Recyled Paper PDF



  • I am doing some research for a master's class I am taking and I was looking at a PDF of a GAO report.  When scanning over it I noticed on the bottom:

    "PRINTED ON <Recycle Symbol /> RECYCLED PAPER"

    So apparently if I decide to print out the report the paper I print it on will magically become recycled paper.  Admittedly it is a minor wtf, but it is the government so I have to poke them.



  • Where are you from? Maybe all paper in your country is recycled by law.


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

     It used to be a piece of printer paper, and now it's a report!

    Magic!



  • @frits said:

    Where are you from? Maybe all paper in your country is recycled by law.

    Presumably the US since he mentioned the GAO.



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    @frits said:

    Where are you from? Maybe all paper in your country is recycled by law.

    Presumably the US since he mentioned the GAO.

    In that case, it's future-proofing.



  • I've had printed reports that look like they were dumped straight from a website - plenty of qualifying text is underlined at various places for no apparent reason, and a paragraph or two tell me to click here for more details.

    On dead tree.

    Yup.

    (I once got my cat to click at it, and suddenly! Nothing happened. But it happened rather suddenly, mind you.)



  • Well duh, you need to use a mouse, not a cat.



  • I've seen the same on reports from UK government agencies.



  • @pjt33 said:

    I've seen the same on reports from UK government agencies.
     

    .. which is where they originated, coincidently...


  • Garbage Person

    @Anketam said:

    I am doing some research for a master's class I am taking and I was looking at a PDF of a GAO report.  When scanning over it I noticed on the bottom:

    "PRINTED ON <Recycle Symbol /> RECYCLED PAPER"

    So apparently if I decide to print out the report the paper I print it on will magically become recycled paper.  Admittedly it is a minor wtf, but it is the government so I have to poke them.

    I work for a gigantonormous commercial print company that does this sort of work. It is 100% common practice for the recycled paper logo or whatever to go on the digital print, not on the paper stock (and even when it doesn't, when we're building stuff for digital distribution or proofing, an image of the paper stock will be underlaid with the actual digital printing.

    The real joke here is how rarely that stuff actually ends up printed on recycled paper.



  • @Weng said:

    I work for a gigantonormous commercial print company that does this sort of work. It is 100% common practice for the recycled paper logo or whatever to go on the digital print, not on the paper stock (and even when it doesn't, when we're building stuff for digital distribution or proofing, an image of the paper stock will be underlaid with the actual digital printing.

    The real joke here is how rarely that stuff actually ends up printed on recycled paper.

    Who gives a shit? Paper pulp's all farmed, and recycling paper takes the exact same amount (or more) of nasty chemicals as using freshly farmed pulp. Paper companies haven't contributed to deforestation since freakin' 1980. Yeah, even when Captain Planet was on the air it was full of shit.

    Recycling paper is fucking pointless. Using recycled paper is fucking pointless. Why do we live in a society where it's so hard for people to understand basic facts? (The only show I've ever seen cover this was Penn and Teller's Bullshit, and they don't have nearly a wide-enough viewership to get the message out.)



  • inb4CFLlightbulbs



  • @blakeyrat said:

    Who gives a shit? Paper pulp's all farmed, and recycling paper takes the exact same amount (or more) of nasty chemicals as using freshly farmed pulp.

    Lies!!! Everybody knows paper is made from old-growth forests and that EVIL LOGGING COMPANIES have to massacre the forest kittens to get at it.

    You also failed to mention my favorite part: since paper is farmed, using more recycled paper reduces the demand for new pulp. Thus, recycling paper reduces the number of trees in the world. Love trees? Don't recycle.



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    [quote user="blakeyrat"

    You also failed to mention my favorite part: since paper is farmed, using more recycled paper reduces the demand for new pulp. Thus, recycling paper reduces the number of trees in the world. Love trees? Don't recycle.

     

    I would assume this is a joke if it didn't just fit perfectly into today's society and business world. I have the idea that when I perform some research I am going to feel the need to severely kick the gullibility out of myself...



  • Penn and Teller on recycling. They come to the same conclusion as everybody else: recycling is completely pointless, except metals. It might make you feel "warm and fuzzy", but it makes no sense economically or environmentally. Except metals.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @blakeyrat said:

    Penn and Teller on recycling. They come to the same conclusion as everybody else: recycling is completely pointless, except metals. It might make you feel "warm and fuzzy", but it makes no sense economically or environmentally. Except metals.

    This.

    The best indicator is whether you have to pay to recycle or if you get paid to recycle. Prices beat central planning again.



  • My understanding was, at least in the UK, that the main driving force is the cost of landfill. Land costs in the UK make it extremely expensive to throw stuff in the ground, thus, even when recycling is not environmentally friendly, it can be more economical for local councils.



  • Perk with living in America, lower population density, and lots of land, so land for landfills = cheap.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @domwood said:

    My understanding was, at least in the UK, that the main driving force is the cost of landfill. Land costs in the UK make it extremely expensive to throw stuff in the ground, thus, even when recycling is not environmentally friendly, it can be more economical for local councils.

    I'm skeptical. I do know that you guys got suckered by the EU into recycling by fiat.

    @THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION said:

    2. This strategy shall ensure that:

    (a) not later than five years after the date laid down in Article 18(1), biodegradable municipal waste going to landfills must be reduced to 75 % of the total amount (by weight) of biodegradable municipal waste produced in 1995 or the latest year before 1995 for which standardised Eurostat data is available

    (b) not later than eight years afte the date laid down in Article 18(1), biodegradable municipal waste going to landfills must be reduced to 50 % of the total amount (by weight) of biodegradable municipal waste produced in 1995 or the latest year before 1995 for which stadardised Eurostat data is available;

    (c) not later than 15 years after the date laid down in Article 18(1), biodegradable municipal waste going to landfills must be reduced to 35 % of the total amount (by weight) of biodegradable municipal waste produced in 1995 or the lates year before 1995 for which standardised Eurostat data is available.

    I found that link from the UK Environment Agency.



  • @domwood said:

    My understanding was, at least in the UK, that the main driving force is the cost of landfill. Land costs in the UK make it extremely expensive to throw stuff in the ground, thus, even when recycling is not environmentally friendly, it can be more economical for local councils.

    I can't speak to the UK, but in the US the "damning" report on our dwindling landfill space was, it turns out, completely shit. I believe Penn and Teller actually talk about that in the episode-- people start panicking before anybody checked the "facts" of the report.

    It is true, however, that we in the US have literally thousands of square miles nobody gives a shit about. For example, Utah.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    I can't speak to the UK, but in the US the "damning" report on our dwindling landfill space was, it turns out, completely shit. I believe Penn and Teller actually talk about that in the episode-- people start panicking before anybody checked the "facts" of the report.

    It is true, however, that we in the US have literally thousands of square miles nobody gives a shit about. For example, Utah.

    The United States generated around 250 million tons of trash in 2010. Compacted, this results in a cube that is 0.5 miles on a side. It's actually remarkably little. If you stored the next 100 years of America's trash in a single landfill, it would be less than 10 miles squared. America itself is 3.7 million miles squared, so the next 100 years of garbage will take up 0.0003% of our total land area.


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @morbiuswilters said:

    The United States generated around 250 million tons of trash in 2010. Compacted, this results in a cube that is 0.5 miles on a side. It's actually remarkably little. If you stored the next 100 years of America's trash in a single landfill, it would be less than 10 miles squared. America itself is 3.7 million miles squared, so the next 100 years of garbage will take up 0.0003% of our total land area.
     

    A 10 mile tinder box of compacted industrial waste, flammable liquid and paper?

    Fucking awesome. I'll start bribing EPA officials.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @Lorne Kates said:

    @morbiuswilters said:
    The United States generated around 250 million tons of trash in 2010. Compacted, this results in a cube that is 0.5 miles on a side. It's actually remarkably little. If you stored the next 100 years of America's trash in a single landfill, it would be less than 10 miles squared. America itself is 3.7 million miles squared, so the next 100 years of garbage will take up 0.0003% of our total land area.

    A 10 mile tinder box of compacted industrial waste, flammable liquid and paper?

    Fucking awesome. I'll start bribing EPA officials.

    Or, the most valuable mineral rights in the country in 50 years.



  •  I was thinking all used paper should be buried, not recycled, to protect the environment.

     The current hot environmental issue is atmospheric carbon causing global warming.

    1) Tree farms suck carbon out of the atmosphere

    2) We make paper from the trees

    3) We use the paper for whatever

    4) We bury the paper in a deep landfill, thereby 'sequestering' the carbon.

     Seriously, is there anything wrong with that logic? The only flaw I see is we might not use enough paper, so maybe we should be filling old coal mines with lumber.



  • @bgodot said:

     I was thinking all used paper should be buried, not recycled, to protect the environment.

     The current hot environmental issue is atmospheric carbon causing global warming.

    1) Tree farms suck carbon out of the atmosphere

    2) We make paper from the trees

    3) We use the paper for whatever

    4) We bury the paper in a deep landfill, thereby 'sequestering' the carbon.

     Seriously, is there anything wrong with that logic? The only flaw I see is we might not use enough paper, so maybe we should be filling old coal mines with lumber.

    You're assuming processing trees doesn't produce carbon dioxide. I don't know what the carbon cost is, but it has to be taken into account. You're also assuming carbon dioxide has an impact on the climate, something which has not nearly been proven to my satisfaction.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @bgodot said:

    I was thinking all used paper should be buried, not recycled, to protect the environment.

    Why do you want to starve plants?

    @bgodot said:

    The current hot environmental issue is atmospheric carbon causing global warming.

    Which is your next clue as to why it's a stupid idea.



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    The United States generated around 250 million tons of trash in 2010. Compacted, this results in a cube that is 0.5 miles on a side. It's actually remarkably little. If you stored the next 100 years of America's trash in a single landfill, it would be less than 10 miles squared. America itself is 3.7 million miles squared, so the next 100 years of garbage will take up 0.0003% of our total land area.
     

    Why do you assume zero growth or reduction of the trash production? Because that's not going to happen, and thus your numbers are meaningless.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @dhromed said:

    Why do you assume zero growth or reduction of the trash production? Because that's not going to happen, and thus your numbers are meaningless.

    The actual value of the numbers may be meaningless, but the magnitudes show that if you're worried about running out of landfill you're not paying attention.



  • @dhromed said:

    @morbiuswilters said:
    The United States generated around 250 million tons of trash in 2010. Compacted, this results in a cube that is 0.5 miles on a side. It's actually remarkably little. If you stored the next 100 years of America's trash in a single landfill, it would be less than 10 miles squared. America itself is 3.7 million miles squared, so the next 100 years of garbage will take up 0.0003% of our total land area.
    Why do you assume zero growth or reduction of the trash production? Because that's not going to happen, and thus your numbers are meaningless.

    Yes.

    But that doesn't magically mean recycling makes sense.

    People have been scare-mongering over landfill space since the 70s. Turns out we have a much higher population and produce much more waste now. And yet, somehow, landfills haven't run out. HMMM!!! Do you think maybe people scare-mongering over landfill space are full of shit? As full of shit as existing landfills aren't? Or do you just come to the conclusion, "no they're still right, they've just been temporarily wrong for 30+ years!"



  • BTW, if anybody's tactic in getting you to pay attention to them is to scare you, they're full of shit. This is another Blakeyrat's Law, if nobody else has taken it.



  • @dhromed said:

    @morbiuswilters said:

    The United States generated around 250 million tons of trash in 2010. Compacted, this results in a cube that is 0.5 miles on a side. It's actually remarkably little. If you stored the next 100 years of America's trash in a single landfill, it would be less than 10 miles squared. America itself is 3.7 million miles squared, so the next 100 years of garbage will take up 0.0003% of our total land area.
     

    Why do you assume zero growth or reduction of the trash production? Because that's not going to happen, and thus your numbers are meaningless.

    Meaningless? Admittedly, a constant rate may be inaccurate, but that doesn't make it meaningless. What's more the 10 sq. miles figure incorporates expected growth. I guess that wasn't obvious. However, I actually think trash production won't grow as much as you think, because:

    • The per-capita rate of trash creation has been constant for 20 years now. Do you think we're moving towards more trash creation or less? Better quality products mean less waste. (Of course, some of this is due to recycling, but whatever.)
    • Wealthy countries tend to experience population stability. The US is still positive in growth but for how long?
    • Waste processing is improving in efficiency, too. Forty years ago landfills were largely uncompressed. Today they are operated much more efficiently.


    And, of course, the whole point is to illustrate how little land is actually used for landfill.



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    because
     

    Well, point is I don't have the numbers right now, and assuming a constant value is silly. So I still think your numbers are ass-pullingly meaningless.

    @morbiuswilters said:

    And, of course, the whole point is to illustrate how little land is actually used for landfill.

    That kind of happened, because 0.0003 is a tiny figure, but exponential growth you know.

    But, I can only point to exponential growth when I have the numbers; but I'd rather play minecraft than look for them. :\

    So my point is, don't use numbers unless you can point to real research and real non-misleading graphs.



  • @dhromed said:

    Well, point is I don't have the numbers right now, and assuming a constant value is silly. So I still think your numbers are ass-pullingly meaningless.

    As I said, the 10 square miles thing isn't assuming a constant value.

    @dhromed said:

    That kind of happened, because 0.0003 is a tiny figure, but exponential growth you know.

    The thing is, population growth tends to be self-limiting. US population is now at 300 million. It's not like it's ever going to be 300 trillion and our need for landfill will be 1 million times as much, no matter how far ahead you jump.



  • @dhromed said:

    That kind of happened, because 0.0003 is a tiny figure, but exponential growth you know.

    What exponential growth? I don't know how things are where you live, but even with the brith rate being below the rate needed for replacement and immigration being controlled the US had linear population growth for the last 50 years and is predicted to have linear growth for the next 50 years.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    People have been scare-mongering over landfill space since the 70s. Turns out we have a much higher population and produce much more waste now. And yet, somehow, landfills haven't run out.

    Landfills have always been about politics and never about common sense. Any time someone brings up this argument they're likely preparing to fight a landfill permit that might devalue their property.

    For example, the US atomic weapons program was conducted in the middle of the Nevada desert where nobody lives. However, most of the radioactive waste from the activities in the eastern half of the country are buried in Lewiston, NY - which has people. They sold part of the property that was the storage site to the Lewiston-Porter Shool District and they built four schools on it (I attended three of them). Another example is (was) Yucca Mountain. High-level radioactive waste gets angry when it's clumped together. Storing it in one place is a really bad idea that requires unnecessary transportation. But, all those places with nuclear reactors don't want the waste to stay there, so it has to go somewhere.



  • @Jaime said:

    High-level radioactive waste gets angry when it's clumped together. Storing it in one place is a really bad idea that requires unnecessary transportation.

    What makes you think it isn't clumped together now? It's not like they were going to accidentally build a critical pile in the middle of Yucca mountain.

    @Jaime said:

    But, all those places with nuclear reactors don't want the waste to stay there, so it has to go somewhere.

    I don't want it there, either. I'd rather not have nuclear waste scattered all over the US. I would prefer it was safely buried.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    BTW, if anybody's tactic in getting you to pay attention to them is to scare you, they're full of shit. This is another Blakeyrat's Law, if nobody else has taken it.

    I think that's been done: "greater impact via FUD", isn't it?



  • @Cassidy said:

    @blakeyrat said:
    BTW, if anybody's tactic in getting you to pay attention to them is to scare you, they're full of shit. This is another Blakeyrat's Law, if nobody else has taken it.
    I think that's been done: "greater impact via FUD", isn't it?

    I've never heard of that, and I've also never heard the term "FUD" used outside Slashdot. So now I hate you too.



  • All papers in India are always recycled. We have lot of raddiwallas who will buy paper from you and give you money for every kilo you sell them.



  • @Nagesh said:

    We have lot of raddiwallas who will buy paper from you and give you money...

    Paper money?



  • @blakeyrat said:

    and I've also never heard the term "FUD" used outside Slashdot.

    I used it from TheRegister. Was never a slashdotter, but perhaps that's where El Reg nicked it from.

    @blakeyrat said:

    So now I hate you too.

    I aim to deliver...


  • Garbage Person

    @Cassidy said:

    @blakeyrat said:

    and I've also never heard the term "FUD" used outside Slashdot.

    I used it from TheRegister. Was never a slashdotter, but perhaps that's where El Reg nicked it from.

    El Reg is closer to the origin than Slashdot, anyway. It's modern incarnation comes via enterprise computer sales practice and analysis and commentary of such from about the 70's onwards. Its application to politics and sales in general is much newer.


  • @blakeyrat said:

    @Cassidy said:
    I think that's been done: "greater impact via FUD", isn't it?

    I've never heard of that, and I've also never heard the term "FUD" used outside Slashdot. So now I hate you too.

     

    I don't Slashdot.  They manipulate people with Mexican lunchmeat?




  • @Anketam said:

    So apparently if I decide to print out the report the paper I print it on will magically become recycled paper.

    It has been recycled... by the trees. :)



  • @blakeyrat said:

    @Weng said:

    I work for a gigantonormous commercial print company that does this sort of work. It is 100% common practice for the recycled paper logo or whatever to go on the digital print, not on the paper stock (and even when it doesn't, when we're building stuff for digital distribution or proofing, an image of the paper stock will be underlaid with the actual digital printing.

    The real joke here is how rarely that stuff actually ends up printed on recycled paper.

    Who gives a shit? Paper pulp's all farmed, and recycling paper takes the exact same amount (or more) of nasty chemicals as using freshly farmed pulp. Paper companies haven't contributed to deforestation since freakin' 1980. Yeah, even when Captain Planet was on the air it was full of shit.

    Recycling paper is fucking pointless. Using recycled paper is fucking pointless. Why do we live in a society where it's so hard for people to understand basic facts? (The only show I've ever seen cover this was Penn and Teller's Bullshit, and they don't have nearly a wide-enough viewership to get the message out.)

     

    Old growth forest is still logged and sent to chipmills in Australia, and the same is true of several other places around the globe. I abhor this practice for several reasons, which I will not go into now. I am a big fan of Penn and Teller, and they would be the first to tell you that not everything they say should be taken as gospel. Even if we take what they say to be 100% correct as of the filming of that episode, there are many variables to consider (political circumstances, market values, war and natural disasters affecting supply; manufacturing trends, etc) that can and do frequently change, sometimes dramatically. I agree that recycling merely prolongs the time between production and eventual disposal, but sometimes this can be environmentally/economically useful, like it is with aluminium, as manufacturing processes and material uses change over time. It's like any process: sometimes useful, sometimes counterproductive. What applies in one place and at one time does not automatically apply everywhere, forever.     



  • @Shagen said:

    @blakeyrat said:

    @Weng said:

    I work for a gigantonormous commercial print company that does this sort of work. It is 100% common practice for the recycled paper logo or whatever to go on the digital print, not on the paper stock (and even when it doesn't, when we're building stuff for digital distribution or proofing, an image of the paper stock will be underlaid with the actual digital printing.

    The real joke here is how rarely that stuff actually ends up printed on recycled paper.

    Who gives a shit? Paper pulp's all farmed, and recycling paper takes the exact same amount (or more) of nasty chemicals as using freshly farmed pulp. Paper companies haven't contributed to deforestation since freakin' 1980. Yeah, even when Captain Planet was on the air it was full of shit.

    Recycling paper is fucking pointless. Using recycled paper is fucking pointless. Why do we live in a society where it's so hard for people to understand basic facts? (The only show I've ever seen cover this was Penn and Teller's Bullshit, and they don't have nearly a wide-enough viewership to get the message out.)

     

    Old growth forest is still logged and sent to chipmills in Australia, and the same is true of several other places around the globe.

    Right, but is that wood used for paper or, say, novelty wooden dildos? Because if it's not used for paper, you're not really doing anything by recycling.



  • @Mo6eB said:

    Right, but is that wood used for paper or, say, novelty wooden dildos?
     

    @Shagen said:

    Old growth forest is still logged and sent to chipmills in Australia,

     



  • Argh, made me research the term myself, you bastard!

    Apparently a "chip mill" is used in the paper industry to turn a tree into chips in mere seconds. As I understand it, they are the real monsters to fear in this world!



  • @Shagen said:

    Old growth forest is still logged and sent to chipmills in Australia, and the same is true of several other places around the globe.

    Legally? Because Australia is fucked up, otherwise. Just mention "for people who live in something resembling civilization" after my "no longer a problem" in that post you quoted.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @blakeyrat said:

    @Shagen said:
    Old growth forest is still logged and sent to chipmills in Australia, and the same is true of several other places around the globe.

    Legally? Because Australia is fucked up, otherwise. Just mention "for people who live in something resembling civilization" after my "no longer a problem" in that post you quoted.

    What's fucked up about that. There's even a TV show on Discovery where loggers take old growth stuff to paper mills sometimes. They're still trees. That grow back.

    Proceed to be angry about how NC is not civilization. I'd be surprised if this never happened in WA and OR, too, though. Or anywhere else there is a forestry industry, really.


Log in to reply