Re:Dieter Rams designed products to last, is horrified how w...
by hedora on Saturday April 06, 2019 @09:40PM
(#19594238)
The embodied energy (~= the energy used to produce) of the cardboard is much higher than that of mulch.
I’m not sure if the incremental energy to turn the cardboard into new cardboard (and transport it twice) is more or less than that of growing, mulching and transporting some scrap wood.
Anyway, that is probably the right computation to run.
Re:Dieter Rams designed products to last, is horrified how w...
by moron4hire on Sunday April 07, 2019 @01:01AM
(#19594930)
The equation is not "spend energy on wood mulch VS spend energy on cardboard", it's "spend energy on wood mulch AND cardboard VS spend energy on cardboard". The cardboard is a given. We purchase things and they come in boxes. By using it as mulch, I then avoid the additional spend in energy, time, dollars, and effort on wood mulch.
Re:Dieter Rams designed products to last, is horrified how w...
by benj111 on Sunday April 07, 2019 @03:15AM
(#19595317)
Mulch isn't typically paper grade wood though. It's either bark, or all the small branchy bits chopped up. So wood for paper and wood for mulch shouldn't be substitutable.
Where it does get marginal is with all the extra transportation and packaging.
"I then avoid the additional spend in energy, time, dollars, and effort on wood mulch. "
Agreed, that's as good a reason as any. Plus if we get to the point where our biggest problem is recycling or mulching cardboard I'll be happy.
By using cardboard as mulch, I'm also not buying wood mulch. Some people do use wood mulch on top of their cardboard to give it a better look, but I just use grass clippings and raked leaves, which people typically also discard. So things that would end up being useless to me instead go back into my own yard.
Now, I suppose one could argue that the grass clippings could be used in a bioreactor to create methane fuel, but that's just more carbon in the air, when really we should be trapping it in soil and plants.
It's also a hell of a lot easier than bagging all that shit and hauling to the street.