tsugajunkie, It looks like you're reading very selectively, not picking up on any of my points. I don't know what the actual numbers are. Let me be very clear about that. What I do know for certain is that used textbooks is $0 to author. The author would make more money by selling electronic copies of their book because more people would buy it. Heck, maybe people would be willing to pay even more than a paper book for it because of the convenience of not having to go to bookstores and wait in line then return the book because the professor changed his mind at the last minute. treebarb, I understand the problem of losing a lot of our manufacturing jobs to other countries. But saying that we should continue to waste paper to protect jobs is like saying we shouldn't use home solar systems because if everyone made their own energy, the people that work at the power plant would be out of a job. Or its like saying we shouldn't try to keep people off drugs because if nobody was on drugs, the people that work in the rehab industry would be in the unemployment line. There is a clear solution here. Provide hard copies for students that prefer that. Everyone else can use rights-managed digital copies and kindle type things.

I use the traditional sredded paper,cardboard and leaves in a thick layer but I sometimes add small quanities of left over castings to incomplete compost after hearvesting worms and useing most of the castings in potting mix. As you would expect, many baby worms and eggs are still in the casings and start a new population in the compost. No top layer is used,just worms cruising around 40 to 50 gallons of cold compost. What I have found is; A. The worms do very well if the compost is kept slightly moist,not enough moisture to hold material in a ball when squeezed. B. No additional feed required. There is plenty in the compost for worms to eat . C. Fewer strange critters inhabit the material at this stage. D. The combination of cold composting and worms yields a better product in less time than if compost is left to finish at it's own pace. E. Material is more friable than normal worm bin making it easy to move around and hearvest a few worms as you might want for fish bait. F. Worms overwinter and rarely require supplimental heat. (I am in N. Cntrl Tx with mild winters) I partily credit this to 7 cu ft of material buffering tempature swings. G. Far less attention and labor is required at the expense of slightly reduced rate of worm reproduction that is more than offset by the quanity of material. If it is true that fishermen are lazy,this might be a good plan for raising worms. You also have castings for swmbo to convince her the intire operation is a labor of love so she can have nice flowers.

Problem is people don't want news. They want Duggars, Kardashians, Orca Windbag, The Spew, Ellen Degenerate, Judge Floozie and other similarly "reputable" sources for getting their "news". Cable seriously wounded both newspapers and local news stations. People want things NOW, not two hours from now. They want to turn on faux news channel and watch someone irrationally bellow about some ridiculous thing and be able to see the high-speed chase du-jour. Makes people feel good because it only happens "there" never "here". Then in sort of a poetic justice, satellite made a dent in cable, so they had to go off into other things like telephone and internet. I used to get a newspaper from up north and one from the central part of the state but when it takes the postal orifice upwards of 2+ weeks to get the paper to you, it's of little use or interest so I quit wasting the money. Plus, now I can use the internet for most of the reasons I wanted to get the papers. It's not just the newspapers that are suffering from it. Local news stations have been hit hard by the internet. Gone are the days of serious in-depth investigative teams. Maybe some will dedicate a part-time reporter or two as their "I-team". No sending reporters to cover big events outstate. Why? Use an affiliate's reporter via satellite. Even the days of a reporter, photographer/cameraman and tech are long gone. Now it's a multi-media journalist who had better be able to operate the editing gear his/herself when they get back. TV stations operate on skeletal news staffs now. Even the days of highly paid anchors are dwindling in most markets. I remember when the local television stations became weather conscious. The ones who could afford it bought their own SupercalifragilisticexpialaMegaDoppler radar systems. The main local stations here had between 12 and 17 on staff meteorologists covering weather 24 hours a day. Now there's 3 per station. And a lot more duties than before too. Apparently the weather has improved since installing Pinpoint WeatherShield SuperStormStalker Radar. And no bad weather at night or on weekends. It's a changing world.

@mnzinnia this first picture is the one we have. I don't want to hijack the original thread so if anyone knows where I can find this, feel free to PM me. I may just break down and get him the Hamilton Beach automatic one recommended above but was trying not to clutter his limited counterspace, At some point Dh mentioned to his sister how much we loved it and wished we had two. she sent us the red one. i have tried using the red one numerous times and it just does not work well. And if I can't do it, my lefty is hopeless. The one in this Amazon link is the one that I sent him at school a few weeks ago after spending a lot of time on Google trying to find one close to the one we have. He said it does not operate like ours and it took him ten minutes to get the can partially open before prying the lid off the rest of the way. That could end badly in the future as I picture stitches... Can Opener