Dan McLaughlin

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To Home Page Latest Newsletter Column Archives Click to get these columns for your local paperd	Post Comments Below © 2007 Daniel J. McLaughlin Saving Trees We have all heard it one time or another: “Save a tree, don’t waste paper”. While it is always a good idea not to waste valuable resources, it is also a good idea to recognize that there are tradeoffs in everything we do. By conserving one resource, we may be wasting another. Paper is a very low priced commodity. Manufacturers are able to offer it at a very low price because the costs of producing paper are low. Advances in manufacturing, transportation and land management allow the paper makers to produce paper with very little effort using abundant resources. The case is made that the paper you use comes from a tree. There are only a limited number of trees and, eventually, all the trees are going to be used up and our forests will be stripped bare. The reality is that the paper for those pretty pictures that your seven year old plasters all over the refrigerator was made from trees that were planted specifically for that purpose. Modern pulp wood production is agriculture. Trees are grown as a crop, just as corn or wheat is. They are typically planted and managed by professionals for the express purpose of efficient harvesting and processing. Every person has to make decisions about how to use his or her limited resources. That is the heart of economics. One of the most valuable of those resources is time. Everyone has only 24 hours a day. If the price of paper was very high, it would be worth the extra time needed to preserve the value you invest in the paper. You would find ways to be efficient with it and to find lower cost alternatives. You might even consider erasing previous marks to re-use the paper. Grandma probably did at some point in time. As the price goes down, however, the amount of time being offset by the paper purchase also goes down. The present very low relative price of paper means that you would waste more resources being overly efficient with the paper than you would by getting on with your other productive activities. By choosing, the individual automatically weighs the value they place on each option available. People choose the option that will provide the most satisfaction for the individual, whether that is in terms of family time, material things or feeling good about him or herself. After the paper is used, it has to go somewhere. Recycling is one option. It is, generally, not an efficient one, based on the fact that recycled paper is significantly more expensive. The higher price is a good indication that more valuable resources are used to recycle paper than to make it new. Landfills are expensive and it is argued that those who use paper do not take the expense of disposal into account. For most people, disposal is provided or subsidized by government. With no direct cost to the user, disposal cost will not enter significantly into the process of choosing. If someone else picks up the tab to dispose of the waste, it will still be more efficient to use more paper instead of using other resources, including valuable time. The problem is not that people are bad or irresponsible, but rather that market prices are not used for disposal services. A competitive market in disposal services would ensure that everyone using the service pays what it actually costs, which would likely be significantly less than government provided service. That may not be politically palatable for a variety of reasons, most of them ideological. Many people believe that waste disposal is something that should be provided by government at little or no cost to them. The point is not so much about trees or paper or landfills. It is about the real economic choices that people make every day of their lives. When guided by a free, competitive market, the prices paid reflect the true costs. A lower free market price over the long run generally reflects a more efficient use of resources. Even pollution would not be a problem where private property is protected. Manufactures would include the cost of pollution prevention in prices or be punished for devaluing other people’s property. The choices people make always reflect the value they attach to the alternatives. If someone wants to save a tree, that is fine as long as they personally make the trade off, rather than impose the cost onto someone else.
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Daniel Mclaughlin Copyright © 2007 [Daniel McLaughlin]. All rights reserved. Revised: 01/06/08

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Saving Trees

We have all heard it one time or another: “Save a tree, don’t waste paper”. While it is always a good idea not to waste valuable resources, it is also a good idea to recognize that there are tradeoffs in everything we do. By conserving one resource, we may be wasting another.

Paper is a very low priced commodity. Manufacturers are able to offer it at a very low price because the costs of producing paper are low. Advances in manufacturing, transportation and land management allow the paper makers to produce paper with very little effort using abundant resources.

The case is made that the paper you use comes from a tree. There are only a limited number of trees and, eventually, all the trees are going to be used up and our forests will be stripped bare. The reality is that the paper for those pretty pictures that your seven year old plasters all over the refrigerator was made from trees that were planted specifically for that purpose. Modern pulp wood production is agriculture. Trees are grown as a crop, just as corn or wheat is. They are typically planted and managed by professionals for the express purpose of efficient harvesting and processing.

Every person has to make decisions about how to use his or her limited resources. That is the heart of economics. One of the most valuable of those resources is time. Everyone has only 24 hours a day. If the price of paper was very high, it would be worth the extra time needed to preserve the value you invest in the paper. You would find ways to be efficient with it and to find lower cost alternatives. You might even consider erasing previous marks to re-use the paper. Grandma probably did at some point in time.

As the price goes down, however, the amount of time being offset by the paper purchase also goes down. The present very low relative price of paper means that you would waste more resources being overly efficient with the paper than you would by getting on with your other productive activities. By choosing, the individual automatically weighs the value they place on each option available. People choose the option that will provide the most satisfaction for the individual, whether that is in terms of family time, material things or feeling good about him or herself.

After the paper is used, it has to go somewhere. Recycling is one option. It is, generally, not an efficient one, based on the fact that recycled paper is significantly more expensive. The higher price is a good indication that more valuable resources are used to recycle paper than to make it new.

Landfills are expensive and it is argued that those who use paper do not take the expense of disposal into account. For most people, disposal is provided or subsidized by government. With no direct cost to the user, disposal cost will not enter significantly into the process of choosing. If someone else picks up the tab to dispose of the waste, it will still be more efficient to use more paper instead of using other resources, including valuable time.

The problem is not that people are bad or irresponsible, but rather that market prices are not used for disposal services. A competitive market in disposal services would ensure that everyone using the service pays what it actually costs, which would likely be significantly less than government provided service. That may not be politically palatable for a variety of reasons, most of them ideological. Many people believe that waste disposal is something that should be provided by government at little or no cost to them.

The point is not so much about trees or paper or landfills. It is about the real economic choices that people make every day of their lives. When guided by a free, competitive market, the prices paid reflect the true costs. A lower free market price over the long run generally reflects a more efficient use of resources. Even pollution would not be a problem where private property is protected. Manufactures would include the cost of pollution prevention in prices or be punished for devaluing other people’s property.

The choices people make always reflect the value they attach to the alternatives. If someone wants to save a tree, that is fine as long as they personally make the trade off, rather than impose the cost onto someone else.

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