Where do I get Newspapers?

Discussion in 'Designing, building, making and powering your life' started by waynemus, Jan 20, 2007.

  1. waynemus

    waynemus Junior Member

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    Hello everybody out there. I have struck upon a problem with my vegetable garden and was hoping some of you may be able to give me some ideas of how to overcome it.

    Recently, when my parents went on holiday, I started building a 45m2 no-dig vegetable garden. This is made of 4 beds roughly 11sqm each. I have completed one and a half beds. One still has tomatoes growing in it, so have to wait until they finish to complete the other half a bed. The other two beds only have wooden supports filled with leaves. I need to find as much newspaper to cover the last two beds.

    I only receive one local paper, and occasionally purchase The Age, which enters the mix. Does anyone have any ideas where I could get newspapers?
     
  2. gardenlen

    gardenlen Group for banned users

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    g'day wayne,

    check with your neighbours, friends, relatives. i get mine from my mum-in-law.

    if you see a neighbour who gets the papers delivered then ask them.

    len
     
  3. ho-hum

    ho-hum New Member

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    Wayne,

    You local newsagent will give you any amount - normally on tuesdays when they do a tidy up.

    cheers

    floot
     
  4. waynemus

    waynemus Junior Member

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    Thanks guys.

    Going to try the neighbours, a few in the court get it regularly delivered.

    The newspapers down here in Melbourne expect all of the paper to be returned to be recycled. I used to work at the local newsagent, and they would file the tops, and send back the newspapers too. They used to chuck the bulk of the paper, but the papers got more environmentally concious (proabably a bit more economically concious, not wanting to throw away such a good resource too.)

    I'm going to try my neighbours, friends and a few people at church tomorrow. Keep you posted on how I go.
     
  5. waynemus

    waynemus Junior Member

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    Recently when travelling on the train I came across another source of newspapers. Every weekday the MX is distributed at inner city railway stations. Most of these find themselves strewn across the seats when the reader has finished with them. I picked a few up the other day. No doubt they only find their way into the bin via the cleaner. Meaning a free source of newspapers, that also cuts down on landfill. The only probably to overcome now is getting the papers when I infrequent city trains. If anyone else out there needs papers, and travels via city trains, make use of the free resource that the MX litter provides.
     
  6. FREE Permaculture

    FREE Permaculture Junior Member

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    yeah newsagents need to return the entire paper to get credit.
    why not go for cardboard boxes, almost every supermarket now has a compactor at the back which squashes them down and strings them up into bales.
    just rock up and toss a bale on a trolley and wheel away.
    they pay for them bales to be taken away so your doing them a favour and free string too.
     
  7. waynemus

    waynemus Junior Member

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    Does Cardboard create problems as far as breaking down? Is there anything I can do to speed up the process? Won't cutting them up detract from the groundcoverage?

    The plan is to create a layer of bio-degradable material which will provide an initial barrier to the dying grass on the covered surface.
     
  8. gardenlen

    gardenlen Group for banned users

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    g'day wayne,

    the only downside with cardboard is it doesn't work as well as newspaper for keeping those impossible weeds like nut-grass from prolificating.

    i would suggset you open the flaps of the box and fold it flat so it is double thickness, that may give you an extra edge, or use a layer of cardboard with some newspaper over it.

    len
     
  9. beherit

    beherit Junior Member

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    here's an idea depending on how motivated you can get - take a box down to Bayswater station after work one evening as the city commuters are returning, sit the box near the exit and put a sign on it which reads "recycle your MX here", with a bit of luck you should have enough paper to cover the garden beds by the time the next train pulls in...

    ...ok, another idea - theres a LOT of waste in the print industry (from very close observation close to 60% i reckon!), where possible a lot is recycled but it might be worth cruising past a smalltime local printer and seeing if he hasn't got a couple of boxes of dead stock or misprinted catalogue/flyers/invitations etc. you can make better use of...

    ...ok one more, promo posters from video shop & newsagent windows are changed almost weekly, and they're A1 size which is twice as much coverage per sheet compared to tabloid format "news" papers so in theory half as much work!

    ...or try and source a cheap roll of butchers paper from somewhere.

    ...or butter up your local fish'n'chip shop owner and see if he won't sell you a ream of the good stuff for cost price
     
  10. waynemus

    waynemus Junior Member

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    Thankyou all for your advise and feedback. It will certainly all help to solve my dillemma.

    Behrit. Seems you know that Bayswater has a station. Do you live in the area, or just made a presumption? Also, top idea about recycling the MX box idea. Might have to do a few times to get any progress. Most cast the MX onto the seat when there finished. Only 10% end up being read by someone else. The rest end up an unwanted litter problem, on the floor ready for the cleaner. If I do a few nights consequetively maybe people might bother to take their copy off the train.

    The only possible concern I would have is getting hostile reaction from the Connex station staff. They might see me consuming a seat unnecessarily, or promoting accumulation of rubbish in a publicly visible location. Although if most had any concern for further along the line in their company, they may realise it saves the cleaner. Top Idea all the same.

    The promo posters you are talking about are they the Tattslotto, Woman's Day and other advertisement varieties? The ones at our local video stores I think they give some out, but pass most on to a framer, who sells to collecters. Also another top idea.

    Is butchers paper of the same GSM value (thickness and density) as newspapers? My sister used to work part-time at the local paper and packaging shop. I don't think I'd get discounts from the owner, but he appears to be more willing to go out of his way as a result. This is a good idea, although there is a $$ expense, there is no ink present in the paper, so would be a safer enviromental resource.

    P.S. Beherit if you do live in the area, and want paper or anything else I'm certainly willing to share the produce of your ideas.
     
  11. waynemus

    waynemus Junior Member

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    Recently, thanks to this forum and its members, I was reading the 1981 PDC manual. In the introduction to book I it talks about the destruction of trees for newspapers. This has left me thinking about the real impact of what is treated as such a expendable commodity.

    I can remember reading in the TEAR Australia's Water Matters pack it takes 50 litres of water to produce a Saturday newspaper. Not sure what level this incorporates. May just be pulping and ink, or even growth.

    Anyway I was wondering if anyone knew what percentage of newspapers were made from recycled material, and what amount was made from primary cut trees.

    I can remember going to the Herald and Weekly Times printing press in 2002. They pointed to big reams of paper that were used in making newspapers, and explained they came from a paper mill in Tasmania. This would obviously tie into the timber industry some how.

    How bigger dent in the environment does reading the newpaper and being informed leave? By supporting newspapers am I supporting mass scaring on the environmental landscape?
     
  12. Richard on Maui

    Richard on Maui Junior Member

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    Don't know the exact figures but even "recycled paper" isn't always 100% recycled right? "Contains up to 30% recycled paper" probably is there in the fine print somewhere... Even 100% recycled paper uses energy in its production and distribution, eh?
    I just read news on the internet these days. Solar powered of course! :wink:
     
  13. FREE Permaculture

    FREE Permaculture Junior Member

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    I was under the impression that using paper was good for the environment :)
    they don't exactly cut down any old tree for paper do they?
    they plant special trees for paper i thought.
    so if we didn't use paper, then there's no need to plant them trees, the more trees the better, no? :)

    i'm pretty sure it takes more energy to recycle paper than it does to grow a nice tree and use that.
    during the trees life it will benefit the environment, when it's cut down another is planted.
    so i'm not sure if there's much point of recycling paper, using less paper would be better.

    the timber industry is the main issue i think, well more so the people who insist on quality timber from real trees that take a lifetime to grow.

    I don't read newspapers, what benefit do they have appart from letting people know of yesterdays news, jimbob croaked it, whathisface robbed another bank, today will be partly cloudly with fresh nth-nth westerly breeze, and mavis's tips on baking pumpkin sconnes.

    and toilet paper, why bother? use the muslim approach, eat with your right hand, wipe with your left.
     
  14. gardenlen

    gardenlen Group for banned users

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    g'day f.p,

    those pine plantations are taking up space where once stood bio-diversity and habitat forest, they are a very poor substitute for the environment. i've seen wetland scrub cleared to plant these things, bio-diversity gone forever.

    use less paper by all means and chop these trees down and regenerate the natural habitat.

    len
     
  15. Richard on Maui

    Richard on Maui Junior Member

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    Last I knew they were clearfelling old growth native forest and woodchipping it to send to Japan for processing. A lot of the Karri forests of the south west were turned into paper products, I do believe... No good as timber, but crikey, a lot of bloody woodchips in that ugly bastard of a 3000 year old gum tree, mate!
    As Len says, a plantation isn't exactly a forest either...
    And, I wouldn't be so sure that it takes less energy to harvest and process a tree than recycle paper. Most paper is used in cities. Most trees are out in the bush somewhere. The biggest energy cost would be to transport all that material to the mills. Of course, running all the machinery in the forest or plantation is pretty energy intensive too. Of course, a lot of recycled paper is probably shipped around the world a couple of times before its end use, but of course it needn't be...
     
  16. ho-hum

    ho-hum New Member

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    Full credit to John Williamson for this song.

    I hope they dont mind me posting this just to add Williamson's perspective to this thread. If you wish to purchase his music contact john via https://www.malleeboy.com/music/rip_rip_woodchip.html

    floot
     
  17. nibs

    nibs Junior Member

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    correct richard, alot of actual forest (ie, more than a monoculture plantation which is a minimal carbon sink) is being woodchipped and sent to japan to be made to paper and then sent back here. i went to eden (sth nsw) and saw some of the piles of woodchips and they are mind boggolingly huge!

    also be weary of the label 'recycled' as it often refers to the use of the bits of timber that werent used for other things, not really stopping the destruction of forests. look for the term 'post consumer waste' this refers to what you actually think of recycling as (reusing a material to extend its usable life.)

    use up as much of that MX as you can!! the biggest joke of a media source ever! (maybe noy ever.. but it certainly is very bad)

    i say go for the cardboard, there is heaps of it in any skip bin you see. you will also find lots of other useful things, newsagents will have previous editions of magazines with the covers torn off, coles, woolies etc will have a bounty of goodies on the right nights of the week, its amazing the things that are thrown out. very often i find things that are perfectly fine to use, or eat, its usually just that they are not presentable to put on the shelves (eg 10kg of rice with a muddy packet, 10kg of flour 'cos the bag had a tiny tear, 8L of olive oil 'cos a few other bottles in the box broke... )
    so go out and have a dumpster dive and discover a new meaning to post consumer waste...

    peace.
     
  18. club42

    club42 Junior Member

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    I work for a fairly large printing co. in Adelaide, so I know a little bit about paper & printing. We do certainly produce a lot of waste paper (not 60%, probably around 10-20%) and I'm sure any printer anywhere would be happy to supply you with all the waste paper you wanted. They mostly pay to have it taken away, so you'd be doing them a favour. We produce a couple of skips of waste every couple of days, so the little bit that you'd want wouldn't make much difference. Although heavily inked paper looks pretty anti-garden friendly, most inks these days are actually soy & vegetable based, so they're not quite as ugly as they seem. I wouldn't eat them, but they're not as petrochemical as you might think.

    Recycled paper is a bit of a furfy, people love to get warm fuzzies by printing on recycled paper (especially local councils etc), however, it is often converted using excessive chlorine bleaching, and is a higher energy input, lower quality output product compared to papers made directly from pulp, and generally is about 20-30% more expensive too. A lot of mills & paper suppliers are trying to come up with new systems & buzz-words (EMAS, ISO14001) to let us know just how good some of their papers are for the environment, some of the sustainable forest & managed forest schemes allow you to trace the history of a ream of paper back almost to the exact tree in the plantation. woopee. They still cut the tree down, and yes len, it used to be native habitat, now it's pine forrest. Most recycled paper is up to about 50% recycled content, the more recycled the more bleached (they are using oxygen bleaching too which is meant to be better.) Remembering back to my trade school days, paper starts out it's life (after death) as 95%+ water.

    Paper is bad, but it's amazing how much we rely on printed material in society, and without it, I'm out of a job.

    I recycle what paper I can, it seems the right thing to do??
     
  19. barely run

    barely run Junior Member

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    back to the original post....if you have a local pub near by they often get the paper daily for general customer reading and have heaps of good size cardboard boxes (beer). same thing it costs them time and money to take to tip so should be happy to get it taken away.
    cathy 8)
     

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