Recycling to pay for PhD--Thursday Thought

Since I have become aware of the monetary value of recycling, I have become more "green" conscious. There are many variables to figuring out what, in the environment, can be saved by recycling, but I found one source with calculations on paper alone.



SOME TYPICAL CALCULATIONS
· 1 ton of uncoated virgin (non-recycled) printing and office paper uses 24 trees
· 1 ton of 100% virgin (non-recycled) newsprint uses 12 trees
· A "pallet" of copier paper (20-lb. sheet weight, or 20#) contains 40 cartons and weighs 1 ton. Therefore,
· 1 carton (10 reams) of 100% virgin copier paper uses .6 trees
· 1 tree makes 16.67 reams of copy paper or 8,333.3 sheets
· 1 ream (500 sheets) uses 6% of a tree (and those add up quickly!)
· 1 ton of coated, higher-end virgin magazine paper (used for magazines like National Geographic and many others) uses a little more than 15 trees (15.36)
· 1 ton of coated, lower-end virgin magazine paper (used for newsmagazines and most catalogs) uses nearly 8 trees (7.68)




While there are tradeoffs for lowering your use of paper and raising your use of electronics, think about this—




Any time you do anything new, you have to learn it one step at a time. First, we figure out how to save our trees and then we figure out how to create less electronic junk, and move on to actually increasing our green print.

We have been here for 2,000 years without working to save our mother earth, who groans from her abuse:



1 Ne. 19: 12
And all these things must surely come, saith the prophet Zenos. And the rocks of the earth must rend; and because of the groanings of the earth, many of the kings of the isles of the sea shall be wrought upon by the Spirit of God, to exclaim: The God of nature suffers


If you want to recycle you aluminum cans, plastics, paper, cardboard, electronics and car or boat batteries to help save our earth, let me know, I will pick them up weekly. You see, I am paying for my PhD by recycling.



Recycling is hard work and a large effort sometimes gives a small return, but my determination to pay cash for my PhD and not go into debt for it causes me to work, collect and even pick up cans and bottles I find in the parking lot.



I’m not dumpster diving – yet.
I don’t wear a stocking cap – yet.
I don’t have a shopping cart – yet.

But know this, to reach my goal, I’m game. Call me or email me if you want to contribute to my project.