On burning paper

On burning paper

19 Mar 2008

Got questions about the environment? Ask Umbra.

Dear Umbra,

We heat our house primarily by wood, in an efficient, EPA-rated woodstove. My question is this: We recycle all of our paper, paperboard, cardboard, etc., but would it be better to burn it? As it is, we drive it to the recycle center, they ship it off somewhere, it is then processed, then shipped back out as a product. If we burn it, we get some heat, and ashes to spread on our garden. Which is better for paper -- recycling or burning?

Joan
Bremen, Maine

Dearest Joan,

Recycling wins, I'm afraid. I answered a similar question last year, about burning trash in the back yard instead of paying to have it removed. The answer there was no. Our little backyard fires are in fact terrible emitters compared to modern incinerators, and many of the reasons for not burning trash in the proverbial "burn barrel" also apply to your woodstove. Paper is filled with materials waiting to become toxic motes upon the updraft of your chimney, dioxin the most familiar among them.

A little goes a long way.

Photo: iStockphoto

A bit of newspaper is necessary for starting a good fire, but beyond that we must recycle as we can in our neighborhoods. I am relaying the party line from every Department of Ecology I came across: Only burn the amount of newspaper necessary to start a fire. All other paper counts as garbage. In particular, we are not to burn glossy paper, colored paper, or cardboard.

I think the general idea is that regular old wood is bad enough. Your stove, and other EPA-certified efficient woodstoves with catalytic converters and fabulous tuning controls, has been designed and calibrated to deal with well-cured wood. The stove tries to minimize the particulates and compounds inherent to wood combustion. It has less of an ability to manage paper. Paper, despite what we learned in Richard Scarry's What Do People Do All Day?, contains more than just wood. There are inks, adhesives, and shiny coatings. A paper recycling plant has processes for managing all these paper additives, and then, of course, it reuses the wood fibers at the heart of the paper. Your stove has no method for managing all the paper additives; they just go up your chimney and the wood fibers at the heart of the paper give off a smidgen of heat before they, too, transform into harmful particulates and gases. Recycling-plant water, which is filled with the removed additives, is treated before release into the general environment. Although treatment may not be perfect, it is certainly better than the lack of treatment in our home chimney.

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Recycled paper production also uses much less energy than virgin paper production -- 30 to 70 percent less -- so you can feel good about providing a feedstock for the recycled paper project. The energy benefit of recycling is even so large as to neutralize the impacts of trucking the old paper hither and yon. It sounds impossible, but appears to be true. We are fortunate to live in a time when some industrial processes are cleaner than our home processes. Paper recycling is such a process. We must embrace it and turn aside from the tempting maw of the stove.

Draftily,
Umbra

Yours is to wonder why, hers is to answer (or try). Please send Umbra any nagging question pertaining to the environment -- but first check out her FAQs!

The claims made in this column may not reflect the views of this magazine. Neither the magazine nor the author guarantees that any advice contained in this column is wise or safe. Please use this column at your own risk.

Umbra Fisk is Grist Research Associate II, Hardcover and Periodicals Unit, floors 2B-4B.

Comments: (8 comments)

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Who needs "paper" to start a fire, ...

... has no f'n idea of fire, and should be kept away from any decent fire place.

--> Use matches to light wood splinters <--
In wet conditions you might add some birch bark as accelerator.

Yeah, I know, everybody needs to use "paper". And nobody knows what a decent fireplace is. And any trash resembling paper they call "paper". It stinks like chemo hell when burnt, but paper is paper is paper. And then they proudly use the ashes as fertilizer in the garden. Yuck!
Looks like some sort of mass delusion or dementia ...

by 314159265 at 11:07 AM on 19 Mar 2008

RE: Who needs "paper" to start a fire

I think that was a bit harsh. I do understand that it is better to use wood splinters or other non-paper methods, but I have had a well tended "decent" fireplace all my life (my dad taught me to light it when I was seven, and at this point I'd like to think I'm pretty good at it). I have tried the method you suggest, and frankly, that is something I know I'm bad at - and it leads to much frustration on a cold, wintry morning. Birch is not native to my area, so that is not an option. While I think I could probably start a fire without paper to save my life, frankly, using a little bit of written on drawing paper to begin with is an OK compromise in my book.

Also, people only know what they've been taught, and we can't practice what we don't know. If we have not been taught your method, then we won't know how to use it. We subscribe to Grist because our heart is in the right place, but we know we don't necessarily know everything about how to put our beliefs to action. I don't think it's a mass delusion or dementia. If you would like to teach us step by step how to start a fire without wood that might be a really helpful thing to do, especially if you give tips on how to keep those little splinters lit for long enough to catch other wood. It would be especially helpful if you were also a little more patient with those of us who know less than you do as you do teach us.

Thank you.

by ethuiel at 2:17 PM on 19 Mar 2008

Is paper recycling efficient?

I've heard comments, mostly from hard-core conservatives, that paper recycling is inefficient. They have said there are warehouses and warehouses and warehouses filled with paper that will never be recycled and will eventually be thrown away in landfills. They use it as justification NOT to recycle paper at all.

Is this true?????

by grapequeen at 9:28 AM on 20 Mar 2008

sorry for sounding harsh

The problem seems people just don't want to learn, experiment, care about fire. They just want to consume it, not invest any brainlard in it. The big disconnect with that first big "medicine" of the hominid species. The fireplace is where the naked ape grew his brains. But today at the fireplace Homo S "Sapiens" paradigmaticly exhibits how he lost all wits.

I love spending days and nights outside in the wild at a comfty, clean, smoke free fire place. I need no TV. Fire is interactive multimedia.

But them hominids always have to spoil it. They don't know about a decent fire place because they never ever witness one because they spoil it before. First thing is to throw "paper" in it. Yuck. So I won't bake them chapati bread on the embers (that would be coprophagia). Next thing is to wank the hearth stones with wax, for the stupid need candles for light at the fireplace (instead of just making their f'n smoke burn and give light). Yuck. So I won't make cheese toast on these stones. Then comes the next yuck, etc. etc. ... And so, over many years I've lost most of my mercy.

----------------
Some rules of thumb for making fire:

Small wood lights big wood
Fire wants to move upward
Fire is a smoke burning machine

When I start a fire, I make a little heap of small woods, enlarge it with not-so-small woods, all quite tight, and place the first big woods around. Then I use a match or two (and won't be ashamed if I need three) and start it. My heap will be extremely smoke producing at first. So them hominds usually get hysteric and I have to fend them off, lest they spoil the initial ignition phase. When the smoke gets hot enough, it will ignite and burn like a candle. Then I carefully add more wood: Trying to not kill or maim the fire by throwing wood at it is yet another point that seems difficult to grasp for mortal users...

by 314159265 at 9:53 AM on 20 Mar 2008

paper recycling vs. fire starting

Umbra is right as usual; paper is MUCH better used in a recycling process than in a combustion process.
Grapequeen, those comments you've heard are false and unsupported by fact, no matter that they've been repeated by right-wing radio ranters.
Umbra, sometimes-grumpy Mr. Pi, ethuiel, and others who may care: molded-pulp products such as egg cartons are really not very good for recycling into paper or cardboard, but they are dandy firestarters, far better than printed matter. One match will light the egg carton, it lights the kindling, and (following Mr. Pi's good rules) you're on your way to warmth.

by RobRecycler at 11:51 PM on 20 Mar 2008

Health effects of too much smoke

I appreciate your frustration 314159265 and I can get pretty fired up myself when people discuss GMOs or any other thing that I am passionate about, but I use paper in my wood stove because it is more efficient and I don't want to have to breathe more smoke than I have to.

If I ever want to cook anything on my wood stove, I would set it on the cook top and not use the fire itself anyway. Smoke even in the most seasoned wood could leave a bad taste on the food I would think.

As far as the environmental impact, my home is set up with electrical heat, expensive (previous owner often paid over $300/mo) and supports the electric industry. I live in Montana and once deregulation screwed the citizens out of our cheap power, I try to support NorthWestern Energy as little as possible.

"For as long as space endures, and for as long as living beings remain, until then may I too abide, to dispel the misery of the world." - Shantideva

by mtvyfan at 8:43 AM on 21 Mar 2008

Firetender's Badge

I sometimes agononize about getting the fire started and keeping it going in the woodstove or out in the bush. There is no reason to be cold we have the technology. These are some of the things I keep in mind for a hot clean burning fire.
1)Be organized: I keep piles of dry tinder, kindling, and fuel within reach. The tinder I get from around the woodshed or from the tips of fallen tree branches and is all smaller than my pinky finger. Kindling is smaller than my hand. And for fuel I like a woodstove door that is big so I don't have to cut firewood so small.
2)There are 6 sides to a fire: the top the bottom and the four sides around, keep an eye on all of them.
3)Fire needs air, fuel, and heat to burn. If you take away any of these, your fire will go out.
4)Understand how your woodstove/campfire ventilates.
Also I have been experimenting with non-petroleum jelly, cotton balls and one of those magnesium sticks. They work pretty good, but I still use matches inside.
Thanks Umbra for this (and the past garbage) info on burnables. We are about to put a rainwater collection system in. With the stove pipe coming out of the roof, all those particulates and dioxins could come back to us sooner than later. We live in area that just got garbage collection service and still no recyling. But we are trying.

meganinak Prince of Wales, AK

by meganinak at 1:41 PM on 25 Mar 2008

Something to consider

For security reasons, certain papers, (i.e. old bank statements), may be better burned than recycled. If you do recycle them, shred them thoroughly first.

Let the jaguars return!

by Storm Dragon at 8:42 PM on 25 Mar 2008

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