Quote:
Originally Posted by Glinda
I believe the damage to the environment with regard to paper plates, comes from the amount of energy used and pollution created when the trees are cut, then shipped to a factory to be milled, then shipped to other factories where they are pulped and bleached and formed into plates, which are then shipped again to grocery stores around the country. Once the plates go in the trash, they're shipped again, to a land fill. All of this uses up a great deal of energy/chemicals and creates air, water, and land pollution.
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I believe you are dealing with very outdated information. Very little energy is used in creating these forests or harvesting them. The trees are used exclusively for paper products and go directly to modern pulp mills which are very energy efficient. The paper industry has cleaned up it's prior polluting practices because of environmental laws. And paper in land fills does not create pollution and newer land fills are being used for methane production.
And never forget that dishwashing detergent production is not environmentally friendly and that often comes in non-biodegradable plastic containers or paper containers which still require the same trees being used and are tranported by the same trucks that haul paper plates. Most detergents are not biodegradeable and even biodegradeable detergents harm the environment albeit not as much and non-biodegradeable detergents.
One myth is that recycling paper is a good thing. Generally speaking more energy and costs are involved in recycling paper than producing it from scratch from tree farms dedictated to that purpose.