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Date: Thu, 9 Oct 97 13:48 WET DST From: FRIEDMAN.FRED@EPAMAIL.EPA.GOV (Fred Friedman) Subject: Re: Recycling/rainforests (Christine Floyd)
October 9,1997
Dear Christine Floyd,
Recycling of paper and of plastics have 2 different kinds of indirect impacts on rainforests, though it may be a stretch to get younger schoolchildren to see the proper relationship. Recycled paper in theory reduces the need to harvest trees for paper, the equivalency being 1 ton of recycled paper produces the equivalent in paper raw materiel as 17 trees do. Now, rainforest trees are not harvested to make paper with. For the most part, they are cut to open new land for other uses, or for higher end raw material uses such as high grade furniture making, musical instrument making, etc. The argument for recycling impacting tree harvesting has to do with younger growth, and tree farm harvesting. Trees draw CO2 from the
atmosphere, becoming a sink (a holding technology ) for CO2. CO2 is a greenhouse gas, one of those responsible for global climate change. There has to be some equilibrium of sinks for greenhouse gasses to remain at a certain threshold. If you aren't recycling plaper, you are theoretically using more virgin sources for paper, which on top of cutting in rainforests, leads to a more rapid rate of global warming, due to more CO2 trapping UV radiation from the sun in the biosphere.
With plastics manufacture from virgin polymers, you have another source of ozone-depleting substances being released needlessly. The manufacture of e.g. polyvinyl chloride and nylon emits ozone-depleting substances, while recycling of PVC and nylon emits substantially less of these substances.
The only direct impacts that I know of have to do with pallet manufacture, but there isn't any recycling that is going to offset this. In Asia and in South America, rainforest wood is used to make pallets for shipping materials - which is totally ridiculous in the first world, but wholly choiceless in the 3rd. There are companies in the US today which recycle that high grade rainforest pallet wood into furniture. Recycling, however, is not going to offset this, unless you ship low grade pallets constantly down to Asia and South America to be used instead of rainforest wood. But, this is probably not possible.
No, rainforests are protected when the socioeconomic level of the lives of 3rd world people are improved, not when 1st world schoolchildren recycle.
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