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TheFriendlyPlanter

Tree-friendly paper products

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I really only want to buy fibre-crop paper products from now on, basically the everyday stuff you get from the supermarket (eg paper towells, toilet roll, printer paper etc), but the choice is not really there. Does anyone know of any brands I can ask the supermarket to order in? It seems like there's not much choice yet but I wanna help get the ball rolling in my local supermarket. I don't mind paying a higher price for it.

I know recycled is a good choice but most still originates from trees. I want renewable! Once the choice is there I believe many people will support the industry. I guess it's really up to us to help make things happen in our own little ways.

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This is precisely why I would like to start hemp farming. Why the hell should we be giving valuable trees the chop-n-pulp when renewable and very fast cycling fibre crops can be used? I am very curious as to what companies have already looked into this and made an attempt at giving the forests a break (or at least save them for things where no other material is suitable). Jeez, I sound like a hippie! Peace man :lol:

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I really only want to buy fibre-crop paper products from now on, basically the everyday stuff you get from the supermarket (eg paper towells, toilet roll, printer paper etc), but the choice is not really there. Does anyone know of any brands I can ask the supermarket to order in? It seems like there's not much choice yet but I wanna help get the ball rolling in my local supermarket. I don't mind paying a higher price for it.

I know recycled is a good choice but most still originates from trees. I want renewable! Once the choice is there I believe many people will support the industry. I guess it's really up to us to help make things happen in our own little ways.

At work I sell "Double A" branded printer paper (funnily enough I read on the side of the box today) is made from "farmed trees". It is a little more $$ but good quality and its (more) environmentally friendly.

Hemp farming would be awesome, but in this day and age I doubt the government would ever back it. Hemp should be the future farmers crop rather than cotton, uses ess water and is so much more useful!!

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That's exactly why we need to start asking for fibre-crop products at our supermarkets etc, - so there becomes a huge market that hemp will HAVE to fill. It's been described as a 'miracle plant' with all its benefits and that's exactly what the planet needs right now, A MIRACLE! I say demand nothing less than fully renewable fibre crops every where you can!

So yeah, I'd love to hear about any such products that people are already buying, I'll start buying them too, and recommend them to all my friends!

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Sounds like hemp farming is a definate possibility - see HERE. Looks like the gov has offered several different areas a chance at farming it to see how it would do, as well as keeping within the maximum THC limits (extremely minimal). It would be great to see hemp toilet paper, printing paper, tissues, etc instead of over-bleached tree pulp. The stuff is shithouse and really needs to be given the boot. I always opt for recycled papers, but it is still not as good as completely renewable and sustainable fibres such as hemp.

Hemp should also replace cotton in the manufacture of clothing (or at least replace a percentage of the market). It is very durable, comfortable and looks good. Most importantly, the pesticides which are pumped out over cotton crops could be kicked aside, as hemp needs almost no poisonous pesticides (due to the overall height and shape of the plants). The only downside to hemp farming is that cannabis requires a huge amount of nitrogen to feed and grow to a usable size. Luckily, this can be countered somewhat by using a 2 year cycle - one year worth of clover or similar high nitrogen releasing plants, and the following year growing hemp in the nitrogen rich soil left from the clover crop. Several other plants have been tested (I think there are links in the above linked thread) to try and boost nitrogen levels to ensure a healthy hemp crop, some better than others. A very interesting subject!

EDIT: I just remembered, you can buy hemp rolling papers (for tobacco/other smokables) at most hippie shops. I believe SAB was stocking them for a while too - perhaps worth a look if interested. Mind you - I'm not sure how unsustainable regular rice paper or whatever is used in regular rollie papers. Probably more of a marketing niche for hippies who like their pot :P

Edited by Ace

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I want renewable!

unfortunately old growth forest is legally considered renewable!

actually, burning old growth forest for electricity is considered a renewable source of 'green' energy, can you believe that :blink:

so the word renewable doesn't necessarily mean 'good' & companies which make products from wood pulp will certainly use the term to their advantage.

i've heard of paper being made from elephant dung. don't know if it is currently being imported to Australia? apparently it's quite high quality. elephant dung is a great source of fibre!

have never heard of paper made from cow dung, now that would be a f@#king great idea if it is possible. the global cow dung output from the beef & dairy industries must be enormous!! you'd think if the resultant paper was of high enough quality it would put a significant dent in the amount of wood pulp needed to meet the global paper demand!

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SAFE-brand toilet paper is the only one i can ever find that's recycled.

.. which makes it pretty renewable, i mean, they don't even have to grow anything.

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SAFE-brand toilet paper is the only one i can ever find that's recycled.

.. which makes it pretty renewable, i mean, they don't even have to grow anything.

I 'd really like to start supporting fibre crops but it seems like we don't even have the choice to do so yet. Just like ethanol, why does it take so long to even get the choice to buy it or not. How can we help the planet if we don't even have the choice.

WTF did the F'n Libs do when in power??? F'k I hate those bastards!

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i'm not sure about fiber crops. other so-called enviro toilet paper is grown from tree plantations, to my knowledge. fiber crops might use less land but i guess they take heaps more effort than just planting trees and then ripping them down later.

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unfortunately old growth forest is legally considered renewable!

actually, burning old growth forest for electricity is considered a renewable source of 'green' energy, can you believe that :blink:

Its not quite that simple.

It could certainly be classified as carbon neutral as long as the area was replanted with a species that will capture the same amount of CO2 per unit area. Any firewood is considered carbon neatral as long as the forest it came from is replanted

Renewable is a vague term that is not really applied to old growth forests as the time taken to attain that carbon is extremely long when compared with a plantation with the purpose of capturing carbon

One could for instance say that coal and oil are indeed renewable if you are prepared to wait long enough.

I think for a energy source to be renewable the process has to be able to repeated on a regular basis with a net return that makes the option viable in relation to the expenditure outlayed via inputs. If man could produce large oil or coal fields, that time frame could be hundreds of years, but for trees I think the cycle would have to be 4 to 5 growing cycles per human lifespan

I however believe tha whole science involved with forest sinks is dubious at best as accumulation of carbon and the turnover of biomass (eg leaf fall and degredation which generates GHG's) is different for every climate and even every growing season, and bound to change with a changing climate. Furthermore, the carbon only remains captured for the lifetime of the wood product it goes into which could be a very short lifespan up to maybe a couple of hundred years at best, which means that at best you are only delaying that carbon being released into natural systems and ultimately the atmosphere by only a handful of generations of men.

Now a cool tree friendly idea I got at xmas was a recycled paper card with a seed built into it. After the festivities are over you plant and water your card to grow a nice native plant! I was pretty stoked with that!

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cool idea.

there was a thread here about 'biochar/agrichar' where slow burning of wood binds carbon for a pretty long time, unfortunately you don't get any wood products, you just get a soil additive similar in function to humus. the facts about how it improved the soil were not clear at the time and likely still aren't.

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Its not quite that simple.

obviously. the point i'm making is that the term 'renewable' has been bandied around & bastardized to support the unwholesome agenda's of certain business men. like you say, they could call coal 'renewable' because it will renew itself in 30 million years. it wouldn't surprise me if the did try & pull that one on us :devil: lol

point is, the term has become little more than a marketing tool.

bulldozing oldgrowth so we can wipe our arse with it is 'environmentally friendly' because it's 'renewable'

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liberal considers nuclear "green". yes it glows green with radioactivity. fuckwits.

in nimbin i bought postcards printed on friendly paper, and down the bottom they had a list of friendly paper companies, as well as unfriendly ones. the unhealthy one i remember is reflex. but i will have to borrow the card back from my friend so i know what brands to buy.

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Its not quite that simple.

It could certainly be classified as carbon neutral as long as the area was replanted with a species that will capture the same amount of CO2 per unit area. Any firewood is considered carbon neatral as long as the forest it came from is replanted

Renewable is a vague term that is not really applied to old growth forests as the time taken to attain that carbon is extremely long when compared with a plantation with the purpose of capturing carbon

I however believe tha whole science involved with forest sinks is dubious at best as accumulation of carbon and the turnover of biomass (eg leaf fall and degredation which generates GHG's) is different for every climate and even every growing season, and bound to change with a changing climate. Furthermore, the carbon only remains captured for the lifetime of the wood product it goes into which could be a very short lifespan up to maybe a couple of hundred years at best, which means that at best you are only delaying that carbon being released into natural systems and ultimately the atmosphere by only a handful of generations of men.

Forests that are harvested lose far more carbon than they ever regain. Forestry operates in 50-70 year rotations, yet scientists at ANU have assessed that it would take 152 years to regain 90% of the carbon, so they are not carbon neutral. The clearfell and burn technique employed by the logging industry in Australia releases massive amounts of carbon including from soil, woody debris and non-target species which are currently not accounted for. It has been demonstrated that with logging practices, carbon stored in a Mixed species forest reduces from around 1500tC/ha to 380tC/ha. The latest research is indicating that previous work has grossly undercalculated the amount of carbon in forests. Some wet Mountain Ashin Victoria contain as much as 2500tC/ha.

While plantation/farm forestry is better than native forest & old growth logging 100% post-consumer recycled is the number 1 environmental choice. Difficulty is when you have a brand that produces both recycled and forest sourced paper, what do you do? I say go with the brands that only do recycled, SAFE & Naturale for toilet paper/tissues etc & at the moment I believe Evolve is the best brand for copy paper.

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I saw an ad in a magazine for a range of carbon-neutral paper called Envi. I think it must be just starting up, because there isn't much info on their website. It might be more aimed at businesses than consumers, but could be worth a look.

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