I have to admit that I don't know a whole lot and that I haven't "gotten out a lot", but I can comment upon what I see. First, I live in New Hampshire. The backbone of our economy is the wood products and tourism industry. Let me clear up something. A responsible forest owner, with the help of a forester, can manage an established woodland property well. By selective cutting, the health and vigor of a forest can be sustained. If you see someone with the diamond-shaped "tree farm" sign, you will notice that a tree farm isn't just rows of trees growing up just to be chopped down for paper. A well-managed woodlot should encourage recreation, aesthetics, promote wildlife diversity and population, and provide a sustainable source of wood products, while protecting forestland, open space, clean water, etc. Also, being a tree farm doesn't necessarily mean that you inflict the same harm as a commercial agriculture operation. By the way, there is a comparison between a tree farm and a forest. A well-managed tree farm can be coached along to promote certain species of trees, wildife, etc. and can contain even- or unevenly-aged trees. Such a tree farm would be a pleasure for recreational activities of any kind. I used to think like many of you that when I saw a tree being cut that it was a negative thing. However, by thinning a forest, you are promoting the healthy growth and development of the trees within. NH is heavily forested, much more so than the early 1900s etc. These forests should be put to use to product wood and non-wood forest products. Since I haven't weighed all of the pros and cons of recycling, I can't give you a complete, thought-out opinion, but I must say that wood is really a material we should use more of. At least wood is biodegradable, renewable, much more than I can say for plastics and synthetics. In addition to recycling and composting, I wonder if there would be ways of more easily tilling used paper into the soil to provide carbon for soil microbes, or putting thin shreds on the lawn for a little extra OG. Ok, just a thought. I would like to pick your brains with all of the possibilities for non-wood forest products. For example, pine needles could be used more extensively for mulch, (pine nuts????), etc. Finally, what's wrong with logging trails? Sure they look bad and destructive when logging is going on, but look at them a year or two later. Ferns or saplings will take full advantage of the new sunlight, and the animals will have a hayday feeding on new growth. Thanks, and HAPPY COMPOSTING!!!!!!! Bruce_NH

Bill, I use Gro Moore Maxi Cal by foliar once a week. In addition, I am feeding with Gro Moore's water soluble Cal Mag which is a calcium nitrate N=15/P=5/K=15 with my fertigation system on every watering. The change this spring and up to now has made the plumeria have more robust foliage with better color, more flowers and superior flower colors and on and on and it doesn't kill the mychorizae with the high phosphates. If you use a high P you will kill all bacteria (good or bad) in the containers and around your in ground plants. You are then throwing your money away using any kind of natural ferts such as bone meal, blood meal, hoof and horn, compost and manures as they are dependent on the natural bacterias for plant assimilation. A plant can only assimilate at max 10% percent of readily available applied phosphate. Also the phosphate ions move very slowly through the media about 1/4 inch per year which leads to a over saturation of P killing the bacteria and your root mass. High middle number ferts simply science wise are totally inappropriate for your plumeria and the environment. All phosphate ferts have been outlawed in several states due to the enormous environment damage that has taken place thanks to Miracle Grow and many others. I will be writing some new articles on the science of fert this winter when I have more time available. This info is just a small preview of what needs to be said in this business. I am now asking the question to the purpatraters of high P ferts, just how much P does a plumeria need to SET BUDS as that is a scientific fact of the only role of P in flowering. Where this BS got started I will never know. LOL.

I don't compare myself to my neighbors. That way lies madness. I do what _I_ can and that's that. My city contracts with the corporation Waste Management. WM provides the Big Green Can for trash and two regular recycling bins per household, one for paper and one for metal/glass/plastic with the option of buying more recycling bins for $5 each (we have one extra). WM won't accept very much plastic for recycling - for instance, they only take #1 and #2 plastics, but probably 75% of the plastic that comes into the house is neither of those types. Grrrr. They only take certain kinds of glass, too. Batteries are not accepted for recycling - ni-cads and lithium batteries have to be taken to dropboxes at most hardware stores, alkalines in the regular trash. We do not compost and I refuse to tear myself up about it. We do not garden, nor do our neighbors, and discarding food scraps outside attracts vermin we neither need nor want near the house. WM has no composting program, either with curbside pickup or dropoff at the transfer station. However, even if they did it as a dropoff option, the landfill/transfer station is almost half an hour's drive from my home and nowhere near anything else for sensibly combining trips, and from an overall environmental POV I think it's pretty stupid to drive nearly an hour round-trip to drop off a couple of bags of carrot ends and potato peels. I use the tote bags for groceries about 80-90% of the time (and I don't stress about using one store's bags at another store, the baggers can make all the faces they want but until they start giving the reusable bags away for free they'll use whatever bags I hand them to pack) but we use the regular plastic grocery bags for so many purposes that I don't castigate myself for forgetting. BTW, plastic shopping bags are usually #2 plastic and can go right into the recycling bin - stuff a bunch into one bag and knot it so they don't go fluttering away when the bin is dumped. The dog-poop pickup bags we use are compostable or rapidly biodegradable with exposure to moisture even in anaerobic conditions (like a landfill). And when they say "rapidly" they mean it - we tested them ourselves in the back yard. They're a bit on the pricey side but we consider it worth it. The "doggie dooleys" are a big PITA and useless half the year here anyway. The local Goodwill started accepting dead computers (I guess they make money somehow on parting them out?) earlier this year and I took over a station-wagon-load accumulated amongst my social circle, but it's very difficult to get rid of any other electronics here. Our city has one hazmat disposal day a year, for four hours on a Saturday, and if you miss it, too bad so sad, you have to figure out how to store it until next year's disposal day. Crazymaking. One of the local pack-and-ships will take styrofoam peanuts and airpacks but will not accept any kind of formed styrofoam (which is also unrecyclable here, so all you can really do is bust it up and either try to reuse it or cram it in a trash bag and fit it into the Big Green Can). We donate and Freecycle and regift and put things out on the curb with "free" signs on them. The trash can is the last resort for things that cannot be discarded another way with a reasonable level of effort.

The laundry detergent is not single serve nor is the soap refills I'm talking about. I'd wonder about the comparison of bar soap with their wrappers to a refill pouch. The reality is most people are too lazy to recycle. Method's point in what I quoted is that the pouch has lower environmental impact and I have to agree with them on it. Less fuel to transport, less space taken up in a landfill even figuring the percentage that could be recycled on a PET bottle. I do have a concern about 11 billion packets a year from Heinz alone. I'm guessing that's worldwide. But the pragmatic part of me asks are we being penny wise and pound foolish being concerned about ketchup packets when nearly twice that many disposable diapers are put in the landfills each year in the US alone? 1 ketchup packet or 2 diapers... I think I'll take the ketchup packs thank you! It's like the ones who criticize me (and others) for having a non-HE washer, but I do fewer loads to start with than my critics. I also wash my vehicles in the rain and snow where they use hoses and car washes. I don't water my lawn or flower garden. I take quick showers instead of 100 gallon whirlpool baths and I don't have or use a swimming pool or hot tub and the list goes on. Gotta put some priorities in place sometime. Not to say the packet isn't a concern and sometimes you tackle small problems first if they're easy. But we've really missed the boat ecologically on some other things. Another peeve of mine: The war on water. Why is water always the villain while pop, "sport drinks", 5 hr. Energy, and for that matter coffee cups and soft drink cups get by? Again, if you look at what's the healthier one, seems we should be endorsing water over sugar laden drinks and the HFCS folks can relax since water doesn't have it in there (yet). Again, I question priorities. I also wonder why people have to have so much stench in things. Why do laundry detergents have to smell to start with, requiring 30 different SKUs of one brand for different stench. Why not have dye/stench free and sell the stench and dye separately so you can add your own? And you can have all kinds of different stench to choose from. So much simpler, less hassles and lower costs. But that's three things the buying public don't want apparently. And they're too lazy to mix the two together. People have to have everything done for them. We really need to put on some boots. And boot some people in the aspirations. This post was edited by cynic on Wed, May 22, 13 at 15:58