One of the benefits of living in a house full of English-teacher volunteers from around the world? I get to laugh as people struggle.
I don’t mind the gas stove, the weird shower with surprise spurts of cold water, my boss’s crazy driving, confusing public transport systems, or sleeping on a convertible couch. Good grief, in Chile, I had to sleep on an air mattress with a hole in it for a month. Living in Poland kind of feels like reliving my past experiences, just in a different font. Maybe that’s how life always is?
Either way, seeing my fellow volunteers get hit with all these mini culture shocks just helps me see how far I’ve come.
Take grocery shopping, for example. Making it through check-out in a foreign store is a challenge—one that my friend Shannon had to battle yesterday while I peacefully scanned my carrots at self-checkout. Long story short, the lady behind her swiped her rewards card for her.
Still, no matter what country we’re in, we all share a common check-out-line struggle.
Paper or plastic?
FOR EXTRA CREDIT IN MY BIO-RENEWABLE RESOURCES CLASS
Actually, the best answer is a reusable bag—one you use until it literally falls apart. Then, you repair or up-cycle it.
But… if you keep forgetting your reusable bags in the car? Paper is better—especially when the trees used to make it are grown sustainably.
What does that even mean? Cutting down trees to make paper is bad… right?
Ha.
Stick with me here…
Everything we use has to come from somewhere. Would you rather have a crude oil drill in your backyard (necessary for making plastic bags) or a forest? And while we all know trees are the lungs of the planet, we’re actively replacing forests with farmland and ridiculously space-inefficient suburbs.
A good way to protect forests is to utilize them. If people can make money growing trees, they will grow trees (preferably in a way that mimics the natural world).
Types of Forests
- Thinking about the planet? Natural forests are best.
- Thinking about profit? Plantation forests are best.
- Thinking about balance? Semi-natural forests are the middle ground.
Harvesting Methods
Goal: avoid the story of The Lorax.
- Selection Harvest – Best for the Planet
- Thinning out trees over time.
- Can be single-tree or small-group harvesting.
- Clear-cutting – Best for Profit
- The Lorax method.
- Removes all trees in a given area.
- Shelterwood Harvest – Middle Ground
- Trees are harvested in stages.
- The remaining trees provide seeds and shelter for new growth.
To ensure sustainable practices, we rely on certifications. Between the two most common ones—Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI)—FSC is the better choice. SFI kind of, sort of, really sucks (Lorax-level destruction is a bit of an issue).
SFI has a limit of 120 acres for clearcutting (HUGE!) and no limit on land conversion to non-forests. On the other hand, FSC has more indicators, location-based clearcutting rules, and it requires indigenous people to be directly consulted in a collaborative manner (Fernholz, 2011).
The world is so much more beautiful when we design our lives to be in harmony with nature. Part of that means using renewable resources wisely and 33% of Minnesota is forested (USDA, 2021).
It also means not putting all our eggs in one basket. For sustainable construction, we can use wood—because it is an amazing material—but also hempcrete, cob, recycled plastic, mycelium, rammed earth, and more. (I really want to attend a sustainable construction workshop at Arcosanti this summer!)
At the end of the day, no material is perfect. If we go all-in on any one thing, we’ll face consequences; but, I’d rather have a forest in my backyard than an oil rig.
The next time you’re questioning your environmental morals in a grocery store checkout line, choose paper.
Thank you for reading!
Works Cited
Fernholz, K. (2011, March 28). DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE FOREST STEWARDSHIP COUNCIL (FSC) AND SUSTAINABLE FORESTRY INITIATIVE (SFI) CERTIFICATION STANDARDS FOR FOREST MANAGEMENT . Dovetail Inc. https://www.dovetailinc.org/upload/tmp/1581654356.pdf.
Lesson 8, Woody Biomass Production, BBE 1002, UMN.
USDA Forest Service. 2021. Forests of Minnesota, 2020. Resource Update FS-326. Madison, WI: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service. 2p.
https://doi.org/10.2737/FS-RU-326.
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