Sustainable Paper Products

Do you think about paper? 

We are all familiar with recycling. Cardboard, newspaper, office paper, telephone directories, magazines, and scraps from paper manufacturing can be remade into new paper. One advantage of using this recycled paper is that less paper ends up in landfills. The US Environmental Protection Agency reports that 28% of landfill content is paper.

A bag of paper awaiting recycling

Recently, I did some research for a resort. They wanted to know whether the paper products that they had been using could be more sustainable. Here is some of what I learned.

There are two processes for making paper products that are considered sustainable. These are paper recycling, and making paper from tree plantations using rapidly renewable virgin fiber. Both of these processes are recognized for LEED* certification, receiving equal point values. There are variances in the two processes, with each having different effects on the environment.

The use of plantations is an idea that took me by surprise. Can you guess what this means: Rapidly Renewable Virgin Fiber? if you guessed trees, you are right. The trees are used to make toilet paper, tissues, and paper towels for use in resort and hotel settings. Trees grown on these plantations are fast growing types such as poplar which produce harvestable materials on a six to eight year cycle. This helps to save our native and old-growth forests, keeping more carbon absorbing trees in our precious forests.

It's great to know that resorts are choosing between sustainable paper options. Now, if I could just get them to put solar panels on the roofs... -G.H.

*Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design- a program that documents sustainable practices for businesses and residences committed to protecting the environment.

Imagining a Sustainable Lifestyle

John Lennon wondered if we could imagine not having possessions, existing simply as a brotherhood of humankind. This isn't a hope for a utopian future. Rather, it’s been done before. It’s in our history; the fabric of our genetic make-up.

Life as it was.

Early humans were hunters and gatherers. One can suppose that this lifestyle consisted of self sufficiency and oneness with nature. Theory has it that individual tribes were communities in which the needs of all members were attended to. When the hunters and gatherers returned with edibles, the tribe shared. There was no one percent and no ninety-nine percent. Everything was for the tribe, the one hundred percent.

What we gather from knowledge of American Indian, African tribes, and other primitive cultures is that our ancestors had a physical and spiritual relationship with the earth. A successful hunt resulted in celebratory rituals. Art and music were born of this harmony between man and nature. These people took from the earth what was needed and returned what what was not, making a cycle of events that was infinitely sustainable.

And then came the industrial age.

Industrialization changed everything. Industries became a driving force, resulting in urbanization, specialization, militarization, and accumulation of wealth for the individual. The earth became a source of raw materials to feed industry. Great tracts of land are laid waste in the process.

And now the resources are becoming more and more scarce. Although we may not immediately realize it, this is showing up in the headlines in today's news stories. Oil wells dug deep in the oceans, tar sands being mined, natural gas extraction by fracking, entire mountains removed to find coal. The problems resulting from these are reported; oil spills, ground water contamination, local reports of cancers, loss of landscape, loss of useable land, earthquakes. Not to mention climate change.

And here we are.

Our homesteading lifestyle, and that of a growing number of kindred spirits, is our small effort in helping to reverse a disastrous trend toward oblivion. We are doing what we can, like not accumulating things we don’t need, saving energy, using local sources such as obtaining eggs, meat, and produce from local farms. More about this in an earlier post: click here. We share vegetables from our garden with friends and co-workers, make an effort to be involved with the local community, and are involved with a local land trust in their efforts to preserve natural habitat.

When the age of industrialization wears itself out, a simpler, more natural kind of lifestyle will be called for. We feel that we are going in this direction, taking a step back to our origins that actually feels like a step forward. We are closer to the natural give and take of nature; it’s a simpler lifestyle and seems far away from that of accumulating and possessing things.

There are things that each and every one of us can do.

We can grow our own vegetables in back yards, pots on porches, or in community gardens, take a re-usable shopping bag to the market, tote a metal water bottle, use local recycling facilities, and so much more. And, as we redefine our own lives, we can remember to be involved in meaningful ways in our local communities. We are on this planet together. And yes, John Lennon, we can IMAGINE the world as a better place. And we can do more than imagine, we can live simply and sustainably now. -G.H., edited by jmm

Recycle, Re-Use, and Reduce: Doing our Part for the Environment

We recently posted an article about our town transfer station. We are fortunate to have an active recycling center that is a huge benfit to the community. 

This article is about some of our own practices. We have been reducing our use of energy and plastics, finding new uses for things we no longer use, and recycling everything we possibly can. Here are some of the ways. 

Reducing energy usage

Our most significant reduction in energy usage is the car. Needing a new one a few years ago we bought a Prius even though it's price was a bit more than other economy cars. Our gas usage is now a third of what it used to be- a big savings especially with the price of gas having gone up. In summer our gas mileage is 60-62 miles per gallon, and in winter it is around 50. Getting this kind of mileage does require making slight changes in driving habits. There are techniques to driving a battery car that we have also applied to driving the pick-up truck to save gas with that also. We've even figured out how to get it to climb our hiilside driveway on the battery- using no gas at all.

Another big drain on energy is the now-old-fashioned incandescent light bulb. Compare 26 watts to get 100 watts-worth of light. Marsha prefers the compact florescents for doing needlework and installed them throughout the house when it was built 11 years ago. That’s nearly a 75-per cent savings on lighting.

How, if, and when we use household appliances has been thoroughly scrutinized. Among other appliances, the clothes dryer is an energy monster. So, we use the solar dryer as much as possible (that's a clothesline if you haven't guessed). This eliminates bleaching since the sun does the work of disinfecting. If you want your clothes to come out fluffy, dry them in a light breeze. There is no substitute for the fresh scent of air-dried clothes, towels, and sheets. 

Plugging our electronics into surge protectors with on/off switches is another, altho smaller way (hey, it all adds up) to save on the electric bill. TV, DVD player, stereo, and computers are all completely turned off when not being used. If you see little lights glowing they are not off, and are still using electricity. Even the cell phone charger uses phantom electricity and is unplugged when the phone is not charging. 

Kitchen appliances that have a non-electric alternative have been ousted. Out went the food processor in favor of a chef's knife. It's amazing what a simple knife can do- from mincing to chopping to slicing in the same time it takes to haul out and set up an appliance. It takes less space to store a knife and is much easier to clean.

Out went the electric pasta maker in favor of a hand crank machine that makes wonderful raviolis, noodles and spaghetti. There is real satisfaction in creating something by hand instead of letting a machine do it for you. And again, there is little if any time savings with the electric alternative.  

There is a list of appliances that we don’t have and don’t need: electric can opener, electric knife, juicer, bread machine, yoghurt maker, waffle iron, etc. We don't miss 'em.

Practicing plastic, can and paper avoidance

We eat virtually no processed food and use very few things that come in plastic or cans. Even buying organic foods from far away places requires fuel to get them here. As much as possible we subscribe to the hundred mile diet, eating food grown in our own garden or bought from local sources. Grass fed beef, raw milk and raw milk butter come from a local organic farmer. Eggs are bought locally. We've started a new tradition of going up the road to a u-pick for strawberries (click here for the whole story on that). 

We use cloth napkins when we have dinner guests, and grab a kitchen towel for the purpose when it's just us. No need to buy the plastic wrapped paper variety. We have no paper towel dispenser since there is no roll of paper towels to put into it. Anything we could use a paper towel for can be done with a rag, cotton towel, or a sponge. We like trees of the alive-and-growing variety, so it makes more sense to us to use a quicker growing resource like cotton. 

Before we ditched the automatic coffee maker we used permanent filters that could be washed instead of the paper ones. Now we brew coffee the old fashioned way on the stove in an enamel pot. (You just cannot make “cowboy coffee” in a drip pot). 

Our vacuum cleaner does not use throw-away bags to collect the dust. It has a removeable canister that we empty into the garden where the dust becomes mulch.

Our favorite local restaurant, Krista's up the road in Cornish, uses compostable pressed-paper containers for take out or left overs. A little research found that these containers were first made a few towns over in Westbrook, Maine. If your favorite restaurant doesn't do so, ask them to use compostable packaging. Why put good food into styrofoam? 

It's a little bit of a challenge to replace plastics with other forms of food storage. We've gotten rid of plastic storage containers by re-purposing glass jars. For freezing we bought a selection of glass containers that have plastic lids. These are great because we can bake with them also.  Zip lock bags however, still have us in a quandary. 

Getting the most out of food and fabric and other stuff

Composting fruit and vegetable scraps from outside organic sources brings new energy into the garden. Composting scraps from our own harvests completes a circle- from seed to plant to food with scraps going back into the earth as food for new seeds. Composting is essential to organic gardening because of this cycle of events. And it makes the yard and garden faeries happy. And the gnomes, too. 

Stalks from broccoli and cauliflower, ends of onions, and trimmings from many veggies are collected in the freezer (make this appliance pay for itself!) until there are enough to cook into a really hearty soup stock. Same thing goes for meat bones, but we don’t compost the bones- this would attract every wild predator for miles around.

It makes good cents to us to buy clothing made of natural fibers. Old towels, sheets, tee shirts, jeans, socks, etc. have a second life after we've worn or used the heck out of them. They are used for cleaning, washing windows, and as painting rags. And sheets make great drop cloths. Used natural fiber fabrics not needed for rags are cut up into pieces and used as mulch in the pathways of the garden.

Giving away excess garden produce and still-good clothing is a great way to move things along and we've done this many times. We call it “feng shui.” If you don't need it, someone else might. We've donated many items to the town dump's "Take it Shoppe," books to the library for their annual book sale, plants to local fundraiser plant sales, and so on. There are plenty of opportunities to be useful to the community while at the same time downsizing our stash of stuff.

Buying selectively

We don't buy what we don't need and don't go shopping if we don't need something. But when we do buy stuff, it seems that some things are way over-packaged, and we always think about where the packaging might end up. Packaging is a monster blight on the landscape. Bottle deposits in Maine do a great job of keeping our roadsides looking nice. We wish New Hampshire would do the same! 

We try to do our part to keep Mother Earth happy with our sojourn on her planet.  Please share your ways of reducing consumption, reusing materials and recycling. -G.H. 

Recycling in Limerick, Maine

This week a piece of mail arrived addressed to "Postal Patron." Normally, our being addressed as "postal patron" wouldn't appeal to us and the offending piece would quickly end up in the recycling bin. But not this time. The return address said, "Limerick Transfer Station & Recycling Facility, so we were intrigued enough to remove the staple from the folded sheets. 

Our dump is a one-stop facility for a lotta stuff. And I do mean Stuff. Besides the regular household recycling, there are sections for construction waste, appliances, used-up furniture, grass clippings and leaves (they compost this for residents to take home for their gardens) and rechargeable batteries and compact florescent lightbulbs. And, there's "The Take-It Shoppe." We love this- although we mostly drop things off (yeah, that funky plaid shirt that never got worn, and the funny-scented candle that wasn't allowed into the house), but we also found some nice glass vases that we used for the Francis Small flower arrangements. The shoppe serves a genuine purpose. 

One of the arrangements

We are very fortunate that our town dump has single sort recycling. No need to load half a dozen barrels into the pick-up truck for glass, cans, cardboard, paper, and plastic. Just one is all it takes, and unloading it is a quick tip of the barrel. Not that we have a lot of garbage- we don't and more about that later.

Anyway, the whole point of it is this. According to the “Postal Patron” letter, the recycling facility saved this little town $45,000 in 2010. Over 1000 tons of materials were recycled. Separating demolition debris saved tipping fees. The single sort recycling, started 2 years ago, resulted in 118 tons of voluntarily recycled materials. The Take It Shoppe reduces the quantity of materials that would otherwise be added to landfills. Thirty-eight tons of leaf and yard waste didn't go to the landfill. Without recycling, Limerick residents would have to deal with the cost of disposing of 275 additional tons of waste per year.

Now, that is respectable. The savings goes straight to our property tax bottom line. Our town's population has increased 29% in 10 years (including myself) and the fees for handling the town's waste have gone up. In spite of this, the cost of Limerick's trash removal for 2010 was $30,000 less than it cost in 2004.  Wow. 

Recycling is alive and well here in Limerick. Our Transfer Station motto is "Reduce, Reuse and Recycle". Since that fits right into our own homestead lifestyle, we'll soon be posting our own experience of reducing our consumption of energy and waste, reusing what we can and recycling what we don't reuse. -G.H.