The Hunderwasser Waste Incinerator in Vienna

PH01

Shouldn't we go for something similar for Ireland? Seems to work for Vienna, why not here?


http://www-cenerg.ensmp.fr/english/themes/impact/html/photoimpaceng.htm

bonkey

Hundertwasser is a really cool, really unmainstream architect.....I love the work he's done.

Even without his input, that incinerator wasnt a bad idea....but thats not to say that all incinerators are a good idea. Bear in mind - as per usual - that population density often determines the practicality of such a solution, and Irish cities are generally low as a result of our penchant for house-owning and house-dwelling.

For anyone who's interested in Hundertwasser's other projects, the Kunsthausmuseum in Vienna is about the best place to go - considering that he designed it

Youll find it online though : http://www.kunsthauswien.com/

jc

Typedef

Incineration : in some ways it makes sense and in other ways it is really quite counter-productive.

Point 1: Incinerators provide an economic disinsentive for governments to enunciate proper waste pervention programs due to the investment in the waste-treatment/waste-to-energy facilities and interest groups attached to the thermal treatment industry.

Point 2: Incinerators still create waste and in effect only reduce waste to roughly 30% of it's former mass. Some of this ash is relatively inert, however some of this waste is highly toxic and must be sent to special treatment facilities, most of which exist only in the large continental industrial centres.

Point 3: Since Ireland is only now really creating a proper waste management policy, lets do it properly, by that I mean, just because it is currently fashionable in some parts of the continent to incinerate, it was fashionable not two years ago to recycle 'as much' waste as possible, so before Ireland goes down the currently vaunted road of thermal treatment, lets make our own decisions on whether termal treatment, recycling or else is the appropiate method of mass waste disposal.

Point 4: In some ways the costs and pollution incurred in transporting waste to recycling facilites and the processing of such waste is more detramental to the envrionment then thermal treatment is in cumlative terms.

Point 5: The plastic bag levy has had stunning effect in reducing the some 1.2 billion plastic bags Irish people consume every year (up to the date of plastic bag levy), therefore, if the polluter (thee and me) gets charged directly for the type and amount of waste created by us (as individuals much in the same way as plastic bag levies are applied) then might this not be the best way to reduce the amount of waste actually generated by individuals long-term?

PH01

If all else fails, incineration is the answer?

bonkey

Originally posted by Typedef
just because it is currently fashionable in some parts of the continent to incinerate, it was fashionable not two years ago to recycle 'as much' waste as possible, so before Ireland goes down the currently vaunted road of thermal treatment, lets make our own decisions on whether termal treatment, recycling or else is the appropiate method of mass waste disposal.

I agree fully that Ireland should make its own decisions, but I would point out that most European nations have not sacrificed their "recycle as much as possible" mentality for a "burn it instead" one.

Rather, they have discovered that even with recycling, they still produce too much waste, and will continue to do so for the forseeable future. Incinerators are generally seen as an alternative to land-fills....not as an alternative to recycling.

As such, the aims of the two systems are somewhat complimentary. Combined with some other initiatives, you end up with a system where the manufacturer is responsible with his packaging - cutting down on the volume of dumpable matierals. The consumer is responsible for the dumping/recycling decision and action itself, and the incinerator deals with as much of whatever is left as it can. Thats not really a bad idea, considering that most people still want to be dumping less....they just dont want their nation swamped with landiflls while they get there.

As for the toxic byproducts.....these are (if I'm not mistaken) usually from either non-degradable items (i.e. toxic chemicals released from burning plastics), or would be released from the degradation of the material in the first place. Neither is particularly better than the solution offered from incineration really. At least with incineration, there is the possibility of capturing much/most of these byproducts and doing something responsible with thm.

I would agree, however, that there is a risk of such a scheme inducing complacency...

I would oppose incinerators which were proposed as a solution...but not when they are proposed as a preferable alternative to X today, as part of an overall long-term strategy including concepts such as recycling.

jc

Keeks

Just a quick note first about the Vienna incinerator that should be told before I take up the pro-incineration side of this argument (since no one else will). The biggest source of pollution that comes form this incinerator is actually caused by the trucks that deliever the waste to the plant. And these trucks run on a Diesel/BioDiesel mix where loosely translates into that they are more enviromentally friendly that the average car.

Rather, they have discovered that even with recycling, they still produce too much waste, and will continue to do so for the forseeable future. Incinerators are generally seen as an alternative to land-fills....not as an alternative to recycling.

I don't think its the fact that even with recycling that too much waste is still be produced that the push for incineration, or rather theraml treatment plants , is being used as an asnwer to waste management in Europe. I think it is that more and more studies show that burning of certain items (paper and other organic materials) and recovering the energy is far more "Enviomentally Friendly" that trying to recycle them or compost the waste. We already debated the topic here about the Swedes study about incineration.

Also i've post two more links in another thread, one here about the beifits of burning paper and a study that is mentioned in the same artilce can be found here

I leave it at that for now, but we really should get the of "Burning is Bad" idea out of our heads. Burning isn't bad. Its just WHAT we burn!

Typedef

bonkey, Keeks.

I think that it is accepted that thermal treatment in some form must come to pass. The points that irk me personally about it are that incinerators can be used as a stick with which to prorouge making serious efforts to recycle and that the capital investment in incinerators acutally quickens such an aversion to recycling. Also, with the UK & Ireland being the two nations that recycle 'the least' in the old 15 member EU, I think that incinerators are simply yet another symptom (for the British and Irish) of an aversion to recycling, an aversion that associates recycling with hippies and tree hugging, instead of with responsible, level-headed action to protect the environment and to recycle non-renewables.

One final point. Very few communities want incinerators in their back yards, if there 'have' to be thermal threatement facilities then every effort should be made to make the overall structure of said facility aesthetically pleasing, maybe even contract Hundertwasser if he is willing.

Keeks

Typedef, i can fully understand your view point, but the whole idea is to have a proper waste management policy and with it have incineration as one of the options. I you look at some of the other incinators across Europe, u will see that all metals and non combustable amterials are segrated and sent for recycling at these thermal treatment plants.

What we really need to ask ourselves is recycling the best time for the enviroment? Not only ask that but to break th question down furthur. Does recyling (insert resource here) do more ood or harm to the enviroment?

To me recycling paper and glass make no sense. The only reason is to divert them away from landfills. Thats it. No other possible reason. We are not going to run out of either resource and the whole process of recyling actually uses up more energy than createing virgin stocks. The same could be said of plastic, but I have yet to fuly look into the enviomental costs of burn this in and incinerator. But with the EU legisation and furthur technology advances to come in the sector, emmisions will be cut even furthur.

As for communities enfoing the N.I.M.B.Y (No In My Back Yard) and B.A.N.A.N.A (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything) doctrines, its sad. This is all because of mis-information from the so called Eniromentalists. What we need is for proper information and less of the Litany. We only ever hear what is "Sensationalised" by the media.

Victor

Originally posted by Keeks
To me recycling paper and glass make no sense. ...... the whole process of recyling actually uses up more energy than createing virgin stocks.

Are you sure this is true about glass?

Keeks

Recycled glass has to be sterilised, aswell as other processing doing to remove addivitves used to color the glass

Typedef

I think you will find that in areas of sufficient density, that it is more favourable to recycle paper then to incinerate it. In fact in most countries there is little real rational reason not to recycle paper, if one takes the Swedish paradigm as one's logic 'not' to recycle paper.

One reason the Swedes are looking (and I stress looking) at incinerating paper as opposed to recycling is that transportation of paper over such a sparsely populated country as Sweden is counter productive.

This sort of argument does not hold up for countries like Germany, France and Britain, where population densities are acutally quite high.

Paper, requires wood, which requires deforestation, which is bad. Deforestation coupled with the burning of paper (entailing the release of carbon and use of oxyagen) is a contributory factor in the green house effect and yes, the green house effect is (in my opinion and the opinion's of many reuptable scientists) a real phenoma. The Green House effect is a phenoma, that is in a very large way, attributable to human industrial activity.
I don't mean to proslatise my view point here, but, to a large extent, recycling and the mindset that goes with it, is a quantum leap for humans in terms of assuaging climate change, precipitated by humans.

As for glass the purification process described here seems to be quite sensible, and since glass can be recycled virtually ad-infinitum, I don't see how it makes 'no sense' to recycle glass.

One of the big reasons to recycle is to reduce the need for landfill and to promote re-use of non renewables, like metal.

Yes thermal treatment plants serve 'some role', a debatable role in my view, in a rationale waste disposal/recycling or energy context, but, a supplicant for waste reduction and ideally recycling (whenever possible, except where not feasable) it is not.

embraer170

One final point. Very few communities want incinerators in their back yards, if

I don't know that many that want landfills (or even mere waste transfer stations) in their back yards either.

If I personally had to chose between a landfill and incinerator built close to where I live, I'd go for the latter.

BTW, does anyone know where I could find data on the land/property values in the vicinity of landfills and incinerators?

Jer

Keeks

QUOTE]Originally posted by Typedef
Paper, requires wood, which requires deforestation, which is bad. Deforestation coupled with the burning of paper (entailing the release of carbon and use of oxyagen) is a contributory factor in the green house effect [/QUOTE]

The wood usually, no actually it does come from plantations designed especially for paper use. So very little of the natural forests are used, despite what some eniromental organisations tell us. Wood chips from the trees are used to supply the energy to produce the paper so that fossil fuels are rarely used.

AS for the release of CO2, you obviously don't undertand what the Carbon Cycle. The Co2 released from the burning the paper is released back into the atmosphere to be "Reused" by the tree planted back in the plantation which replaced the orignal one that was cut down to make the paer in the first place. (If that makes sense). If a tree which is left to live and die natually, over it whole life span will use up as most O2 as it does CO2.What CO2 it converts to O2 by photosyntheis will be converted back to CO2 when it decomposes i.e. composting.

My point is to Reuse the Carbon that is already in the cycle rather than adding more by burning fossil fuels.

And the biggest contributor to the Greenhosue effect is....Water Vapor

Originally posted by Typedef
the green house effect is (in my opinion and the opinion's of many reuptable scientists) a real phenoma. The Green House effect is a phenoma, that is in a very large way, attributable to human industrial activity.

And a lot of those Scientist are beginn to change their tune. I'm not going to get into a debate about it here but there is evidence to say that the climate change is a naturally occuing phenonmen. History shows this. If you want to debate this we'll take it to another thread.

Originally posted by Typedef
As for glass the purification process described here seems to be quite sensible, and since glass can be recycled virtually ad-infinitum, I don't see how it makes 'no sense' to recycle glass.

The process is fine, but where does the energy used in the process come from and does it use more/less that new glass.

The "no sense" comment is that onlt 7% of our waste is glass. And it is not exactly a dangerous substance that throwing it in a landfill is going to be dangerous to the envioment.

Originally posted by Typedef
Yes thermal treatment plants serve 'some role', a debatable role in my view, in a rationale waste disposal/recycling or energy context, but, a supplicant for waste reduction and ideally recycling (whenever possible, except where not feasable) it is not.

The question I want to put to you is Would you put recyling ahead of the environment?

bonkey

Originally posted by Typedef
Paper, requires wood, which requires deforestation, which is bad.

And virtually all paper you see produced today is from sources where the associated logging is comitted to planting more trees than it has used, and only to use trees specifically grown for this purpose in the first place.

So, is there really any difference? Growing a forest and chopping it down for paper or not growing it at all......I don't see where the issue with deforestation is.

Indeed, with a continuously replenished forest, you are adding a small amount of CO2 "soak" to the environment. With no forest, you arent.

So I cant really see the validity of the deforestation argument, but as always I'm open to correction.

the burning of paper (entailing the release of carbon and use of oxyagen) is a contributory factor in the green house effect

Regardless of where we get our energy from, a certain amount of it in today's world will be thermal in nature - contributing to the greenhouse effect one way or another.

The question we must ask ourselves is what is the most effective solution.

One option is :

1) Generate power to heat homes. Generate power for the recycling process.

The other is :

2) Burn the paper to heat the homes.


How much energy will we use in recycling the paper? What toxic chemicals are required for the process, and are there any toxic emissions? Is the case for incineration not that it is possible to make option 2 a cleaner, cheaper cycle overall.

From what little I have read on the subject, I was of the impression that it is not population density which is the prime factor in terms of deciding between recycling and incineration. After all, if the population density is too sparse to make collection and transportation for recycling an option as you claim, surely it is equally too sparse to have collection and transportation for incineration?

Rather, I was of the impression that the two overall systems were compared, and it was decided that one option (incineration) was capable of being the cleaner, more efficient system once the right tech is employed.

and yes, the green house effect is (in my opinion and the opinion's of many reuptable scientists) a real phenoma. The Green House effect is a phenoma, that is in a very large way, attributable to human industrial activity.

Yes - in many scientists opinions, the Greenhouse Effect is a real phenomenon.

However, they are massively divided on the extent to which it is attributable to human industrial activity.

I don't mean to proslatise my view point here, but, to a large extent, recycling and the mindset that goes with it, is a quantum leap for humans in terms of assuaging climate change, precipitated by humans.

Agreed 100%. However, that does not mean that recycling is the best scheme...it just means that it is better than what we had before which was land-fills and home fires.

If I said that we don't need fuel-cell cars, because today's clean-burn engines are a quantum leap ahead of what we had (say) in the 70s, I'm pretty sure you'd be very quick to point out the fallacy in my logic. Surely with the incineration vs. recycling it is at least possible that the environmental experts who were consulted on things like the tower in Vienna actually knew what they were doing, and that they made the decision that this option was preferable to issues such as recycling.

Indeed, simply because HundertWasser himself was involved in it would lead me to believe that this is definitely the case. The man is the most ecologically-aware urban development type I've ever seen. For him to put his stamp of approval on something is no small thing.

jc

Typedef

Originally posted by bonkey
And virtually all paper you see produced today is from sources where the associated logging is comitted to planting more trees than it has used, and only to use trees specifically grown for this purpose in the first place.

....

Indeed, with a continuously replenished forest, you are adding a small amount of CO2 "soak" to the environment. With no forest, you arent.

http://www.rcfa-cfan.org/english/issues.12.html
Not strictly true, many tropical forests are in decline due to paper production.

If it were simply a case of planting trees. making paper, then burning paper and having the carbon released absorbed by trees planted to replace the original trees then, whilst not the most environmentally friendly solution, there would be a carbon cycle, which if managed properly would not be detramental to the environment, nor contributory to the Green House effect, as you have alluded to yourself.

Regardless of where we get our energy from, a certain amount of it in today's world will be thermal in nature - contributing to the greenhouse effect one way or another.

True. I think that much is a given and the implementation and scope of thermal treatment is a shade of grey in environmentalist quaters.

From what little I have read on the subject, I was of the impression that it is not population density which is the prime factor in terms of deciding between recycling and incineration. After all, if the population density is too sparse to make collection and transportation for recycling an option as you claim, surely it is equally too sparse to have collection and transportation for incineration?

In sparsely populated areas according to a study posted by Mike65, coming from Sweden, it is too costly (and therefore not viable) to transport paper and then recycle it
http://www.forestindustries.se/eng/kretslopp/puz4/l_bland.htm

Rather, I was of the impression that the two overall systems were compared, and it was decided that one option (incineration) was capable of being the cleaner, more efficient system once the right tech is employed.

That I can't say. The link above claims a mixed mode of disposal is best.

Yes - in many scientists opinions, the Greenhouse Effect is a real phenomenon.

However, they are massively divided on the extent to which it is attributable to human industrial activity.

Divided yes, oblivious to the fact that human industiral activity has a debateably great impact, no, if there was such derision on this topic it would have been impossible for all but the United States to have agreed to ratify the Kyoto protocol, not an agreement that will make massive differences, but, important in that the participants recognise the 'need' for curtailment of some types of industiral pollutant.

Victor

Bonkey, Western Canada is one place where virgin forest is being used for logging, much to the disapproval of the locals. Replacing on a three saplings for one mature tree only restores the status quo over 50-100 years, not immediatly, especially as the weaker saplings are trimmed out over time. If they planted on a 3 acres to one acre in advance, that would be another matter.

Originally posted by Keeks
If a tree which is left to live and die natually, over it whole life span will use up as most O2 as it does CO2.What CO2 it converts to O2 by photosyntheis will be converted back to CO2 when it decomposes i.e. composting.

If a tree over it's life time gains a mass of 1000kg of which 20% is water and 75% is carbon (the balance being various other chemicals like nitrates, sulphates and so on, what ends up in the ash when you burn it). then it has removed 750kg of carbon from the atmosphere. Perhaps it will have used say ~=50,000kg of oxygen to do this, but it would have used ~=50,000kg + 750kg of carbon dioxide. Not all of this timber will decompose (how were peat and coal originally formed?) Your argument is misleading.

Originally posted by Keeks
And the biggest contributor to the Greenhosue effect is....Water Vapor

There is only a limited amount of things we can do to stop this,a s most coems from the sea.

Originally posted by Keeks
The process is fine, but where does the energy used in the process come from and does it use more/less that new glass.

Extracting and refining the minerals that go into glass (which includes lead in the case of crystal glass) will use a lot more energy as the ores would cotain a much higher percentage of contaminates than glass from a bottle bank (whatever about glass from general refuse).

Keeks

Originally posted by Typedef
Not strictly true, many tropical forests are in decline due to paper production.

http://www.rcfa-cfan.org/english/issues.12.html

bonkey has already make a good argument for excluding deforestation as a reason for recycling paper. You even provided a link to a paper on Deforestation: Tropical Forests in Decline which was supposed to back up the claim that these forests are in decline due to paper production, but in the summery paper isn't even mentioned once. It gives totally different reasons.

At the present time, 14 to 16 million hectares of tropical forests are being converted to other land uses, mostly agricultural. The principal agents of deforestation -- those individuals who are cutting down the forests -- include slash-and-burn farmers, commercial farmers, ranchers, loggers, firewood collectors, infrastructure developers and others

I haven't read the whole paper but if it were one of the main reasons I think it would have been mentioned in the summery.

Also if anybody read this article that was printed in New Scientist about 6 years ago and I presented in another thread will see that:

Contrary to popular myth, only 1 per cent of paper worldwide comes from tropical rainforests. About two-thirds comes from pulp plantations or heavily managed natural forests, mostly in industrialised countries. The big four paper and board exporters are Canada, Finland, Sweden and the US. In all these countries, forest cover is increasing. In Finland's forests, for instance, annual growth is estimated at 85 million cubic metres-some 30 million cubic metres more than the depletion through logging and natural losses.

It is interesting to note that Forest cover is increasing in the countries that produce the most paper. Even Irelands Forest cover is increasing.

Originally posted by Typedef
In sparsely populated areas according to a study posted by Mike65, coming from Sweden, it is too costly (and therefore not viable) to transport paper and then recycle it
http://www.forestindustries.se/eng/...uz4/l_bland.htm

You've got to look at the waste that is being sent for recycling. It doesn't really make environmental sense to go around to each household collecting small amounts of paper to produce a large enough amount to make recycling process look energy efficient. To justify using our fossil fuel electricity supply to recycle the paper. If you look at this quote taken from the article I previously posted you will see what we are never told about the recycling process. We are just led to believe that recycling paper is totally environmentally friendly and produces no side effects.

The Aylesford plant, for instance, used 4000 tonnes of heavy fuel oil and 5700 million megajoules of gas last year, even with on-site energy and heat recycling. The de-inking process is particularly energy-hungry and ultimately produces a toxic sludge containing high concentrations of heavy metals, which must be placed in landfill sites

Originally posted by Victor
If a tree over it's life time gains a mass of 1000kg of which 20% is water and 75% is carbon (the balance being various other chemicals like nitrates, sulphates and so on, what ends up in the ash when you burn it). then it has removed 750kg of carbon from the atmosphere. Perhaps it will have used say ~=50,000kg of oxygen to do this, but it would have used ~=50,000kg + 750kg of carbon dioxide. Not all of this timber will decompose (how were peat and coal originally formed?) Your argument is misleading

The reason it looks misleading is that you have tried to as simple maths to the scenario but forgot to carry the one. The carbon cycle is not a simple equation. Trees breath, they respire also. They produce CO2 as well as O2. Water and carbon dioxide are used to produce glucose and oxygen with the aid of sunlight. The glucose is stored and the oxygen is 'exhaled'. This process as you know is known as photosynthesis. The tree also respires. This is where glucose is combined with oxygen to produce energy, carbon dioxide and water.

You also forgot to take into account as the organisms that actually perform the decomposition.

As for peat and coal. Peat and coal are formed in what was a swampy area where the decomposition rate is much slower due to the large quantities of water. The decomposing vegetations mixes with mud and sediment to produce peat when the aera dries out. Coal is formed in a similar fashion except that the sediment was deposited on top and compacted the decayed vegetation.

I've included a small image to explain the carbon cycle and the other components of it.


At the start of this thread, Typdef made the statement that "Ireland is only now really creating a proper waste management policy, lets do it properly". I don't just want to do it properly, I want to do it in the Most Environmental way possible.

At the moment our current waste management strategy is all about diverting municipal waste away from the landfill. If you look at what is being pushed at us to recycle, paper, glass and cans. These make up about 30-44% of our land filled waste. (figures vary depend on the source of data).

But none of these products do any damage to the environment when placed in landfills. Papers will biodegrade and the glass and cans will just sit there causing no contamination to the surrounding area. But what is used to sell the idea of recycling these items. Its our fear of the environment. We seem to fall victim to these knee-jerk, short-term feel-good solutions, which spends money on relatively trifling issues and holds back resources from more important ones.

Now I'm not suggesting we should put these items in a landfill, just trying to make a point. What I am trying to say is we should try and promote better awareness and better methods of disposable of more dangerous items such as paints, fluorescent tubes, batteries, aerosols etc which do have greater environmental impacts. We should spend more money on this type of disposal. If these items were removed from waste going to incinerators it would make the whole process cleaner and the ash removed would have less hazardous residue making less going to a hazardous landfill. It would also mean more of the ash could be used for road building material.

bonkey

Originally posted by Keeks
t none of these products do any damage to the environment when placed in landfills.

But arent you now falling into the same trap of over-simplifying the equation as you accused Victor of?

You need to compare what would happen if you recycled the item, vs if you landfill it.

Recycling has costs in terms of the collection and recycling.
Not recycling means a greater requirement for production of the product from base principles.

Recycling means landfills last longer, which means fewer landfills.
Not recycling means more landfills - less concentrated pollution (from the other materials) but spread over a larger area.

And so on and so forth.

Which brings us to the conclusion that we are all more or less agreed that more should be done....we just can't agree necessarily on what the best "more" that we should do is, and where we should spend our monies and energies.

Personally, I'd favour more simple incentives like the one we recently had on paper bags.

One example : add a fixed percentage to the cost of all hardware (from cars to walkmans) and force the manufacturers to assume responsibility for disposal.

Over here, if you want to get rid of some old appliance or whatever, you bring it to your local electronic/appliance shop and say "please dump this for me". No fee, no nothing. You paid a surcharge when buying it, its now their problem. Of course, if you're caught dumping it anywhere else....then you get fined to bejaysus and back.

It works. Its simple. It costs relatively little. These are the incentives I'd like to be seeing on the horizon. To be honest...we can worry about the major major issues a few years down the line. Some relatively painless early steps are still needed to bring the culture and mindset forward a few decades first.

jc

Keeks

I don't think I'm over-simplifying the equation, I just think I need to elaborate a bit more. If you take a look at the way the 3 items I mentioned, paper, glass and metals, you will see that in Ireland the way we recycle them isn't that environmentally sound.

This was lifted from an EPA report on paper recycling in Ireland

98% of the paper reported as being recovered (or 80,402 tonnes) is sent for export to various paper mills, mostly in the UK but also other countries. As it stands very little waste paper is being recycled in Ireland, rather it is sent to paper mills in the UK and other countries to be mixed with virgin pulp for paper production. The reason for this is obviously because there is no suitable paper mill in Ireland. Also paper prices fluctuate greatly and are currently very low (for example, it dropped from £48 to £30 per tonne between the 1st to the 15th March,2001). Events, such as the recent earthquake in India that closed several paper mills, can cause severe fluctuations in the market and this is a major deterrent to paper recycling.

Between them glass and metals make up glass and metals make up 10% of all land filled waste in Ireland. A small amount, but an even smaller amount of it can be recycled. So in the end a lot of it will still end up in the landfill. If you take the way we recycle glass in Ireland, the bottle bank system. We have to sort the glass and place it in either the clear, green or brown back. Have you ever asked yourself why? Well because they have to be processed differently. If a coloured bottle gets mixed in with a clear bank, then that lot is consider contaminated and is usually dumped in a landfill.

Now I'm not against recycling. I'm just against the idea that it is the only environmental way to solve our waste management. Having that said I'm not really pro-incineration either. I would prefer to see more reuse of items. Paper can be used as animal bedding, and after that can be composted. There are a few local authorities at the moment that are using paper as a composting material. Kerry County Council are one of these I think. Glass too have other uses. It can be used instead of sand in sandblasted machines used in industrial cleaning. As construction aggregate or road building material.

I too favour more simple incentives. The recent plastic bag levy was the single greatest environmental initiative that the Irish government has achieved. We need more simple solutions. The bring the old appliance to your local electronic/appliance shop is a good one too but they still need to be disposed of. I saw a report recently that there are some 70,000 fridges waiting to be recycled/disposed of in the UK.

But at the end of the day, I'm not saying we should incinerate glass, metals or electrical appliances. What I think should be incinerated is about 50-60% of our waste which comprises of Paper and organic matter. We should try and promote better awareness and better methods of disposable of more dangerous items such as paints, fluorescent tubes, batteries, aerosols etc, which do have greater environmental impacts. By taking these items out of the waste steam and not incinerating them will make the whole process cleaner and environmentally efficient. The problem with incinerating these items, as Victor sated in another thread is:

The problem is down to the random hazardous bits that end up in our rubbish - car oil (complex hydrocarbons, heavy metals), batteries (heavy metals), medicines (complex hydrocarbons) paint & household chemicals (complex hydrocarbons, chlorine) and the like that make the rubbish being incinerated go from a low level hazard to a high level hazard.

Also people will say that it will produce CO2 which is a greenhouse gas. Granted it is. But composting produces CH4 (methane) which is also a green house gas. There are also studies that a beginning to show that burning of organic material has a negative global warming effect. Its got to do with aerosols (as in small particles) which reflect the suns rays back into space. I've included a graph which shows what effects global warming, either positively of negatively. It was taken from the IPCCs third assessment report on global warming.

Keeks

Whoops. Forgot to add the IPCC graph

sam

keeks, do you have a source on the paper production thing?
ive only recently seen stuff advertising that "the paper used in this is from sustainaible forests".. on the other hand, "this is made from xx% recycled paper" has been pretty common over the past few years, so i assume the rest is from ordinary forests?
i actually dont know of any "sustainable forests" in ireland or the uk either(are there any?), the products i mentioned earlier were from sustainiable forests in sweden..

as for the carbon cycle thing, depending on the amount of sunlight a plant recieves, it can (and does, except in really dense forests where not much sunlight gets through to the ground) produce a LOT more O2 compared to CO2.. in general, it uses up the CO2 it produces itself, and takes more from the atmosphere, and converts it into O2, as long as photosynthesis is taking place.

bonkey

Originally posted by sam
. in general, it uses up the CO2 it produces itself, and takes more from the atmosphere, and converts it into O2, as long as photosynthesis is taking place.

Course it does. THats where the carbon comes from which forms the main element for the wood the tree will grow into.

Once you burn that tree, you release the carbon back into the atmosphere, mostly in the form of - you guessed it - CO2....which is where the scales tip once more.

jc

Keeks

Sam....I'm not exactally sure what you mean by the paer prodution source thing. Irelands forests cover 7% of the land use and 80% are state owned. The rest are privately owned. Some are plantations use for other timber products and not paper. Ireland doesn't have a paper mill, thats one of the reasons I don't think paper recycling in Ireland is envionmentally friendly.

Most of the paper inthe EU comes from Sweden and Finland. There are about a dozen pulp mills, another dozen paper mill in Sweden. Sewden depends fairly heavily on wood as an economic resource. That is why plantations work so well there.

As for the Carbon cycle, bonkey has basiclly said it (albiet as little on the sarcy side). Remember what you were told in Science "Energy can't be created or destroy, just converted from one form to another". Apply that princilpe to CO2. Where does the Carbon goes when the O2 is released?

The clue really is in the name though. Cycle. What goes around comes around! Do I reeally have to break it down into tiny little pieces

Victor

Originally posted by Keeks
Irelands forests cover 7% of the land use and 80% are state owned.

8% in 1998 and rising at 0.33% per year.

http://www.heritagecouncil.ie/publications/archforest/new6.htm
http://www.heritagecouncil.ie/publications/archforest/newfore.htm

Originally posted by Keeks
Where does the Carbon goes when the O2 is released?

Into the tree, when the tree is chopped down it becomes building timber / furniture / paper / whatever which stays as "solid" carbon for anything from weeks to hundreds of years. The balance goes to various other places, but some of it does stay as "solid" carbon as humus in the soil or as peat or whatever.

Keeks

We've not really gonna fight over a 1% are we Vic The data i was quoteing from was a few years old. But still its not really enough when you lookat other EU countries tha have nearly 30% coverage such as France. There is too much economics involved. Still tho 8% is better than the 1-1.5% that was there at the start of the centry.

As for the carbon question. It was ment to be a rethorical question which Sam was supposed to answer.