A few years back a Professor at a well known UK university and expert in
this area questioned recycling news print, suggested possibly it was not a
good idea, postulating instead that re-using  might be better. 

He said his preliminary sums suggested that the net energy gain of burning
the paper as fuel outweighed the actual cost of recycling and the CO2
emissions were less overall also. 
He arrived at this rather seemingly counter-intuitive conclusion by taking a
rather more holistic approach than the normal simplistic "Greenpeace" one.
Starting in the managed forests, through to the  waste skip at the local
Supermarket etc and on. Added in the normally uncounted costs of individual
voluntary trips  to collection points and so on. Also the fact that in a
managed forest felled trees are replaced whereas nothing replaces the fossil
fuel which would other wise be used and so on. 
His hypothesis was effectively: burning specially planted forest trees and
replacing them might reduce CO2 emissions and energy consumption overall
compared to burning fossil fuel to recycle paper.
Likely we'll never know as no actual discussion ensued. He was shouted down
like some old time heretic. How could burning paper be better than
re-cycling, that is wrong, even if he is right people must learn to recycle
so he is wrong was the flavour. 
All that happened in other word was to prove that belief is stronger than
reason.

HAGWE 

Mike 





-----Original Message-----
From: Leadfree [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Brian Ellis
Sent: Friday, April 01, 2005 9:22 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [LF] Mandated recycling of electronics - a lose-lose-lose
proposition


Please read carefully what I say about Waste in Switzerland at
http://www.cypenv.org/Files/waste.htm

If the commune have their costs reimbursed by the waste processors, this
must mean it is profitable, doesn't it? It may be that, in Europe, there
is so much waste processed that the economy of scale makes it
profitable, whereas in the US, you say you don't recycle much paper
(actually, I find it hard to believe that Kraft paper, cartons and the
like are all made from virgin material, what a waste!). In Europe, many
books are printed on recycled paper, even high-class art books. This may
be only partially economically motivated, as the price difference is
relatively small in the total cost of publishing, but more a desire to
be environmentally correct.

As for growing wood for paper-making, of course newsprint is largely
virgin paper, but that is the cheapest paper there is. But the energy
costs of cutting and transport it are a high proportion of the overall.
This energy is mostly from petroleum products (chain sawa, log handlers,
trucks, etc.). In Europe, this comes mostly from Nordic countries. I can
imagine that, as the price of crude oil rises to vertiginous heights in
the next few years, even newsprint will cost more than recycled paper.

Brian

Charles Dolci wrote:
> Brian, et al.
>
> I am waiting for the article to download so I can read it, so while I am
> waiting for that I thought I would throw in my $.02 worth.
>
> I don't know about Europe, but in the US virtually all paper comes from
> plantation trees that are grown and harvested just for paper production.
> It is a crop, just like wheat or corn.
>
> Here in my quaint little community we are required by city ordinance to
> recycle all houdehold paper, glass, plastic and metal waste. I was
> recently at a Home & Garden show in SFo and the theme of the show was
> recycling (i.e. how to use recycled materials in the home and garden). I
> noticed that the recycled products were a lot more expensive than the
> "natural" materials for which they were supposed to be substitutes.
> This is interesting in that we pay the city to pick-up the
> recycleables. So if  I have to subsidize the raw materials and still pay
> more for a product containing recylced materials where is the economic
> viability of that?
>
> Just a thought.
>
> Chuck Dolci
>
> Brian Ellis wrote:
>
>> As you know, Gordon, I am very much pro-recycling, ....
>
>
>>
>> In fact, much recycling is already done and is economically viable.
>>
>> As for the paper you cite, a 10-year old kid could drive a horse and
>> cart through a lot of what is said. For example, it cites Germany's
>> green dot system and its cost. But it does not offset this against the
>> need to not to produce virgin materials. Paper and plastics recycling,
>> which is what it applies to, IS economically viable and the recycled
>> materials cost about 90% of virgin materials for paper and cardboard and
>> 80% for plastics (and reduces oil-dependence). It quotes electronics as
>> being flame-retarded with deca-bde, when tetrabromobisphenol A is used
>> for FR-4 AND polycarbonate housings. There is another point that should
>> be considered and that is that WEEE is European and Europe has far less
>> available space for landfills, so it is not possible to extrapolate
>> conditions to countries like the USA.
>>
>>
>>
>> Brian
>>
>> Davy, Gordon wrote:
>>
>
>
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
---Leadfee
> Mail List provided as a service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8d
> To unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in
> the BODY (NOT the subject field): SIGNOFF Leadfree
> To temporarily stop/(start) delivery of Leadree for vacation breaks
> send: SET Leadfree NOMAIL/(MAIL)
> Search previous postings at: http://listserv.ipc.org/archives
> Please visit IPC web site
> http://www.ipc.org/contentpage.asp?Pageid=4.3.16 for additional
> information, or contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or 847-615-7100
> ext.2815
>
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
---
>
>

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
---Leadfee Mail List provided as a service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8d
To unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in
the BODY (NOT the subject field): SIGNOFF Leadfree
To temporarily stop/(start) delivery of Leadree for vacation breaks send:
SET Leadfree NOMAIL/(MAIL)
Search previous postings at: http://listserv.ipc.org/archives
Please visit IPC web site http://www.ipc.org/contentpage.asp?Pageid=4.3.16
for additional information, or contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or
847-615-7100 ext.2815
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
---


:::::::::::::::::::::::::::

This email, its content and any files transmitted with it are intended solely for the addressee(s) and may be legally privileged and/or confidential. If you are not the intended recipient please delete and contact the sender by return and delete the material from any computer. Any review, retransmission, dissemination or other use of, or taking of any action in reliance upon, this information by persons or entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited.

Messages sent via this medium may be subject to delays, non-delivery and unauthorized alteration. This email has been prepared using information believed by the author to be reliable and accurate, but Indium Corporation makes no warranty as to accuracy or completeness. In particular, Indium Corporation does not accept responsibility for changes made to this email after it was sent. Any opinions or recommendations expressed herein are solely those of the author. They may be subject to change without notice.

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------Leadfee Mail List provided as a service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8d
To unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in
the BODY (NOT the subject field): SIGNOFF Leadfree
To temporarily stop/(start) delivery of Leadree for vacation breaks send: SET Leadfree NOMAIL/(MAIL)
Search previous postings at: http://listserv.ipc.org/archives
Please visit IPC web site http://www.ipc.org/contentpage.asp?Pageid=4.3.16 for additional information, or contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or 847-615-7100 ext.2815
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------