It pains us to cut trees for their wood. One recommended technique for escaping the pain of cutting down trees for paper is to substitute electronics.
The technique reminds me of a comedy I watched. As I remember it, in an opening scene, a wounded tough-as-nails soldier breaks his own finger to take his mind off the excruciating pain caused by the wound. Later, when a friend complains to him about a minor ache, the soldier smiles and says, “Let me show you a trick.”
Now, I’m all for cutting down on waste. We Americans consume three times more wood per capita than the world average, and we use one-third more paper than the average European. So the idea of moving from the printed page to a digital screen seems a simple choice.
Digital technology obviously improves lives. Consider the isolated African farmer who uses a mobile phone to locate the best price for his crops, and uses the same device to do his banking. What a glorious convenience. Yet, except for the color of the currency used to buy electronic marvels, the technology cannot be called “green.”
The manufacture and ultimate disposal of one e-book reader, cell phone, or computer can harm the environment more than the harvest of a thousand trees. You see, everything comes from somewhere, everything must go somewhere, and all actions have consequences.
Name one part of your computer, mobile phone, personal digital assistant, or e-book reader that is grown in the soil-one part, any part, that was once alive. (Petroleum doesn’t count.)
If it’s not grown, it has to be mined.
We want electronics, and electronics require metal to conduct electricity; therefore, we have an appetite for ore. By substituting technology for paper, we stop using renewable trees but instead we start using non-renewable resources such as metals, chemicals, and petroleum products. According to the Mineral Information Institute, each person in the United States consumes over twenty-four tons of mineral products a year, mostly as rock used for roads and other construction.
Consider this. A mine strips approximately thirty tons of material to obtain one ounce of gold, just one of the metals used in today’s electronics. Miners crush the mineral-rich rock and splash cyanide over this ore to leach out the metals. The waste rock (tailings) account for more than ninety-nine percent of the material moved in the process. These leftovers contain every element in the periodic table.
Tailings amount to the nuclear waste of the mining industry. It’s around for a long time, it’s hazardous, and no one really knows what to do with it. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, hard-rock mining produces more toxic waste than any other industry in the United States.
As a forester, I support conserving trees, but I also support using trees. With four decades in the field, I have marked trees for harvest, have seen them cut down, and have planted seedlings in their place. I have watched those seedlings grow more than forty feet on their way to becoming three or four times that height.
Bottom line: Forests replenish. Mines and oil reserves dwindle, and their toxic scars remain. If you think clear-cutting is ugly, imagine an open-pit mine two miles across and three-quarters of a mile deep. Within ten years, the cutover forest area will be covered with new growth, whereas Kennecott Copper’s Bennington Mine in Utah will still be visible from outer space.
Besides the mess that strip-mining for minerals makes, we need to consider how we dispose of electronic devices. By some accounts, discarded electronics account for seventy percent of the overall toxic waste currently found in landfills.
So can’t we recycle those electronics? Unfortunately, recycling is not wholly benign. More often than not, recyclers dump no-longer-used devices on Third World countries, where untrained workers employ hazardous methods, such as burning plastics and using chemicals like sodium cyanide and acids-nitric, hydrochloric, and sulfuric-to dissolve the metals.
Before asking how many megapixels an electronic device has, or how fast its graphics are, we need to consider the device’s total cost and include the external costs. External costs, or what economists term “externalities,” are what the rest of us might call “making a mess and not taking responsibility for cleaning it up.”
So what should we do? First, use wood and other renewables whenever possible instead of plastics, metals, and other non-renewables. Second, design products that reduce the quantity or the toxicity of the materials used. Third, make products easier to reuse. Fourth, pay to clean up our own mess by including in an item’s price the cost of mining reclamation and First-World-quality recycling. For instance, that price could include a deposit fee, as some states have for cans and bottles; the more hazardous the recycling, the bigger the deposit.
Forests return. Plastics and cyanide dumps don’t go away.
I know that up-front design costs and deposits can hurt you in the wallet, but here…give me your finger, let me show you a trick.
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23 March 2009
I remember watching a comedy where a wounded soldier breaks his own finger to take his mind off the excruciating pain caused by the wound. Later, when a friend complains to him about a minor ache, the soldier smiles and says, “Let me show you a trick.”
Because I’m a forester, the soldier’s trick reminds me of our society’s technique for avoiding the pain of cutting down trees. Instead of harvesting trees for paper, we substitute electronics.
Now I’m all for cutting down on cutting down trees. We Americans consume three times more wood per capita than the world average, and we use one-third more paper than the average European. So the idea of moving from the printed page to a digital screen seems to be a simple choice.
Digital technology obviously improves lives. Consider the isolated African farmer who uses a mobile phone to locate the best price for his crops, and uses the same device to do his banking. What a glorious convenience. But except for the color of the money used to buy the phone, such technology cannot be called “green.” The manufacture and ultimate disposal of one e-book reader or computer can harm the environment more than the harvest of a thousand trees. You see, everything comes from somewhere, everything must go somewhere, and all actions have consequences.
Name one part of your computer, mobile phone, personal digital assistant, or e-book reader, that is grown in the soil – one part, any part, that was once alive? (Petroleum doesn’t count.)
If it’s not grown, it has to be mined.
Because we want electronics, and electronics require metal to conduct electricity, therefore we have an appetite for ore. By substituting technology for paper, we stop using renewable trees, but start using non-renewable resources such as metals, chemicals, and petroleum products. According the Mineral Information Institute, each person in the United States consumes over 48,000 pounds of minerals a year, mostly rock for roads and other construction.
Consider this. A mine strips approximately thirty tons of material to obtain one ounce of gold, just one of the metals used in today’s electronics. Miners crush the ore and splash cyanide over it to separate the metal from the rock. The waste rock (tailings) account for more than ninety-nine percent of the material moved in the process. These leftovers contain every element in the periodic table.
Tailings amount to the nuclear waste of the mining industry. It’s around for a long time, is hazardous, and no one really knows what to do with it. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, hard-rock mining produces more toxic waste than any other industry in the U.S.
As a forester, I support conserving trees, but I also support using trees. With four decades in the field, I have marked trees for harvest, have seen them cut down, and have planted seedlings in their place. I have watched those seedlings grow more than forty feet on their way to becoming three or four times that height.
Bottom line: Forests replenish. Mines and oil reserves dwindle, and their toxic scars remain. If you think clear-cutting is ugly, imagine an open-pit mine two miles across and three quarters of a mile deep. Within ten years, the cutover forest area will be covered with new growth, whereas Kennecott Copper’s Bennington Mine in Utah will still be visible from outer space.
Besides the mess made by strip-mining for minerals, we need to consider the disposal of electronic devices. By some accounts, discarded electronics account for seventy percent of the overall toxic waste currently found in landfills.
So can’t we recycle those electronics? Unfortunately, recycling is not wholly benign. More often than not, recyclers dump disused devices on Third World countries where untrained workers employ hazardous methods, such as burning plastics and using chemicals such as sodium cyanide, and acids—nitric, hydrochloric, and sulfuric acids—to dissolve the metals.
Before asking how many megapixels a piece of electronics has, or how fast the graphics are, we need to consider the total cost and include the external costs. External costs, or what economists term “externalities,” are what the rest of us might call “making a mess and not taking responsibility for cleaning it up.”
So what should we do? First, use wood and other renewables whenever possible instead of plastics, metals, and other non-renewables. Second, design products that reduce the quantity or the toxicity of the materials used. Third, make products easier to reuse. Fourth, pay to clean up our own mess by including the cost of mining reclamation and First-World quality recycling in an item’s price. For instance, that price could include a deposit fee, as some states have for cans and bottles; the more hazardous the recycling, the bigger the deposit.
Forests return. Plastics and cyanide dumps don’t go away.
I know that up-front design costs and deposits can hurt you in the wallet, but here…give me your finger and I’ll show you a trick.
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Older Version:
There’s a comedy called “Major Payne” that stars Damon Wayans. He plays a tough soldier who, when wounded in battle, breaks his own finger to take his mind off the pain. Later, when another soldier complains to him about a minor ache, Wayans smiles and says, “let me show you a trick.”
I’m a licensed forester, and this technique strikes me as a metaphor for our preoccupation with saving trees by substituting technology in their stead. In order to get away from the pain of cutting trees, we turn to something that hurts us far worse. You see, while using digital bits and bytes instead of paper may save trees, the manufacture of one ebook reader or computer causes more pollution than the harvesting of the thousand trees it might save. Worse still is the ultimate discarding of these devices.
Technology obviously improves our lives. Today, people in the Third World use cell phones in ways unimagined a decade ago. In Africa, farmers use cell phones to locate the best market prices for their crops and the same cell phone device to do their banking. Yet, except for the color of the money to buy it, electronic technology, like mobile phones, is not very green.
Name one part of your computer or personal digital assistant, mobile phone, GPS, eReader, television, radio, refrigerator, etc, that is grown in the soil—one part, any part, which was once alive (petroleum doesn’t count), as in carbon-based plant? Nothing, right?
Everything comes from somewhere. And, if it’s not grown, it has to be mined.
Because we want electronics, and electronics require metal conductors to move electricity around, we have an appetite for ore. According to the Mineral Information Institute, each person in the United States consumes over 48,000 pounds of minerals, mostly rock, each year.
And that’s just the part we use.
The companies mining these minerals leave their mark. If you think clear-cutting is ugly, try an open-pit mine 2½-miles across, and ¾-mile deep—so large it’s visible from outer space. Those dimensions describe Kennecott Copper’s Bennington Mine in Utah. For one ounce of gold, a metal used in circuit boards, a mine strips off some thirty tons of material. The world’s largest man-made excavation, Kennecott Copper’s Bennington Mine in Utah measures 2½-miles across, and ¾-mile deep, and is so large it’s visible from outer space.
The miners crush the heading ore then splash cyanide over it to separate the metal from the rock. The tailings (the waste rock) then account for more than 99% of the rock moved and contain everything in the periodic table. Tailings amount to the nuclear waste of the mining industry: around for a long time and no one really knows what to do with it all. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, hard-rock mining produces more toxic waste than any other industry in the US.
Now I’m all for cutting down on cutting down trees. Americans consume three times more wood per capita than the world average, and we use one-third more paper than the average European. Nevertheless, the law of conservation of energy remains: everything comes from somewhere, everything must go somewhere, and all actions have consequences. By substituting technology for paper, we move from using something made from a renewable resource, namely trees, to one manufactured from non-renewable resources: metals, chemicals, and petroleum products.
Bottom line: forests grow back, mines and oil reserves don’t, and their toxic scars remain.
As a forester, I support conserving trees and I support using trees. With four decades in the field, I have marked trees for harvest, watched them be cut down, planted seedlings in their place, and seen them grow to over forty feet on their way to three or four times that height. Because forests grow back, we need to use wood whenever possible instead of plastics, metals, and other non-renewables. Not the other way around.
We ask the wrong questions when considering a new piece of electronics. We ask how many megapixels, how fast, how powerful, or how good are its graphics. When we ask how much, we’re given only a partial price, because the external costs are ignored. External costs, or what economists term “externalities,” are what the rest of us non-economists might call “making a mess and not taking responsibility for cleaning it up.” Presently, the American taxpayers, through the EPA’s Superfund, or Third-World peasants bear these external costs.
Besides the mess made by strip-mining the minerals, there’s also disposal. By some accounts, discarded electronics contribute seventy percent of the overall toxic waste currently found in landfills.
What about recycling? Sadly, recycling is not wholly benign. More often than not, recycled electronics are dumped in Third World countries where untrained poor employ hazardous methods. They often burn the plastics to get to the metals and use chemicals such as sodium cyanide, sodium hydroxide, and nitric, hydrochloric, or sulfuric acids to dissolve the metals.
What should we do?
First, we pay to clean up our own mess.The alternative I like the best is to include by including the cost of mining cleanup and recycling in an item’s price. But for For a start, the price of the item has to include a deposit like we the way some states have on cans and bottles. The more hazardous the recycling, the more required for the deposit. We will reap dividends of fewer diseases and a better environment.
Second, we use renewable alternatives whenever possible—trees grow back, cyanide pits are forever.
I know this may hurt your wallet but let me show you a trick.
Norm,
I really like how you have handed this well written and researched article. The only comment I can make on this last posting is, you might want to mention the energy costs of running these devices as well, no energy use reading a book as opposed to using readers, computers, and the like. Not sure if you have the room for it though. Anyway, I think it reads well and delivers information a lot of people haven’t even considered in their electronic consumption. Best of luck. Cat
You’re absolutely correct Cat, there is the energy equation to consider is manufacture, using, discarding, etc. The more I went in that direction, the less cohesive the essay became. So, I went back to my original idea, the idea that by using ebooks we save trees (I’ve seen it given as a “green” option too many times now) and are therefore “green”. The “save a tree, leave a giant-hole-in-the-ground” became the focus.
Thanks for your thoughts. You’re totally right.
This is a subject they may not want you to tackle.
Built-in obsolescence is a system that angers me intensely yet now countries are even offering their citizens money to trade in their old cars, even if they are perfectly roadworthy, in order to keep the motor manufacturers employed. Ok, some of that metal is able to be recycled, but many of the components cannot.
So, as I said, this is a subject ‘they’ may not want you to tackle.
But truth needs to be told. The whole truth.
Paper has proved itself to have a longer life than a computer – much as I love my computer!
Your paragraph about third world recycling is alarming.
But – you did not ask for comments on the subject! My comments should show you though that I think this is a well thought out article I should very much like to see published. It deserves to be.
Hi Anna,
Thanks for commenting. If I gave you the impression I didn’t want comments, shame on me. I ALWAYS want your (and others) comments. I CRAVE comments.
In re: built for obsolescence. There is some room for optimism. A recent issue of The Economist had a special section on waste. There is a growing movement toward designing products with reuse and recycling in mind.
Norm, I think you nailed it. Nothing to add. Tom
Oh, and I meant to also say, wearing my Environment Agency jacket rather than my scruffy writer’s jeans: is there anything in the States like the WEEE Directive we (try to) comply with in the UK?
http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/business/topics/waste/32084.aspx
K
Hi K,
I think the disposal of e-waste is a state affair, though the Environmental Protection Agency may have set minimum standards. California does have something similar to your WEEE program through the California Integrated Waste Management Board.
Hi Norm
I think I said to you before that this issue is too important to be ignored, so I really hope this article gets published – it’s brilliantly thought provoking. And well written too! Bringing the argument back to the finger pain is very neat. I still think the ‘petroleum doesn’t count’ might confuse some folk though. Could you spare a few words to say something pithy along the lines of ‘Plastics might be derived from oil, but oil reserves are being depleted X times faster than they were laid down’? (Apologies for not knowing the value of X, it would probably terrify us all anyway.)
Only one ‘writerly’ quibble – the echo on ‘account’ in the sentence that starts ‘By all accounts,…’
Good luck
Katharine
An essay that needs to be widely read! My daughter has had four or five mobile phones in the last four years. I’ve just replaced my computer screen; nothing these days is mendable, and one is constantly discarding items that look brand new, but don’t quite work.
[Not sure it’s worth mentioning the colour of the currency. There’s a hyphen instead of a dash; ‘soil-one’. Otherwise, good.]
… and i think that the biodegradable plastics are an excellent start. corn [of course, what else] is the source for most of these strands of plastic, but so far they have inherent flaws as far as their longevity.
ideally, gizmos would have more removable / upgradeable parts: when a new chip or screen comes out, you replace that, rather than the whole product.
the issue then becomes a social one: how to rework the mystique and prestige of fashion and perceptions of status. as frivolous as most of us would like to say that is: it’s one of the driving reasons why laptops and phones and cameras (not to mention cars) keep changing shape. this obviously requires a re-education that the media —and advertising dollars— would be loathe to engage in.
if you haven’t already, pick up a copy of “natural capitalism”. it addresses many of the ideas you touch on in your essay, and a damn good read, to boot.
The issue is a social one.
It seems that climate change has captured everyone’s attention, partly due to its being boiled down to the meme, CO2=hotter world. Our carbon footprint goes far beyond carbon dioxide to the cyano group (cyanide), a carbon atom triple-bonded to a nitrogen atom. We use cyanide compounds to bond with gold and other metals in the mining process.
Since it is a social issue, I think we might start tackling it at the state level and begin passing legislation to require recycling and clean-up deposits on electronics. California has done this somewhat though not nearly enough in my opinion. It mostly deals with e-waste.
I am as guilty as everyone else. The Kindle and the Plastic Logic readers look amazingly cool and functional. They can’t be called “green.”
re: Natural Capitalism
I first learned of Amory Lovins (one of the books authors) last year via The Economist podcasts. His Rocky Mountain Institute thinktank does good stuff. His carbon-fiber ultra-light Hypercar looks so cool. I want one. I’ve put Natural Capitalism on order at my county library. Interesting, “The authors argue that it is possible for companies to reduce energy and materials consumption by up to 90 percent but still increase profits, production, and employment.” Thanks for the tip.
hey norm,
this is terrific, and thanks for sharing the original version. it’s always enlightening to see process. i especially appreciate the first paragraph call-back at the end.
it is a conundrum, for sure. seeing it from the product designer’s end, it’s a visibly more complicated issue. electronic components come from many dozens of manufacturing sources, as opposed to being produce in one or a small handful of factories [assembly plant notwithstanding]. each of these sources has its own corporate mission and sense of environmental responsibility; and as they’re often under the jurisdiction of their own government’s ecological policies, will have varying restrictions [if any] for waste dumping, cleaning processes, etc.
i believe it was nokia who first started a comprehensive use-and-recycle system, back in 2001, which employed a simple enough solution for disassembling and reusing cellphone parts. although this may curb only a fraction of the strip mining you discuss in your piece, it does crack the door open to cast more light on burgeoning solutions-oriented entrepreneurs. the bottom line, however, is fiscal incentives. and that, unfortunately/sadly will come primarily from policy change, before it comes from the consumers’ wallets.
Conundrum is right.
I always figure the first step is to remove my ignorance to a subject. Having grown weary hearing that Kindles and e-delivery of newspapers, books, magazines was “green;” and a straightforward one-to-one substitution. I decided to cast a jaundiced eye at the possibility.
Turns out, this one can’t be memed into black and white. Or as H. L. Mencken put it, “For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.” This is not a Manichean choice; it’s not either or. Good or evil. There are (despite W’s desire to distill education down to multiple choice tests) no “right” answers, only consequences to our actions and the need to balance costs to benefits, not returning to Neolithic times. I’m a forester, not a Luddite.
Nokia is on the right track. Reusability is one of the keys to this. BTW, In my research I came across a cell phone case that had been formed from some sort of cellulose (Japanese company natch) and was biodegradable. I seem to recall that this was about four years ago so apparently it didn’t catch on.
Keep planting the trees, Timber.
I’ve just been watching the BBC and there was news of concern regarding the level of acidity in the oceans. Apparently, the oceans are absorbing too much CO2. The modern way of life creates too much CO2 and, although this was not said by the BBC, more trees to help absorb the excess would help life in the ocean.
The last line is great. It draws the attention back to the beginning and so may encourage a second reading – if only partial.
Random thoughts follow:
We seem to be getting more power cuts. Much of Europe (though not the U.K. to say the same extent) is dependent on energy from Russia et al. If my photos are only on electronic media, and the power fails, my memories are harder to recall. With technology changing ever faster, how long will we still be using desk-top p.c’s?
I suspect paper will outlast what’s stored on a p.c. Think of posterity!
Humans return to the soil.
Your ‘bottom line’ of ‘forests grow back’.
Do they? Aren’t many trees dying out for one reason or another? What about the trees on the Appalachian Trail? Isn’t there concern for their health? Could this be used both for and against your argument? Can you make the positive outweigh the negative?
You cannot cover all the argument in less than 1,000 words. Can you hit the reader where they feel it most?
Hope they publish it – we need to be made aware.
Anna,
Trees are not dying out. Had it not been for slash-and-burn cutting in Indonesia and Brazil, the world’s forests would have increased 1.5%. (source:Paul E Waggoner — Returning Forests Under a Cloud of Biofuel Smoke). I will write and post about the state of Earth’s forests soon. A group out of the Univ of Helsinki have been doing some fascinating work about that. It’s called the Forest Identity project.
I think it is well written to the point where I don’t have any suggestions. It is persuasive and convincing – plus it’s a view one hardly ever hears expressed. The nearest I’ve heard is the debate about whether it’s greener to buy a real Christmas tree or a plastic one. The deposit idea is a great one.
I’d put ‘unfortunately’ instead of ‘sadly’ myself; for some reason, ‘sadly’ is often used by people who are not saying what they mean.
(I’ve never been convinced by the ‘one pain to distract you from another’ theory.)
About the Christmas tree debate, I will ALWAYS say real. Remember, plastic stays with us–for all intents and purposes–forever. Real trees return to the soil. For more on the energy saved expended check this Slate.com article “Should I Buy a Fake Fir? Or is it better for the environment to cut down a real Christmas tree?“.
Hi Norm,
Well done, interesting and shocking!
Clear-cutting is a loaded term and maybe timber harvesting would sound like a lesser evil than clear cutting, since you aren’t promoting clear-cutting or open-pit mining.
Good luck getting it published.
Boone
Norm, this is one of those things that make you say “hmmm” Did you want to include some of the carbon tax issue w/trees and cutting?? I beleive MAJ Payne was a U.S. Marine. May want to add “movie” for quick context: “There’s a movie comedy called…
Thanks Tom,
There are lots of threads my mind follows and the carbon tax sequestration offsets provided by trees seemed to be too large to take on in this piece. Partly, I stayed away from the topic because it’s a whole essay in itself. For some reason, conventional wisdom says that once a tree is cut it stops holding carbon. Nonsense! My oak dining table is still holding the same carbon from since the day the tree was cut down. The same thing goes for paper, what is pulp but reconfigured carbon fibers. And, if a forester had anything to say about it, there are other trees growing and sequestrating carbon in the previous one’s place. Try that trick with plastic.
Re: Major Payne. My eldest son has pointed out a problem with my quote. He doesn’t remember Major Payne breaking his own finger. Rather, does it at the beginning of the movie to a wounded comrade. He says, ‘I got something to take your mind off that pain’. “Come on, dad, these are verifiable facts, too.”
Hi Norm. Mary had already told me about what you were writing, so I felt I already had an overview.
I really like it. I like the way it starts and ends with a bit of humor. Your explanations were clear and with effective documentation.
For me, it would be good to have a bit more about how the deposit/cleanup fee would work. Maybe using something we are used to, like a plastic bottle. What the real cost or the real fee to account for disposal of a plastic bottle would be.
Kick ass. It would be great to have Lower Lake put on the map.
Hey Sib,
Thanks for stopping by and thanks for the feedback. My thoughts about how to pay for the externalities isn’t totally clear to me. Economists discuss such things long and hard (See Tim Harford’s The Undercover Economist). There’s some good information on what’s been tried in Wyoming in Jared Diamond’s book Collapse. At present, we all share the bill in the EPA’s Superfund, so we might try to shift some of that cost to the users. I’m thinking it should be a deposit on all items to get us in the habit of recycling and doing it that way should keep us from shifting our problem overseas (which is our standard way of dealing with such inconveniences). As the old Fram oil filter commercial used to say, “you can pay me now [for a filter], or pay me later [for a blown engine].