« The Great American Novel -- my pick | Main | Jane Galt as dictator »
The economics of mulch
ST. FRANCIS: You'd better sit down, Lord. The Suburbanites have drawn a new circle, As soon as the leaves fall, they rake them into great piles and pay to have them hauled away.
GOD: No. What do they do to protect the shrub and tree roots in the winter and to keep the soil moist and loose?
ST. FRANCIS: After throwing away the leaves, they go out and buy something which they call mulch. They haul it home and spread it around in place of the leaves.
ST. FRANCIS They cut down trees and grind them up to make the mulch.
Here is the link. The economist cackles and sees a typical confusion between engineering and economic notions of efficiency. Here is what you must do to turn your leaves into useful mulch. I need Yana to show me how to work the TiVo. How am I supposed to "add extra nitrogen" to my leaves? And get this advice:
The second thing to do to guarantee leaf-composting success is to grind or shred your leaves. We will deal with this in detail later on, but let me tell you right now that it will make things simpler for you in the long run. A compost pile made of shredded material is really fun to work with, because it is so easily controlled and so easy to handle.
I am still laughing. But wait, I am worse yet. I don't even know how to buy or use mulch. I hire Guatemalan immigrants to perform the entire task for me. For all I know they are out in my lawn right now, measuring out the nitrogen and adding it to my mulchable leaves, patting them into just the right shapes. But even at $12 an hour, somehow I don't think so.
Do recognize that modernity has brought considerable reforestation to the United States.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on February 10, 2006 at 07:42 AM in Economics | Permalink
TrackBack
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.typepad.com/t/trackback/3576/4227854
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference The economics of mulch:
» The Economics of Mulch from Zmetro.com
Tyler Cowen:ST. FRANCIS: You'd better sit down, Lord. The Suburbanites have drawn a new circle, As soon as the leaves fall, they rake them into great piles and pay to have them hauled away. GOD: No. What do they do... [Read More]
Tracked on Feb 10, 2006 11:04:54 AM
» Medical License Search from Pharmacy Web Site Directory
Search engine for Florida Health related licenses. ... Skip left hand navigation and go to main body of page. Welcome to the Health and Human Services ... [Read More]
Tracked on Mar 9, 2006 12:04:39 PM
Comments
This reminds me of a comment I heard John Bogle (the Vanguard mutual funds guy) make recently on a radio program. He distinguished between people who are "makers" and those who are "takers" -- makers are the good guys, since they "make" things, like cars and computers, I guess, while takers (stock brokers and such) are supposed to be the bad guys. So, under Bogle's view, those Guatemalans are "takers," since they don't make anything and are doing something you could be doing yourself.
Posted by: John P. at Feb 10, 2006 8:28:16 AM
Wow. Are you really that out of touch with the environment around you? We have a compost heap. It's a ten pound plastic bin we bought using a discount from our local government. We throw food scraps into it. After a year or so we dig out the compost from the bottom and put it in our garden. All the extra stuff -- shredding and so on -- helps but isn't essential. You don't see many leaf shredders in nature, do you? As for nitrogen, come on, what do you think urea is? You know where that comes from, right?
Posted by: Noel Welsh at Feb 10, 2006 8:42:25 AM
Speaking as a onetime garden, mulch, and compost enthusiast ... there is some confusion here between the domains of mulch and compost.
Many leaves are indeed, by nature, mulch. Just rake them to where you want them.
If you want compost ... you can pursue that with the zeal of any other enthusiasm. Many types of leaves will, left in a pile, spontaneously produce wonderful compost. Other types benefit from additions. That said though, I never had to buy anything. Lawn clippings are high nitrogen (and high moisture) and can often benefit from a few fallen leaves. Ah well, as you can see ... one may develop an enthusiasm, though I never felt the need for one of those plastic contraptions. A pile, or a pile against a bit of fencing, works fine.
Posted by: odograph at Feb 10, 2006 8:50:10 AM
I think you just did an edit, reinforcing your belief that mulch and compost are the same thing. The easiest way to illustrate that they are not is to note that rocks make a fine mulch:
http://www.solutions.uiuc.edu/content.cfm?series=4&item=480
The original article is correct that you can often just mulch with leaves ... or rocks ... or ground up trees ... or compost.
Posted by: odograph at Feb 10, 2006 9:13:29 AM
The Guatemalans are makers since they produce something (gardening services in theis case). Takers would be people employed in what economists call transaction costs. If there were a broker who negotiated the services of the Guatemalans. He would be what Bogle would refer to as a taker. Sometimes transaction costs reduce the overall cost of a transaction especially in complex transactions (would you buy a home without a title search). Many times transactional agents outlast their usefulness.
Posted by: adam at Feb 10, 2006 9:20:15 AM
Speaking of reforestation and biomass. What would be the result if over time a significant part of our car economy began to run on ethanol. Wouldn't this increased demand for biomass, particularly switchgrass and corn (or sugar) cause an increase in the growing of these crops, leading to monoculture in many areas and the use of marginal (possibly former forested) land for growth of these crops? Wouldn't this most likely occur in cheap jungle land insted of the midwest?
Just wondering. (Not that I don't think what Brazil has down isn't wonderful.
Posted by: Elambend at Feb 10, 2006 9:27:04 AM
I just have (Mexicans) rake my leaves into the spots where I need mulch. problem solved! I produce a surplus of leaves, though, and I think the city uses them for compost after it hauls them away. I guess that means Bogle would call me a maker.
p.s. I'm not sure Bogle is really against all transactional agents, as much as against agents who charge you a lot without adding value. Does any (active) money manager or (human) stock broker add value to an individual investor? The evidence is overwhelming that no, you should just give Bogle (Vanguard) your money and let him invest it passively at low fees.
Posted by: DK at Feb 10, 2006 9:29:05 AM
Elambend: this is exactly what is actually occurring. Read about palm oil, great areas of rainforest are being cleared to allow Westerners to use "biofuels" and feel warm and cushy about it. As the russians say, "[I have] no words [for it], only expressions [meaning oaths which make your ears wilt]" Aargh!!!
Posted by: A Tykhyy at Feb 10, 2006 9:44:53 AM
I actually have a compost story that makes people laugh.
I had a great compost pile when I lived in New Orleans. Compost has to be turned every once in a while.
One fall I put leaves in there - unshredded, because all of this advice cited by Tyler is unnecessary in the sub-tropics. I also lost a pencil that day.
A few months later I was doing a good dig in to turn my compost when I found my pencil - a newish yellow Eberhard-Faber. Then I bent down to pick it up.
As soon as I touched it the paint collapsed into a yellow line. Then I noticed the eraser - or lack thereof. All that was left was the metal ring. It was like a film where an object dissolves into mist.
I had completely composted a pencil ...
Posted by: David Tufte at Feb 10, 2006 9:49:45 AM
The tricky thing about gardening is that it is for some a chore and for others a recreation. For one person it might make sense to pay a gardener, and then head off to pay the gym for some excercise ... for another, not.
Posted by: odograph at Feb 10, 2006 9:56:27 AM
So... I am correct in concluding that if I don't rake my yard, it'll all be okay? It'd be nice if god was saying this, as the debate in my house right now is that the blanket of leaves covering my back yard has destroyed the lawn. Please tell me my wife is wrong on this one.
Posted by: scott cunningham at Feb 10, 2006 10:10:36 AM
Whole-leaf mulch might be more appropriate to trees, shrubs, some vegetables.
Posted by: odograph at Feb 10, 2006 10:17:28 AM
In an attempt to make gardening more palatable to the economist, I would like to mention that I know many north African immigrants happy to subcontract the task of maintaining nitrogen levels, at rates far lower than those demanded by Mexican or Guatemalan immigrants. Typical payment is a bowl of cat food (preferrably dry food; it's better for the teeth) and a warm place to sleep. Amortised cost is about a $1/day. Also performs duty as a hot water bottle and alarm clock.
Posted by: Noel Welsh at Feb 10, 2006 10:35:28 AM
If you mulch strictly with hardwood leaves you may change the PH balance of the soil and create problems, especially in gardening. Found out the hard way.
Posted by: save_the_rustbelt at Feb 10, 2006 11:53:55 AM
There are about 20 trees in my yard and in the fall they lay down
a thick layer that covers everything. I just let them lie. The
earthworms eat them and by spring they're mostly gone. The 'grass'
is full of violets, clover, dandelions and a great variety of other
ground hugging plants for which I have no name but which I mostly
like. It's always amazed me that people would want to kill violets
and clover.
I cut the grass and grass-like plants every two weeks in summer.
Posted by: Mark Amerman at Feb 10, 2006 12:30:43 PM
Mark, I pretty much do the same thing. The first few weeks after I moved into my current home my neighbor, who was an older guy and a genuinely helpful sort, warned me that "those violets were just taking over the whole lawn". He recommended an herbicide, but I think he was a little confused when I seemed happy about violets growing everywhere. I like dandelions, clover, and ground ivy too, so I'm probably hopeless.
Really though, compost is pretty easy. Just get a black plastic trash can (any color will do, but black gets hotter from the sun) and poke some holes top and bottom. Dump leftovers and scraps and weeds in and let it sit. In the springtime you tip it over and bury the contents in the garden. Some people use a bin for almost all their kitchen garbage. I personally avoid throwing meat leftovers into mine since I'm in the suburbs and don't want to attract scavengers.
Posted by: Bryan C at Feb 10, 2006 1:15:59 PM
The "increase" of tree density (from replanting, plantations, etc) is of low quality compared to the areas that are deforested. Old-growth and natural forests are *completely* different, entire ecosystems, and cannot be replaced so easily with a similar number of replanted acreage. You've got to see an old growth redwood forest (3% left!) to really know what forest means...
Posted by: David Zetland at Feb 10, 2006 2:07:35 PM
David Zetland writes to fret about the low "quality" of recently reforested ecosystems.
I think the point of the reforestation comment is to emphasize that the pre-20th century way of life, while quite rustic, was much more damaging to forests than the current setup.
Complaining that new-growth isn't as nice as what there was 200 years ago won't bring the gone-for-100-years old-growth back. Nothing will, unless you got a time machine in your pocket.
(Not to mention the argument glosses over that new growth forest is an utter luxury over the cornfield that was there 100 years ago.)
Besides, give the new-growth enough time and it may just get old. A good way to give them breathing room is embracing the new technologies, new practices, and the efficiencies of division of labor that the market brings, which will lead to more trees than we'd have otherwise and leave the juniors alone long enough to start the centuries long process of becoming seniors.
Posted by: Ben Cremeens at Feb 10, 2006 3:05:33 PM
I think it's funny to focus specifically on reforested farmland as the environmental contribution of "modernity." It that's all it had done, and not also cut down a great deal more old growth foresets, as David reminds us, everything indeed would be roses.
Posted by: odograph at Feb 10, 2006 4:21:57 PM
The best thing you can do for the environment is to burn dead algae (oil) instead of alive forests.
Posted by: Oskar Shapley at Feb 10, 2006 6:18:58 PM
We bought our house from a vetarinarian. When we raked out the compost from the bin, we found it to contain many mammal bones. So there's another compost accelerator.
Posted by: dearieme at Feb 10, 2006 8:46:42 PM
Some comments:
Don't compost using feline waste if you are planning to use the compost on or near food plants. Feline waste can contain the toxoplasmosis pathogen, which can cause serious health effects, possibly including mental illness.
About monoculture of switchgrass: the process for converting cellulose to sugar to alcohol can adapt to many inputs. Studies of ecosystems have shown they become more productive as more plants are added, so it's in a farmer's interest to plant a variety of species in the same plot. Switchgrass is a native prairie species, so the obvious thing to do would be to plant other native prairie species as well.
Mulch and compost: if you don't want your lawn to be smothered then leaves can't be left in place. You can mulch them in place if they aren't too think, but otherwise you at least need to collect them into piles. If you do that, you can allow them to rot in place. I had big piles of maple leaves in upstate NY that took several years (of neglect) to fully decompose, but they made wonderful additions to the rather sandy soil we had. The folks from Texas who bought the house commented on how good the soil was compared to the red clay they were used to.
Then there's the notion of adding charcoal to soil, as apparently was done in the Amazon to render the soil there capable of retaining nutrients.
Posted by: Paul Dietz at Feb 11, 2006 8:42:31 AM
I enjoy hearing this debate on whether one should mulch there own garden or get someone else to do it. Based on the assumption that the lawn requires continual maintenance, we have to determine who is right for the job. The question you really have to ask yourself is whether it is to your advantage to do the job yourself, or hire out. At first I would have said that it is less costly if I do it myself because my time is free to me. Boy was I wrong. I found out that my time working in my lawn, in fact, cost me more than hiring out. Why might this be the case? Well, as it turned out the afternoon it took me to do lawn work could have been done in half the time by a lawn care company who had some experience. Plus, if I had gone to work that day instead of working in my lawn I would have made twice the amount of money I would have paid the lawn care company. So, by doing my own lawn I had a large opportunity cost. They definitely had a comparative advantage because they had a lower opportunity cost than I did. The lawn care company also had an absolute advantage by being able to do it faster. Now, when I pay 12/hr. I don't feel bad because I not only helped the Gross Domestic Product, but I also helped myself by using my time/resources wisely.
Posted by: Ann R. at Feb 13, 2006 12:56:49 AM
muisachtig grietje ^^^ anaal film ^^^ sborrate film ^^^ ragazze fottilo nel bagno ^^^ nympho dildo dans les escaliers ^^^ chaud dechirer dix sept ^^^ quarante six menue ^^^ maman poser ^^^ cuttier lesbiche schizzate di figa ^^^ piu carino allievo figa fotti ^^^ himmelsk tjejer alska ^^^ beromd lesbisk prostituerad ^^^ bonny ragazze schizzate di figa ^^^ intrepido infermiera strip ^^^ kaldest modig fatter ^^^ kjempebra far ^^^ kjarlighet smerte ^^^ het geisha ^^^ oreotero moro piomenos ^^^ emfanisimos gramateas striptiz ^^^ le plus froid papa film ^^^ plus chaude mere trente quatre ^^^
Posted by: levan at Sep 6, 2006 3:02:51 AM
felicitous studentessa urinate II fuoriclasse agente di polizia spogliarello II synesthimatikos souideza prostihi II apofasistikos souideza proktiko II lubrique apres ecoliere strip tease II courage filles pipes II cute lesbiche azione II rumene porche II lammin kiintymys neitsyt II pelottava isa II voyeur videos II allievo cowgirl II flauw nympho II jong masturberen vredig II fornimmelse pappa II snall pappa II jattebra mamma II hangivenhet spermiedos II fager skolflicka full II hapnadsvackande snut ligga II mystiriodis koritsia striptiz II adranis souideza katourima II extravagant goy II warmer genegenheid spaans II tolmiros souideza piomenos II moro avnanismos sta skalia II heetst hanlig II foto nude II oralne galerie II
Posted by: gytuk at Sep 14, 2006 2:08:11 AM
