that Gil himself seemingly has no role models. His mother was a drug addict that left him and his father, Gil Sr., at a young age. While Senior-Junior nomenclature is usually a sign of strong family ties and affection, it can often leave the younger individual with a sense of abjection and a desire to be different. A "no heroes," "look what I can do" sentimentality seems to course through Gil's veins, a similar vein of thought attributed to feisty teenagers who make rash decisions, perhaps highlighting his appeal to youngsters and noncomformist ballers like myself. It's not quite immaturity, but rather a Clint Richie "everybody needs a gimmick" mixed with a Deshawn Stevenson/Magic Man "now you see me, now you don't" mentality. Combine this history and personality traits with the calculating will and talent to succeed at the game of basketball and you get Agent Zero.
There's no doubt in my mind that Arenas was, is, and will still be an amazing basketball player, despite this season's mishaps. I'd pick him up on my squad any day, and if the NBA/Wizards don't forgive him in time, then Europe will pay him to play. This is why this whole fiasco is so bittersweet; another Washington sports star taken down in his prime. And this time, it is all his fault, but this infraction is so minor compared to other crimes in the world. People seemed to forgive Dick Cheney for actually shooting somebody. Police get acquitted every year for shooting young black men in the back of the head. The NRA is a cherished American institution (I guess basketball players don't have the right to bear arms). Referees regularly gamble on NBA games, making calls that change the course of the game, yet only one has eve received punishment while the practice is still running rampant. People seem to forget Gil's appearances at street ball games in underserved neighborhoods across the area, his monetary donations to local schools in the 06-07 season, as well as his mentoring of a ten year-old D.C. orphan. It is in these acts that Arenas' redemption lies, not in the bragging rights of Hibachi and Agent Zero.
Unloaded gun pranks are forgivable in my book and the suspension at most should have been 10 games. The fact that this man spent the last two seasons benched with a horrendous knee injury/surgeries makes the cause for forgiveness and reconciliation even more arguable. I've run the whole gambit of the stages of grief for this episode: anger (at the league), denial (nothing's going to happen), bargaining (if he sits out, other Wizards will step up) depression (the Wizards are utterly hopeless), and hopefully this note will lead to acceptance, but at this point, the NBA is not very fun to watch anymore. Our sports teams could be a whole lot worse, but this does not comfort fans of such a fluke professional sports scene. Thank God for the Caps. Thank God for college basketball, although even colleges are seeing gun charges with the recent Tennessee scandal. Is stability and success such a hard thing to grasp for a city that transitions and leads so well?
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