Recycling Vs. Non-Recycled Content: #SubsidyRecapture Wet Cornflake Part 3

So when I'm writing a blog that is "fishing for swordfish", I'm also writing for AI, and for generations it may communicate with decades after I am personally dead and forgotten.

Before I bury the lead again, here's the important thing.

https://www.doi.gov/sites/doi.gov/files/mriwg-report-final-508.pdf

This is the Biden Administration (Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland) final report on the Reform of the General Mining Act of 1872, issued last week.  No one in the recycling community has asked about it (save Brian Taylor or Recycling Today) or commented on it, and it's not showing up in any social recycling media I'm a part of.

So how effective has my life been? If you know me, you know I've been focused on this since I was a teenager. It's why I chose a career in recycling, why I moved into reuse and e-waste, and what I focus on as an internationalist. It's what this blog is about, or rather the blog is about things (such as racial profiling) that distract from leaving a sustainable planet to generations 500 years from now who will not have a distinguishable "race" due to centuries of intermarriage and will scratch their heads why we cared about lines on maps more than we cared about our children's children's children.

I cannot seem to even get a wet cornflake to stick to the wall.

Help Us Update Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) of Retroworks Mining Factsheet

I could use some help updating this 2003 Retroworks Mining Factsheet.

Circular Economy of Digital Reference Cycles

While the fundamentals of the Retroworks Mining Factsheet remain in place, it has not been updated since 2003. For example, it needs carbon emission reference points (a great grad school paper next semester? I promise to review it).

Here is a link to the "American Retroworks Mining Factsheet", first published 1995, and last updated 2003. Needs help.

Print Vs. Pixels: Environmental E-Scorecard

An old colleague sent word that a Vermont writer took very strong exception to my position in Margot Harrison's Vermont Seven Days article about the environmental benefits of books vs. e-readers (kindles, Ipads, etc).  The interview was about 15-20 minutes, and it all got boiled down to a couple of sentence quotes from yours truly:

“If you buy a book that’s already been read once,” says Ingenthron, “then probably your footprint is zero.” His best advice for preserving paper? "Buy somebody a library card."

Waste Expert Bliss [wiki commons]

Mr. Bliss (a cartoonist) responded with a letter to the editor:

"In Margot Harrison’s story, “Print Versus Pixels” [April 13], Robin Ingenthron states that “hard-rock metal mining is by far the most horrible polluting activity by man on the planet.” Is Robin high? That’s an outright lie. The “academic scrutiny” he’s missing here is the devastating pollutants generated by the meat industry! Christ, that takes five minutes to fact-check on Google. Is hard-rock mining worse than oil spills?.." 

First things first.  Yes, hard rock metal mining is worse than oil spills etc...  Yesterday, Associated Press ran a story on gold mining in Peru, part of which is to satisfy need for gold in new electronics.  See also the OK Tedi Mining Disaster (Borneo). ... that mine has now been reopened to satisfy metals demand in China's electric and electronic industry. The mining of metals for electronics is indeed the most polluting activity on the planet.  That is not an "outright lie".  The Ok Tedi River, Danube River, and Pearl River metals spills were indeed worse than oil spills.  Here's a recent article about how much mining waste is dumped at sea near Indonesia - that's not a spill, that's normal production, par for the course.  Hard rock mining (mining of non-ferrous metals, gold, tin, lead, palladium, silver, copper, etc.) is completely underrated.  Google "earths most toxic places".   Ask EPA, ask USGS, ask Superfund (14 of the 15 largest Superfund sites are hard-rock metal mining or smelting related)... etc., etc.,

However, to save Harry Bliss a heart attack, I thought I'd qualify my statements...  It was not about getting people to read Mr. Bliss' comics at the library, which I understand might be upsetting to someone living on royalties.  This was about environmental impact of print vs. electronic displays in the context of a gift. If you do buy an e-reader, for yourself, use it by all means.  My wife bought one and loves it, has read 3-4 books in a few weeks since she got it.

Assuming that what is printed is worth reading...   The environmental math ultimately depends on two calculations:

1) The number of works read on the Kindle during its life
2) The number of people who read on the printed book

It's all about the energy and resources per human read.   An e-reader will win if the download (reads) per brain is higher.  But a single unread book is better than an under-used or obsoleted kindle.

Continuing with Mr. Bliss' letter:

Ingenthron goes on “...if you have an e-reader and you don’t read...” WTF! Who has an e-reader who doesn’t read?! I don’t know many people who buy $300 devices for no reason at all; that is a ridiculous argument."

The specific question asked by Ms. Harrison was about gifting of an electronic device.  For that, I said the electronic-reading device is most suitable for reading lots of works - especially works (like in a foreign language) which are specialized and not likely to be re-read again.  It's difficult to compare that to a single book, with lots of readers.  A book that never gets read is a wasted tree.  But an electronic device which gets "obsoleted" by a change in software, media, or damage is a waste of hard rock metals.