Features
Letter to the Editor: Biomass-based energy vital to Maryland RPS
March 1, 2013
Dear Editor:
The Post’s Feb. 22 story (“Md., DC Utilities Pay Paper Mills Burning ‘Black Liquor’
For Alternative Fuel Credits”) leaned heavily on inaccurate and misleading
statements from the Chesapeake Climate Action Network and missed the real issue of increasing energy costs to Marylanders. By discriminating against biomass, the market for Renewable Energy Credits would dismiss an important and cost-effective energy source.
Biomass plays an important role in our country’s renewable energy portfolio. Energy produced in forest products mills from wood residues is widely recognized as carbon neutral around the world, and rightly so. Trees absorb CO
2 and release it again upon natural decay. By including these residues as a fuel, we capture the energy value, displace fossil fuels in the process, and complete the recycling loop.
The forest products industry, like other sectors of our economy, is making large investments in highly efficient biomass energy that meets stringent environmental standards. Our nation’s renewable energy future demands low-cost baseload energy, and the forest products industry can be a key part of the solution.
Discriminating against low-cost biomass energy is short-sighted and costly to both employers and consumers.
Donna Harman
President & CEO
American Forest & Paper Association
Letter: Paper Bags Over Plastic
| Letter: Paper bags over plastic |
January 16, 2013
The Daily Journal |
Editor, In response to Cathy Browne’s guest perspective, “Everyone loses under bag bans” in the Jan. 3 edition of the Daily Journal, the record on paper bags needs to be set straight. When choosing a grocery bag, paper is the most environmentally-conscious choice. The guest perspective states that plastic bags are made from a natural gas derivative and not from oil. Natural gas, just like oil, is a fossil fuel and non-renewable. Unlike plastic, paper bags are made from recovered paper and wood fiber, a renewable and sustainable resource. The Forest Products Industry sources the fiber used in its products from sustainably managed forests. In fact, the United States has 20 percent more trees today than it did on the first Earth Day celebration more than 40 years ago. Paper bags can be recycled, reused and even composted, as evidenced by their use throughout the country in municipal leaf mulching programs. Paper bags are 100 percent recyclable and their recovery rate is at nearly 50 percent, while that of plastic bags is at nearly 10 percent. Many of the products’ plastic bags are recycled into are precisely the types of hard plastics that the guest perspective claims are the culprit of oceanic pollution. Plastic bag litter itself is a major threat to marine animals. If you want to make a responsible and sustainable choice, choose paper bags. Cathy Foley Falmouth, Maine The letter writer is the group vice president for the Renewable Bag Council and American Forest and Paper Association. |