Lögberg-Heimskringla - 02.09.1994, Qupperneq 3

Lögberg-Heimskringla • Föstudagur 2. september 1994 • 3
All About Recyclirag___
Small Towns,
Calves
and Pigs ...
By Joan Eyolfson Cadham
With new regulations to con-
trol burning at landfill sites
and discussions about cen-
tralized landfill sites near major cen-
tres which would require trucking
garbage long distances, small-town
Saskatchewan is facing a challenge
around garbage.
The major part of small-town
Saskatchewan garbage is paper and
cardboard, glass and cans. More
small towns are instituting recycling
programs to catch the reusable items
before they hit the dump, to save the
landfill sites and to cut down hauling
costs.
Meanwhile, some Saskatchewan
farmers have found the perfect bed-
ding material — shredded paper.
Shredded newsprint is more
absorbent, decomposes more thor-
oughly than straw when used as bed-
ding, and is far easier to handle than
large round bales, say Larry and
Yolanda Gislason, among several
Foam Lake farmers who have
switched to paper.
Gislason uses the bedding for his
40 cows during calving time, during
weaning, and when he has to bring in
a sick calf. He gets his shredded
paper from local businesses. He
heard about shredded paper bedding
from a dairy farmer in Manitoba and
became an absolute and vocal con-
vert to paper. It lasts longer than
straw but by fall it has entirely
decomposed and disappeared, he
said.
Most small towns have businesses
and institutions that must legally
shred paper — the hospital, the phar-
macy, the credit union and banks all
produce masses of shredded paper.
Gislason said he also takes the
long strips that are the by-product of
form feed computer print outs but he
has to shred by hand the long strips
so that the calves don’t get tangled in
them.
^AMILYl FUNERAL
COUNSELLORS
Chris Gislason and his environmentally sound bedding material.
Gislason preached the idea of
shredded paper to Ron Kostiuk,
administrator for the Rural Mun-
icipality of Foam Lake, and won
another convert.
Ron’s father, Leonard Kostiuk, is
a mixed farmer with a ten sow opera-
tion near Leross. Ron, who takes
paper up to Leross 30 bags at a time,
about a week’s worth of paper, says
the pigs love it.
“Pigs are curious animals,” he
said. “They play with the paper. They
have a ball with it. They tear it up
and make nests. They carry it around
in their mouths.” He didn’t say
whether the pigs had taught them-
selves to read.
However, like Gislason, he did say
that paper is definitely cleaner and
more absorbent than straw. It is, he
says, also much easier to store — the
Kostiuks keep a week’s supply in the
bam so that it is dry — and easier to
work with. It forks up really well and
bags of paper in the barn do not
attract rats.
“When I break open a square bale,
I lose what I don’t use immediately,”
Ron said. “When I need more paper,
I just open an orange garbage bag
and throw a little more into the pen.”
Kostiuks are supplied by the town
office and the credit union in Foam
Lake. The pigs have no problem with
long strips.
Gislason keeps one stall stacked
with boxes and bags of shredded
paper. He compares the handling of
an orange plastic bag filled with
shredded paper with handling a 800
to 900 pound round straw bale.
Paper wins easily.
Because he is so pleased with the
results, Gislason is contemplating
buying a chipper and shredding his
own newsprint. He explained that
paper is rolled into a tight bundle so
that it looks like a branch and it is
fed through the chipper, a simple
process.
Both Gislason and Kostiuk sug-
gest towns give away bags of shred-
ded paper to any farmer who will try
it. Farmers won’t pay for it until they
try it, they say, but a farmer. who has
seen the advantages of shredded
paper for bedding won’t mind even-
tually paying enough to cover the
cost of collecting and handling the
material.
Choices..
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September 9,
1994
8 p.m.
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