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How Wood Fiber Could Resolve the Global Plastic Problem
How Wood Fiber Could Resolve the Global Plastic Problem
If you weren’t aware that our planet has a problem with plastic, consider the fact that every piece of plastic ever made could take hundreds of years to decompose. According to CBS News, if you were to put all that plastic end-to-end, it could go to the moon and back 30 times. Plastics are also derived from fossil fuels, a non-renewable resource, which increases mankind’s carbon footprint. For these reasons, a more environmentally-friendly replacement for plastic must be found and one solution lies in our forests.
Is there already a replacement for plastic?
Yes, at least to a certain extent. Plastic coffee cups, for instance, have been replaced in many locations by wood-based products without losing any of the container’s effectiveness. While it’s true that the lids of those containers are still plastic, researchers are enthusiastically experimenting with ways that these too can be replaced by something which is a wood-based product.
Injection molding with wood?
This may sound strange, but plastic materials which have been used to make toys, toothbrushes, dish scrubbers, and toilet bowl cleaners might soon all be made with a wood-based product rather than with plastic. Already a process has been devised and tested which combines wood fibers with polymers, and is then reduced to tiny particles, to create a material which has the look and feel of wood, but which also has the flexibility and high performance of plastic. In addition to the smaller household items mentioned above, decking and furniture can also be produced with this composite, and even though it is still half-plastic, it represents a significant reduction of the amount of plastic used to create the products.
When will wood-based products become commonplace?
For the time being, some of the exciting processes described above may be only a little more advanced than the proof-of-concept stage, but there is little doubt that more and more wood-based products will begin to replace plastic and other fossil-fuel-based materials.
To produce wood-based materials on a larger scale some hurdles must be overcome, namely that production costs are comparable to that of plastics, so that the wood-based products will compete in the market. Every part of a tree is recyclable, even the residue left behind on machinery.
Nature’s Packaging is committed to the increased use of wood products, especially wood packaging, from sustainably managed forests.
Resources
Benefits of Community-based Natural Resource Management
Benefits of Community-based Natural Resource Management
It was in 1997 that the Community-based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) project was established in Mozambique Africa, for the purpose of empowering local communities to assume some level of control over how their environments would be managed. This literally constituted a shift in power away from the central government, and into the hands of local authorities who are best equipped to maintain healthy natural resources and to make those resources sustainable indefinitely.
That first CBNRM conference brought together representatives from high levels of government, community members, and engineer types, who were all interested in preserving local environments. The discussions at that conference and in the four additional conferences since then, centered around how to deal with natural resources such as forests and wildlife, as well as developing or strengthening community-based organizations, and about how to add value to resources such as forest products.
Image Attribute: Image supplied by Flickr; Distributed under CC-BY 2.0 License
The most recent CBNRM conference
At the 2018 version of the CBNRM conference, it was recognized that even though the resolution was 20 years into its implementation, there was still a great deal of work to be done, and that there were still significant obstacles to achieving hoped-for results. For one thing, there are still disputes over the jurisdiction of communities, and that makes it extremely difficult to manage resources from those disputed areas. However, since most of these individual communities rely heavily on natural resources such as timber and wildlife, it is essential that all obstacles be overcome, so that communities can realize the benefits of CBNRM.
There are also conflicts over land rights, with various communities squabbling over ownership and spheres of interest. This is an extremely important point, since government agencies and donors have difficulty supporting community groups which compete for the same properties. This of course, creates a great deal of confusion about community rights to natural resources, and it causes a great deal of difficulty in sustaining those natural resources so they can be used to benefit local economies.
In an effort to help resolve some of the community conflicts, and to break up the logjam which has developed over land rights, the World Bank has stepped in to support local stakeholders and their governments. Through the Integrated Landscape and Forest Management Portfolio, a number of initiatives have been undertaken so that land rights can be resolved, land usage can be planned out into the future, reforestation can take place, land restoration can be initiated, and specific areas can be protected, while tourism is concurrently being promoted.
The future of CBNRM
There’s no question that Mozambique has yet to realize the full potential of CBNRM, but at the most recent conference, government leadership was at least made aware of the fact that local economies can be improved by transforming community development, and by protecting the natural resources associated with each community. While progress has been slow over the last 20 years, a new element of enthusiasm was very much in evidence at the most recent CBNRM conference, and it seems likely that participants will now be working together much more closely to achieve the maximum benefits under CBNRM.
Nature’s Packaging is committed to worldwide sustainable forest management practices. Forests sequester carbon from the atmosphere and when they’re sustainably managed, they’ll continue to provide valuable resources to local economies and help fight climate change.
Resources
Benefits of Community-based Natural Resource Management
Benefits of Community-based Natural Resource Management
It was in 1997 that the Community-based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) project was established in Mozambique Africa, for the purpose of empowering local communities to assume some level of control over how their environments would be managed. This literally constituted a shift in power away from the central government, and into the hands of local authorities who are best equipped to maintain healthy natural resources and to make those resources sustainable indefinitely.
That first CBNRM conference brought together representatives from high levels of government, community members, and engineer types, who were all interested in preserving local environments. The discussions at that conference and in the four additional conferences since then, centered around how to deal with natural resources such as forests and wildlife, as well as developing or strengthening community-based organizations, and about how to add value to resources such as forest products.
Image supplied by Flickr; Distributed under CC-BY 2.0 License
The most recent CBNRM conference
At the 2018 version of the CBNRM conference, it was recognized that even though the resolution was 20 years into its implementation, there was still a great deal of work to be done, and that there were still significant obstacles to achieving hoped-for results. For one thing, there are still disputes over the jurisdiction of communities, and that makes it extremely difficult to manage resources from those disputed areas. However, since most of these individual communities rely heavily on natural resources such as timber and wildlife, it is essential that all obstacles be overcome, so that communities can realize the benefits of CBNRM.
There are also conflicts over land rights, with various communities squabbling over ownership and spheres of interest. This is an extremely important point, since government agencies and donors have difficulty supporting community groups which compete for the same properties. This of course, creates a great deal of confusion about community rights to natural resources, and it causes a great deal of difficulty in sustaining those natural resources so they can be used to benefit local economies.
Conflict resolution
In an effort to help resolve some of the community conflicts, and to break up the logjam which has developed over land rights, the World Bank has stepped in to support local stakeholders and their governments. Through the Integrated Landscape and Forest Management Portfolio, a number of initiatives have been undertaken so that land rights can be resolved, land usage can be planned out into the future, reforestation can take place, land restoration can be initiated, and specific areas can be protected, while tourism is concurrently being promoted.
The future of CBNRM
There’s no question that Mozambique has yet to realize the full potential of CBNRM, but at the most recent conference, government leadership was at least made aware of the fact that local economies can be improved by transforming community development, and by protecting the natural resources associated with each community. While progress has been slow over the last 20 years, a new element of enthusiasm was very much in evidence at the most recent CBNRM conference, and it seems likely that participants will now be working together much more closely to achieve the maximum benefits under CBNRM.
Nature’s Packaging is committed to worldwide sustainable forest management practices. Forests sequester carbon from the atmosphere and when they’re sustainably managed, they’ll continue to provide valuable resources to local economies and help fight climate change.