| Dear
EarthTalk: My local recycler won’t take
my old phonebooks. What should I do with them?
-- Jake, Westport, CT
Many
recyclers won’t accept telephone books because the fibers
used to make the books’ lightweight pages are too short
to be reformulated into new paper. In fact, mixing old phonebooks
in with other waste paper can even contaminate the batch,
hindering the recyclability of the other paper fibers.
Nonetheless,
phonebook papers are 100 percent recyclable and are used primarily
to—you guessed it—make new phonebooks! In fact,
most phonebooks distributed today are made from re-fabricated
old phonebook pages mixed with some scrap wood to strengthen
the fibers for re-use. Old phonebooks are also sometimes recycled
into insulation materials, ceiling tiles and roofing surfaces,
as well as paper towels, grocery bags, cereal boxes and office
papers. In fact, in a gesture both symbolic and practical,
Pacific Bell/SBC now includes payment envelopes in its bills
created from old Smart Yellow Pages phonebooks.
According
to Los Gatos, California’s Green Valley Recycling, if
all Americans recycled their phonebooks for a year, we would
save 650,000 tons of paper and free up two million cubic yards
of landfill space. Modesto, California’s Parks, Recreation
& Neighborhoods Department, which lets city residents
include phonebooks with their regular curbside pickup, says
that for each 500 books recycled, we save 7,000 gallons of
water, 3.3 cubic yards of landfill space, 17 to 31 trees and
4,100 kilowatts of electricity, enough to power an average
home for six months.
Consumers
trying to do the right thing should find out when and how
their town or phone company will accept phonebooks for recycling.
Some will only take phonebooks back at certain times of year,
often when new books are being distributed. Some schools,
echoing the “newspaper drives” of bygone days,
run contests in which students bring old phonebooks to school
where they are then collected and sent off to recyclers.
But
those whose towns won’t accept phonebooks at all and
who can’t find anywhere else to drop them need not fret.
Old phonebooks have many practical uses. Their pages make
excellent fire starters in a wood-burning fireplace or outdoor
fire pit. Balled up or shredded phonebook pages also make
nice packaging filler in place of problematic polystyrene
“peanuts.”
Phonebook
pages can also be shredded and used as mulch to keep weeds
down in your garden. The paper is biodegradable and will eventually
return back to the soil. Those with an artistic bent can use
old phonebooks to make flipbook style animated drawings, as
described by animator Robert Truscio on his “Drawings
That Move” instructional website.
There
are also a number of telephone book collectors; some who make
money selling their stock to those with a historical interest
or who are researching family genealogies. Lifelong collector
Gwillim Law sells old phonebooks from all 50 U.S. states as
well as from most Canadian and Australian provinces.
CONTACTS:
Drawings
That Move; Gwillim
Law’s Old Telephone Books website.
PHOTO
COURTESY OF GETTY IMAGES
If
all Americans recycled their phonebooks for a year, we would
save 650,000 tons of paper and free up two million cubic yards
of landfill space.
Dear EarthTalk:
I’m “pro-solar” all the way for the
sake of the environment, but solar power has not historically
been very cost-effective. What innovations are coming down
the pike that will bring costs down to make solar competitive
with other energy sources? -- Will Proctor, Richmond,
VA
The prospect of
generating pollution-free power from the sun’s rays
is appealing, but to-date the low price of oil combined with
the high costs of developing new technology have prevented
the widespread adoption of solar power in the U.S. and beyond.
At a current cost of 25 to 50 cents per kilowatt-hour, solar
power costs as much as five times more than conventional fossil
fuel based electricity. And dwindling supplies of polysilicon,
the element found in traditional photovoltaic cells, are not
helping.
According to Gary
Gerber of the Berkeley, California-based Sun Light & Power,
not long after Ronald Reagan moved into the White House in
1980 and removed the solar collectors from the roof that Jimmy
Carter had installed, tax credits for solar development disappeared
and the industry plunged “over a cliff.”
Federal spending
on solar energy picked up under the Clinton administration,
but trailed off again once George W. Bush took office. But
growing climate change worries and high oil prices have forced
the Bush administration to reconsider its stance on alternatives
like solar, and the White House has proposed $148 million
for solar energy development in 2007, up almost 80 percent
from what it invested in 2006.
In the realm of
research and development, enterprising engineers are working
hard to get solar power’s costs down, and expect it
to be price-competitive with fossil fuels within 20 years.
One technological innovator is California-based Nanosolar,
which replaces the silicon used to absorb sunlight and convert
it into electricity with a thin film of copper, indium, gallium
and selenium (CIGS). Says Nanosolar’s Martin Roscheisen,
CIGS-based cells are flexible and more durable, making them
easier to install in a wide range of applications. Roscheisen
expects he will be able to build a 400-megawatt electricity
plant for about a tenth of the price of a comparable silicon-based
plant. Other companies making waves with CIGS-based solar
cells include New York’s DayStar Technologies and California’s
Miasolé.
Another recent
innovation in solar power is the co-called “spray-on”
cell, such as those made by Massachusetts’ Konarka.
Like paint, the composite can be sprayed on to other materials,
where it can harness the sun’s infrared rays to power
cell phones and other portable or wireless devices. Some analysts
think spray-on cells could become five times more efficient
than the current photovoltaic standard.
Environmentalists
and mechanical engineers aren’t the only ones bullish
on solar these days. According to the Cleantech Venture Network,
a forum of investors interested in clean renewable energy,
venture capitalists poured some $100 million into solar start-ups
of all sizes in 2006 alone, and expect to commit even more
money in 2007. Given the venture capital community’s
interest in relatively short-term returns, it’s a good
bet that some of today’s promising solar start-ups will
be tomorrow’s energy behemoths.
CONTACTS:
Sun
Light & Power; Nanosolar;
DayStar Technologies; Miasolé;
PowerFilm; Konarka. |
