Pulp Nonfiction

Forests, where sustainability meets the sandwich

Ducere, Usere, Cyclere

By: Josh Grenzsund

Posted: 6/4/08

Most people have no problem thinking of some forest products as items that belong in a pantry - like maple syrup or paper towels. However, it's not likely people think that part of the soft wood load on the back of a logging truck rolling down a muddy mountain road could end up in their salad dressing, cheese or ice cream.

I've had the pleasure to watch the harvesting of 80-foot conifers close up, and nothing in the blue-sweet smell of chainsaw exhaust, splintered pine and diesel fumes makes me think of food. Until recently I probably would have dismissed the claim that fir and pine doesn't just serve for newsprint and lumber but is also served up in many of our snacks and processed foods - even foods labeled "organic."

In investigating Oregon's forests and looking into the question of genetically modified and "Roundup® resistant" trees that are researched and developed at Oregon State University and then planted throughout the Pacific Northwest, I came across references to pulp mills and the production of cellulose for use as a food ingredient.

Disturbingly, modified and pesticide-resistant trees can be certified under the Sustainable Forestry Initiative, as the regulations allow each petitioner to define what factors in timber growth and harvesting should be considered in the certification process. Because SFI certification is marketed as the forestry equivalent of "organic," and because of how the key word "sustainable" has been branded in our cultural vocabulary, the public can often remain ignorant to the fact that an SFI-certified forest could likely be a pesticide-heavy tree farm.

Fast growing trees with a high survival rate are key to both timber and to pulp mills, and if GM trees are fed into pulp mills, then GM cellulose will be the product at the consumer end. But it is an invisible and USDA certifiably "organic" route for GMOs and arguably synthetic ingredients to enter our food.

Wood is used as a source for cellulose because wood is 50 percent cellulose. And cellulose has many industrial applications as well as dozens of uses as a food ingredient. According to the 2001 Technical Advisory Panel review of cellulose for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Organic Standards Board, "powdered cellulose may be added to bread to provide noncaloric bulk. It is also used in reduced-calorie baked goods to stay moist and fresh longer, and provide an increased content of dietary fiber."

Other very common uses include use as an "anti-caking agent, used in shredded cheese and spices, in frozen products to maintain texture through freeze - thaw cycles, barbecue sauces, frozen cheese lasagna, frozen guacamole, marshmallow topping, liquid diet products, sandwich spreads, [and] low calorie mayonnaise."

Cellulose also "replaces fats and oils" because it thickens food items and provides a "favorable mouth feel" that makes you think you're eating fat because of the improved "adhesion of sauces [and] salad dressings." Processed vegan products sometimes have cellulose in them to help give fuller and more satisfying textures.

These vegan and "organic" labeled products contain cellulose as a food ingredient even though turning a tree into microcrystalline cellulose (MCC) is a highly industrialized process in which "timber is debarked and cut into chips," according to the USDA TAP.

The document further describes how the chips are then "mechanically ground and then digested (cooked) chemically using either a sulfite or alkali process at elevated temperatures in pressure vessels or digesters." Also, "MCC production uses an additional step involving hydrolysis of the purified wood pulp, using hydrochloric acid to reduce the degree of polymerization."

Though this expensive processing is acknowledged in the TAP, cellulose is allowed as an ingredient in foods labeled "organic" for two main reasons:

First, there is no "non-synthetic" method of active cellulose production that can keep up with demand for this ingredient. Cotton can be used, but the infrastructure and processing plants do not exist.

Secondly, the TAP points out that "cellulose, powdered cellulose, and microcrystalline cellulose do not appear in 21CFR [Code of Federal Regulations] as regulated or GRAS [generally recognized as safe]." It's a catch-22, because it is not listed or addressed anywhere - not even on the National List of organic substances - "powdered cellulose is considered to belong in the 'prior sanctioned category' as a food addition in use prior to the passage of the Food Additives Amendment in 1958. It is considered 'grandfathered' and permitted (FDA, 1986)."

The TAP summary recommendation does prohibit synthetic cellulose, as derived from wood, in products labeled as "95 percent organic." However, for "70 percent organic" products, it is fully allowed.

If nothing else, a detailed critique and examination of USDA documents will draw attention to the highly ambiguous nature of the term and label "organic." Aside from the invisible allowance of synthetic cellulose, the National List of "synthetic substances allowed for use in organic crop production" - 7CFR 205.601(i) - lists streptomycin and tetracycline.

Awareness of these allowances should make you less trusting of the organic label. USDA "organic" certification is not a health-based or environmentally based process. It is one of argumentative rhetoric and economics.

The NOSB TAP was conducted not to certify cellulose as itself organic - the process is characterized as having "many environmental concerns" related to "caustics, sulfites, and bleaching agents" - but to demonstrate how it is necessary to allow synthetic cellulose into products labeled organic. A key example is how only cellulose added to shredded cheese will "keep the cheese from compacting into a non-saleable mass."

So on your next trip to the grocery store, check the ingredients of your favorite products for cellulose powder, sodium carboxymethylcellulose or solutions of xanthan or guar. Then thank a logger.

jgrenzsund@dailyemerald.com

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© Copyright 2008 Oregon Daily Emerald

Grinding to a Halt

In Halsey, sustainable practices don't always pay

Duceré Useré Cycleré

By: Josh Grenzsund

Posted: 5/28/08

Earlier this month the Pope and Talbot pulp mill in Halsey, 30 miles north of Eugene, closed suddenly. The mill had been operating since 1968.

Even with rumors of a possible last-minute buyout, about 180 people are now out of work as Chapter 7-bankruptcy liquidation proceedings take place.

This could be an anomaly, or it could be a symptom of recession and a weak U.S. dollar, but whatever the case, it is an example of a failure of an organization that attempted, or so it seems, to make itself a sustainable fixture in a community - socially, financially and environmentally.

It is curious to browse the Pope and Talbot Web site. It has not been updated to reflect the recent closures, so it looks like business as usual. Though most of the information proclaims the vitality of its operations and strategies, it also lists a live feed to the Pope and Talbot stock price - now at $0.03.

It is creepily voyeuristic to read the online remnant of this organization before it is completely mothballed in cyberspace. The corporate Web site praises its pulp business and its production of "bleached kraft pulp for newsprint, writing paper and tissue manufacturers." It goes on to proclaim that its mills "are a vital part of the communities in which we operate, with over 2,500 employees."

It may be just popular rhetoric to publicly posture as being vital to the local community and helping to stabilize the local society with a tax base and jobs, but Oregon has seen decades of reduction in timber-related businesses and jobs that has had a severe impact on communities.

An employer that leaves a small community suddenly will have significant impacts on that community. Pope and Talbot's Web page also describes how the company followed ongoing traditions that "ensure that we serve our customers, communities and shareholders through varying economic and profitability cycles." Financial sustainability is the key factor that allows businesses to remain in a community and to try and help provide the sort of social sustainability that many people are seeking, especially in these days of economic downturn.

As a resource-extraction company, Pope and Talbot also described its environmental philosophy. The Web site describes procedures and measures in forest management and industrial processes that seem to reflect the current atmosphere of concern with all things climate-and-environment-related. The company's short statement outlines how "environmental stewardship is more than a corporate philosophy - it is an operating strategy that extends from the forest to our manufacturing processes. We recognize that our future depends on sustaining and managing the health of the ecosystems supporting productive forest lands, as well as on utilizing environmentally responsible manufacturing processes in our cycle of success."

In addition to having operated in the Pacific Northwest since 1849, Pope and Talbot seems to have at least made fairly convincing efforts to be portrayed as a socially and environmentally responsible corporate individual. Despite this, and because timber jobs often get the short end of the stick in discussions about environmental conservation and ways in which human societies can exist without degrading ecosystems, it is easier to let timber jobs go.

There was recently a debate here at the University about whether or not the Holy Cow Café in the Erb Memorial Building should be awarded a new lease. The initial decision was one largely based on financial sustainability - the space was awarded to a business that was seen as better suited to be financially successful. However, given public sentiment and pressure, Laughing Planet Café turned down the lease, leaving Holy Cow the opportunity to add a revitalized financial performance to its credentials as a socially and environmentally sustainable business.

Maybe 30 miles is too far away for University students and Eugene residents to rally for the Halsey mill workers. But failing to recognize that the local mill helped provide our "newsprint, writing paper and tissue," as well as stable and sustainable jobs, would be a shame.

jgrenzsund@dailyemerald.com

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© Copyright 2008 Oregon Daily Emerald

It All Flows Downhill

Don't let our rivers become our waste deposits

Ducere, Usere, Cyclere

By: Josh Grenzsund

Posted: 5/21/08

I grew up about 30 miles from the crest of the Continental Divide in Western Montana. The way the land divided the waters and assigned each drop a destination to either the Pacific Ocean or the Gulf of Mexico fascinated my young mind.

One of my earliest memories is actually riding in the family car down the Columbia Gorge on one of those summer days when the stone walls magnify the heat like an oven. On that same trip we crossed the bridge at Astoria and I saw the end of the river where snow and rain near my home eventually flowed into the brine.

But these Columbian and Pacific waters were the waters from the other side of the mountain, as it were, because my hometown sat high in the east flank of the Rockies. The waters of the Boulder River, which flow through my hometown, follow a channel to the Jefferson, to the Missouri and on to the Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico at New Orleans.

In Montana there's a social and geographic division between east and west, and though I lived firmly in the state's west, there was another social and geographic subdivision - "west of the divide" and "east of the divide."

In a place where the weather comes from the north and west, and the precipitation comes from the west, to be east of the divide meant to get only what could make it over the pass without first falling on the other side.

In the winter when I would petition the air for more snow, or in the summer when I would dream of rain, I would often stare longingly at the weather map and to points west adorned with cartoon snowflakes and raindrops.

At the same time I learned to appreciate what we did get. Though some years, like 1988, saw severe droughts, the 10 to 20 inches of precipitation each year kept us from being classified as a desert region in the almanacs.

By fishing and collecting berries and mushrooms I also realized that the water falling from the sky was the life of the place where I lived, and "just east of the divide" was still a really good place to be.

When I finally moved west of the divide, along the bank of the Clark Fork of the Columbia River, I also realized that being right up at the top of a watershed is a privileged location. The Clark Fork at Missoula is only about 120 river miles from its Continental Divide headwaters, but that entire length represents the largest superfund site in the United States.

Over a century of mining and smelting in Butte and Anaconda has polluted the entire river, and a recent removal of the Milltown Dam just outside of Missoula has temporarily increased the level of toxic metals flowing downstream.

Of course the Columbia is not the only river, even regionally, that carries the residue of industry in it. This last weekend thousands of us living on the banks of the Willamette River went out to our river to take in the hot sunshine and the cool water.

It's times like that when we can almost ignore the fact that a six mile stretch of the river, near Portland, is designated as a superfund site. But on my float from Alton Baker to the Beltline overpass I was reminded several times that the river is not just a place of recreation for humans or of habitat for non-humans, but also serves as an active and passive gravity-powered conveyor of waste.

We cannot see the industrial and agricultural wastes in the water, but at least three empty bottles floated past my kayak - not even a message in the bottles - and then at the takeout point I had to consider that it is not just the irresponsible tossing of trash into our streams that endangers our rivers and our health, but also even the most responsible disposal of our human wastes.

Just before the Beltline Bridge over the Willamette, there's the wastewater discharge for Eugene/Springfield Regional Water Pollution Facility. Here the air, and the water, smells like the sewage waste of about 215,000 people, and let me tell you, it smells like shit.

Like I said, this is a relatively responsible disposal of our wastes, as the wastewater division has a great facility and puts forth the energy to make sure the environmental impact of all our flushed crap is minimized, but when it goes back into the river it is still has a noticeable impact.

We all live downstream from someone else, and with this in mind, we should not accept crap in our rivers and continue to view rivers as our waste-conveyors. Advanced wastewater reclamation and recycling technologies are at our disposal, and we must work to make these the new standard.

jgrenzsund@dailyemerald.com

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© Copyright 2008 Oregon Daily Emerald